The Ominous Numinous: Symbols and Transformation in the Sleep Paralysis Nightmare

Abstract

The sleep paralysis nightmare is universally reported across cultures, from antiquity to modernity. Those who experience nocturnal assaults by demons, succubae, hags, and dark entities attribute them to evil spirits with various degrees of malevolence. Most report the experience as terrifying, overwhelming, mysterious and uncanny. Known in the neurocognitive literature as “isolated sleep paralysis” (ISP), or “sleep paralysis with hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations,” the phenomenon is fascinating to investigators, as it occurs concurrently when we are both asleep and awake, posing fundamental questions regarding conscious experiences in sleep. ISP is also considered a sleep disorder, something to get rid of or overcome. This study regards the nightmare of sleep paralysis as an archetypal psychic process—neither to get rid of nor to overcome. The phenomenon is explored via the heuristic tool of self-created art, which serves as a vehicle for archetypal imagery to emerge, revealing elements missing from conscious view. Sound and music are equally considered alongside image. Through the hermeneutic lenses of Jungian psychology, Tibetan dream yoga, and mythopoesis, this particular dream, which is universally experienced as a terrifying nightmare, presents transformative potential for psychological and spiritual growth and can have an individuating effect on dreamers. The study offers depth psychological insight into fear of death, psychic phenomenon, shamanic initiation, non-ordinary states of consciousness, and spirituality, suggesting further possibilities of study that may bridge the fields of depth psychology, anthropology and neuroscience.