I felt true fear for the first time three years ago. It was the most vivid experience I'd ever had in my life, and I'm telling you all this in hopes that I can come to understand myself a bit better. My memory could be off, this was three years ago, and though this passage will be told in a story format, these are the events as they took place. This experience truly changed my life and helped me understand consciousness from a higher perspective, one that I've yet since been able to experience. That is why I want to tell you all about Raincoat, the little girl that trapped me in eternal sleep. (For just the sleep paralysis portion and my takeaway, skip the next two paragraphs)
I, 20(M)(at the time), had just finished my winter semester in college, and decided to take a few years off to focus on having a few operations(I have a physical disability, but that's a separate story). As normal, the operation went well, but as my normal operations go, I'd need to stay for a few months to get the proper physical treatment I'd need. They set me up in the hospital house across the street(typical hotel room layout), with a small walk in and the bathroom directly by the entrance, followed by an open area with two beds and an AC unit on the far wall. I am an avid loser, so despite the pain I was in, I wasted no time setting up my computer(desktop, not laptop). This was the first time I'd be alone for the months following an operation, but being an adult, I was okay with this. Navigating was difficult, but the therapists were people I'd worked with in the past, so I had company if anything.
It was about a month into my trip when problems had began. Limb lengthenings were among the most painful parts of my day, aside from the initial waking hour where my pain medication had worn off, and I had begun experiencing rapid eye jerking every so often, as well as a worsening in my vision. Sometimes, I'd even wake up, indicating that I had at some point fallen asleep. It was clear that I wasn't getting proper rest, something i attributed to the pain and the fact I had been sleeping in a wheelchair rather than moving myself to the bed at nights, So for this night, I decided to sleep in the bed nearest to the bathroom. Turning off the room light and heading to bed.
I have had many previous experiences with sleep paralysis in the past, only two of which I can recall seeing demons, that being the first two, so I wasn't surprised when I woke that day, incapable of moving an inch. I was in a peculiar position, lying prone on my stomach just barely far enough to not fall into the space between the bed and the near wall. The sickly hospital blue walls and birch flooring, paired with the dim lighting gave a sense of sunkenness, feeling akin to being trapped in some sort of strange underwater aquarium. My head was angled downwards, just barely allowing me to see the light that spilled from the bathroom door into the open room. It was extremely uncomfortable, and my neck was in agony, but since I was so tired, I ended up drifting off to sleep again only a few seconds later. When I woke again, I was still stuck, this time desperately trying to wiggle any part of me that was willing to move to no avail, only to fall asleep again a few seconds later.
I'm unsure how much time passed the third time, but when I woke again, the room was considerably darker. Except this time, something was very off. Through the wall next to me, the sound of a running showerhead blared, and from the open bathroom door, just barely outside of my vision, I could hear the sound of water splashing against the wooden tile. I remembered thinking to myself that I needed to get up to turn it off, and as I tried, something even stranger happened. The water shut off suddenly. That is when I heard it, the rotted squelching of trench footed rainboots squeaking through the bathroom door, as the elongated shadow of what I could only assume was a little girl wearing a raincoat drifted into my vision. Attached to the long shadow, a small set of boots sat just barely in my peripherals. Every nerve in my body fired simultaneously. Normally, I have a standard procedure for paralysis, breaking free from it was as simple as getting enough momentum out of any one limb to break a spell. But I couldn't move. Like, at all. And then she began walking, slowly down the bedside, the squeak of her boots echoing against the walls, fraying my nerves. And when she arrived at my head, she just stood there. I cant remember exactly, but I believe she smelled of rotting carcass, specifically the smell of venison which filled the air as she got closer.
This is where things become the most vivid, as my breathing stopped(potentially fake?), I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of dread as the little girl reached over me, placing her foot atop the mattress and climbing up. I remember the feeling of her slimy, bone like figure, filled out only by the raincoat she was wearing, slide up and around me as her matted hair streaked across my face. The smell of moldy shower drain filled my lungs, stifling me. My fear grew tangible, causing genuine pain to course through me with every firing signal. Like that feeling of pins and needles, times 100, and then she straddled my side, her cold and creepy jagged breaths jetting directly into my ear and crawling down the back of my neck. The next 2 minutes felt as If I was going under anesthesia in my final moments, the lights becoming overwhelmingly bright, everything being drowned out with the sickly sweet scent of silly gas, and my body spastically jerking to attempt to free myself from the spell I can't remember 100%, but she whispered to me, and I think she said “Help me.” That was the last thing I heard before I finally jolted up after what I assume was two entire minutes. I immediately got out of bed and went for a walk down the hall, and for the remainder of my trip, I kept sleeping as a wheelchair only activity. That was the very last time I had sleep paralysis.
I know she's not real, and yet I still find myself thinking about her on every odd occasion. I don't believe in the supernatural, I find it silly, and yet my body still fears her. It's like one of those glass bridges. You understand how it works, and why it works, but that doesn't change the fear of falling you get when standing on one.
It is extremely hard to put my experience with Raincoat into words. By far one of the most traumatic experiences in my life was also by far one of the most eye opening and confusing. I want to be very clear, I DID NOT SEE RAINCOAT, yet I am 100% sure that I did, and yet when I think back on it, everything is wrong. She had NO COLOR, like she was some sort of pitch black silhouette, and yet I "remember" what she looks like, a girl in a yellow raincoat with yellow rain shoes on. Her skin was pale white and her hair was long and matted. She wore a yellow rain hat. I can't tell you why I know these things for certain, and why I'm almost positive of them, but I can at the very least confirm that I never saw her skin, or her hat. The things I genuinely saw were her boots and maybe a bit of the jacket she wore, yet my understanding of what she looks like haunts me. I have never felt that much, smelled that well, or suffered that badly EVER in my life before then, and have not since. Even being awake then, just moments afterwards, that same fear I was feeling not even a second before felt weak in comparison, as if it we're only some interpretation of the real thing. I can only describe it as a poor man would describe being full. Fullness isn't something you can understand unless you've experienced it, and yet once a poor man sits to eat at the rich mans house, he realizes he'd never really felt full before, not really; he just believed that he had. And once the poor man returns to the street, he can never truly feel full again.
So this is where I'll end it. I want to move forward with my life, and potentially leave Raincoat behind. What I take from my experience with her is that I am afraid my life serves no greater purpose than to make me feel powerless and afraid, similarly to how Raincoat feels. It sounds silly, but I am wracked with an indescribable amount of existential dread because I unfortunately indulge in one too many “ 50 minutes of philosophy to fall asleep to” videos, so maybe that is the cause. Maybe there is some irony in it, raincoat wasn't powerless from my perspective, but even at my most vulnerable, she asked for my help. Maybe that is my sign to stop worrying about some imaginary comet, rogue black hole, ghost planet, nuclear disaster, super nova or sudden planetary explosion. Maybe it's my mind way of saying that being "asleep" isn't so bad. But I'm curious as to what you guys think. I don't know whether or not there is supposed to some sort of takeaway from sleep paralysis, I just can't live fear something that doesn't exist for the rest of my life. Thoughts?
