A guide to befriending your sleep paralysis demon

Imagine this— it's late at night, and all you want to do after a long hard day of either studying, working, or procrastinating, is to get some rest. So, you lay down, and try to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep so you can wake up and feel refreshed for the next day to continue your routine again. There is a good chance that you are successful and manage to get the rest you were craving.

Unfortunately, for many people, uninterrupted sleep is somewhat of a luxury. While there is a myriad of reasons for why this might happen, one reason being due to sleep paralysis. For those that remain unaware of what this entails, it is a phenomenon where the brain wakes up while the rest of the body is sleeping, so the body becomes helpless and immobile, while the mind is haunted by whatever demons it conjured up at that moment.

But what if rather than giving in to the demon, you decided to throw it a curveball by attempting to make it your friend instead?

To start this, first attempt to assert dominance over the demon. Most people generally prefer to hide from their demons, but hiding means that you are letting them win. Instead, have a late-night staring competition with the demon. Show them you are not scared of them, and they should at least start seeing you as an equal. If this goes successfully, they will retreat into the shadows and leave you alone. While this sounds like a failure, know that the demon will most likely leave with a bit more respect for you.

After you survive a few competitions, the next step is to try and talk to it. Since your jaw will definitely be locked, you won't be able to speak to it directly. So, consider other means of communication instead, for example, telepathy. You could send some good thoughts along their way and let them know that you just want to be their friend. Or, if you are feeling more desperate, just let it know straight-forward that your frail human body needs some rest and you want to be left alone.

If you're worried that you'll get cold feet and not be able to think of anything, try to write down some flash cards and leave them out for the demon to read when they appear. Even if it can't understand your thoughts or read, it is still worth a shot. In fact, it might even be grateful at the attempt to communicate — just because they're demons doesn't mean they don't get lonely, too.

If you've been assigned a particularly nicer demon, it might take pity or start to actually respect you, and leave you alone. A more stubborn or meaner one might continue to torment you, which isn't completely unexpected. If you have the energy for it, keep pushing on, and maybe it'll be so befuddled by your strange behaviour that it just leaves you. Besides, there's always the option to not open your eyes and ignore the demon until it disappears, just like we do with all our problems.

Namreen is sick and tired. Send a reminder that life goes on at namreen.shaiyaz@gmail.com