I am in my late 40’s. My mother is from the South and would suffer from this disorder often. As a child I remember she developed a sign of moaning loudly in her sleep when this would happen to her, and I would have to shake her really hard until she came out of it. She was always so exhausted when she would awake. She would tell me it was called the old hag or the witch on her back. This would happen most when she slept on her back or was very tired.
One remedy she would use to ward this off, was to place a sweeping broom at the foot of her bed before she went to sleep or place a glass of water underneath the head of her bed. Another remedy was to call and curse the spirit out in her mind.
I myself suffer from this quite often, mostly when I fall asleep on my back, which I try never to do. Today (Sunday, March 30), at about 3:30 pm, I fell asleep in my swivel office chair on my left arm over my bed while watching CNN on TV. My eyes opened to CNN and I could see and hear CNN but I just could not move at all. My head would snap back every time that I tried moving it up. This went on longer than usual.
I tried screaming in my head to wake myself up. I tried scratching my comforter, I tried wiggling my fingers. I could not move my feet, could not move anything. I felt moments away from breathing my last breath. I tried pulling my comforter off my bed.
Sometimes when I did manage to move my head, it would feel like it would violently snap back in position. I was so afraid that it was my last chance of life and that someone would find me dead in my bedroom because I was running out of time to wake up. I woke up at exactly 5:15 pm extremely exhausted, scared, out of breath and more tired than ever.
Sometimes I am afraid to go to sleep. I do think this is serious because you are so afraid when this happens that it feels like you can get a heart attack. My mom is in a nursing home now with Alzheimer’s disease so I can’t talk to her about it any more.
Tonight I will be placing a glass of water underneath the head of my bed. I have not been diagnosed with anxiety attacks, but sometimes I do have them and I do have a lot of stress in my life.
Sent in by “Constant Fear”, Copyright 2008 True Ghost Tales
Learn more about Sleep Paralysis And The Old Hag Legends
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I have had dreams of an old lady whispering in my ear. It must not have happened more than three of four times and I have ignored it. I generally got these dreams on days I was really exhausted and dozed off unwillingly. I was most scared by the appearance of this witch like hag in black singing in my ear as I fell asleep while preparing for my exams. I could see my room and my brother studying in the other room clearly, but could not wake up and stop the woman from singing. Since then I have been very scared of old women who look like witches. I thought this appearance of hags was a unique phenomenon and was very surprised when I read this post.
Hello,
Know this truth today.
Old hag attacks are real and used frequently by witches to deal with their victims.
It is a very old secret as old as time itself.
Do not be deceived by the paralysis story
contact me by email for solutions
what if it happend’s to you …and you are the witch? sorry dont buy it. living people cannot make u feel like this… this is something far from what people have power capable of doing. its unexplainable thats why theres so many theories …
I have had three episodes over the past two weeks the last was the worst I am worried now this thing knows I am aware of it .The first two it lingered until I went to sleep but I sensed it in time to fight it and I suppose that is why it returned so soon after each attack but this last time it caught me off guard my girlfriend was on my small bed and I was on the floor she had told me she saw a shadow run across my liveingroom earlyer that night but I didn’t relate the two. when it attacked me I woke up and forced my head to turn toward her i thougth help me over and over she sat up looked at me screamed and passed out I thought dam it and curse you over and over then I woke up again I sat up she was sleeping soundly so I let her sleep but I knew it was not a dream it couldnt be later when we got up I asked her if she remembered seeing me being attacked she told me she had a dream I was being held down by a black mist but when she woke I was sleeping so she went back to sleep. I work at night and sleep dureing the day the sun was up when this happened but my bedroom is blacked out still it is not human and I am very consered for my family and friends. I have studied this subject but it has instilled iratonal fear in me also when I sense it’s presense it is accompanied by the oder of dog feces and it has been around since the attack I feel it may be staying in some dark place in my house “but not for long” AND when I cast it out it will not return. I dont care how strong it is I am stronger I have delt with spirits and demons before haveing a christian upbringing I am well versed and well trained in dealing with such things and even tho it causes me such iratonal dread I see thrue it but it’s ability to cause paralisis both desturbes and interests me and I know it is not human because of the time of the attacks and the smell astral humans have no sent .I was just researching the subject when I found your page I thought maybe you might know what this thing is either way you can post this if you want .thanks billy ottinger
Hello everyone
I would like to tell you my story of sleep paralysis, My first incident happened at the age of 4 or 5. Almost nightly what I percieved to be a witch would sit on top of me a just tickle me and I could not move her off, I guess I was pretty smart for my age. I came up with a plan to wish the witch away and turn her into a mickey mouse character. I guess as a child that was something harmless to me. AQs I grew older the episodes changed.
By the age of eight I would just have the paralysis. It wasn’t until age 15 when I was pregnant with my son that the first outer body accompanied the paralysis, I was lying in the bed and the paralysis began. I felt pressure holding both my wrist and my ankles as I began to flot upward as I went up I could actually feel myself pull out of my body . This thing carried me up through the roof of the house until I could only see what appeared to be the galaxy I was floating through, when the floating stopped I was in a all white room with a baby crib . everything in the room was white and fluffy and pretty, All of a sudden the same force that carried me up begin to take me down .
I went all the way back down and passed through my body and kept going down. I was then in a all red room. I didn’t see anything but everything was red. Again the forces begin to pull me up again and I went up until I was place back into my body. I know this sounds unreal, But I promise you it is the honest to god truth. I ‘ve had episodes of floating across the top of people that appeared to to on a south american beach. I ve floated pass the Big Ben clock. and the list goes on. Is there anyone who has had episodes as bizzare as mines?
Reading this was….chilling to me. I have had the same experiences over the last few months. It started when I lived in Idaho, I met a friend there who was having some problems. I asked her to tell me them. She described that she heard a noise, and woke up, but she couldn’t move. A force then came in and held her down and called her names. She prayed, and it left her. A few weeks later, I experienced the same thing, except it was a woman, standing int he other room, watching me. I woke up, looked around and tried to scream, tried to move, and nothing. A buzzing would start each time I opened my eyes, but after struggling, I would get tired and nod back off. It happened for about an hour. When we moved back to Las Vegas, it happened again. I was asleep, and I opened my eyes to see the door open a crack. It looked like a dark figure of a female was watching me. I turned my head, unable to scream to my fiance who was sleeping next to me, and just as I did that, his eyes snapped open and I was able to move again. Then it happened to him about a month ago. He woke up and she was in the room this time, about 5 feet from the foot of the bed. He felt this need to awaken, but couldn’t. He said it seemed imperative that he get up because he felt that if he didn’t, something bad would happen. He eventually woke up, and came out of our room and told me what happened. This is very eerie, considering there are so many similar accounts. Also, it’s getting closer, if it follows the pattern, it should be right up against our bed next time we see it. It feels like it has something important to say, or a message to convey. I wish I knew.. If you’d like to share your experiences with me, or keep in touch, do so, I don’t mind
I’ve been having these problems since I was 14 or so, and it still hasn’t left me (I’m 23) but it has changed over time. I used to fight the paralysis in the way lots of people describe then one time I decided to give in and that was when out of body experiences/lucid dreams started like the ones described above. For a while I liked these experiences and described them to my friends (a few of them soon had a few experiences, it’s not a psychological disorder, whatever it is IT travels around). For a while I thought it was harmless until I realized that it had highly erratic effects on my body rhythms, I would feel completely drained at random times. A friend I met at university who’d had it and grown out of it taught me a number of ways to deal with it. The first is to clean your room well if you want to discourage it from residing. I feel that you should know what is in every corner and area of your room. The second is to keep a glass of water somewhere in the room, when you fill the glass, make an intention for the entity to use it. Relative to its strength at the time, bubbles will fill in the water. When you notice bubbles, pour the water out and refill the glass. A third is to keep a candle lit when you sleep, I didn’t try this much for fear of fire. A fourth is to light incense in your room to try to smoke it out but I’m not sure what incense is the right kind or if it matters, but I was told that cleaning should come first. I started studying meditation about a year ago and I found that this has helped me get better at feeling the entity by the feel of the room. When its powerful the room will feel tense or even full of bad emotion as if people just had a serious argument in the room. To a degree I’ve found that by meditating I can spread better emotion into the room but other times I feel like its better just to do my best at ignoring the presence. The type of meditation that I’ve found works is not to go into a trance but to sit with eyes closed, cultivate a strong feeling of determination and to feel energy flowing into the front of your brain. Other signs that the presence is increasing can include strange smells or noises, sometimes I notice faint sipping noises when I’ve placed a glass and sometimes even when I haven’t. Thankfully I’ve never noticed anything more intense than that although I did have a feeling about some odd noises in my girlfriend’s dorm room but who knows because her walls are paper thin. One very important thing- watch closely when you drink liquids in your room. Try not to leave water sitting out and if you do don’t drink it. I have noticed with decent certainty water levels of things changing. One night I had a glass of milk and I was playing a computer game. I thought I had finished the glass then later on when I was done playing I picked up the glass and there was a significant amount of milk in it. I had a feeling I had just forgot about it and the milk didn’t give a me a bad feeling so I drank it up. That night I had one of the most intense frightful paralyisis experiences I’ve had in my life. I’ve also seen with decent certainty liquids mysteriously disappear. Finally one piece of advice is to try the herb called valerian. It can help you sleep restfully without any visitations but it’s effectiveness is limited. One thing I recently started which works well is to go to sleep with feeling of strong determination and self awareness, as if I’m working on a task that I’m good at. It’s harder to get sleep like this, but when I do, I’m protected from visitations. I would like to hear other people’s ways to fight it because it doesn’t seem that I’ve been succeeding against it in a long term way, perhaps I need to get things together and hit it with everything at once.
that happened to me 3 weeks ago i was sleeping i woke up 330 am my eyes was open
i could not move a thing i could not scream i could see every thing hear everything but gould not move for like 8 minutes i used all my strenght to call my friend then my mouth twisted when the words came out then i could move i was afraid to go back to sleep
Yikes. But it was a dream…right?
Its not a dream! Its been happening to people for centuries! It happens to 1 of 50 people once a week! Dont read about it couse it will happen to you to! and trus me you dont want that!
I have had the same thing happen to me periodically since I was about 16, being 37 now. When it does happen, it happens in cycles and it will happen over a series of nights, then going away until the next cycle, whenever that is.
However, a couple of occassions were very unique. One time, my wife was sleeping beside me when I was going through a particularly bad attack. After an indeterminate amount of time In this state I was able to see a glowing golden form hovering over my wife. I found I was able to croak out my wife’s name, and once I did that, I felt utterly safe and the attack ceased instantly. I felt this almost unimaginable and palatable frustration coming from the shadow before it just it faded away. I realized then that my wife had acted somehow to protect me. When I asked her about it, she said she didn’t remember anything, other than feeling extremely tired.
The other occassion happened a few nights later. This time, both my wife and I were attacked by this shadow. But this time was different. When I felt it approaching her, I pointed my hand at it and there was what looked like a silver stick that jutted out about 4 feet or so from my hand. I could feel the shadow trying everything it could to get away from it. I heard what sounded like a dog growling. Then it was over.
I know what you guys are probably thinking. I’m crazy right, lol?
These experiences aren’t dreams- they’re hallucinations. This happens when your mind wakes up but your body does not get the message and is still asleep. Your body releases chemicals so that you do not act out your dream while you are sleeping. Since these chemicals are still working, you feel paralyzed. Visual and auditory hallucinations are common and some people even feel certain things. Sleep paralysis has to do with ones REM cycle and is in no way involved with spirits or aliens. It’s a bodily process.
whenever i want to wake from a nightmare i just acknowledge that its a dream and squeeze my eyes and wake instantly completely terrified though
Lily is correct. It’s called sleep paralysis and has to do with REM cycles. It’s happened to me about four times with the first happening early last year, I believe. First time it was terrifying and it was very much like an out of body experience. I enjoyed it as first, as I could see myself sleeping through the glow of my computer and I floated about my room. At one point I sat up straight in bed and I was a bit disconcerted as I’d read about out of body experiences and had never heard of that happening. I then made a move to go back into my body and it caused me immeasurable pain in my back. I could seem to float everything back into my body, but not my head, so I couldn’t fully ‘connect’. I was absolutely convinced some entity was inhabiting my body and refusing my entry and that I’d be forced to remain a ghost. I tried screaming at myself to wake up to no avail. I was invisible. When I finally fought through the pain and connected back to my body, my back still ached. The other experiences have not quite been the same. Normally a lucid dream followed by waking up back in my room, but not being able to move or speak. I’ve tried screaming at friends in the bed and they say they don’t hear a word, exact my erractic breathing from the panic of not being able to move or speak. While I recognise them, I still find them quite terrifying and they can be brought about due to stress, which would fit perfectly with the times I’ve experienced them.
i have had this old hag thing twice in my life,it was a very nasty experence,i never want it again,i hated feeling paralized,and why dont it happen to everyone,i have spoken to freinds about this and they have never had it.
These experiences started happening to me when I got involved with a coven of wicans. We were all really young, mostly 15 and 16 year olds. We started believing that we could control our minds when we were aslleep and travel to all kinds of differnet places if we focused on that. I kept trying to do it but it never worked. I have always been plagued with night terrors as a chil, sleep walking, sleep talking and at time I even sleep eat! i experienced my first hag attack the same day my best friend died in a car accident on her way to New Orleans. That night after I finally cried myself to sleep I was awakened by something that sounded like a siren. I realized that it was my own screams. I went back to sleep almost feeling as if I had been drugged. I closed my eyes and then opened them briefly to look at the clock. It was 3:30 in the morning. I rolled over on my back a saw a dark figure standing at the foot of my bed, I tried to move, but couldn’t and as soon as he realized that I had noticed him he pounced on me really hard and was growling. His face was very pale, his eyes were wide and he kept staring into mine laughing as I kept trying to turn away! His hair was very wiry and solid black, his eyes were totally black with no white and he was snarling through his teeth. I began calling these my scream dreams and I would have them up to three times a week. my boyfriend at the time would just awake to me crying and tell me it was just another dream. I felt like I was literally going insane! I went to stay with my mom for a couple of nights and was asleep on the couch when i felt the paralysis happen, there he was again, i saw him cross the room and once again hold me down and stare into my eyes. When I was able to move, i sat up, grabbed my grandmother’s crucifix from the wal and I said the lord’s prayer several times crying for it to leave me alone. It started happening less frequently after that. i moved to a new house by myself and was so worried it was going to happen I put every kind of religious instrument in my room. Buddhas, dreamcatchers, my grandmothers crucifix. I still have very bizzare and scary dreams but he has not visited in a long time. I sometimes wake up and feel there is a shroud over me but I can get out of it fairly easily. I stay up til 3am and when I sleep I lay on my stomach with my arms crossed over my heart. This is so facinating that I am not the only one this happens to. I noticed that when my life seems out of control or I am sick or in a weakened emotional state this kind of thing starts to happen. It has also been felt by my mother who stays in the house with me.
the water under the bed and the witch on your back my mom told me and did the same thing.the same thing with me. i was sleep in my bed my kids where on the bed with me playing and it woke me up but i could not move.i was trying to open me eyes they would open a little then close right back.and i was having a hard time getting air and thats what was scareing me.so i just keep moving my hand feet and eyes till i got up.man i got out that bed and did not go back to sleep till night time but i was so tired like i didn’t sleep at all
I was visited last night for the first time (35yrs old)by an old hag.. I’d heard of it before, but never had experienced it. I had been having a good dream and woke up to hearing a moaning sound, I opened my eyes and there was an old lady with a decomposing like face sitting on her knees on my bed, her hair was a gray/white and on top of her head like a bun.. she started fading away and I went to kick her away so it would hurry up and dissolve. Really a weird experience, thankfully though, I did not suffer any of the sleep paralysis that usually goes along with that. I prayed after I had the experience, I did not feel scared at the time when I was looking at her so I hope that keeps her away (since I heard fear does feed it).
I sometimes have these dreams, I don’t know what there mean. I started having them when I turned 20, I usually close my eyes and count to ten, when I open my eyes I’d wake up, don’t be scared, whatever is causing these dreams cannot hurt you xoxo
I’ve had these dreams since childhood. I observed that these nightmares occur when I’m stressed-out, deppresed, sad, tired and fell asleep on a wrong position or barely moving. Our mind is like a sponge, if we believe those demons or witches, it will come into reality.
But, we should keep a healthy spirit, mind and body to avoid Sleep Paralysis or Old-Hags which were all created by the most dangerous mind.
Being aware of it also helps avoid the problem. =)
I used to have these nightmares since childhood. I have researched, observed and analyzed that these were brought by Stress, Fear, Problems, Deppresion, Sadness, fatigue, falling-asleep on wrong position or barely moving, hormonal problems, etc. which are all connected to the mind and spirit.
The mind is the most dangerous part of our body. It is like a sponge that absorbs what we believe or feed-on, positive or negative. Let’s fill-it up with positive thoughts.
The spirit works with the mind. Let’s keep a clean and healthy spirit with GOD.
Let’s keep a balanced and healthy body, mind and spirit to avoid these sleep disorders and nightmares.
I suggest that would be the best way for this nightmares to go away. =)
Well last night I had a dream about a hag I haven’t had one in a long time. When I went to bed I wasn’t tired but I went to bed anyways. It tried twice to get me but I have a dog and she was making noise so I could not get me good. Then the third time it got me it went on my back and started kissing my neck really soft human lips. I was sleeping on my side so it don’t matter how u fall asleep. I have had some like these before most of them are very sexually with me I don’t know why maybe cause I’m a lesbian don’t know I wish I did can someone help me get an idea.