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Sleep Paralysis Creature
- 91 statements
- 15 feature instances
- 24 referencing feature instances
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Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
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Sleep paralysis is a sleep phenomenon and a form of muscular paralysis in which a person wakes up conscious and aware of their surroundings, but unable to move or to speak for a couple of minutes. It is believed (although there are other theories) to involve a dysfunction in the dream phase of sleep when the brain makes the body stay still so one doesn't move when dreaming — and thus reducing the chances of the person getting hurt. If one suddenly wakes up during this phase, for example, they might be relatively conscious, but still temporarily unable to move, in a state between wakefulness and the REM period of sleep; as they still are in a dream-like state, the person may also suffer from hallucinations, panic, breath shortage and sometimes a feeling of pressure or pain in the chest. Because of these factors, many people who experience sleep paralysis report feeling there was a shadowy ghostly intruder in the room with them, either in the corner of the bedroom, in the dark hallway, on the foot of the bed, or on their chest, sometimes suffocating them and making them unable to move or scream for help, as if they had been trapped in their own body. It might lead to lucid dreaming. With all these characteristics, this phenomenon has been interpreted as being caused by supernatural malevolent spirits — frequently called Night Hags or Old Hags in English — in many different cultures in world folklore since ancient times, often with them possessing the person or sitting on their victim's chest or on the foot of the bed and immobilizing them as they give them nightmares. In Oral Tradition, they can be hags, goblins, demons, imps, ghosts and revenants of dead people, House Fey and overall other supernatural beings and fae-like entities. More recently, they have also been associated with Alien Abductions and encounters. Circumstances can range from a form of communication with the material world, a mischievous prank, or a sadistic and even lethal torment, but the experience is almost always quite unpleasant for the person regardless. In fact, the English word "nightmare" comes from the Old English "mare" — which in turn comes from the Proto-Germanic "maron" — folkloric goblins or demons who would plague people by causing this experience at night. This holds especially true for the Danish and Norwegian languages, whose words for "nightmare" are respectively "mareridt" and "mareritt", lit. translation: "to be ridden by a mare", which directly invokes the image of the creature sitting on one's chest. A similar process happened with "pesadelo" and "pesadilla" ("nightmare" in Portuguese and Spanish, respectively), which comes from "pesado" (heavy), in reference to the feeling of pressure in the chest during this ocurrance. Compare Nightmare Weaver, a common role for this kind of folkloric beings, and Things That Go "Bump" in the Night, for other sinister nightmarish monsters lurking around the house at night. Many instances of them don't even have them pose active threats, just putting their helpless prey at unease. See also Mental Monster, Never Sleep Again, Living Dream and Folk Horror. |
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Dropped link to AsianFoxSpirit: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to Evil: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
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Evil | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_2268de37 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_2268de37 | comment |
Grimm: The Alpe feed by sitting on top of people as they sleep, chemically paralyzing them and draining their melatonin. They're the in-universe explanation for sleep paralysis and the image in the Grimm diaries strongly resembles Henry Fuseli's 1781 painting, The Nightmare, which depicts the condition. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_2268de37 | featureApplicability |
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| Grimm | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_2758bf7 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_2758bf7 | comment |
Unwanted Houseguest: One is features in Episode Four of "TRUE Scary Stories." Maybe. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_2758bf7 | featureApplicability |
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| Unwanted Houseguest (Web Video) | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_42bf5062 | type |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_42bf5062 | comment |
"Pickman's Model": One of Pickman's paintings depicts ghoulish creatures "leaping through open windows at night, or squatting on the chests of sleepers, worrying at their throats." Pickman's aesthetic leanings furthermore get compared to those of Henry Fuseli. | |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_42ffb88e | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_42ffb88e | comment |
SCP Foundation, SCP-932 ("Night Feeder"). Normally invisible, they look like featureless, pale children. When a human is asleep and dreaming, a group of them will pin the victim down, wake them up and terrify them to consume their fear. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_42ffb88e | featureApplicability |
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| SCP Foundation (Website) | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_4f410616 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_4f410616 | comment |
In The Mysterious Benedict Society books, Mr. Nicholas Benedict has narcolepsy, often causing him to fall asleep at inappropriate moments, usually triggered by strong emotion, often laughter. In the second book, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, he reveals that his sleeping fits are often accompanied by terrible nightmares, followed by fits of sleep paralysis, and with these, a feeling of weight on his chest accompanied by a nightmarish creature known as the "Old Hag." He then jokes to the protagonist character, Reynie, that he's shook hands and made peace with her, though what he means to say is that he's grown used to the hallucinations such that they no longer trouble him as they once did. Later on, during a lull in the perilous journey of the book's title, Reynie crashes in a bed in a shack on an island and experiences what he believes to be this, though when he finally rouses himself to full consciousness, it turns out to be Martina Crowe, an Executive of the Big Bad Ledroptha Curtain who has caught up to him. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_4f410616 | featureApplicability |
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| The Mysterious Benedict Society | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_55d95765 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_55d95765 | comment |
Monster Loving Maniacs: Mare are invisible, spectral entities resembling disheveled human women. Arthur says they feed on the energy of sleeping humans, causing nightmares as a result, but as the grandkids discover, they are in fact Obliviously Evil. In reality, mares themselves suffer from constant nightmares and are only able to relieve themselves to sleep comfortably by embracing a sleeping human like a teddy bear, subsequently transmitting their own nightmares to the unlucky human. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_55d95765 | featureApplicability |
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| Monster Loving Maniacs | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_6c4ccc28 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_6c4ccc28 | comment |
The Deep Sleep Trilogy features monsters called Shadow People that haunt your dreams in the first and second games. The third game begins with you waking up paralyzed and seeing a Shadow Person standing in your bedroom, right before it attacks you and sends you back into the dream. At the end of the game, you realize that the Shadow Person possessed your body and trapped you inside the dream forever, turning you into another Shadow Person. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_6c4ccc28 | featureApplicability |
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| Deep Sleep Trilogy (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_6c4ccc28 | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_98c4e2dc | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_98c4e2dc | comment |
Hilda: The Marras are young female human-like spirits who haunt streets and houses at night to give people nightmares, inspired by the Maras from European folklore. This illustration used in a book from Chapter Six resembles more closely the creatures of this trope◊, showing a marra tormenting a man by sitting on his chest. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_98c4e2dc | featureApplicability |
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| Hilda | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_a7166526 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_a7166526 | comment |
The Sandman Universe: The Dreaming: Dora turns out to be an amnesiac Night Hag who used to sit on sleepers' chests and feed off their fear but she had an existential crisis after her latest victim and the arc's villain didn't believe in her. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_a7166526 | featureApplicability |
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| The Sandman Universe (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_a98c913e | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_a98c913e | comment |
Vikingskool: A marra appears in one episode, depicted as a ghostly, red-skinned Hellish Horse that feeds on bad dreams. This one however is also possessed by the spirit of Loki. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_a98c913e | featureApplicability |
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| Vikingskool | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_c137ae09 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_c137ae09 | comment |
God of War (PS4): Zig-Zagged with the Nightmares, floating eye-like enemies with tentacles that attack the player with poison and can possess enemies in-game to make them stronger. They cause nightmares and are inspired by Mares, demons in Germanic and Scandinavian folklore who sat on their victim's chest and caused sleep paralysis. While their appearance differs greatly from their more imp-like mythological counterparts, Atreus' bestiary in his diary suggests they were named after them, who better fit this trope: | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_c137ae09 | featureApplicability |
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| God of War (PS4) (Video Game) | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_d343c983 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_d343c983 | comment |
The Haunting of Hill House (2018): Throughout her life, Eleanor "Nelly" Crain suffers terrifying episodes of sleep paralysis in which she's haunted by a shadowy figure she calls "The Bent-Neck Lady", most commonly seen standing over her or on the other end of the bed. These episodes number among the worst moments of Nelly's life, and as her depression worsens, the Bent-Neck Lady begins appearing to her even when she's mobile and fully conscious. The twist is that the Bent-Neck Lady is actually the ghost of Nelly herself, scattered across history through the power of Hill House - as Nelly discovers when she's tricked into killing herself and is stuck reliving her worst episodes of sleep paralysis, but this time as her own sleep paralysis demon. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_d343c983 | featureApplicability |
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| The Haunting of Hill House (2018) | hasFeature |
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| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_e5dc2eee | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_e5dc2eee | comment |
Röki has Nattamare Parasites, tick-like creatures that parasitize the sleeping Jotnar and torment their dreams. They are implied to be manifestations of their regret for banishing Rorka for siring Roki, and Tove must get rid of the parasites to free them (which in turn exposes her to a Nightmare Sequence). | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_e5dc2eee | featureApplicability |
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| Röki (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_e5dc2eee | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_f8956ef3 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_f8956ef3 | comment |
YuYu Hakusho: In an early chapter when Yusuke is still working to be allowed back into his body, he visits a sleeping Keiko as a spirit to tell her of his plans involving that. While he's not trying to cause any sleep paralysis discomfort, he decides to talk to her while sitting on her belly and making her visibly strain against the weight, invoking this trope. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_f8956ef3 | featureApplicability |
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| YuYu Hakusho (Manga) | hasFeature |
Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_f8956ef3 | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_fe81f69 | type |
Sleep Paralysis Creature | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_fe81f69 | comment |
Legend Quest: In the episode The Mart, the protagonists head to Germany and face the Nitch Mart, a malevolent creature who had been haunting a city for decades by invading the villagers' houses at night and inflicting nightmares to feed off their fear. | |
| Sleep Paralysis Creature / int_fe81f69 | featureApplicability |
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| Legend Quest | hasFeature |
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