when the call is coming from inside the house

Believe it or not, there's a scientific explanation for some of the world's most common and terrifying demons, imps, and ghosts. But it's not very comforting...

It's Halloween, a time to think about and celebrate everything scary, like ghouls, ghosts, and alien abductions, experiences reported by thousands of people who are sincerely convinced they saw something horrific and were unable to do anything about it. And here's the creepy thing. They really did see something terrifying and they really were paralyzed through their encounters with strange forces. It's a phenomenon known as sleep paralysis, and it's thought to be the reason why so many cultures how so many similar stories of apparitions and demons keeping people captive in the middle of the night by sitting on their chests or trapping them in their beds.

Sleep paralysis happens when different sleep states overlap. You might be vaguely awake but your mind is still in REM, or rapid eye movement sleep, and thinks you're dreaming. In REM sleep, your body is deliberately rendered motionless so you don't act out your dreams. Being stuck in this in-between state creates disruptions in areas of your brain that make you feel as if there's a presence in the room while your still ongoing dreams fill in the blanks, usually with something very unpleasant.

Women with inhuman features, dark, otherworldly figures, strange shadows, creatures sitting on chests are all common, and overlap neatly with tales of demons and succubi or incubi around the world. And in the United States, where alien abductions are part of the popular folklore, you get the occasional extraterrestrial encounter. This may well be why so many cultures around the world seem to be haunted by different apparitions and a wide variety of sinister creatures that nevertheless exhibit the same behaviors.

This phenomenon can happen to almost anyone once in a while, but some people suffer from chronic sleep paralysis, sometimes because they inherited it, which is an almost perfect explanation for generations of families haunted by the same creatures. So, the next time you think you saw a ghost, beings from another dimension, or an alien, don't worry. You're not being targeted by something horrifying. It's all in your head and there's a perfectly good explanation for what's happening. Too bad the explanation is that the eldritch evil lives inside your mind and there's not much you can do about it other than try to adjust your sleep schedule and hope you don't see anything scary...