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 |  Subject: Is It ‘Sleep Paralysis’ OR SOMETHING ELSE ?  Sun Jun 05, 2016 7:15 am | |
| Is It ‘Sleep Paralysis’ OR SOMETHING ELSE ?
June 5, 2016 by SkyWatch Editor
 Some mythologies appear to allude to the sexual sensations that can occur during sleep paralysis—an element of the experience that research still doesn’t well understand. There’s the Mesopotamian Incubus, who presses down on a female sleeper sometimes having intercourse with her, and Succubus, her male counterpart. And, in Surinam, terrified night-wakers might be paralyzed and sexually attacked by an apuku (gnome) or jorka (ancestor). In certain countries, would-be sleepers are tormented by the dead or the unborn, who press on or pull at the body. In St. Lucia, an attack of kokma occurs when souls of dead children crawl on a person’s chest and try to choke them. In Thailand, a person can be phi um (ghost covered) or phi kau (ghost possessed). In Ethiopia, a Zar (ghost) might try to smoother someone in the night. While in Inuit cultures, a person can be subject to aqtuqsinniq or uqumangirniq when a malevolent spirit tries to possess a night-paralysed body. Japanese folk tales feature accounts of kanashibari (Japanese for “bound by metal”), a magical power belonging to the Buddhist deity Fudoh Myo-oh and wandering monks that allowed them to immobilize animals and people. The psychologist Kazuhiko Fukuda at Edogawa University in Japan has studied the connection between kanashibari and sleep paralysis, and explained to me that in popular TV shows from the 1950s onwards, the Japanese media started to use the word kanashibari to talk about the phenomenon. (READ MORE) |
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