Devil's Grip

What an awkward and frightening title for a blog entry, isn’t it? Well in this post entry I’m going to share one of my spring break afternoon doing exactly nothing. And by nothing, I mean no movement, no talking… just laying down on my bed… Paralyzed. I was under the effect of the “Devil’s Grip”, commonly known as sleep paralysis.

It’s Tuesday afternoon, and I’m completely exhausted from jet lag. Even thought it’s been 2 days since I arrived. It is said that for each hour of jet lag, you need a day to recover. Three hours gap from Boston and San Francisco; that would make 3 days for me to recover. So I decided to take a 30 min nap that lasted 2 hours. Well this at least how I felt when under the “Devils Grip”.

How does it feel to be under his control? The effect may vary depending on people. Some people may experiment frightening hallucination. From a ghost watching you to raping, your worst nightmare just comes alive. As for me, “devils grip" doesn’t go that far. It feels like I’m completely paralyzed. It’s impossible to move any single muscle and breathing becomes an issue. It’s like you forget the feeling of moving your body and thus you don’t know how your body works. Your brain is conscious but your body is paralyzed. You’re crying out for help silently but everyone thinks you’re sleeping quietly. It’s a very frightening paradox. Only a single finger touch would’ve been enough to fully wake me up from this nightmare. But nope, I had to make my way through.

However, since I’ve experimented “Devil’s Grip” several times, I know a way to cope with it. It’s still hard to fight your way through but it worked for me sometimes. My body is paralyzed so there isn’t much thing I can do about it… I’m having trouble to breath but this latter is still kicking. And thanks to that, I’m going to exploit my airflow. So what I usually do is focus hard on my breathing pattern to regain full control of it. Then take deeper breathes to move your chest up and down and therefore to remember the feeling of “moving”. When the “moving sensation” is finally back, try to move a part of your body to free yourself from the demon. If I fail… Oh well, I usually just go back to sleep. Not a very big deal heh.