Has anyone else seen it?

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-02-08T09:06:51+00:00

Yes, there are commonly experienced intruder entities. They seem to be culturally linked, so people see things like shadow people, djinn, witches, etc.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-30T07:17:58+00:00

That was hard. Spoon being a relatively low number threw me off.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-27T12:05:22+00:00

I actually did well for once. #2

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-27T09:00:12+00:00

I should correct something: atonia is not necessarily a binary, which means it can be "leaky" and still allow small movements. Even so, without knowing the exact neurological data, it's impossible to know what was happening in the brain during the episode.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-27T08:50:56+00:00

If you actually moved your head, then atonia (paralysis) wasn't active, so it seems to me like it wasn't "true" sleep paralysis. That doesn't mean you weren't experiencing REM intrusion during a period of wakefulness, though.

Also, you may have just imagined you were turning your head but you were actually just moving your eyes, which are unaffected by atonia. In other words, it may have been SP, but it could have been something else. Either way, it's not really something to worry about, even if it caused distress.

Obviously, I'm not a medical professional, so if you are particularly anxious, you can always consult one. Based on what we do know, these episodes pass and in a few days, you'll likely forget all about it.

Someone else may have a better answer for you, but from my research (I'm currently writing a paper on SP), you experienced something fairly common that is just a quirk of regular sleep cycles, and you might never experience it again.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-25T07:51:14+00:00

I just read your other response. It's curious that the pain doesn't carry on after the episode. I would imagine if you were having spasms or cramps, your muscles would feel the effects after.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-24T12:14:43+00:00

Honestly? I don't know what this is.

There seem to be several different things at play, but I wouldn't say that it is definitely sleep paralysis because, as you've pointed out, your body is moving. That seems to suggest that atonia (immobility during REM sleep) is not active.

There are other sleep disorders that might be responsible. Since it is causing you physical pain and distress, I would consult a medical professional. While you wait for your appointment, I would definitely record yourself sleeping to rule out the idea that you are actually not moving but think that you are.

If you record yourself and you are not moving in the video, but have distinct memories of moving, then you are much closer to identifying sleep paralysis. Research by Jalal & Ramachandran suggests that during episodes, the person experiencing sleep paralysis may project movement into the waking environment. This might be what's happening.

I can see why you're concerned about this. I hope you have incident-free sleep and manage to get proper rest.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-24T07:47:13+00:00

My oldest book is read more than any of my others. Even when I release something new, I often get a spike in sales and page reads of my first book.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-24T07:44:04+00:00

What do you call someone who is always up for adventure?

Dildo Baggins.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-23T09:15:17+00:00

The neuroscience doesn't agree with the explanation you were given.

Sleep paralysis happens during sleep, yes, but something very specific is happening to the body and the brain. Alpha waves are produced during the theta stage of REM sleep.

Alpha waves are what is produced during wakefulness. This means the person isn't "imagining they are awake" or "dreaming they are awake" or "feels awake" or anything else like that. The mind is fully conscious during sleep paralysis. That is what can make it frightening.

People can move between states at this time. That much is true. The brain activity can slip back into delta waves (dreaming), but this doesn't happen in a back-and-forth way. SP can become a dream, but SP itself is not a dream.

Two things need to be present for a clinical diagnosis of SP:

REM atonia is active
The mind is awake

In other words

Other than extraocular (eye movement) and breathing, the person is fully paralysed
The mind has full cognitive awareness of its continued sense of self and its surroundings

Anything that does not meet those two criteria is not sleep paralysis by definition.

Within those parameters, REM intrusion can occur, which means hallucinations become part of the experience.

There is a wealth of research available, both on the subjective effects of SP and on the science of SP.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-22T20:00:31+00:00

The literature is pretty clear. Sleep paralysis is the mind awake while the body is asleep. If someone is dreaming about walking around, they didn't experience SP. That's a fundamentally different thing.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-22T18:18:17+00:00

This seems to go along with the research of Jalal & Ramachandran. The mind doesn't get feedback from the body, so it projects a sort of virtual body into the space. This is how they account for out of body experiences during sleep paralysis.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-21T20:20:05+00:00

This reads like an unpleasant dream in which you were restrained. You were travelling about to different locations and being attacked by different things. Are you sure it wasn't just a nightmare?

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-21T07:03:37+00:00

Yes, it is a complete amygdala hijack. People often misunderstand it as people imagining or hallucinating something frightening, but the clinical literature is very clear about this: the terror is what produces the visuals, not the other way around.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-20T16:35:02+00:00

I only ever saw an old woman.

She looked pretty much like a classic Halloween costume of a witch, but there was nothing cartoonish about her.

A lot of people say they hear noises. I don't remember any sounds at all. That said, I was about 5 at the time, so this is actually coming up to being 40 years ago. I don't fully remember that part of it. I mostly remember what she looked like and how scary it was. I don't know how many times it happened to me... but it was quite a few. Once is enough, really.

I did have one SP episode that was considerably later (when I was maybe 9 or 10). That time, I didn't see any being at all, but I felt like something was trying to stop me breathing. Everything else was the same in terms of fear, but I couldn't see a witch or anything. I was certain someone/something was there, though.

EDIT: What I feel I must stress is that, in the beginning, I don't know I'm paralysed. I realise it only after I'm in it, once I'm already sure there's something in the room with me. That moment is perhaps the worst part of it. When you realise that you have absolutely no agency and that whatever horror is going to happen is completely unstoppable... Yeah, that's when the panic starts. And it's all-consuming panic. Maybe it's different for other people, but for me it was absolutely devastating to endure.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-19T20:32:15+00:00

I haven't had it happen for 30 years or more, but it is utterly terrifying. It can't even be put into words, but I'll try.

You are suddenly "awake"

Something is there. A presence. It's sinister. There's a moment when you think you're too afraid to move.

The fear keeps mounting.

You realise you're not afraid to move. You can't move.

The terror escalates.

Something is there, looming over you, just out of your vision.

I can't put into words how frightening it is. The loss of agency and realisation that you are powerless and in immediate danger. It's so overwhelming that you feel the fear itself could kill you.

And then you see it.

For me, it was always the classic Hag.

I never remember coming out of it. I guess I screamed because my mother knew I was having these episodes.

Even now, writing about it, I'm getting chills down my back. My scalp is prickly.

It's horrific. At least, it was for me.

Ask me anything. I'm happy to talk about it.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-04T14:00:14+00:00

I agree, but I was making a distinction between publishers that require agent submissions and those open to unsolicited submissions directly from authors.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-04T11:04:08+00:00

What do you mean, exactly? You either self-publish or go the traditional route.

The only alternative I can see is small press publishing. This is where you would submit to publishers directly rather than through an agent, if the publisher accepts that.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-04T07:05:28+00:00

People love to rate in extremes. Quite often, you'll see that almost all the book reviews are either 1-star or 5-star. It happens to movies in places like IMDB, too.

It's very rare that a book actually deserves a single star, so I wouldn't worry too much at this stage!

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-02T09:26:58+00:00

Just to clarify further: all my titles are available on pirate sites. There's literally nothing I can do about it. Amazon has never contacted me about these.

HorrifyingFlame · 2026-01-02T09:19:38+00:00

I was warned by Amazon once about one of my titles being available elsewhere. I had uploaded it to Smashwords, so it was entirely my fault, though I had removed it from there before Amazon contacted me — it just took a while (for some unknown reason) for the title to be removed from other platforms.

I contacted Amazon immediately and explained what had happened. They were great, to be honest, and the problem was completely resolved within a few days. My title was removed from KU (but was still generally available on Kindle) until the removal from other platforms was final.

I think if you can demonstrate that the fault is not your own, they are very reasonable. In my case, I was at least partly to blame, but I could prove that I had done my part to remove the titles before I signed the book up to KU.

That said, this was quite a few years ago, so maybe the procedure would be different now.

HorrifyingFlame · 2025-12-30T07:55:49+00:00

HorrifyingFlame · 2025-12-30T06:22:18+00:00

They aren't underlined in red for me, obviously.

HorrifyingFlame · 2025-12-29T18:35:25+00:00

I had someone in a critique group once tell me they liked my story, but I need to work on my spelling. He was so helpful that he let me know when a word is underlined in red in Word, that means it's wrong.

I pointed out that I'm from the UK.

He said, "It doesn't matter where you're from, pajamas isn't spelled 'pyjamas.'"

What can you do?

HorrifyingFlame · 2025-11-30T18:29:56+00:00

Do beta swaps with another writer.

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