TYB
When I was young I had one of these horrible demon dreams where you are paralyzed. When I finally awoke physically and mentally, the song Losing My Religion by REM was playing. It was the single worst dream experience of my life. Subsequently, I'm not a fan of REM. Now I see that whole experience in a new light, knowing what I know about evil.
The Demon Attacks at Night: Explaining the Incubus Phenomenon
By Tereza Pultarova, Live Science Contributor | December 18, 2017
"During REM sleep, which is the period when a person typically dreams, the body's muscles are relaxed to the level of paralysis, presumably to prevent the sleeper from acting out his or her dreams, Blom said. But when sleep paralysis takes place, the person's mind wakes up — however, the person is still dreaming, and the body is still paralyzed.
"Lying in bed in such a state of paralysis, the brain's threat-activated vigilance system kicks in and helps to create a compound hallucination of a creature sitting on the chest," Blom told Live Science.
What the afflicted person sees is a combination of their actual surroundings and a nightmare, which is projected onto the real world. The experience feels exceptionally real, Blom said.
Tracking demons
In the meta-analysis, which was published in November in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, the researchers looked at 13 studies of the incubus phenomenon that included nearly 1,800 people. The different studies came from various countries, including Canada, the United States, China, Japan, Italy and Mexico.
The researchers found that over 1 in 10 people, or 11 percent of the general population, will experience the incubus phenomenon in their lifetimes, Blom said. "That means that there is an 11 percent chance for any given individual to experience this [the incubus phenomenon] at least once during their lives," he added…" -
https://www.livescience.com/61227-incubus-phenomenon.html