The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - The Old Hag: Sleep Paralysis Demons - The Tape Library Episode 4

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Have you ever had an encounter with a night hag? In this episode of The Tape Library we're going to be taking a dive into the creepy phenomena of sleep paralysis. More specifically, we're going to be talking about one of the most common hallucinations associated with this experience, that of an old woman who enters your bedroom at night and strangles you. This is the story of The Old Hag. If you'd like to support the podcast then you can do so for free by subscribing/following. Leaving us a review is a massive help as well! So please do that if you are enjoying these stories. I also upload video versions of these podcasts to our Youtube channel, so check that out if you want more - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheTapeLibrary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How many people die in their beds every year? We often talk of people passing away peacefully in their sleep, but unless we are with them in those final moments, how do we know for sure that those penultimate seconds were peaceful at all? Picture this scene with me for a moment. You're lost. Running through a field, all alone. There were people with you a moment ago.

Who was it? You can't remember. But you know there were others. But still, now you are all by yourself. No. Wait. There's someone there. In the distance. You speed up, running towards the figure at the far end at the field.

It appears to be a man, but he's not reacting to your shouts. Is he facing away? You can't see him. his face, just darkness. Get closer. And still he doesn't react. That's when it hits you. The feeling that something isn't right. This isn't a man at all. This is something other. As you slowly approach, you realize why you couldn't recognize a face. Instead of a human being, there is only a shadow. You wake up in bed, glancing at your alarm clock. You realize it's 3.30 a.m. Not time to get up yet, luckily. The dream has left you

shaken and it takes you a moment to notice and not all is right. You may be back in the real world, but something is off. You feel that sucking sensation of dread and the pit of your stomach. It is at this moment you realize you can't move. Panic instantly grips you. You are paralysed. Your mind begins racing. What is happening? All you can move are your eyes. And that's when you catch sight of it, in the periphery of your vision. Is it the shadow from your dream? Your eyes begin to focus as the shadow takes a step forward. No, this isn't the shadow. You can start to make out features. It's shorter.

It looks kind of human. The figure steps out of the darkness, stands at the foot of your bed. You can't fully make out all the details in the darkness of your room, but you can see her clearly enough now. It's an older woman. Her back bent over and crooked. She is staring at you, smiling. But not a pleasant smile.

not one that fills you with love this smile sends a shiver down your spine this smile makes you want to scream but you can't she slowly moves onto your bed you are trying to muster up every ounce of energy you have to move

but nothing will happen she begins to crawl up your body her eyes never diverting from yours eventually she reaches your chest and sits down straddling her legs over you the weight feels heavy as she presses down heavier than a woman of her size should feel you can see her in detail now she looks like a woman but something is off something isn't quite right like it's actually an imitation a copy that just has the slightest air making it stand out from the real thing. That's when, with the grin still on her face, she places her hands around your neck. That's when she starts to strangle you.

If you're lucky, you'll notice that you're able to move. It might just be your fingertips or your foot, but life appears to be coming back to your body. If this is the case, the woman will slowly fade out of existence before your eyes leaving you shaken but alive. You have just met the old hag. What I find so fascinating about the old hag and sleep paralysis in general is the consistent similarities that those who experience it report.

So if you've suffered from sleep paralysis in the past or have woken up to discover something in your room, you shouldn't have, then I'd love it if you shared your story in the comments. I have two events that I would claspers experiences with this phenomena, but I'll talk about those in a bit. The word nightmare comes from the old English term mayor, a word used to describe a creature who would torment the innocent, but bringing them awful dreams.

In Scandinavian folklore, the mayor was a damned woman who would visit your bedroom, sitting on your chest and taking your mind into terrifying, nightmarish places. As I said, what is incredible about this? the old hag is the consistency. You can look at cultures all around the world, from Canada to Nigeria, Latvia to Pakistan, Cambodia to Brazil. All have stories about demons that visit us at night while we're sleeping, paralysing their victims, and often climbing on top of them, making it difficult to breathe. What these creatures are called seems to vary from place to place. They might be gin or a witch, the night hag, or even in some cases, Satan himself.

But the descriptions of an old grinning woman pop up time and time again. On a scientific level, sleep paralysis is the explanation given to these mysterious incidents. During REM sleep, our body is effectively paralysed, so as to not cause us any harm while our dreams play out. but sometimes we all awaken from this state stuck in a kind of no man's land between sleep and awakeness the paralysis continues for a few seconds your mind and body are confused terrified by the inability to move and instantly assumes it is in danger

this combined with the sudden emergence from the dream state is often said to cause hallucinations many report that it starts with a sense of tingling in the body or a static electricity that you can fill in the air. The feeling of an unknown enemy in your room quickly follows. Some can only feel the sensation of a presence, but others see full-blown visualisations of something there. Our mind is effectively slipping in and out of different states of consciousness,

twisting what we think of as reality. It's fascinating that what we think of as the real world can be so malleable by our brains. I've experienced sleep paralysis multiple times in my life, but only two have been accompanied by what I believe to be hallucinations. The first time,

I opened my eyes to see a red square lit up and floating around the room in the darkness, before slowly fading out of existence. This incident left me feeling odd and confused, but obviously was not a particularly scary experience. The second time, though, was much more intense. That time, when I opened my eyes, I don't think I was immediately aware that I was paralyzed.

It felt much more like I was being held down. And what I saw was there the instant I opened my eyes. It was a figure, sat on top of my abdomen, looking down at me. I struggled to put into words what it looked like. It was almost like it was made up of lots of smaller apparitions. Hundreds of small white smoke-like objects all joined together to form an almost humanoid-like shape. Where its eyes should be were just two holes in the smoke's form.

But beyond them was darkness. A darkness that felt like the pure absence of light. While the room itself was dark, it didn't compare to these two small areas of pure, full blackness. Its body was wide and rounded, but its head almost came into a tip at the top. I must have only looked at it for a fraction of a second

before it reacted. The hundreds of tiny wisps that made up this vision started to vibrate instantly. It's hard to explain but I got the feeling of anger from it, like I wasn't supposed to wake up while it was doing whatever it was doing. The entity shook violently as it quickly faded away. I can move again now the pressure was off my chest.

I remember being shaken, unable to fall back asleep. It was 3.30 a.m. I laid there in bed for the next few hours until my alarm sounded. What I experienced may simply have been a sleep paralysis induced hallucination, but still, I'm pleased I've never seen it again. I wanted to bring up my personal experiences, because I thought the difference between the two was interesting. One appears to be a simple trick of the mind or the eyes,

whereas the other felt so much more vivid and visceral. Is this just because the hallucination of the second was much scarier and therefore produced a stronger emotional response? While I didn't experience the common description of the old hack, the behaviour was very similar. I thought my experience with the smoke entity, for lack of a better name, or something outside of the normal visions for this phenomena. But as I've researched further,

I've discovered more and more reports of shapeless forms or apparitions that don't seem to be solid. But more disturbing, the black holes where the creature's eyes should be. This description appears to pop up in so many reported experiences with these sleep paralysis visions. I do have a third story from my childhood, that on reflection, has a potential connection to this phenomenon. But that didn't feature the hag.

This was a number of figures. So I think I'll save that story for when we talk about the shadow people. The idea that we conjure up a vision that scares us when paralysed and in a state of vulnerability is interesting. It feels like, much like reports of UFOs, the appearance of these nighttime visitors should change as culture and societal fears do.

During the Salem witch trials, visits from the old hag were rife, often thought to be the witches themselves attempting to terrify the citizens. If these were hallucinations, then this makes complete sense. In a society where people are terrified of witches, an old crone-like figure appearing out of your dreams, seems like the obvious route as sleep paralysis hallucination would take. But why is the old hag so prevalent even to this day? The old hag isn't the only sleep paralysis apparition people have seen.

Reports of goblin-like creatures, shadow people, and even the infamous Hatman, have all appeared in folklore and terrifying reports from those that experience them. Many reports of alien abductions bear a striking resemblance to the reports of sleep paralysis, as well as encounters with fairies in centuries past. You could even look back into tales of the incubus and succuous as possible examples of this phenomena. But it is the old woman that seems to appear most often, time and time again. Over the course of hundreds, if not thousands of years, people have claimed to see her. Some have suggested that these other creatures, often referred to as sleep paralysis demons, are actually just various avatars of the old hack.

Maybe the old woman, smiling as she creeps into your room, Isn't its true form at all? I think one of the scariest aspects of the hag is the report of its movement. The hag is often described as moving slowly. You wake up in the middle of the night and see her, standing in your darkened doorway, with that smile plastered across her face. It knows you can't move. It knows there's no way you can defend yourself.

So its movements are slow. deliberate, it doesn't creep or try to hide from you. It moves as slowly as it likes towards your bed, like it's enjoying the fear it creates, like it needs the fear. Maybe the hag doesn't need to cause us any physical harm. Maybe what it wants to take from its victims is something else. Newfoundland in Canada is home to so many experiences with the old hag that the term hag ridden is commonly used. It is estimated that experiences with this phenomenon are so common worldwide that around one in four people have had an encounter with it. However, the statistics for Newfoundland sees that number jump up to an astonishing 60%.

The vast majority of sleep paralysis incidents are accompanied by hallucinations or visions. It appears, though, does only a very small percentage of the world population experiences sleep paralysis regularly. So if you find yourself being visited by the old hag often, you are part of a very unlucky minority. If you are of the belief that these are paranormal events, then they may be the most commonly witnessed paranormal encounters of all time. Millions of people have experienced visits from these entities, but most have simply shrugged it off as a simple trick of the mind. It has been suggested that those who experience some form of childhood trauma or abuse are more susceptible to sleep paralysis which is an interesting idea it's often said

that dreams are a way for our brains to process memories converting them from short-term into long-term memory as well as allowing us to process emotional problems we experience could sleep paralysis simply be that process but leaking out into another state of consciousness maybe it's simply our brains dealing with our past traumas and fears in a way we can't quite comprehend. In some cultures like that in Newfoundland, it was believed that you could hag someone, unleashing the hag on those who have wronged you. In many of these circumstances, the hag would take on the form of the person who had summoned them. As I said at the start of this

episode, so many people are described as passing away peacefully in their sleep. But maybe that isn't always true. I think the scariest case that we could connect it is also the inspiration behind Wes Craven's, a nightmare on Umstreet. Craven came across a news story in the LA Times about a child refugee from Cambodia who was terrified to sleep through fear that he would be attacked in his bed. Now, this child survived a horrific genocide. I don't think this sort of trauma-induced fear would be that surprising, except for what happened next. The child finally did fall asleep. His parents were obviously relieved

and hoped this would be the end of their sleepless nights they had all been having. That was, until they heard the screams in the middle of the night, the parents rushed to their child's bed, but it was too late. He was dead. The cause of death? Unknown. What makes this even more terrifying was that he wasn't alone.

Dozens of South Asian refugees around that time passed away in their sleep under mysterious circumstances leading to the diagnosis of sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome. Why this seemed to be targeting a specific ethnic group that was relocating to America however has never been explained, though some have suggested that a strong belief in demons, coupled with experiences of trauma and moving to an alien country could have created a deadly

cocktail of events for the mind to play on twisting their fears in their sleep until their hearts could no longer take it. I'm not sure what idea is scarier, that this is a paranormal entity coming into our rooms at night and tormenting us, or that our brain is capable of scaring us to such a level that we instantly die, the organ that we most identify as ourselves, turning against its own body. In the 1800s, people in Germany were known to recite this prayer before sleep, to warn off the demons that the night could invite in. Here I am laying down to sleep. No nightmare shall plague me, until they have swam through all the waters that flow upon the earth. and counted all the stars that appear in the firmament.

Thus help me God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen. Maybe, just for tonight, it might be worth giving it a try. Unless that is, you are curious enough to let the Nighthack come and visit you. If you've enjoyed this episode at the tape library, you can support the series just by liking subscribing. The tape library is also available in podcast form from all your favourite podcast providers. I normally put out the audio versions a few days before the videos. So if you want an early look at the next episode, be sure to search it out on there. I've got so many creepy

tales I want to bring you all, so hopefully we can spend many, many terrifying nights together in the future. As always, thank you for joining me on this dark rabbit hole. Good night, pleasant dreams.