Argh! I'm so mad! I just typed out this whole story and my computer at work messed up and erased it all. So... I guess I'll have to start from the beginning. Again.
This thread is THE reason I joined Sherdog. So, I guess its time that I finally start to contribute. So, I have had the sleep paralysis thing happen to me a couple times. Probably like 5-6 times in my life. The first time it happened, I was a freshman in college. I woke up in the middle of the night, probably like 2-3 in the morning, and just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. I couldn't move. I started to freak out looked all around the room by moving my eyes, but I couldn't move anything else at all. I tried to yell and wake up my roommate, but it came out barely a whimper. We had a bunk (I was on the top) and I could hear him snoring, but I couldn't get his attention. I tried with all my strength and couldn't even lift a finger, but I could feel myself sweating. For a minute or so, I thought that I was dead, or dying or something. I gave up for a while and began to accept the fact that I was dead or parylized or something. Finally, I decided to give it one last try and I tried with ALL MY MIGHT to lift my arm... Slowly, it rose about an inch, but it felt like I was lifting thousands of pounds off me. Then, suddenly, I just broke out of it. I was freaked out the rest of the night, and researched it on the internet the next day. I found out through Wikipedia and other sites what Sleep Paralysis was, and just went on with my life. It has happened like 3-4 times since then, and while its still kinda scary, I know what's going on, so I don't freak out too much.
But the LAST time it happened to me changed everything.
I had been out of college for about 2 years, and went back to the city to visit a friend who still lived in the area. I stayed the night at his place and slept in the guest room. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up and felt weight on my stomach. I tried to move, and tried to open my eyes, but I couldn't. I thought to myself, "Oh well, just the sleep paralysis again, no big deal." Wrong. I felt the weight on my stomach move up towards my chest and then I felt cold hands grab my hands tightly and try to lift me out of the bed. The hands lifted me from on my back to a seated position, and I was starting to freak the hell out. I kept trying to fight against them and to open my eyes, but because of the sleep paralysis, I couldn't do either. I tried tugging and pulling my arms back in towards my chest, but the hands wouldn't release their grip. I fought really hard to open my eyes, and was able to open them to a squint. I saw something like a... Shadowy Figure on me and grabbing my hands, and I was scared shitless. I am a religious person and all I could think to do was say "Jesus, Jesus." So I did. I said it a few times and contined trying to fight off this shadowy figure. Probably like the fourth time I said it, all of the sudden, it was like *POOF* and I broke out of my sleep paralysis, opened my eyes all the way, and the shadowy figure was gone!
I tried to calm down and go back to sleep, but something in the room just felt evil. There's no other way I can describe it. I finally was like, screw this, and I went to the living room to sleep the rest of the night on the couch. Well... I sleep on the couch for what I think was like 45min-1 hour and all the sudden, I am woken up again. This time, I can feel a bunch of hands, like 4 or 6, pushing me in the back and trying to push me off the couch. I tried to fight against them and stay on the couch, but they rolled me off onto the floor. I landed on the floor and turned around to see what was pushing me... and NOTHING was there.
By this point, I was just freaked and thought I would never be able to sleep again forever. I opted to just grab a blanket and spend the rest of the night on the floor. The next morning, I told my buddy what happened and he just ignored me like I didn't even say anything to him. Finally, he was like "yeah something like that happened here once before a few years ago" but he wouldn't go into details.
Anyway, I have NEVER experienced anything like that ever in my life. Like I said, I am religious, but I'm not the type that encounters things like that on a regular basis. Not at all actually, except for this time. I don't know if it was a ghost, or a demon, or what, but it was one of the scariest things that's ever happened to me. And now, when I read these stories, I tend to believe most of them way more than I used to.