Old Hag Syndrome

Door Way

Old Hag Syndrome

        The old hag syndrome is a phenomenon that is explained as a old woman coming into your bedroom while experiencing sleep paralysis. She proceeds to sit on your chest and then it becomes really hard to breath. Many people say that she may start screaming in your face and others say she might reach out and grab your neck and proceed to strangle you. It is one the most common sleep paralysis episode individuals have. I personally never experienced this event, in this manner, I have seen people like figures but never the loss of breath that comes with the old hag syndrome. This is one account that I will never forget. A couple years ago a couple of friends invited to a little gathering and I was hesitant on going since I have always been kinda of an introvert. Well they talked me into it and I ended up going, I was under the impression that there would be music and drinks but it was just a little gathering as they had described it. The tv was on and everyone was sorta doing their own thing. As soon as I walked in the house my whole mood just switched. I just felt jumpy for some reason,  like you know when your walking through a haunted house and you are just waiting for someone to jump out at you and grab you or scare you. I know I am an introvert and don’t really like parties but I never once felt like this before just darkness all around me. I tried shaking it off and go on about my business but just couldn’t. As the night went on I ran into the owner of the home, he was sort of a friend of a friend that I didn't really know him that well. We talked about many different subjects and some how ended up talking about ghosts and aliens and the super natural of course this is always a fun and entertaining subject.  We got into this topic pretty deep and then he said “come with me, you are going to love this.” He led me to the garage, I started feeling a sort of empty pit sensation in my stomach, every thing in me was kinda like revving up and going fool throttle. Have you ever watched a horror movie and knew that there was going to be something popping up pretty soon and scare you, like bathroom scenes in scary movies where they open the medicine cabinet with the mirror and just know someone is going to be standing there when they close it. For a split second you hold your breath and prepare yourself, that is exactly the same feeling I was getting with every step getting closer and closer to the entrance of the garage, and I just could not explain why. I remember thinking to myself “what’s going on?”  “Why am I feeling like this?”, I just could not shake off the feeling that there was something wrong, something was not right. When we reached the garage door, I held my breath for a split second, just knowing 100% that something was going to jump out at me. When he opened the door my heart sank. There in the middle of the candle lit room was a Ouija board. And in an instance I thought could this be it, No, is this why I felt really off. I thought it was just ridiculous thinking that I even had some sort of ability to sense this. Moreover, I turned and kinda of just giggled not trying to show my discomfort. Didn’t want to feel uncool. He also smiled and said they have been trying it all night, my mind was going really fast trying to tell myself these boards weren't real that they don't work. Fake or not I wanted to get out of there quick. The walk back to the living room was just blurry I heard him talking but didn’t really listen his voice was just faded and kinda in the background. My thoughts were in the forefront and taking all the attention I could possibly muster up, I made a bullshit excuse a couple of minutes later wanting to leave due to the fact that I could not shake off this looming feeling of just darkness. Since I stepped foot out into the quiet I didn't really realize how noisy it was in the house with every one talking in their separate conversations accompanied by the tv. For some strange reason as soon as the dead quiet of the night hit me It just felt more crowded like I was surrounded by people, it just hard to explain, its like when people say that they still feel lonely with so many people around but just reversed, don't know if that makes sense. The drive home was extremely uncomfortable. I literally felt like something or someone was in my back seat. The hairs on my neck were straight up the whole way home. I kept looking at my review mirror genuinely not knowing if I would see someone. At the same time I would scream at myself not to look in my back seat for I might see something, at one point I felt that someone was screaming into the back of my head. When I got home even my room and house did not feel the same. Like when you walk into a friends house and don't really know what to do with your body. Just felt off. 

That night was really rough just trying to fall asleep, I mean it was about 2:30 in the morning and my thoughts were still kind of running around in my head. That first night was hard to fall asleep but eventually did. I had a vague dream basically I remember waking up not being able to move and just staring at the ceiling and in the bottom corner of my eye I saw and heard the top left corner of my bedroom door slowly opening. Thats all I could remember, I mean I was paralyzed, but it still felt like a dream you know, like fuzzy it didn't feel like I was really awake. Couple days go by and at some point during the night I have the same dream, exactly the same, I wake up looking at the ceiling not being able to move and I see my door open again. I just shook it off not really paying attention to it and would forget about it as the day went by. Well this kept happening through the week and for some reason the dream would become clearer  and clearer. Until one night it changed completely. That day there was nothing out of the ordinary just a simple old day with school and whatever. I fell asleep that night fairly quickly not wanting to play video games or look at dumb shit on my phone. I remember having normal well not normal but the run of the mill dreams, of flying, super strength you know weird dream events. And then it happened it felt like I was slingshotted awake. Like when you plummet down a big roller coaster and you feel your stomach tighten and your throat closes for an instance, thats the exact feeling I got the moment before my eyes shot open. I was awake looking around my room stilling trying to deal with the empty stomach feeling I experienced a couple seconds ago. I went to reach for my phone but quickly realized that I wasn't fully awake, I couldn't move at all. I was experiencing sleep paralysis, and the literally the first thought that came to my head was, “ok here we go, goddammit.” I went to hold my breath since that was the quickest solution to waking out of this, that I had figured out by trial and error. Any ways I went to hold my breath to try to wake up and I see my door creak open and slowly open. I just laid there curious to see why it had been opening before. As it fully opened I saw a dark figure standing in the doorway looked like a woman just petit and small black figure. She reached her hand out and pointed at me with her finder. It looked really skinny like a really old and long finger. I tried screaming but nothing came out, she then proceeded to put her finger to her lips, or what I assume was her lips since her face was all black, like she was telling me to quiet down. I kept screaming and still couldn't get anything out, she proceeded to reach out her finger again and started curling her finger at me, like when people say come here with just there finger and she was doing it really slowly she would not step foot in my room for some reason. I would shake my head at her and trying to move with all my force just pure fear striking me every second. I felt my whole body start tingling, imagine when your foot falls asleep and it kinda feels like white noise on your tv, just tingling, thats how my whole body starting feeling just without the whole tickling feeling that makes you laugh, plain tingling all over.. She wouldn't leave just stood  at the doorway, staring at me the only thing moving was her outreached hand calling me with her corpse like finger.  And then I noticed something, she wasn't alone, I saw a head slowly appear from behind this woman, sort of like someone was  standing up. It was much taller and resembled a man. I then noticed the woman wasn't a solid figure but a little see through and behind her was this tall lean black figure. I tried with all my might to snap out of it and move or wake up. And slowly the man behind the woman started shaking his head, as if saying thats not going to work.  I eventually woke up sweating like crazy gasping for air apparently I was trying my “hold my breath technique” and it was just not working, but somehow it eventually did. I stood and immediately turned on my light and just stared at my door. It was closed and I was just holding my breath not wanting to open it waiting for someone or something to start to open it. I turned my t.v on and just stayed sitting there staring at my door. I finally saw the sun start coming up, it kinda calmed me down, when I heard my dads alarm go off for work and heard him start to get ready I swung open my door and went to lay down, more calm now but still jogging the thought of what I saw and how real it felt in my mind. Couple minutes later I was finally able to get some sleep.  

This dream would reoccur for about 3 weeks every night, yes every single night.  Some variation would happen of course sometimes the thing or man behind the womanly figure wouldn't appear. an sometimes he would wave at me. What was also pretty weird was that the nights that I left my door open she would just appear at my door way, and when I closed my door she would open it when the episode would begin. About halfway through the 4th week of having this same sleep paralysis dream or episode. Things changed a little bit. It started out like it usually does, I awoke suddenly realizing that I was paralyzed and couldn't move. I looked straight at my door and said to myself “shit, here she comes.” So the door opens and she's standing there and again sticks out her finger and calls, I hear her fucking voice, she tells me loud and clear, “just come over here” he voice was crackling and really dry. For the first time in weeks of having this dream I sat up and stood out of bed, trying with every bit of my strength to stop myself but I had no control over my body. As I was witnessing myself slowly taking steps towards this thing or woman. I started to get close enough to actually be able to tell features on this things face. She was smirking looking straight at me with her hand reached out still but not stepping foot in my bedroom, at her feet I saw what looked like man curled up behind her since she was still see through. I screamed and yelled and tried moving and just couldn’t. Then all of a sudden I start hearing my moms voice like echoing very faint but still audible. My mom’s voice grew louder and I noticed the woman’s smirk was gone and she just stayed there staring at me. I eventually slowly woke up and still heard my mom yelling for me that breakfast was ready. I have never woken up to it being daytime already it was always some time in the night. Any ways a couple of days go by and Im still having these dreams back to back. I eventually gave in due to the fact that I started hating or better yet dreading going to sleep because I knew the old woman/thing was going to visit me, and told my mom and girlfriend what was going on. I kinda introduced it as a joke at first not knowing how they would react, but eventually I got serious and came clean letting them know this was really happening to me. My mom surprisingly took it pretty seriously after I told her the whole story and gave me some advice on what to do. Make a prayer here and there during the night. My girlfriend took it seriously too since she is kinda in the whole supernatural  phenomenon thing. She in turn spoke to her grandma which is also into the whole spirits thing owning minerals, spirit rocks, tarot cards, pendulums to communicate with spirits and so on and so forth. Well she contacted me and said some thing might have latched onto me. She gave me some thing called  sage and a black candle. Her instructions were to light the candle and burn the sage and walk around the room with it and trace the doorway with it. I felt pretty silly doing all this but I was desperate for any help. I mean having sleep paralysis with the same events, same woman and figure behind her appearing at my door for over a month straight night after night non-stop, I was feeling like I was going crazy and the last couple of days I just didn't care, like if I did go to her. Anyways I started doing the whole black candle sage thing and slowly it started to kinda stop. It wasn't an immediate halt but over the next day few days it would fade slowly into feeling like it was a dream again. You know fuzzy, when you know you dreamt it but sometimes not really memorable. After couple of weeks I just stopped having this episode happen to me altogether. So it was a little over a month of have this thing visit me while being sunken into sleep paralysis. Huge relief knowing that it was over. Got more events that have happened to me that stand out to me that I would like to share. Check back in later for other weird occurrences of my life.