Sleep paralysis is a common problem experienced worldwide, and researchers have concluded that it is nothing but a state where a person’s body is not moving smoothly through the stages of sleep. Sometimes sleep paralysis is linked to deep-rooted psychiatric problems, and in the olden days, it was attributed to the presence of “evil”.
Various cultures have stories of shadowy and ghostly demons who plague the dreams of people when they’re vulnerable and helpless. Scientifically talking, people with sleep paralysis might experience hypnopompic or hypnagogic hallucinations, which can be visual, auditory, and sensory.
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What Are Sleep Paralysis Demons?
Imagine this scenario where you are sleeping peacefully at night when suddenly you feel like something is attacking you, and you struggle to free yourself. You twist, turn, frantically kick your legs and move your arms, but nothing seems to work, and it feels like someone has pinned, trapped, or confined you. Well, this happens when you are being paid a visit by a sleep paralysis demon which is not an actual demon but a hallucination, but the paralysis experienced by sleepers is completely real. This horror is experienced by an estimated 8% of the population, and such spooky experiences are common, with 30% of people experiencing it at least once in their lifetime.
Most people who witness the presence of a sleep paralysis demon experience similar things, like the inability to move or speak and a feeling of being held down by a supernatural entity. Some people even say that they feel like their chest is being crushed. During the days when science was unknown, anything which was abnormal was termed paranormal or supernatural, and the same happened with the phenomena of sleep paralysis demons. They have appeared in artworks like ‘The Nightmare’ by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli and even in modern age cinema like ‘American Horror Story’.
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Who Is The Hat Man Haunting Countless Dreamers In Their Nightmares?
Shelly Adler, in her book ‘Sleep Paralysis: Nightmares, Nocebos and the Mind-Body Connection’ said about the hat man that he is an entity who has stalked human beings throughout history and not within a particular society or during a specific time. Adler was interested in finding out how nightmares differ across different cultures when she wrote the book and explained the phenomena of the Hat Man. Experts have argued that the presence of Hat Man might just be the subconscious reconstructing figured from popular cultures like ghost stories, horror movies, and artworks.
Dreamers have described Hat Man as a shadowy entity dressed in a detective-type hat and almost always seen as standing up in the shadows. Unlike a ghost or an alien who has recognizable facial features, Hat Man is simply a shadow in the dark who looks like an outline. Some victims have described him as relatively harmless as he vanishes after a certain period, but others have reported experiencing immense and unexplainable terror upon seeing him. He is described as a dangerous being who likes to feed on people’s worst fears and enjoys seeing people tremble in panic and horror.
