The shadows never waited for me to fall asleep. They watched me from the moment I got into bed and the light was turned off. There were always two of them: one slightly taller than the other, both standing by the door in my room, as if to make sure there was no way for me to escape. The shadows simply stood there, watching. They never moved… at least not while I was awake.
I was seven years old when my middle brother, whom I previously shared a room with, graduated to his own bedroom. I should’ve been happy then, as I got my own space too. But the truth is: I HATED the dark.
We lived in a big house on the grounds of an old ranch that was developing too slowly, so all the plots around our house were empty fields, and our closest neighbours lived far down the street. Being so secluded, we had the most amazing views when I lay on the lawn with my brothers, looking out into the star-speckled night sky. However, that same solitude meant that my room was enveloped in an impenetrable darkness when I went to bed.
In that deep darkness, I shouldn’t have been able to see the shadows, but there they were. Always two. Always watching me.
I would lie on my stomach with my arms crossed under my body, and hold on to the opposite sides of my blanket, with the naive impression that my bedsheets could protect me from whatever these beings that stood in my doorway were. I held on so tightly that my hands would sweat, and my arms would go numb under the weight of my body, but I wouldn’t let go until I eventually fell asleep.
The house I lived in was beautiful. A spacious two-story with more rooms than we needed for a family of five, and a massive backyard. My parents had built it, so there was no history for the house to be haunted. But my overactive imagination was always on alert. Whether it was the weight I felt in the air when going up the stairs, the flickering figures I saw out of the corner of my eye, or the voices that escaped from the concrete walls at random intervals, there was always an energy I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
The stories our housekeeper told us probably didn’t help: tales about witches flying through the sky as fireballs, or appearing in mirrors with bloodied faces. El Coco, coming to take away misbehaving children, or La Llorona, who wandered the streets at night in search of her children, whom she had killed in a moment of madness, before taking her own life.
Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and have to pee, but I would hold it until the next morning (which embarrassingly meant I peed my bed more than once). But mostly, I just lay in the dark, the silence in my room so quiet that it pressed into my ears like a scream. I held my blanket tightly, with my arms crossed under my body, imagining the witches and El Coco, and La Llorona. Knowing that the shadows were there, even when I didn’t look towards the door.
My family moved to the coast when I was 10 years old, to a beachside apartment, where I once again had to share a room with my middle brother. From there, we moved to Canada, and although I had my own room again, I didn’t fear the dark the same way. The shadows had been left behind in the old ranch, maybe to haunt the next family, or maybe to die as the area developed.
But at some point in my late teenage years, I had my first episode of sleep paralysis.
I wake up suddenly, lying in bed. It is the middle of the night, so the room is swallowed in darkness when I open my eyes. I try to raise my head, or move my arms and legs… but I’m completely paralyzed. Panic begins to build inside me, and I try calling out for help, but I’m unable to make a sound.
And then, I see it: standing by my door, there it is. A single shadow now, but this time it doesn’t just watch me, but begins to move slowly in my direction. I try to scream, so my parents or one of my brothers will come to my aid, but I still can’t make a sound. I can’t move my hands to turn the bedside table on, or knock it to the ground to attract someone’s attention. I can only lie there, frozen with fear, looking at the shadow as it drifts to my side. It leans over me, stretching its hands towards my paralyzed body. The moment it touches me, my body shakes violently, and I wake up – for real this time.
Apparently, 1 in every 3 people will experience at least one episode of sleep paralysis at some point in their life, although it’s not always accompanied by the wonderful addition of hallucinations of the so-called “sleep demon.” Lucky me, for I got the paralysis AND the demon: my wonderful shadow-friend from childhood coming back to haunt me in my dreams. And I got to see it more than once, too!
Over the next decade and a half, my sleep paralysis became so regular that I learned to anticipate it, for see, it was always preceded by a nightmare related to darkness. I walked into a room at night, locked the door, and flicked the light switch, but the light wouldn’t turn on. I tried again and again with no result, and the more I tried, the more fearful I became. It was always a different variation of the same dream; always a losing battle against the dark. I would then wake up in bed, only to realize I was paralyzed, with the shadow slowly moving towards me. And when it reached out to grab me, my body convulsed, and I woke up again.
As an adult, I have a complicated relationship with the dark, and the terrors (real and imaginary) that hide within it.
To this day, I don’t like confined dark spaces… but I once went exploring a flooded cave in Guatemala, with only a candle for light (and this was after watching The Descent movie, by the way).
I sometimes feel anxious when I walk down a dark, empty street alone… But I also have been cruising at night – and I’m not talking about the relative safety of a dark room or a sauna. I’m talking about wandering around the trails of Stanley Park (just how La Llorona wandered the streets of Mexico in search of her dead children, but sexier). I guess there is a certain thrill now, when the shadow walking towards you has an equal chance of being your next trick, a nightmarish ghoul, or someone who’s going to stab you to death.
Today, if I need to pee in the middle of the night, I can make my way to the bathroom without turning on the lights… that is, of course, when my husband is at home. When I’m alone, I still turn my bedside table lamp on (but we’ll keep that between us, because it is kind of embarrassing). I also still never look at mirrors in the dark.
It has now been at least five or six years since I experienced sleep paralysis. But sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I raise my arm or move my leg, just to make sure I can. And then I look towards the door, half expecting to see a shadow or two there.
But I am 42 years old, so I know these shadows aren’t real.
Or, are they?
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