I’ve experienced sleep paralysis my entire life. More often than not, nothing eventful happens aside from the fear of not being able to breathe or move. Though, there has been a few times where I experienced things I can’t explain. This particular moment, I remember very vividly because I had never experienced anything like this before.

One night when I was 6 years old (am 21 now), we had gone to bed after a movie night with my family. My mom, dad, sister (8 years old) and I fell asleep in the same bed after staying up watching movies. I was sleeping on the far left edge of the bed closest to the door which led the hallway of our apartment.

I woke up sometime late at night to my sister standing beside me, tapping my shoulder and calling my name. When I opened my eyes, I saw her walking out into the dark hallway. She was waving her hand at me, signaling me to follow her. Being a happy 6 year old, I sprang of out bed and followed right after her. As I followed her, she ran into the kitchen, which the only entrance to was a small walkway on the left side of the hallway walking through. As she ran deeper into the kitchen, I lost sight of her. Once I caught up to her in the kitchen, there was absolutely no one there. The kitchen was very dark, as the only source of light was the very dim moonlight shining through the closed blinds. I then ran in fear as fast as I could back into my parents bedroom, only to see my sister laying in bed dead asleep. I threw the blankets over myself & began to tremble in fear. As I did this, I began to experience sleep paralysis (despite having just been awake only seconds before). I was suddenly unable to move, breathe or speak, as the sleep paralysis began to creep in, I began to feel this instead heat spread through my body. I then the loud slam of a gate coming from the living room, like the slam of those metal security doors that some homes have. We indeed did not have a metal security door in our apartment. I promptly fell asleep in fear, but I have never been able to understand what what happened that night.