It’s hard for me to go to bed these days. I become terrified of what would happen when the lights go off and I shut my eyes. It doesn’t matter if I am sleeping alone or if there’s someone next to me, the same thing happens night after night.

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It always starts like a dream. Before I know it, I am trapped in a nightmare with a dark shadow. Even when I manage to escape and open my eyes, it doesn’t go away. It holds me down and tries to suppress me.

I have prayed. I have fasted. I sleep with my Bible in my bed. Yet this thing doesn’t leave me alone. It sticks to a time too. From midnight to 2:00 AM is when it shows up. By the time I wake up in the morning, I am plagued with a headache.

I am a man but I have become fearful. I literally shiver in fear when it’s nighttime. The scariest part for me is how I lose my voice. When it suppresses me, I try to scream. I would open my mouth but nothing would come of it.

Do you know how terrifying it is? To be held down by something you can’t see while your eyes are wide open? And when you open your mouth to scream, no sound comes out? Sometimes I scream in my head, “Jesus, help me!”

Some days it works. Other days, it doesn’t. There are even nights, when I feel its hands around my throat, strangling me. I have come up close with death during these times.

When everything I tried to fight it didn’t work, I decided I wouldn’t sleep at all.

“Since it happens after I fall asleep, let me see how it works if I don’t.”

Ladies and gentlemen, it has never been successful. An uncontrollable sleep befalls me. Whether I am lying in bed or sitting on a chair, sleep would come for me.

I don’t know what else I can do to stop it from happening. The last time, I was conscious while it strangled me. I couldn’t breathe or move my body to save myself. When it stopped, I was weak and too terrified to sleep.

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The next morning, I felt pain in my neck and the rest of my body.

I have read extensively about my experience, and I learned it’s a phenomenon called sleep paralysis. And that the dark shadow I see is a sleep paralysis demon. Well, how do I fight it? Or how do I stop it from coming back?

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I never experienced this thing growing up. I didn’t even know something like this existed. It was only a few weeks ago that I started experiencing it. And now my sleep is ruined. I don’t remember the last time I had a sound sleep. I have become miserable.

Does anyone know any way to help me? At this point, I am desperate enough to try anything.

—Bliss

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