My first few experiences with sleep paralysis were totally benign... I simply woke up, was unable to move at all, and that was it. I had learned about sleep paralysis in school and I knew what it was, so honestly it didn't freak me out.
Then, I went though a 30 day period where I had sleep paralysis either every day or every other day, starting off with what I can assure you was THE MOST frightening experience of my life.
The first thing I remember was waking up and hearing a noise on the other side of the room, it sounded like a plastic grocery bag crinkling. I couldn't move to see what it was. I could hear the radio playing, it was Coast to Coast AM. I could see my clock on the nightstand.
Then, I felt my entire bed start shaking, vibrating and jerking violently as if someone was underneath it kicking and pushing. I had an insane sense of horror throughout my entire body. Then I felt it. The sensation was as if something jumped onto my comforter and was slowly crawling toward the head of my bed. I could literally FEEL this, just the same way as I feel anything right now.
The next thing I knew, I felt like I was being tortured, PHYSICALLY moved around the bed. The freakiest thing is that I knew, I KNEW that a demon was torturing me. I could feel its presence like you feel the presence of a human when someone else is in the room. I was MOVED around my bed, and at one point I was pulled off the side of my bed but held horizontal with only my legs and feel remaining on the bed. My torso was held rigidly flat in an extremely unnatural way.
After what felt like hours, it was over. I spent the rest of the night trying to convince myself, against what EVERY aspect of my senses was telling me, that I had simply had a horrifying bout of sleep paralysis. To this day, I question whether or not I was attacked by some supernatural force and the scientist in me is simply dismissing it as patently false.
I was even more freaked out the next morning, because a wooden cross in my room that was hanging supported by TWO screws was lying on the floor, knocked off the wall somehow. Also, the evening before all this happened I was reading up on the TV series Dexter and read about how in the books, the author referred to "the silent passenger" some kind of demonic being in Dexter. The article mentioned a name of a demon well-known in pagan history, which I then read a short wikipedia article on. These coincidences freak me out to this day.
