Sleep Paralysis or Evil Spirits?

[clbent04]

36 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

I side more on the mental state issue.  When your mind is half asleep, it can come up with some seriously crazy stuff.

The brain doesn't just think of one thing at a time.  There are the analytical parts of your brain that are thinking the logical, but then there are emotional parts and parts that have imagination and memories and what not.  There is a lot going on up there.

The thing is that during the waking hours our cognitive part is active and tends to drown out the other parts.  When we are asleep that area tends to be quiet and the other parts are easier to be heard.  And you imaginations can get pretty crazy and seem real.  And you emotions can certainly respond to that.

Had you really been fully awake, you would have been completely fine, but at that time of the morning, you may have been awake, but just barely.

The flip side of this is... Why would satan want to attack you?  I would think that instead of attacking you, he'd rather get you friendly with him.  If he attacks you, you are more likely to turn to God and rethink life choices...  just the opposite of what he wants.  

The above is just my opinion.  I am not a doctor and certainly not paid like one.

What's weird is I never even knew about sleep paralysis or the described side effects of it until researching it myself after it happened to me.  I had only heard about others seeing the same kind of "shadow figures" after I had seen it myself. No one had planted the idea of a shadow figure in my head previous to my first encounter.  So my question is, how are so many people describing the exact same thing?  If it's imagined, how are we all imagining the same kind of shadow figures?

[NeuroTypical]

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I vote Democrats.

Is that why we all just have a dark feeling that nefarious beings are plotting our destruction, whenever you're in a thread?

[anatess2]

Sleep paralysis.

I get this.  A lot.  It's probably genetic because my great grandfather gets it (they suspect it is what caused his early death), my father gets it, my brother gets it, I get it, and my son gets it.  I also grind my teeth.  All of the aforementioned except my son grind our teeth during sleep.  Interestingly, my other son who doesn't get sleep paralysis is the one that grinds his teeth.

My father is a fearful kind of person.  That is, he has to work really hard to try new things because he is afraid of what he can't control, what he can't understand, what he can't see, what he can't neatly file away in his brain.  This trait also runs in the family - my sister takes after him.  My sister can't cross a street without a companion or a walk light.  She can't help but panic.

So, my father is scared of getting sleep paralysis.  The way he can get out of sleep paralysis is when somebody touches him, especially someone shaking him awake.  We know he is in sleep paralysis because he manages to get out a moan.  So he has never slept without my mother.  He relies on my mother to wake him up.  My mother is a very light sleeper.  My dad describes his sleep paralysis the same way as the OP - a darkness that consumes him, or an evil spirit.  It doesn't help that his fearful nature is triggered by the family stories about the death of his grandfather through sleep paralysis.  He has had Catholic priests bless the house and exorcise the evil spirits (my father has a legitimate experience with spirits - although not an evil one but an angry one, it's a super crazy story).  Anyway, he still gets sleep paralysis.

My brother gets double whammy - he gets sleep paralysis or he gets the opposite - walking in his sleep.  He's learned to deal with it.  When he wakes up in paralysis he doesn't fight it, he just goes right back to sleep.  No evil spirit there.

I learned from my brother to do the same.  No evil spirit here either.

I taught my son to do the same.  My son finds it fascinating and can't wait to tell us about it when he does wake up telling us what he tried to do... like he experiments with himself with it.  Even getting into astral projection stuff.  Yeah, he's that kind of head-up-in-the-sky kid, always up in fantasy world stuff.

Anyway, the reason I say the OP is experiencing sleep paralysis is because if it was an evil spirit, it would flee when you invoke the name of Christ.  You don't need working vocal cords to exercise one's Priesthood Authority.

And about the question of why many people share the same manifestations during sleep paralysis... it's called Roscharch Test.  Sleep paralysis causes the brain to attempt to correct the unsynchronized physical functions which causes inkblots or areas of darkness in one's consciousness as the brain tries to "shut down".  And just like a Roscharch Test, your personality/experience/emotional functioning/cultural conditioning/etc., influences the way you interpret the patterns caused by these "fade outs".

So, next time, when you go into sleep paralysis, don't be like my sister crossing the street - don't panic, don't fear.  Calm yourself down, pray to God for comfort and protection, and go back to sleep allowing your brain to naturally "shut down" and re-synch without your consciousness fighting against it.  It makes things a lot easier.

 

Edited January 10, 2019 by anatess2

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Is that why we all just have a dark feeling that nefarious beings are plotting our destruction, whenever you're in a thread?

No, no.  That's because I'm an evil spirit.  But Clbent felt the presence of Democrats.

[anatess2]

33 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

No, no.  That's because I'm an evil spirit.  But Clbent felt the presence of Democrats.

Aren't those the same? 

Just playing.  American Goth has always looked like evil spirits to me.  Hah hah.

Edited January 10, 2019 by anatess2

[mirkwood]

40 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

But Clbent felt the presence of Democrats.

[Guest MormonGator]

9 minutes ago, mirkwood said:

 What's worse-listening to Pelosi/Schumer or having to read a Stephen King novel? 

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

 What's worse-listening to Pelosi/Schumer or having to read a Stephen King novel? 

Thinking... Considering...Wondering...

Error...Error... Unable to compute.

[Guest MormonGator]

4 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Thinking... Considering...Wondering...

Error...Error... Unable to compute.

Amen to that bud. I'm really into horror novels, but whenever someone says "Do you like Stephen King?" I die a little inside. 

[mirkwood]

30 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

 What's worse-listening to Pelosi/Schumer or having to read a Stephen King novel? 

I'd rather listen to Muskrat Love than Pelosi/Schumer.

[Guest MormonGator]

8 minutes ago, mirkwood said:

I'd rather listen to Muskrat Love than Pelosi/Schumer.

Shamefully, I'm originally from New England, and all the states up there have laws on the books (seriously, look it up!) that require you to worship Stephen King, have at least two stories where you saw him driving/at a diner/at a supermarket or face immediate execution. I know four people who tragically died because they don't like him. I barely made it out in time, my trial was suppose to start three days before I left. 

 

@Grunt can verify it for me. All true. 

Edited January 10, 2019 by MormonGator

[Grunt]

3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

Shamefully, I'm originally from New England, and all the states up there have laws on the books (seriously, look it up!) that require you to worship Stephen King, have at least two stories where you saw him driving/at a diner/at a supermarket or face immediate execution. I know four people who tragically died because they don't like him. I barely made it out in time, my trial was suppose to start three days before I left. 

 

@Grunt can verify it for me. All true. 

I could tell you stories that would curdle your blood.  You think the Danites were bad?  Say something negative about Steve.  

Edited January 10, 2019 by Grunt

[Guest MormonGator]

1 minute ago, Grunt said:

I could tell you stories that would curdle your blood.  You think the Sanites were bad?  Say something negative about Steve.  

I saw him once at a restaurant. He autographed a copy of Cujo then bought me dinner, read an unpublished novel I'm working on, promised to include me as a character in his next terrible book, said that he based a character in The Stand after a mutual friend....

Seriously, everyone from New England has a story like that about him. 
 

[askandanswer]

This better belongs in the thread about bad jokes, but since we're talking about Stephen King I'll put it here. This is currently on the blackboard outside my local butcher's shop.

Stephen King has a son named Jo

I'm not joking

Be he is. 

[Iggy]

7 hours ago, clbent04 said:

As far as what @Iggy described though, it doesn’t seem like they were doing anything to invite the evil spirits back. They were just having conversation about some of their misled relatives. That’s why I suspect it might be the same spirits that were harassing them. It appears they cast them out temporarily, and without an invitation the same spirits returned after a period of time.

Discussing is a mild explanation of our conversation. Hubby brings up baby brother, nieces and/or his Mom. The jist of his commentary is -  I wasn't a good enough brother, uncle, son. Woe is me, the blame is mine. I am the eldest, thus I am the Head of the Family. It is/was my responsibility.  Me, after hearing the stories and asking 64 million questions about them to get them all in chronological order states: Your brother didn't spring forth from your loins and neither did your nieces. Not your responsibility. You were 15 when he was born. The way he was raised falls totally on your mother and fathers head. GET OVER IT. 

If you, Mom and Dad had allowed this jerk to grow up, own his bad decisions and actions AND be held accountable - like stay in jail. Pay his own fines. But noooooooo, you all had to do it for him. So now your Mom has paid dearly for that. You are worrying yourself into an early death over it.

Baby brother is the epitome of EVIL. He lived in the house Hubby and I were now living in, and he did and allowed unspeakable evil, horror's in it. Had it been up to me, I would have had the house raised then burned and a new, dbl wide manufactured home brought in. 

It wasn't until 8 years later when Hubby was in the hospital here in Oregon with the Granddaddy of all Killer staph infections and the Stake SS President and his 1st Counselor came to see him, then at his request blessed him. In that blessing the Lord told Hubby to LET it go, Baby Brother (called him by name!) was not his responsibility. Concentrate on his new life, his own son and daughter, his callings in My church.

Every conversation prior to that about BBrother was a discussion made in anger - Me, I was angry. Baby Brother knew and knows right from wrong. HE made the choices to use meth, make meth, use cocaine, to pimp his mother who had Alzheimer's and his three minor daughters out. To transport illegal drugs across the AZ border into Mexico and into AZ.

So Hubby would shake the negative, adversary induced regrets, thoughts off. Then bring it up again and we would go at it.

NOW when he starts in on it, playing the old movies/songs yet again I interrupt him with: Not your Circus, Not your Monkeys. Shut up already. It is now time for you to pray for Father to banish this from you and our home. To invoke your M.PH and really, really, seriously mean it.

One thing to note here, there is another brother who is 5 years younger than Hubby and 10 years older than the baby. HE refuses to even get into any conversation about baby bro. When Hubby brings it up when they are on the phone, Good Brother asks Hubby to cease and change the subject. When Hubby doesn't Good Brother hangs up. When Good Brother gets an email with anything about Baby, he replies with all of the comments about baby deleted, then answers/comments on the rest of the email.

No, Good Brother is not LDS. Baby Brother got baptized when he was 12, BUT never even rcv'd the APH. He was smoking pot at age 13 and progressively worked up to meth, then cocaine. When the girls were taken away from him when they were 16, 14, 12 his money source dried up, so he went back to meth. We took Mom away from him about 2 years before that - cleaned her up, got Rx for scabies, lice, STD's, then sent her to Tennessee to live with Good Brother & his Good Wife. Yes, Mother was/is LDS joined when she was in her late 50's. Endowed too. Even when she was well into Alzheimer's, where in her mind she was a young teenager, she still maintained the Word of Wisdom and wouldn't get dressed unless her garments were laid out for her to wear!

[clbent04]

@Iggy that makes more sense to me now how those kinds of conversatio could have invited evil spirits. Those are some sad details about your brother’s family. I’m glad to hear of your faith in the Priesthood.

[Iggy]

35 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

@Iggy that makes more sense to me now how those kinds of conversation could have invited evil spirits. Those are some sad details about your brother’s family. I’m glad to hear of your faith in the Priesthood.

 

I've seen such good and wondrous blessings come from faithful Priesthood holders. Both my brothers were baptized into the church, but neither were great holders. The majority of the men of this little branch that I call home, AND my husband are wonderful, righteous men of faith. My husband is my rock and anchor. The first time I told him about the grey/black slime I insisted that we go outside of the house. Actually, I made him drive us to the meetinghouse parking lot - a good 8 miles from our home. I was terrified to put a name to what I believed it to be. To my utter amazement, he had seen it too. It took us several years to finally figure out that we were inviting it back in with our bickering about his baby brother. I had such hatred for that slimeball, after seeing what he had done to his own mother and his three little daughters.

Working with some great women here at my branch I have been able to turn the slimeball over to God, and they helped me to protect ourselves from him, his now-grown daughters and a few others. Our phone numbers are all unlisted, we have only a PO box for mail, and even our email addresses are in oddball names. Unfortunately, my living sister doesn't have our real address, but she does have our cell numbers.

This Thanksgiving Hubby gave his cousin our street address thinking she was coming to visit us. Then we heard through the grapevine that his rotten brother was en route to Oregon. I called the cousin and asked if she had given the rotten brother or any of his daughters our street address - she said no, that she lost it before she could. Over the phone I heard her husband say - you didn't lose it, I burned it. Yeah for hubbies!

Should rotten brother show up, I am calling his probation officer as he is NOT to be outside the city of Tigard OR where his youngest daughter of his 1st wife lives. If he isn't going to be living there, then he has to go back to Phoenix AZ to the half-way house there.

[unixknight]

23 hours ago, Lost Boy said:

I side more on the mental state issue.  When your mind is half asleep, it can come up with some seriously crazy stuff.

 

22 hours ago, anatess2 said:

Sleep paralysis.

I get this.  A lot.  It's probably genetic because my great grandfather gets it (they suspect it is what caused his early death), my father gets it, my brother gets it, I get it, and my son gets it.  I also grind my teeth.  All of the aforementioned except my son grind our teeth during sleep.  Interestingly, my other son who doesn't get sleep paralysis is the one that grinds his teeth.

Possible... 

But...

Here's the thing.  We know for a fact that evil spirits exist.  This isn't theory and it isn't speculation.  It's in Scripture, so we *know*  they're out there.  We also know that sleep paralysis is a real phenomenon that science is exploring.  Some people experience one, some experience the other, and a few people will experience both (and that must really stink!)

But what we need to be very careful about is jumping to conclusions about someone else's experience.  You personally may have experience with sleep paralysis but that doesn't mean somebody else's experience is the same, even if it has a few features in common.  I've been posting on various message boards for years and one  thing I've observed is that whenever someone starts a thread about some supernatural phenomenon or another, there is always someone ready to jump in and provide their own theory as to what cause it that has nothing to do with anything supernatural.

I'll give an example.

In the apartment my wife and I used to live in many years ago, the faucets in the bathrooms would sometimes open when nobody was around.  This, coupled with a few other weird phenomena, led me to hypothesize that there  may be some sort of spirit in the building causing it.  I told this story in a thread and immediately I had one or two people coming up with wildly improbable hypotheses like:

• One of the cats opened the tap.  (Nevermind that the valve was the kind that's shaped like a crystal and you have to turn it.  A cat can't do this.)
• Water pressure somehow forced the valve open. (Nevermind that the valve is a worm gear, and the amount of water pressure it would take to force it to turn would have been enough to literally blow the pipes apart.)  

What irritated me about that was that those people weren't there, had not conducted any kind of experimentation, study, research or interviewing about this particular case, yet they were not only ready to declare the case as settled, they were arguing with me about it as if they knew more than I did about this case.  Funny thing was, I hadn't even declared it as being absolutely caused by a ghost or anything.  It was just my hypothesis and wasn't independent of other factors.

I have my own theory as to why people do this, but suffice it to say it's not any more scientific than the original story, because science is based on research and experimentation, not making blanket assumptions about others' experience.  

I mentioned earlier that I have had at least two experiences with shadow people.  In neither case was I asleep, and in neither case was I unable to move.  In fact, in one of those cases I wasn't even in bed.

[anatess2]

7 minutes ago, unixknight said:

 

Possible... 

But...

Here's the thing.  We know for a fact that evil spirits exist.  This isn't theory and it isn't speculation.  It's in Scripture, so we *know*  they're out there.  We also know that sleep paralysis is a real phenomenon that science is exploring.  Some people experience one, some experience the other, and a few people will experience both (and that must really stink!)

But what we need to be very careful about is jumping to conclusions about someone else's experience.  You personally may have experience with sleep paralysis but that doesn't mean somebody else's experience is the same, even if it has a few features in common.  I've been posting on various message boards for years and one  thing I've observed is that whenever someone starts a thread about some supernatural phenomenon or another, there is always someone ready to jump in and provide their own theory as to what cause it that has nothing to do with anything supernatural.

I'll give an example.

In the apartment my wife and I used to live in many years ago, the faucets in the bathrooms would sometimes open when nobody was around.  This, coupled with a few other weird phenomena, led me to hypothesize that there  may be some sort of spirit in the building causing it.  I told this story in a thread and immediately I had one or two people coming up with wildly improbable hypotheses like:

• One of the cats opened the tap.  (Nevermind that the valve was the kind that's shaped like a crystal and you have to turn it.  A cat can't do this.)
• Water pressure somehow forced the valve open. (Nevermind that the valve is a worm gear, and the amount of water pressure it would take to force it to turn would have been enough to literally blow the pipes apart.)  

What irritated me about that was that those people weren't there, had not conducted any kind of experimentation, study, research or interviewing about this particular case, yet they were not only ready to declare the case as settled, they were arguing with me about it as if they knew more than I did about this case.  Funny thing was, I hadn't even declared it as being absolutely caused by a ghost or anything.  It was just my hypothesis and wasn't independent of other factors.

I have my own theory as to why people do this, but suffice it to say it's not any more scientific than the original story, because science is based on research and experimentation, not making blanket assumptions about others' experience.  

I mentioned earlier that I have had at least two experiences with shadow people.  In neither case was I asleep, and in neither case was I unable to move.  In fact, in one of those cases I wasn't even in bed.

Like I said, I believe his experience is sleep paralysis because it didn't go away when he invoked the name of Christ.  He thinks it's because he couldn't speak.  Priesthood authority does not require vocal chords.

My family lived with a spirit in the old house.  We're not strangers to the phenomenon.  I'm pretty sure I related the story here before.  I tried searching for it but I didn't find it within 30 seconds.  The spirit's name is Benjamin so I tried searching for that.  When I get more time, I'll go hunting for that story.  It's quite an event!

Edited January 11, 2019 by anatess2

[unixknight]

5 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Like I said, I believe his experience is sleep paralysis because it didn't go away when he invoked the name of Christ.  He thinks it's because he couldn't speak.  Priesthood authority does not require vocal chords.

My family lived with a spirit in the old house.  We're not strangers to the phenomenon.  I'm pretty sure I related the story here before.  I tried searching for it but I didn't find it within 30 seconds.  The spirit's name is Benjamin so I tried searching for that.  When I get more time, I'll go hunting for that story.  It's quite an event!

Priesthood Authority DOES require vocal cords, at least in some cases.  Otherwise the Sacrament prayer wording wouldn't be so critical, as well as for other Priesthood blessings.  If you can  think of a case in Scripture in which Priesthood Authority was invoked silently, especially involving evil spirits, please point me in the right direction.

Mind you, I'm not conceding that even if he COULD speak, it would necessarily be enough the first time it was said.  It seems like sometimes it has  to be repeated a couple of  times before it's fully effective.

All that said, I'd love to read that story!

[anatess2]

4 minutes ago, unixknight said:

Priesthood Authority DOES require vocal cords, at least in some cases.  Otherwise the Sacrament prayer wording wouldn't be so critical, as well as for other Priesthood blessings.  If you can  think of a case in Scripture in which Priesthood Authority was invoked silently, especially involving evil spirits, please point me in the right direction.

Mind you, I'm not conceding that even if he COULD speak, it would necessarily be enough the first time it was said.  It seems like sometimes it has  to be repeated a couple of  times before it's fully effective.

All that said, I'd love to read that story!

It would defy logic to believe that it is as simple as ripping away a person's vocal chords for such a person to lose his Priesthood Authority.  Or that someone who is mute cannot hold such authority.

I know I have related the full story here but it might have been during the lds.net phase of the forum (before we moved to Mormonhub) which are now impossible to search for.

Here's a super short version of it:

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by anatess2

[unixknight]

51 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

It would defy logic to believe that it is as simple as ripping away a person's vocal chords for such a person to lose his Priesthood Authority.  Or that someone who is mute cannot hold such authority.

To clarify: I didn't mean to say it caused them to lose the authority.  I'm saying they'd need to be able to speak in order to cast out the spirit.

And yes, they can hold the authority, but you won't see them blessing the Sacrament or being the voice for Confirmations, Anointing the sick, etc.  (If I'm mistaken and there's some mechanism to do it, someone by all means let me know.)

51 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I know I have related the full story here but it might have been during the lds.net phase of the forum (before we moved to Mormonhub) which are now impossible to search for.

Here's a super short version of it:

Thanks!

 

[anatess2]

10 minutes ago, unixknight said:

To clarify: I didn't mean to say it caused them to lose the authority.  I'm saying they'd need to be able to speak in order to cast out the spirit.

And yes, they can hold the authority, but you won't see them blessing the Sacrament or being the voice for Confirmations, Anointing the sick, etc.  (If I'm mistaken and there's some mechanism to do it, someone by all means let me know.)

Thanks!

 

Saint Augustine, Florida has a school for the deaf and blind.  Most of the deaf people also can't speak.  The ward there have priests that bless the sacrament (and other blessings, etc.) in sign language.  Or if an able person does the blessing, another priest translates in sign language for the deaf members.  I have not yet experienced a baptism there, so I don't know how that works.

Catholic exorcism can be done completely silent - the exorcist invokes the Holy Ghost and casts out the evil spirit through silent prayer.  This is sometimes done when in a public place, like a hospital.

Edited January 11, 2019 by anatess2

[unixknight]

16 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Saint Augustine, Florida has a school for the deaf and blind.  Most of the deaf people also can't speak.  The ward there have priests that bless the sacrament (and other blessings, etc.) in sign language.  Or if an able person does the blessing, another priest translates in sign language for the deaf members.  I have not yet experienced a baptism there, so I don't know how that works.

That's still a language, the same as if it were done in Russian or Spanish or whatever.  So I'll concede there's a mechanism that allows a person who cannot use his voice to perform (at least some of) those tasks, but it still doesn't resolve the problem of the person being unable to do it.  Being immobilized shuts down sign language, so they would still be unable to cast out the evil spirit.

16 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Catholic exorcism can be done completely silent - the exorcist invokes the Holy Ghost and casts out the evil spirit through silent prayer.  This is sometimes done when in a public place, like a hospital.

Catholic priests do not possess actual Priesthood authority anyway, so this isn't really relevant.

[clbent04]

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

Like I said, I believe his experience is sleep paralysis because it didn't go away when he invoked the name of Christ.  He thinks it's because he couldn't speak.  Priesthood authority does not require vocal chords.

I never spoke or said the words in my mind that would cast out an evil spirit.  I was first trying to just mumble anything I could to break free from my state of paralysis before I actually vocalized the words I intended to speak.