Frozen In Fear

When I was little (around five or six) I had my first encounter with the paranormal. The incident is a little foggy in my mind since it happened over a decade ago, but I'll do my best to recall.

I remember waking up some time in the night and I wasn't able to move; except for my eyes. I was lying on my side facing a wall, with my back to the door. The house was completely silent, which meant my two older sisters and my parents were all asleep. For the first couple minutes I tried my hardest to get up, but was faced with repeated failure.

In this situation I tried to do what any reasonable child would do. I tried yelling for my mom, but my mouth wouldn't budge. I was scared at this point and very curious. I remember thinking what's going on? So I stared at my white wall, unable to move, until I fell back asleep.

I woke up the next morning perfectly fine, everything was back to normal. I dismissed the whole occurrence as a bad dream and didn't give it a second thought.

Around ten years passed until the next incident. About two months ago I was lying in bed half asleep; then I hear my floor creak. As I'm about to get up to see what's there, I realize I can't move. I was terrified! I take a couple breaths to calm down and I start to concentrate. My body starts to move; with a lot of resistance. Slowly but surely I sit up in my bed and turn on the light.

I quickly scan the room to see if anyone is there. I found no one. With my mobility completely restored, I get up and check my closet and underneath my desk. Again I come up empty handed and alone. For some reason I still had the feeling something was there watching me.

Now standing in the middle of my room, I start to randomly turn around to make sure whatever presence I felt didn't somehow get behind me. After maybe thirty seconds of this I start to feel silly and embarrassed for doing something like that and I stop. I jump back into bed and after maybe an hour of listening to hear anything, I fall asleep.

Later that night I wake up again completely paralyzed. Well, except for my eyes. Only this time it was stronger. The best way I can describe it is as if it was holding me with a tighter grip. Thinking back to earlier that night I try to focus on moving my arm. As I tried to lift it my arm just started to shake. Similar to how your arms shake when you try your best to bench press a weight that's too heavy for you.

After trying so hard I started to get fatigued. I tried taking deep breaths, but for some odd reason my lungs wouldn't fill up all the way. It was as if something was sitting on top of me, cutting off my air circulation. Getting more scared as the seconds pass, I can feel my adrenaline rush through me. Beads of sweat start forming at the top of my forehead, as I continue to resist.

Then out of fear and desperation I grunt something out, and with all my might I sit up as fast as I can. The pressure was gone, and I was taking full advantage of my restored lung capacity. I turn on the light and look around. Again I find nothing. Only this time I didn't feel as if anything were watching me. Even without the feeling of being watched I was still horrified and reluctant to go back asleep.

Eventually I grew weary and slept (with the TV on). Since that night I haven't had any more experiences of sleep paralysis. Looking back on what I thought was a child hood nightmare, I realize whatever caused it when I was a kid probably caused it now. I'm very curious to find out what did this to me.

There are probably a few things I should mention that might help. For one I know it wasn't a residential haunting because between the nights when I was little to the more recent occurrence, I had moved to a new house about three miles away. Also, when the second night of terror happened I had gone through a rather harsh break up a few weeks before.

Could it be possible that my emotional state had something to do with this? For the first night (when I was a little kid) I can't remember my emotional state. Lastly, I can't remember exactly what I grunted. I am positive that it was either God or Jesus. Personally I believe that grunt was what granted me my freedom.

Any ideas?