Old Hag Syndrome

[bee]

This thread caught my eye because of my experience a few years ago...

So I've gone back and dug up a thread I made about it....

And copied some of the OP to share with you...

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=93810&st=0

During one night I was suddenly aware that something very horrible was happening. There was a massive weight on my chest and throat. I thought I was being attacked and that someone was trying to kill me. I was really scared and fought for my life...but I was helpless to do much, because of the power and weight of what-ever it was.

Then I was zooming through blackness, it was a very intense uncomfortable feeling as if I was being pulled by the pelvis/womb area.

I came to a kind of hole or opening, with jagged edges, looking down at me were people, who looked surprised and curious to see me.

Beyond them was a world of beautiful pastel colours.

Then I was back in my body. The weight and fear was still there. I went zooming away again and this must have happened about 4 or 5 times.

Finally it ended and I was in bed, feeling distressed, upset and wondering what happened.

I had not heard of sleep paralysis at that point... it never happened again...

[arias]

Yesterday my friend brought up lucid dreaming. It got me to start thinking more about

dreams. I was reading about false awakenings and supposedly there is a situation

where people wake up paralyzed and they end up becoming attacked by an entity, or

they sense a presence of some mysterious entity. This scared me at first but we

obviously fear what we don't understand so I looked into it more and discovered

situations where people have been around somebody going through this and they

have reported they have seen a black shadow or cloud of some sort above this person

while the person is stuck trying to wake up. Scientifically this is explained as

Sleep Paralysis that occurs when somebody wakes up halfway while they are still

in part of the REM (rapid eye movement) portion of sleep. This is the dream state

which occurs before you go to sleep and before you wake up. If you get caught in

this place where you aren't really asleep but you arent awake. Then just like

a hybrid you can have both features combined. Think of it like this. A Conductor is

sleep, an insultor is awake. Then what would a semi-conductor be? It would be just

as it is in the physical world. A mixture of both. This can even be related to

genetics. People with white skin and dark skin can produce a Tan (mixed) skin human.

Imagine being able to dream and be awake at the same time. You could produce unrealistic

situations in dreams like ghost, the ability to fly, etc. So it would be possible to

do the same to your mind if you are half awake and half asleep. Ofcourse it would look

very bizzare if you see a ghost in real life instead of a dream. But you have to understand

you are in both at once. I think of it like a glitch. Science says that during this part

of sleep your body is paralyzed to stop you from acting out a dream in your real body. This is

true but I think it goes deeper than this when you awake in a dream state. If you are in both

of these, a dream and reality. Then which would you move in if you were to move? Maybe this situation

makes it impossible to move, just due to the fact that you are in two places where there is nowhere to

move. It sounds confusing but if you think it out it makes much more sense. I am going through

a tunnel in my car from this town (sleep) to that town (awake). This tunnel has no name it's not

part of this or that town it is the mixture (Both Places) neither takes full ownership it only goes

from here to there. As I head through the tunnel , my car brake jams in the dead center of the tunnel

(sleep paralysis) and I cannot go anywhere. I'm stuck in nowhere. I see both towns (mixed dream/

reality images). But I can't go in either one. I struggle to get my brake released but it's no use.

I have no control over this. I just wait seeing things from each town while I am stuck in

between. Eventually the brake releases itself and I enter that town. I am awake. Back to

this whole dark shadow that more than the experiencer has seen this still isn't explain

by that story.. Perhaps it isn't a bad shadow, Perhaps it is the shadow of ones own.

The soul of a person has been thought to escape the body during a dream.

It also returns before the person awakes. We don't know much about the soul, so

we have no idea whether it is visible to only ones self or to more than one

person. This shadow does eventually disappear just at the time the experiencer

awakes this makes it a very valid idea that a soul re-enters the body and

then the person is able to awake and move once again.

[White Crane Feather]

Obes, REM , dreams. They all have very different brainwave patterns. You are not dreaming nor are you in REM when in sleep pralysis as defined by brainwave patterns.

[Randall Flagg]

I've always been fascinated by this moment of vulnerability, it is a place where so much yet so little happens and you are merely a spectator. I think there might be much more to it than simply being in line for your body to wake up fully. I have experienced it more than a few times, I am a frequent lucid dreamer and I believe you are more susceptible if you have odd sleeping hours and are more in tune with sleep as an adventure as opposed to mere process.

I don't really believe in the chest dweller but that is only my observation, I do believe in a visitor of unfriendly presence but I haven't felt threatened as such, just a little freaked and uneasy. I think this being has been present in both physical and dream realms, I am aware this could be my mind acting out and accept that as possibility though it seemed to have more substance than that. The inability to move is quite vicious in both dreams and our waking world, being motionless between is quite horrific but I suppose something you learn to deal with if it comes to you as much as it can do.

I have spoken with a few friends about such things before and one who is very against possibilities of supernatural essence believes she has been visited by something unpleasant as described by many as an accompaniment to such events.

Anyhow i'm going on but it is an area which compels me

[anonymous123]

I know people that defeated this thing and haven't return to them ever since. It is related to ghost, paranormal and spirit of dead people.

[White Crane Feather]

Yesterday my friend brought up lucid dreaming. It got me to start thinking more about

dreams. I was reading about false awakenings and supposedly there is a situation

where people wake up paralyzed and they end up becoming attacked by an entity, or

they sense a presence of some mysterious entity. This scared me at first but we

obviously fear what we don't understand so I looked into it more and discovered

situations where people have been around somebody going through this and they

have reported they have seen a black shadow or cloud of some sort above this person

while the person is stuck trying to wake up. Scientifically this is explained as

Sleep Paralysis that occurs when somebody wakes up halfway while they are still

in part of the REM (rapid eye movement) portion of sleep. This is the dream state

which occurs before you go to sleep and before you wake up. If you get caught in

this place where you aren't really asleep but you arent awake. Then just like

a hybrid you can have both features combined. Think of it like this. A Conductor is

sleep, an insultor is awake. Then what would a semi-conductor be? It would be just

as it is in the physical world. A mixture of both. This can even be related to

genetics. People with white skin and dark skin can produce a Tan (mixed) skin human.

Imagine being able to dream and be awake at the same time. You could produce unrealistic

situations in dreams like ghost, the ability to fly, etc. So it would be possible to

do the same to your mind if you are half awake and half asleep. Ofcourse it would look

very bizzare if you see a ghost in real life instead of a dream. But you have to understand

you are in both at once. I think of it like a glitch. Science says that during this part

of sleep your body is paralyzed to stop you from acting out a dream in your real body. This is

true but I think it goes deeper than this when you awake in a dream state. If you are in both

of these, a dream and reality. Then which would you move in if you were to move? Maybe this situation

makes it impossible to move, just due to the fact that you are in two places where there is nowhere to

move. It sounds confusing but if you think it out it makes much more sense. I am going through

a tunnel in my car from this town (sleep) to that town (awake). This tunnel has no name it's not

part of this or that town it is the mixture (Both Places) neither takes full ownership it only goes

from here to there. As I head through the tunnel , my car brake jams in the dead center of the tunnel

(sleep paralysis) and I cannot go anywhere. I'm stuck in nowhere. I see both towns (mixed dream/

reality images). But I can't go in either one. I struggle to get my brake released but it's no use.

I have no control over this. I just wait seeing things from each town while I am stuck in

between. Eventually the brake releases itself and I enter that town. I am awake. Back to

this whole dark shadow that more than the experiencer has seen this still isn't explain

by that story.. Perhaps it isn't a bad shadow, Perhaps it is the shadow of ones own.

The soul of a person has been thought to escape the body during a dream.

It also returns before the person awakes. We don't know much about the soul, so

we have no idea whether it is visible to only ones self or to more than one

person. This shadow does eventually disappear just at the time the experiencer

awakes this makes it a very valid idea that a soul re-enters the body and

then the person is able to awake and move once again.

Robert Bruce ( famous astrial projector and auther) would agree with you. He writes that it is an emotional feed back loop between your self and your astrial double. When you become aware of your astrial double ( the presence) you become frightened. that fear Is fed to your astrial self that then feeds it back to you increasing in a cascading event of mounting terror. Just like putting a microphone up to a speaker. Your imagination in altered states then adds all the demons and such. I dont necessarily agree but it's sn interesting perspective.

[Randall Flagg]

I know people that defeated this thing and haven't return to them ever since. It is related to ghost, paranormal and spirit of dead people.

That is interesting, I have not heard of people engaging in a kind of struggle with it. My friend said the thing actually got into bed next to her, a shadowy entity and it was half dream, half 'real' in that typical fashion. Naturally it could be the dread and still sleepy mind conjuring up events but it is interesting even without the possibility of supernatural workings.

How did they defeat it?

[Sthenno]

First off, doctors don't call it 'Old Hag Syndrome'. They call it sleep paralysis. The idea of the 'old hag' harks back to a time when evils from myth and legend were called upon to explain strange occurrences. The idea was that the sensation of a heavy weight pushing down on you was caused by an 'old hag' sitting on your chest. I've never come across any accounts where people claimed to have actually seen the hag, although I can believe that hallucinations might sometimes accompany the condition. Nowadays, we know the medical cause for sleep paralysis, so why the continued need to blame a supernatural force. To me, this is a bit like insisting that mental illness is caused by demons and can be cured by exorcising them...

[anonymous123]

That is interesting, I have not heard of people engaging in a kind of struggle with it. My friend said the thing actually got into bed next to her, a shadowy entity and it was half dream, half 'real' in that typical fashion. Naturally it could be the dread and still sleepy mind conjuring up events but it is interesting even without the possibility of supernatural workings.

How did they defeat it?

First, this thing is very raw in the sense that it is not clean, one form is dark shadow figure of a man or woman, other forms are as clear as daylight with every detail - of course he saw when his eyes were close. Like all things from the supernatural, some are out to get you while others are neutral or even help you. In the old hag, it starts out trying to get you. It happened to my friend since he was 14 all the way until he turned 21. Some nights he loose sleep because the minute his eye close, the shadow world takes over, so he rather not sleep at all. He knows when it is about to happen. He started experimenting, like what to do get out of it and not enter it. How to induce it. And most important how to move around in it. He said you move in this world through your mind because your physical body cannot move. Moving his physical body cause him to wake up. After 6 years of enduring these things, he decided to not be afraid of death from the thing anymore, he got sick of tire of this thing always trying to scare him. He went after it. It ran from him very fast, constant 8 ft in front of him. Believe it or not, this thing is afraid of death, if you are not afraid of death, you will defeat it and gain much control over this shadow world. If you feel like you going to die of fright in this shadow world, pray to Jesus.

[Alternative Delirium]

First off, doctors don't call it 'Old Hag Syndrome'. They call it sleep paralysis. The idea of the 'old hag' harks back to a time when evils from myth and legend were called upon to explain strange occurrences. The idea was that the sensation of a heavy weight pushing down on you was caused by an 'old hag' sitting on your chest. I've never come across any accounts where people claimed to have actually seen the hag, although I can believe that hallucinations might sometimes accompany the condition. Nowadays, we know the medical cause for sleep paralysis, so why the continued need to blame a supernatural force. To me, this is a bit like insisting that mental illness is caused by demons and can be cured by exorcising them...

Thank you Very apt comparison. I'm usually a strong advocate of people being allowed to believe what they will, but in this case it's a little too much like letting someone get away with saying "I think that my television is inhabited by tiny actors."

[markprice]

First off, doctors don't call it 'Old Hag Syndrome'. They call it sleep paralysis. The idea of the 'old hag' harks back to a time when evils from myth and legend were called upon to explain strange occurrences. The idea was that the sensation of a heavy weight pushing down on you was caused by an 'old hag' sitting on your chest. I've never come across any accounts where people claimed to have actually seen the hag, although I can believe that hallucinations might sometimes accompany the condition. Nowadays, we know the medical cause for sleep paralysis, so why the continued need to blame a supernatural force. To me, this is a bit like insisting that mental illness is caused by demons and can be cured by exorcising them...

I've seen it and it lifted me off the bed. If a supernatural force is to blame, then might as well blame it.

(no-one appreciated the black sabbath song )

[NYCdreamer]

A while back ITV screened a docu about people who had trouble sleeping, called 'Nights from Hell'.

Some sleep-walked, some lashed out screaming, but the one that interested me most was the young woman who says she sometimes suddenly finds herself awake in the night but completely paralysed, unable to move or speak.

Then a 'thing' enters the room looking like an evil old lady, it squats on her chest and begins strangling her, she then loses consciousness, and when she wakes up in the morning she's shaken but fine.

The amazing thing is that many people have experienced the same thing, they're always paralysed and its always an old woman who sits on their chest and tries to throttle them.

Doctors call it The Old Hag Syndrome, but they can't explain why its always an old woman, never an old man, or animal, or anything else.

The phenomenon is all over the net, just type 'Old Hag Syndrome'.

One possibility is that its a demon which inhabits a 'shadow-world' between waking and sleeping, and when it senses somebody has entered its realm by being only half-awake, it attacks,and in the darkness the terrified victims mind interprets it as looking like an old woman..

Well the moment I saw this thread I thought of the story of a young woman who told what happened to her with the old hag on this show 'Ghostly Encounters' and how someone on the set helped her finally break through it. It REALLY stuck out to me bc I felt she was truthful. However this show must have a billion episodes and there was no way I could remember the name of the title of this exact one to search for it on youtube. So for the HECK of it I just searched Ghostly Encounters on youtube and guess which story was the 1st one that came up? YUP, hers. Apparently its the highest viewing episode. I thought it would enlighten you a little more on this topic.. and anyone else reading. Enjoy.

(Maybe I was meant to find it and show it to more people for whatever reason, i dont believe in luck =] )

Edited January 2, 2011 by NYCdreamer

[anonymous123]

The whole purpose of the old hag experience is to force you to go into survival fight mode because you are frighten to extreme. Without sleep you cannot function normal during the day. If you don't go into fight mode, it will continue until you do and there are those that has went through it, defeated it and can get rid of it for you, but you can do it yourself. The next time this happen to you. Look it in the eye and let it know, you intent to kill it and will not stop until it dies, no matter how scare you are. That your whole purpose in life is to kill it and you don't care about being alive or dead anymore. The mind is a very powerful too. It's a weak spirit under that frightening cloak and all it know is how to scare you. If you are scare, it can somehow pull your string using your energy against you making it believable that it has that kind of power. If it's really that power, how come it did not come do it to you in daylight - because you will kick its ass and the rest of us will kick its ass for sure. Think about it, you are a ball of energy with a physical body taking in energy day, it doesn't have that energy, it is a dry spirit, a shadow spirit. This thing is weaker than a grasshopper, but still you cave in to this thing because it scare you, it is the weakest living force on this earth.

[SlimJim22]

The whole purpose of the old hag experience is to force you to go into survival fight mode because you are frighten to extreme. Without sleep you cannot function normal during the day. If you don't go into fight mode, it will continue until you do and there are those that has went through it, defeated it and can get rid of it for you, but you can do it yourself. The next time this happen to you. Look it in the eye and let it know, you intent to kill it and will not stop until it dies, no matter how scare you are. That your whole purpose in life is to kill it and you don't care about being alive or dead anymore. The mind is a very powerful too. It's a weak spirit under that frightening cloak and all it know is how to scare you. If you are scare, it can somehow pull your string using your energy against you making it believable that it has that kind of power. If it's really that power, how come it did not come do it to you in daylight - because you will kick its ass and the rest of us will kick its ass for sure. Think about it, you are a ball of energy with a physical body taking in energy day, it doesn't have that energy, it is a dry spirit, a shadow spirit. This thing is weaker than a grasshopper, but still you cave in to this thing because it scare you, it is the weakest living force on this earth.

Some spirits worse than others to conflict with. Given a chance I would walk away from the Hag because I am a father. The ancient connection has the Hag linked to child death. Something like that is not worth taking a chance with even if you are not superstitious. There is just too much we don't understand I'd rather not pee 'em off if I can avoid it.

Let's be clear though, I dreamt about a scary old lady when my daughter was born. Had a lot of lucid dreams with it but never had the paralysis too my knowledge. It started off like running through caverns but I think we ended up playing cards.

http://www.old-hag.com/

You can face fears without a fight.

[markprice]

Well the moment I saw this thread I thought of the story of a young woman who told what happened to her with the old hag on this show 'Ghostly Encounters' and how someone on the set helped her finally break through it. It REALLY stuck out to me bc I felt she was truthful. However this show must have a billion episodes and there was no way I could remember the name of the title of this exact one to search for it on youtube. So for the HECK of it I just searched Ghostly Encounters on youtube and guess which story was the 1st one that came up? YUP, hers. Apparently its the highest viewing episode. I thought it would enlighten you a little more on this topic.. and anyone else reading. Enjoy.

(Maybe I was meant to find it and show it to more people for whatever reason, i dont believe in luck =] )

A Shamanic intervention and a happy ending...thanks.

The hag always goes after kids, and if you don't have kids it will go after a pet until you fight back, or surrender to one of the purest forms of evil in existence; the surrender may provide some temporary relief/promise of power, but all that will eventually transform into hell = not a happy ending for some (notice the choice).

[Blackwhite]

Here are a couple of spooky but true stories from that great Scouse ghost story teller Tom Slemen. One concerning a young girl in Liverpool's Huyton area (which, apparently, has a history of mysterious tooth snatching) and another concerning four cases across the city.

The Huyton Toothsnatcher (a snippet)

One rainy night in April 2007, a 17-year-old girl named Amanda was startled from her sleep by strange sounds in the bedroom of her house on Huyton's Dinas Lane. The young Goth sat up in bed and looked around the darkened room, which seemed even darker because Amanda had recently painted the walls black. She could see no one, but she had heard what sounded like muttering and had definitely heard a certain creak near the right side of her bed, made by someone standing on a loose bare floorboard there. Amanda winced with a slight pain in her left canine tooth. It had been throbbing all day, and so she had tried to sleep off the toothache by going to bed earlier than normal, at 10pm. Once the teenager was satisfied that there was no one lurking in her bedroom (which she called her “Sanctum”) she cocooned the duvet around her petite body and drifted off into the realms of dreams. Even in her dreams, Amanda felt her toothache, and she dreamt she was deep in the heart of a forest, being pursued by a hunchbacked old woman all in black with grey hair tied up in a bun. The old woman wielded a pair of pincers, and Amanda knew that the elderly misshapen woman wanted to pull out her bad tooth. Amanda was naked, and when she ran off away from the old woman, she moved in slow motion. Every now and then, Amanda would see grotesque faces peering from behind trees at her in the wood, and at one point in the dream, one of these unearthly figures jumped out on Amanda and she awoke with a yelp, only to be confronted by something much more terrifying which has, so far, defied a rational explanation.

Read the rest here: http://www.slemen.com/toothsnatcher.html

The Old Hag Visitations (a snippet)

In March 2003 I investigated four sinister cases of 'Old Hag Syndrome' across Liverpool. The syndrome has been recognised by psychologists for many years, but no one is sure whether the cause is supernatural or simply the product of a half-awake mind. Victims wake up in bed to find that they cannot move, even though they can see, hear, feel and smell. They often experience the feeling of a great weight on their chest and sense that there is a sinister or evil presence in the room. This presence sometimes manifests itself as an old hag with evil-looking eyes, hence the name of this syndrome. A fortnight ago, a 27-year-old man named Tony woke at his home in Kensington at three in the morning and found himself unable to move a muscle. He panicked, as he struggled to breathe, then he opened his eyes - and saw an old woman with a black shawl leaning over him. She started to cackle, and she started to stroke Tony's face with what felt like bony fingers. The face of the night visitor looked very sinister, and the woman muttered something unintelligible. She leaned forward and began to kiss Tony, and a terrible stench filled his nostrils. He tried desperately to regain the power of movement, and he suddenly screamed out and pushed away the eerie figure. The old hag was nowhere to be seen.

Read more: http://www.slemen.com/oldhag.html

Edited January 2, 2011 by Blackwhite

[White Crane Feather]

That is interesting, I have not heard of people engaging in a kind of struggle with it. My friend said the thing actually got into bed next to her, a shadowy entity and it was half dream, half 'real' in that typical fashion. Naturally it could be the dread and still sleepy mind conjuring up events but it is interesting even without the possibility of supernatural workings.

How did they defeat it?

Grab it by the neck and pin it down. I jumped out of body once and fought with it as it was doing the classical open your door before it attacks routine. I pinned on the stairs outside my bedroom. It has never been back.

My personal beleif is that it is one of a multitude of tests slowly leading you to more and more awareness. Just me though.

Those of you saying doctors know what causes it are wrong. There are numerouse things that make it more likely , there are theories, but as to a consensus or proof of any theory, there are none. A current leading theory that might be testable is that there is a momentary drop in potassium. As of now the relationships between sleep, dreaming, hypnogogia, are simply not fully understood. We only have thories.

Edited January 3, 2011 by Seeker79

[anonymous123]

Grab it by the neck and pin it down. I jumped out of body once and fought with it as it was doing the classical open your door before it attacks routine. I pinned on the stairs outside my bedroom. It has never been back.

My personal beleif is that it is one of a multitude of tests slowly leading you to more and more awareness. Just me though.

Those of you saying doctors know what causes it are wrong. There are numerouse things that make it more likely , there are theories, but as to a consensus or proof of any theory, there are none. A current leading theory that might be testable is that there is a momentary drop in potassium. As of now the relationships between sleep, dreaming, hypnogogia, are simply not fully understood. We only have thories.

Yup, this one is the bridge between the physical and the spiritual. Once you defeat it, your psychic ability starts show itself to you and you become a psychic.