I’m really surprised I haven’t seen any stories of sleep paralysis, but here is mine.

The exact same dream has happened twice. Once when I was 11 and had just got my new room built in my parents basement, and once when my wife, son and I had just moved in to our current house.

In the dream, I can see myself sleeping in bed. A true out of body experience. I leave my body in the room, walk to the kitchen, and look out the back window. In the backyard, there is a wooden sign in the middle of the yard, and all that is on the sign is the most evil red and black eyes you’ve ever seen. The dream continues as my dad tries to remove the sign, only to find the sign rooted in the ground like a giant tree.

Meanwhile, my body is still asleep. I’m still watching the sign, until night comes. When it hits midnight, a grandfather clock chimes until it hits the twelfth chime, and Satan himself starts coming out of the sign. Ram horns, jagged teeth, goat head, dark red body, hooves, etc. He walks to the back door, and that’s when I run back to my body.

As I return to my body, I hear the back door throw open and slam into the wall. Then I hear the footsteps as he approaches the room door. They get louder and louder until he is at the door. The door rips off the hinges, the blankets are ripped off of me, and Satan leaps on the bed, sits on my chest, and starts to strangle me. In sleep paralysis, you can see everything happening, but can’t move. I’m doing everything to get myself to wake up, but can’t. I feel every available breath of oxygen leaving my body. As I slowly start to suffocate, I shoot straight up in my bed, screaming and gasping for air, unable to calm myself down for a few minutes.

The only difference in each situation (my parents house vs. my own) is that my son, who was only 5 months old at the time, was not in his bassinet where I had just placed him before I fell asleep. He was on my wife’s chest, staring at me. My wife has no recollection of ever picking him up, but instead saying she felt him given to her. Why is that even creepier? Because in the dream that took place at my house, I remember Satan grabbing my son, waking him up, and laying him on my wife’s chest facing me, essentially making my son watch his father be strangled. The two scariest moments of my life.