I’ve been suffering from sleep paralysis for years. I wake up, I can’t move, and there’s an old woman sitting on my chest. My therapist told me this is what people normally see, for whatever reason. Nightmare literally means night-mare—the “hag” people see squatting on their chest sometimes when they wake up and can’t move. But they’re not normally like mine. Like my therapist said: “This is insane. Sorry, I didn’t mean to use that word. This is … abnormal.” Because my night-mare is not like any of the others (/r/notliketheotherhags). I’ll tell you what I mean, but first let me introduce my feline friend.
My cat is called Rosie (named after the purple tank engine because she meows like ‘toot-toot’ and she arrived from the shelter in a purple blankie). She’s crazy about bugs but not in a murderhobo way. She just thinks they’re neat, I guess. Rosie will follow them around like it’s a fucking phenomenon. “Toot-toot!” (Translation: Oh my god check out this bug it’s walking and it’s got little antennas and it’s greeeen???). So I thought it would make perfect sense to get a stick insect and have them be best buds because why wouldn’t you spend $500 on a twig-like critter, a terrarium, food, supplies, etc to make your cat happy?
So I named the stick insect (a leaf boy) Mr. Lucas and I introduced him to Rosie. Her reaction? She. Went. Bonkers.
The first thing she did was to assume the Code Red Protocol: freezing in an arbitrary (and clumsy) position. She looked at Mr. Lucas (through the terrarium glass). Mr. Lucas looked back. Slowly, Rosie looked up at me. “Toot … toot?” (Translation: why is the leaf moving? Is this witchcraft? Do leaves sometimes just do that?)
She couldn’t work it out. But then she seemed to get it. This was an insect. It looked like a leaf, but it was the most fascinating thing in the world: a bug. For hours she just kept watching Mr. Lucas do his thing and after a while I figured it would be safe to bring him out. He immediately entered Leaf Mode. It’s a defensive mechanism. But nothing happened and I guess he got bored because he started walking around and Rosie lost it. She ran around my living room like she was The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down, tooting harder than she’d ever tooted before.
Rosie and Mr. Lucas soon grew inseparable. One day, Rosie brought him a leaf. She probably wanted to bring him a friend. Mr. Lucas wasn’t interested—as long as he had Rosie, he was happy. Then he did something that I think confused her: he started munching on the leaf. I could see the cogs slowly turning in Rosie’s head and just then I remembered an anecdote from the guy who wrote and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are. A kid wrote him a letter, and the guy sent back a drawing. Then the kid’s mother sent a follow-up letter saying the kid loved the drawing so much that he ate it. The guy said it was the greatest compliment he’d ever received. I think you know what’s coming. Yes: Rosie let out a strange toot and she ate Mr. Lucas in one big bite.
I don’t know what it’s like being a leaf boy. Evolution made you look like a normal object, to keep you safe from predators. To trick them. But you don’t know that. You eat leaves, you walk around, you think leaf thoughts. Then you’re brought along on a journey to a new world and you make a new friend, and she’s big and hairy. You have loads of fun together. Then one day, she eats you. What’s that all about? Why did all of that happen?
Rosie seemed to realize what she had done immediately. She whimpered and she searched frantically for Mr. Lucas. She went outside, into the garden, looking for him in the bushes. But she couldn’t find him, and my heart wept for her. Of course I brought her a new stick insect. Sadly, it didn’t help. It wasn’t Mr. Lucas. She had lost her dear friend and she was inconsolable.
Now, I said earlier that my sleep paralysis hag is out of the ordinary. That’s a bit of an understatement. Because the old woman sitting on my chest when I wake up and can’t move is also my therapist.
We communicate via telepathy. Well, that’s the only way I know how to describe it. I can’t move my lips, but I can talk to her. And I do talk. A lot.
Our sessions are fairly brief, but intense. The first time it happened, she seemed just as confused as me. “Oh, I’m having that dream where I’m naked again,” she said. And I told her that, no, I was the one having a dream. We argued over it for a while. Then it kept happening and one day she told me she was a professional therapist. “I help people recover from trauma.”
“Like the trauma of waking up every morning with an old woman on your chest?”
“Old woman!? I’m forty! But also: yes. Stuff like that. You’re uncomfortable with this situation, aren’t you? Tell me more.”
She has actually helped me process a lot of stuff that went down in my childhood and I’m in a better place now thanks to her. Which is … weird. But anyway, back to the story.
So I was feeling really bummed out over Rosie. She’d let out sighs of toots and stare out the window, presumably thinking about her friend. I’m sure the situation was painful and confusing to her. I can’t imagine accidentally eating your friend.
My sleep paralysis therapist hag talked about loss and regret and all that, but I felt like it wasn’t all that useful. Rosie was the one who was sad. Not me. And I told her. You know what she said? “Why don’t you let me talk to her?”
It had never occurred to me, for obvious reasons. I know my therapist is a hallucination produced by my brain. At least I thought I knew. I thought hey, why not. I let Rosie sleep in my bed. Well, I forced her to sleep in my bed is more accurate. She likes to sleep on the ends of a curtain that’s too long and drooping over the floor a bit. That’s her spot. I have no idea why. But I brought her blankie with me and she followed, though obviously not pleased with the change in habit.
The next morning my therapist popped up as usual. “Good morning. Ah. So this is Rosie.”
Nothing happened at first. I just laid there, all paralyzed, like normal. But then Rosie’s ears perked up. And she looked over with her hairs on end. She hissed. Rosie never hisses. Not even when the neighbor’s dog slobbers all over the window, barking like crazy to get her attention. She’s a natural Stoic. But when my therapist psst-psst-psst’d her, she seemed terrified.
“Don’t be alarmed. I am a professional therapist. I heard you lost a dear friend.”
From my perspective, Rosie just sat there, in her Code Red Protocol position. But my sleep paralysis demon therapist had a full-on conversation with her, though I could only hear her side. “He was there and then he was not there? That must have been a scary experience. Yes. Of course. I can see why you might think of it that way, but from my point of view—”
They went on like that for a while. Then I regained control over my movements and my therapist disappeared, like always. At first I felt mostly embarrassed. Surely it was time I got an actual therapist. Though I didn’t know how to tell them why I was there. But Rosie remained in her clumsy position. “Rosy? Are you alright?” I said. She just sat there. Then she let out a soft toot-toot and she fell asleep.
When she woke up, she seemed … different. The post-Mr. Lucas melancholy didn’t seem to have entirely vanished, but she didn’t seem as glum as she’d been. She got her appetite back, she ran around the house chasing bugs, and she stopped searching the bushes outside the house for clues.
I was very relieved to see that something had changed, though I still can’t say for sure what happened. And honestly, I don’t care. Rosie is doing well now. That’s all that matters. She’s got a new stick insect friend (Mr. Cane, the walking stick gentleman) and I got my Rosie back.
Every morning I see my sleep paralysis demon therapist and every day I’m doing a bit better. Is it healthy? Probably not in the a-licensed-medical-professional-would-approve kind of way, but so long as me and Rosie are both doing well I think everything is just the way it’s supposed to be.
Oh, Rosie wants to tell you guys something: “Toot-toot!” I think you can figure out for yourselves what that means.