Monster Holding Me Down

Witness: [Name Withheld Upon Request]
Location: Houston, Texas
Date of Encounter: Fall 2003

I recently came across this Web site and have been reading many of the stories on here. So I figured I should share as well. Just to clarify, I am Catholic… not very religious, and I do try to look at proof before jumping to any conclusions. My experience happened this one night in the Fall of 2003. I was living with a couple of friends in a two-bedroom apartment. Being a broke college student, I had to share a room with my childhood buddy. The guy is funny and he loves to scare people (I guess that's how he gets his jollies). Anyhow, earlier that week he left for work in the morning and said he had seen something. He was the first of us to wake up for work and it was before dawn so there wasn't any light coming through the windows. The only light visible was from the street lights outside — enough for you to be able to walk through the apartment without stubbing your toe on something. Well, from our room he walks through the hallway and it then enters into the living room (my buddy is the kind of guy who doesn't turn on the light in the morning because he's not a morning person and is overly sensitive). He says that morning he saw someone already awake sitting on the couch (a dark silhouette) but didn't really pay much attention thinking it was our other roommate. He asks the roommate later that evening, "Why did you wake up so early and just sit in the dark?" Our roommate gave him a confused look as to what kind of question it was. Needless to say, it freaked us out because the roommate had spent the night at his girlfriend's house.

A few days later (thinking my buddy was just trying to be funny and scare us), I shrugged it off. A following night later that week, we were sleeping. Now, I'm not sure what time it was and I am not really the type to wake up for no apparent reason (I'm usually a heavy sleeper), but that night, however, something gave me the chills in my sleep and my eyes popped open. I was sleeping on my left side facing the wall. I was trying to turn over because I felt a presence in the room. I had suddenly realized, I couldn't. Now, in my culture we have a term for it loosely translated "monster holding you down." I could not moved (just laid there on my left side facing the wall), could not speak or yell, nothing. Just laying there awake freaked out of my mind. Now, in psychology there is also a term for what was happening to me — they call it sleep paralysis. After fighting to turn over and using all my strength to call for my friend to help I was able to turn my head a little and look over my shoulder to his bed just a few feet opposite side of the room. To my momentary relief, I saw (what I thought) was him sitting up in his bed. I kept yelling for him to help me (even though nothing more than a gasp came out) thinking he was about to use the bathroom. After about a few minutes of trying to scream and the dark figure just sitting at the edge of his bed, I realized it was not my friend. He wouldn't just sit there and contemplate going to the bathroom. Plus, it couldn't have been him because the dark figure was way too big! It was then official — that experience I was going through could not have been "sleep paralysis." I was too coherent in thought and yet was in disbelief about what was happening. After seeing the figure at the edge of my friend's bed, I decided to just stop trying to understand, stop yelling for help, and stop trying to maneuver. I then fell back asleep (not sure how long it took to be able to) and then woke up in the morning. Later that evening, just to double check I asked my friend, "Did you wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom?"…he said, "No. Why?"

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