Sleep Paralysis or Paranormal Activity - You Decide

By Hamza Shafique (Instagram / Facebook)

Have you guys ever heard of sleep paralysis? Have you ever experienced it? I have once, and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. My logical brain tells me that it was sleep paralysis, but my Desi heart knows it was more than that, here is my account of it and I will let you guys decide was it just sleep paralysis or was it something more. For those who don’t know what Sleep Paralysis is, it is a state when, during awakening or falling asleep, a person is aware but unable to move or speak. During an episode, one may hear, feel, or see things that are not there. Modern day people usually assign most of their paranormal experiences to this phenomenon as it provides a sort of logical and scientific explanation to otherwise unexplainable things.

This happened to me long time back during my university days while I was visiting one of my uncle in Gujrat. I know it sounds dramatic but believe me, my uncle’s house is next to a cemetery and it’s not a regular cemetery. This cemetery is for unclaimed dead bodies at police morgue. As per Muslim beliefs such bodies are buried temporarily and are removed/reburied once relatives are found. Number of night security guards have resigned from their jobs and they claimed to have seen headless people going in and out of burial ground while patrolling the area at night.

There is a very small car porch between the walls of cemetery and guest room. I have been staying in that guest room all my life and have never experienced anything unusual and still go and stay in the same room.

Coming to my experience, one fine winter night I was at my uncle place. At around 11:00 PM I said goodnight and went to the guest room, the door of which opens into the living room. My uncle was still watching TV there. I changed, got under the blanket, put on my new tiny iPod look alike MP3 player/headphones and got comfortable. On left side of the bed is the cemetery wall after the car porch, the wall in front of the bed has huge window with view of small front garden and on right of the bed was the door to living room. I was too lazy to close the curtains of the front window and could see shadows of tall trees in bluish moonlight from the window. Close to midnight I heard my uncle loud from living room telling me that he is going to sleep. Every night he would close all lights and turn on small night bulb whose switch had a loud click sound that could be easily heard in the guest room.

So as per routine I saw light in the living room go out, next I heard the switch click of night bulb, but it didn’t turn on. Room got dark apart from the bluish tone moon light that was coming in from the window.  Suddenly the music I was listening to stopped and with it I got into absolute silence. I tried to look at my MP3 player but noticed I couldn’t move at all. My hands were still in the folded position from pulling up the blanket and they were stuck there. I tried hard to move or speak but I was completely paralyzed. Next, somebody pulled the blanket of me and I could see it sliding down but there was no one at the other end pulling it down. By this point I was super scared and, in my mind, I started to recite whatever Quranic verses I could remember. I was paralyzed in absolute silent dark surrounding and now was getting cold as well.

To my horror I saw a dark figure that looked like a women covered from head to toe in black abaya (traditional Arab women veil) , slide in front of the window from right to left and took a sharp U turn and came right on top of me on the left side. I couldn’t see the eyes, but it felt like it was staring at me. Then another dark figure appeared in front of the window and flew straight over me from my feet to my face and started stare at me in the same manner. It got so cold quickly and then I saw the third similar dark figure emerging to my right and it also started to float over me (staring down at me in the similar manner). I could feel my heart pumping so fast that it might explode out of my chest, my mind was reciting Quran in the loudest way possible and at the same time I was trying to break free from the paralyzed situation of mine. After 5 seconds that felt like eternity they started to make shrill sounds which felt like as they were discussing something. By this point I had already given up hopes on getting out of this alive. Very next moment, just like the way they appeared out of nowhere they disappeared into thin air. Suddenly my body got freed and as I was already trying hard to get up so as soon as my body got freed I got up in to the sitting position, breathing heavily, cold yet sweating. Music came back, and I could see the night light filtering through the door also, as if nothing happened. I sat there for a while, thinking on what to do next.

So once my senses and emotions settled down I went back to the bed and slept as my mind told me it was sleep paralysis. Next day I went back to university and when I reached my accommodation my roommate was watching “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and Rose goes through similar situation as mine in one scene. I still want to believe it was Sleep Paralysis but one thing that still puzzles me is that if it was sleep paralysis then who removed my blanket which was still removed once the whole thing ended. What do you think?