015 - Demons, Aliens, and Sleep Paralysis (WARNING not for the kids)

I know that I'm super late to the party here. But I'm working my way through all episodes and this one really hit home for me. When I was like 7-10 years old I was terrified of sleeping in my bed. I was adament that there was someone under my bed or outside my room just waiting to grab me. It all kind of came back to me when I listened to this episode and some things started making sense. I remember waking up after a short sleep at night, (my parents was still awake), realizing that my foot was not under my cover. It was exposed to the bad things. And I was too afraid to move it back under the cover. I just couldn't move it. And other times I just woke up terrified and tried calling for Mom but I couldn't. I wasn't physicly able to make a noise. In both cases it took a while and then I could move and call/scream. Now I'm assuming that I had sleep paralyzes and that probably scared the living cream out of me. I've spoken to my parents about this bit we can't remember when it started really. I don't remember any black shapes, but having that experience would explain why I was so scared of the darkness and being alone. Today I am a fully functional human who can walk past a dark room without speeding up and think about evil beings. 😁

Also, there's more material and recent studies over this matter. I have a lot of things to say about it, please answer me.

I hope Matt reads this. I just heard the entire episode, and I must say that everything you talked about has been a subject of serious research since the last century. Allan Kardec was the person who studied these phenomena and wrote books and many articles about the spiritism. Madam Curie and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were also involved with this study, although i'm not sure how the timeline went. I strongly advice you, Matt, to read The Spirits Book, that you can find on this link <a href="http://www.allan-kardec.com/Allan_Kardec/Le_livre_des_esprits/lesp_us.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.allan-kardec.com/Allan_Kardec/Le_livre_des_esprits/lesp_us.pdf</a>

as a new listener, I enjoyed this episode whilst travelling through the Highlands of Scotland with my son who is a keen listener to NDQ. Great travel listening thank you. Will be listening to more, for sure.

A Thought Experiment: At the end of the podcast, the discussion questions the motives of these shadow figures and the assumption is that they are evil and maleficent and therefore the question of motive vs. experience seems to be a real question since, according to the discussion, they merely frighten people but do no real harm. On top of that, each person seems to have been at a vulnerable time in their life where a slight push one way or the other will push them over the edge in their beliefs. This leads to a point that I believe Matt brought it up: why would a force of evil interact in such a way that the end result is that the person ended up being pushed to the side of belief? Now for my thought question: Let's assume that there is some spiritual aspect to these shadow figures. What if they weren't evil but in fact good or even angelic? Here me out for a second before dismissing this. Each person seems to be teetering in their lives with a very important aspect or decision many of which are related to belief. In the end, it seems each person has come out on the side of firmer or reignited belief. Matt is right, if these are evil creatures they seemed to have failed in their purpose. If this were so, these malicious entities would adapt yet we don't see this. It seems that roughly the same thing has been happening in roughly the same way for centuries if not millennia. I propose that in order to rectify these aspects of lack of adaptation on the part of the shadow figures yet the seemingly consistent result of pushing people closer to and more entrenched in their beliefs, we need to redefine the purpose of these entities. It sounds to me that these shadow figures are actually accomplishing the goal they have set out to achieve. They have “saved” people from relinquishing, faltering in, or apathy toward their beliefs. After these experiences, according to the podcast, the people who go through this have been reignited in their beliefs. To me, if you want to make the case that these entities have a spiritual aspect, it sounds as if these shadow creatures seem to be a force for good, not evil. One central focus in many religions is that humans have and must continue to have free will. By having an entity that seems evil but does good, it maintains the balance of free will. If there were an angelic being promoting good, or a demonic being promoting evil and it was believed, in the world we live in today, it would be a fairly easy case to make that the person no longer has free will. For free will to exist, there must be at least some doubt. Thus this seemingly contradictory evil entity.

Adam

In late 2002, in Bend, OR, I was in bed reading the last book in the Mustard Seed Series by Nancy Moser. After I finished the book, I read the author notes from Nancy about this series, people she wanted to thank (my wife worked for the publisher at the time), and her publishing process. As she talked about how she sends off the book to her publisher, she mentioned it is a relatively easy, albeit slow, process via fax. She had never had issues before until she started sending chapter 26 of this last book. It would not send. She tried again. Wouldn't go. She tried several times until she remembered what exactly happens in chapter 26. (SPOILER ALERT!) Satan is defeated in this chapter. Nancy wirtes she immediately gets down on her knees and prays for 10-15 minutes, all the while rebuking Satan. During her prayer, the fax starts up and chapter 26 goes through. She has no more problems with the rest of the chapters. I say all this to set up what happened to me. At this point in my life, I had only been a Christian for 3 years. I was on fire, devouring everything I could read, fiction and non-fiction. I had been experiencing some spiritual warfare in my life and marriage but it was all subtleties and background noise up to this point. I set the book aside now that I was finished, and grabbed another book to start (no recollection of what it was). As I begun to read, I started having feelings of unease, feelings of inadequacy and doubt I hadn't had in 10 years since high school and college. I started thinking about an old girlfriend from college, whom I thought I would marry at the time. Someone I had not thought about in years. All the feelings of how much I screwed things up came flooding back. Feelings of my marriage now being a mistake and how I needed to reconnect to that ex-girlfriend. After about 5 minutes of this, I realized I was being attacked spiritually. I had just read about Satan being defeated in Nancy's book, read about what she did, scripture came to mind about the liar Satan is and that he is only out to destroy all people. I jumped out of bed, knelt on the floor and started praying. The verbal attacks in my mind came harder and faster. I prayed longer, and harder and gained confidence in calling on Jesus to fight this battle. And just as quickly as it had all started, it stopped. Calm and peace entered my mind and all the lies went away. I got back into bed to start to read. At this point my wife awoke (she was in bed next to me this whole time unaware) and asked if I was OK. I told her briefly what had happened. We prayed together again, and then she rolled over to go back to bed. I picked up the new book and started to read again. I was filled with adrenaline and reading helped me get to my sleepy place. Now at this point I am not entirely sure if I actually fell asleep but I do remember feeling groggy as the reading was finally getting my mind to calm down. But as I read, I started seeing, out of the corner of my eye, up and to the right near the hallway entrance to our bedroom, a baby in a diaper crawling along the top edge of the wall near the ceiling. But this baby gave me a very strange sense of dread. While I could not look directly at it, in my periphery, I did ascertain it's face did not look quite right. It was more angular than it should've been and it didn't have eyes, just eye sockets. It crawled slowly and methodically along the top part of the wall, right to left. With every moment my dread and fear only increased. I kept trying to read but really I was trying to watch in my peripheral vision. I could not speak or move at this point. I could only shift my eyes around the lit room. But I could never look directly at where the baby was. It finally made the left turn along the wall and started inching it's way down the top part of the wall on my side of the bed. As it got nearer, it seemed bigger, more ominous, and it felt like it wanted to do harm to me. It started coming down the wall towards the floor next to me. At this point, I know I wasn't reading, I was watching it move, out of the corner of my eye, all the while, not being able to speak or move. At this point, I am reminded again of Nancy's book and the defeat of Satan. While I could not outright , speak and pray, I could in my mind, in my thoughts. I started praying, calling on Jesus. The baby started moving faster down the wall, it became angrier, even more hostile in nature. It went under the bed. I first felt a darkness from the under the bed but then I could see that darkness start to creep out from the bed and start to envelop the room and the lit lamp next to me. I YELLED prayers in my head. I YELLED 'Get out of this room Satan, you are already defeated and Christ compels you to leave this believer alone. You did not have governance over Jesus and you do not have it over me!" At this, the presence went from darkness to a form of a prowling lion and dragon type serpent mashed together and shot lightning quick up through the bed, through my chest, and through the roof, out of the room and out of our house. I SCREAMED at the top of my lungs as it went through my chest and shot straight up in bed. My wife awoke and panicked. "Are you OK? What happened? Was it dream but the light is?" I told her what had happened and didn't think it a dream. She prayed over me as I lay on her chest. Then I finally fell asleep. I am not sure how to end this but that is one of the most vivid memories I have. Not many things in my life do I remember every detail. This is one of them. And when I brought this up to my wife and that I was going to share it with this podcast, her look said it all. While she knows she was asleep for most it, her face turned serious - she remembers her strong, fearless, husband was in terror and she believes every word of it and that it happened and has no doubt something evil was in our home, trying to take down her husband. Thanks for listening. David

David Coutcher

Well played David. Very well played.

Yes! That's hilarious

Finally coming around to catching up with previous episodes. Enjoyed hearing Matt and Tara’s story. My iOS podcast app has an option to slow or speed up narration. Couldn’t stop laughing at 1/2 speed Destin and Matt sounding like a pair of stoners talking about demons.

David Cichowski

Working on Mere Christianity myself! Is that an Impreza in your avatar? Double thumbs up for you, big rally fan myself. When in doubt, flat out! :) Edit: Might be a Focus! Either way, both great shades of blue.

I just got done finishing The Screwtape Letters book and it was a good read. Crazy timing with this pod cast..lol

After hearing the pod cast and speaking with a couple of people I wanted to share my story as well. FYI, before hearing this pod cast I have only shared this with 2 other people and now I feel like maybe sharing is the best way to have some closer to this. Here it goes: Mine was also late at night in my dark bedroom. It was a shadow figure just like you described. It showed up in my room and hovered over me while I was lying in my bed. The eyes are still very vivid in my memory and this has been almost a year now. I also could not move. What I mean is I could not move at all, not even to lift my head or to move my hands. I was terrified and all I could think of was to pray and to keep praying. I finally was able to speak and yelled out “Jesus is my savor and you have no power here” after that it vanished. I also went through my entire house turning all the lights on. The reason I went to faith first was because I had an overwhelming urge to do so. It’s hard to explain. The next two nights I slept with one light on in my room and had a very hard time sleeping. I know this sounds crazy, but I also had the bible playing on my Iphone out loud. I had no idea if that would help or not but at that point I would try anything not to have that happen again. The one thing that stands out to me was the next week I was traveling on a missions trip to Uganda and I was thinking that maybe this was a demon trying to scare me from going….. Don’t really know for sure.. Thanks for letting me share and thank you Matt for telling us your story as well. I know for me it helped me confront this fear in my life. Destine I respect you fully and love your work. I also found it interesting on how you process data and events in your life. Listening to the way you analyze data(any input) made me double check the way I process data. For that I also Thank you!

Addendum: I've been on a bit of a C.S. Lewis kick lately and he would describe that feeling more as "dread" then "fear". I was getting goosebumps on my skin just recalling that memory from 5 years ago!

I love stories about things that go bump in the night...So I wanted to share my story. It's a bit different, but I'll never forget it. My wife and I were sleeping in our bed which was upstairs in the house at the time. My 6 year old son had a bedroom on the main floor. Around midnight one night she wakes me up from my slumber with a shove. "Joe, do you hear that?" I woke up and could hear footsteps downstairs, pacing back and forth across my hardwood living room floor. I start to panic and she starts getting scared too. I listened for a minute and started to realize my son must be pacing back and forth downstairs, but it progressively starts to get faster and more frantic. My wife and I started getting freaked out. Chills were running down my spine and I can tell she feels them too. I finally weakly called out to my son "Jeff?" As soon as the word left my mouth the footsteps rush towards the stairway and come up the stairs! thump,Thump,THUMP,THUMP! and then he's standing in my doorway staring at us. My daughter's nursery was the room across the hall and we had night lights on in there so he had an eerie glow behind him. We start calling his name, "Jeff, what are you doing?" He did not say anything. Just stands there silent, staring at us for about a minute and then slowly walks downstairs and went back to bed to sleep. I realized my son must have been sleepwalking at that moment, but both my wife and I felt real fear at what had just happened. I can explain the actions rationally and naturally, but the emotion of fear we BOTH felt when that happened...makes me wonder.

Hey Guys! I'm not positive about this but I've heard from a few different sources that the drug you mentioned "DMT" is actually found in small amounts in pretty much everything from grass all the way to our own brains and that small amounts of it actually get released in the brain during sleep basically fueling dreams. Obviously you guys and Tara would know way more about this but if that's true then taking the drug is basically causing an exaggerated dream/nightmare while being awake.

Haven't finished the episode yet, however Matt's story reminded me of a this american life episode I heard a while ago which may offer an explaination, very interesting! If you have time, have a listen to the prologue (about 6 minutes). <a href="http://tal.fm/319/0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://tal.fm/319/0</a>

Andrew Leonard