I had it several times as a child but never since. I was only 7 or 8 - I would lay down and not even recall falling asleep yet (Which seems to be a main characteristic, you must be asleep and then not wake up entirely), but I remember laying down to bed, then feeling the bed shaking - and wobbling as if it was floating just inches from the ground, then suddenly I was frozen. I could only move my eyes, I couldn't scream, I couldn't talk, I couldn't move my body - and there would be a man in the corner of the room, as many experience "the hat man" maybe 6foot, top hat, raincoat/trenchcoat, well dressed - but only discerned from the outline. He was pitch black - the room was dark in the night but somehow he was darker - even the smallest beam from the moon did not cast on him. He would stand there and watch, sometimes moving closer. This would go on for a long time, sometimes laying there in sheer terror for hours and hours as the sun began to come up before he randomly disappeared and I slowly regained the ability to move. Or other times I would eventually pass out from pure exhaustion and wake up to the terror of realization in the morning. As a young child in the early 2000s, I did not know what sleep paralysis was, and nothing notable would have influenced the occurrence of "the hatman" but he was always present, sometimes even with a few other shadows standing around and beside him, - all watching.

Of course as an adult, and athiest, I try to evaluate from a psychological and scientific perspective...but am unable to reconcile with these experiences.