Dreams Gone Bad

The Truth Behind Midnight Hauntings.

- Jennifer Connor-Smith

You wake, sensing an evil presence nearby. Terrified, you force your eyes open. A ghastly creature hovers above you. It pins you to the bed, leaving you gasping for air. You attempt to scream but can’t make a sound. You try to fight but can’t move a muscle.

Definitely scary. But obviously not something that could really happen, right? Wrong. People face attacks like these every night. You could be next.

Nightmares Come to Life

You probably call all scary dreams nightmares. But the word originally meant a supernatural attack. “Nightmare” comes from the Old Norse word mara, a spirit that suffocated people at night.

People around the world tell eerily similar stories of nighttime intruders. Ancient Greek texts describe demons that immobilized sleepers. Ugandan stories warn of the emisambwa, suffocating spirits of the dead. Colonial American testimony explains how witches paralyzed sleepers and stole their voices.

For centuries, people attempted to repel these evil spirits using everything from salt to knives to foul odors. They consumed holy water, recited prayers, and slept with religious objects. Despite these efforts, attacks continued. No one could stop them because no one knew what caused them.

Surprisingly, the first real clue came not from a paranormal expert, but from a bored graduate student.

Cracking Nighttime Mysteries

In 1950, Eugene Aserinsky hated his job. He’d spent months tracking infant eye movements, a project he considered “about as exciting as warm milk.” He did find one bright spot. All sleeping babies have periods of 20 minutes without eye movements. Aserinsky loved this discovery because he could take a quick nap without missing any data.