What’s a sleep paralysis demon? And other facts of the bizarre phenomenon – CTV
June 08, 2025
Baland Jalal lay in bed terrified, experiencing his own real-life horror film.
Newly awake, the 19-year-old could see his surroundings but couldn’t move or speak, and he didn’t know why.
He thought, “‘My God, what do I do?’” Jalal, now 39, said of that moment in 2005. “I tried to call my mom (and) dad, but no words would emerge from my throat. … I had this ominous presence of a monster, and it lifted my legs up and down.
“It strangled me, trying to kill me. And I was 100% sure that I was going to die,” Jalal added. “It literally feels like all the evil of the universe is condensed into a bubble, and it’s in your bedroom.”
This type of hallucination is a hallmark for many people with sleep paralysis.
It occurs during transitions into or out of rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, similar to a traffic jam at a busy intersection — your brain, awake and alert, and body, still asleep and immobilized, collide momentarily, said Dr. Matthew P. Walker, director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, via email.
