The Grim Reaper

ScarletBegonias

Dagobah Resident
Hello everyone,

A couple years ago I saw a grim reaper like creature in my bedroom while I awoke from sleeping, but my body remained in a sleep paralysis state. The thing was maybe four feet tall, it wore a black cloak with a pointy hat, and its face was a black void of nothingness. I remember seeing and feeling some sort of an energy transfer, like it was sucking on me in some way.

I was angry that I could not move and at that point my mind began cussing at it. Then I pushed my body up half outside of itself :scared: and pushed my (astral?) arms at it, but they whooshed right through the thing. I immediately became scared of detaching from my body and pushed back down into it ASAP and regained control over it again. However, I was traumatized and the hair on my arms stood up like a cat's and all the lights were on in my apartment shortly after.

One might view this as a bad dream, as I wanted to view it...but days after this happened I told one of my direct blood relatives that I had seen a creature that I could only describe as looking like a grim reaper. This person drew a picture of it for me and it looked EXACTLY like what I had seen. I didn't give this person any information to go off of other than that it looked like a "grim reaper," which would be good clues, but would not necessarily define it as having no face (just a blank shadowy void) and being short. This person then disclosed having experienced "night terrors" and also having seen a short creature with a black pointy hat and no face standing beside this person's bed. I then drew my version for that person and it looked the same, only faced to the right instead of the left. (At that time I slept on the left side of my bed and this person sleeps on the right side of theirs.)

The fact that this person claimed to have seen the same creature has both fascinated and scared me. Has anyone on the Forum ever seen or heard of anyone who has seen something that fits this description? Can you make anything of this? Perhaps it was 4D STS feeding time?

BTW I've read books on sleep paralysis and I've also searched the internet numerous times in an attempt to dig for information about sightings of the grim reaper, which I have found very little of. Since I've had about a dozen sleep paralysis episodes in the last couple days (though haven't seen anything) I've become inspired to share this story, FWIW...
 
Scarlet said:
Since I've had about a dozen sleep paralysis episodes in the last couple days (though haven't seen anything) I've become inspired to share this story, FWIW...

I used to have sleep paralysis, while occasionally sensing some entity near me. However, I never quite saw anything other than a fuzzy dark cloud.

The one thing I wanted to mention was that I would usually have sleep paralysis when I seemed to be opening myself up to such an attack. At the time that these 'attacks' were most frequent, I was experimenting with astral traveling and lucid dreaming. When I quite those activities the sleep paralysis lessened and eventually pretty much went away. I'll still experience it once and a while, but it is very very rare. Just something to consider in case you might be stretching yourself in a particular area which might be creating some undesirable psychic opening.
 
Scarlet, have you read the Dr. Karla Turner thread? If not, you may want to do so in its entirety. There is some very interesting things there that have happened to her, her family and friends, plus others who have contacted her with their experiences.
 
Thank you very much, Shane and Nienna Eluch, for these replies! Shane, I can relate to your experiences, because the times in my early thirties that I saw this and other creatures were times when I was very stressed out. I noticed when I was studying sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming and OBEs that these things would appear to me.

The days earlier this week when I experienced SP were times when I was napping, once in the late morning and the other time in the late afternoon. I didn't mention the dreams I had, but would like to briefly mention them now.

The first one I remember very vaguely. It was the end of the world and the aliens were coming for us. Everyone, including a close loved one, seemed to be making attempts to contact them through computers and the computers signaled them to arrive. The aliens arriving were STS and it was "game over" for the world. I woke up very scared.

The second one was very odd, because I was completely naked and running around with an infant child in my arms. I was trying to get away from something that would harm the baby and I kept missing train rides that would've taken me to safety. I entered a saloon that was filled with psychopathic personalities. I remember one face of a card dealer, a woman, and her face looked like something one would imagine a woman in a Picasso painting to look like. Her face was falling apart, very fragmented. She insisted I join the card game, but I refused and sought refuge in the restroom. I woke up scared again, but intrigued that I had dreamed of being naked (I don't remember ever dreaming that) and of carrying an infant in my arms.

Nienna Eluch, I just read the thread in its entirety and you have no idea how much this has come at the right time for me. Thank you so much for recognizing that it might be good for me to read the entire thread! It has caused my body to react with a heightened sense of anxiety. I have fought tears back and a little hyperventilating, but think I am okay now. I must study this information and I must fight ignorance. There are things the pubic needs to know...But first, I must regain control of my emotions.
 
Shane said:
The one thing I wanted to mention was that I would usually have sleep paralysis when I seemed to be opening myself up to such an attack. At the time that these 'attacks' were most frequent, I was experimenting with astral traveling and lucid dreaming. When I quite those activities the sleep paralysis lessened and eventually pretty much went away. I'll still experience it once and a while, but it is very very rare. Just something to consider in case you might be stretching yourself in a particular area which might be creating some undesirable psychic opening.

Fwiw, I agree with Shane's assessment here. I remember back when I was living with my (then) wife, I would get sleep paralysis on occasion. It seems like since she's out of the picture it has only happened a couple of times (once quite recently, actually). Of course, I've made a lot of changes since that time like going off gluten, starting EE, etc. so it could be a combination of things that helped. It seems like if you're engaged in any activities or involved with people that might be draining you energetically, this can potentially happen, osit.
 
Hello Scarlett, I've that experience too, more than once but no more. My take on that phenomenon is less spooky, and more commonplace than one would think - but just as fascinating. I have no support data to back me up, just personal observation. This could all be my flaky self speaking:

Starting with the premise that the body is a machine: I think that when the body does a partial shutdown during REM sleep it puts the muscles into a semi-paralysis, and under rare circumstances when you awaken and find yourself unable to move, the brain fires off a signal to the deep cortex memory bank . Not being able to lift a finger by one's will, we panic and my guess is that it pulls out of the memory bank library listings under "unknown terror" and projects them back to semi-conscious awareness. One's panic leads to another into an escalation - and we create a "presence" next to us, which is really our own mind's "shadow side". Doom, fear and helplessness are always with us, they just rarely make an appearance in our waking consciousness often.

Maybe at one time in early mankind the images were more immediate about DANGER: bears, the recently dead or even transdimensional monsters. Modern man is just so damn "modern" that he thinks he's ditched the gods and monsters, but they are all piled up in that gray matter waiting to be called up.

The shrouded Grim Reaper you speak about is universal - every culture has them, so they are part of our cerebral history. Maybe they are just "stage characters" your own mind pulls out from backstage to fill the gap of awaken-when-you-should-be-asleep moments. Terror is the Unknown and the mind always wants to fill in the blanks. The human imagination is a marvelous thing, as flawed as it is on so many levels, it still brings both nightmares and visions. When we recognize that we have met the monsters and they are US, we can begin to embrace the fragmented parts of our real selves.

With the exception of transdimensional "alien" abductions, which are a whole other kettle of fish, I'd recommend a simple technique to break this cycle if it ever happens to you again: command yourself to relax, and then mentally laugh in their faces. It sounds silly but it works. You send a mental imperative to muscles that disengages fear. Even if you were terrified that the hellhounds are going to drag you off to Hades, they can do no harm once you laugh because laughter is a kind of grace-under-fire mechanism in the mind. Remember the old Film Noir line from gangster movies? "COME AND GET ME, COPPERS!". Well your consciousness challenges the Shadow Side to do something - which it can't: It's a slide show in your brain, not a skeleton hand grabbing your wrist. Knowing that you are safe makes it easy to return to dreamland.

Sorry for the long rambling comment but it's my two cents.

Sweet dreams.
 
I can't find the exact quote, but in Levine's "In An Unspoken Voice", he mentions that sleep paralysis is a vagally mediated immobilization response. In his experience, for those who are traumatized, this experience can be terrifying (immobilization with fear). For those who are not, it can be blissful or just 'interesting'. I think this is a neat take on it. By dealing with our own trauma (he has some great exercises to do such in the book), perhaps we become less 'edible' or 'desirable' to beings that manipulate our states. So if there is reality to these perceived beings, making oneself 'inedible' seems the way to go and this can be done via diet and psychological work - removing the 'hooks' and openings these beings exploit.
 
RyanX said:
It seems like if you're engaged in any activities or involved with people that might be draining you energetically, this can potentially happen, osit.
Thanks RyanX, for your insights here. I can see how in my life when I have been stressed out it comes more frequently, but I also have episodes when I am not experiencing stress, like today for example. When I interrupt my normal sleep patterns is when I am more prone to getting it. I guess my brain likes routine and is slow sometimes, lol. ;P

NewOrleans said:
Starting with the premise that the body is a machine: I think that when the body does a partial shutdown during REM sleep it puts the muscles into a semi-paralysis, and under rare circumstances when you awaken and find yourself unable to move, the brain fires off a signal to the deep cortex memory bank . Not being able to lift a finger by one's will, we panic and my guess is that it pulls out of the memory bank library listings under "unknown terror" and projects them back to semi-conscious awareness. One's panic leads to another into an escalation - and we create a "presence" next to us, which is really our own mind's "shadow side". Doom, fear and helplessness are always with us, they just rarely make an appearance in our waking consciousness often.

The shrouded Grim Reaper you speak about is universal - every culture has them, so they are part of our cerebral history. Maybe they are just "stage characters" your own mind pulls out from backstage to fill the gap of awaken-when-you-should-be-asleep moments. Terror is the Unknown and the mind always wants to fill in the blanks. The human imagination is a marvelous thing, as flawed as it is on so many levels, it still brings both nightmares and visions. When we recognize that we have met the monsters and they are US, we can begin to embrace the fragmented parts of our real selves.

With the exception of transdimensional "alien" abductions, which are a whole other kettle of fish, I'd recommend a simple technique to break this cycle if it ever happens to you again: command yourself to relax, and then mentally laugh in their faces. It sounds silly but it works. You send a mental imperative to muscles that disengages fear. Even if you were terrified that the hellhounds are going to drag you off to Hades, they can do no harm once you laugh because laughter is a kind of grace-under-fire mechanism in the mind.
Thanks NewOrleans, for your thoughts here! I remember when I started to explain to others what I saw was when I determined the only thing I could think of was that it looked like a miniature grim reaper. It's just so weird that my blood relative saw it too, but that neither of us watch scary movies or focus on scary creatures. However, I recognize that we save images in our minds, though that doesn't explain the other creatures I've seen. This is the only recognizable one, well other than the "Joker" face I saw at one point in my life.

Thank you also for the suggestion to just relax. When I fight the SP my body becomes more entangled in the paralysis, but when I just relax it seems to fade away without a fight. :)

Approaching Infinity said:
I can't find the exact quote, but in Levine's "In An Unspoken Voice", he mentions that sleep paralysis is a vagally mediated immobilization response. In his experience, for those who are traumatized, this experience can be terrifying (immobilization with fear). For those who are not, it can be blissful or just 'interesting'. I think this is a neat take on it. By dealing with our own trauma (he has some great exercises to do such in the book), perhaps we become less 'edible' or 'desirable' to beings that manipulate our states. So if there is reality to these perceived beings, making oneself 'inedible' seems the way to go and this can be done via diet and psychological work - removing the 'hooks' and openings these beings exploit.
Thanks, Approaching Infinity, for this post! I have lived most of my life traumatized over certain things like events in the news, scary movies, things that have happened to me and people I know, etc. I just woke up from a nap and had two SP episodes near the end of it. In the first one, my eyes quickly scanned my room looking for any sort of a presence. There was none, whew! I rolled on my side and decided to sleep more. I woke up frozen and thought of yours and NewOrlean's comments. Instead of fighting to break free of it, I just laid there and became fascinated that I could see my arm, but not move it. I broke free without fighting it, but rather just accepting it, and this was a much more relaxing way of coming out of this experience.

Also, I would like to note that with every SP experience I remember, I have heard an intense ringing in my ears, felt a great amount of energy mainly in my head, but surging through my body, and also felt a tingling sensation along my spine in my upper back. Perhaps the fact that I have a reverse cervical curve in my neck (it goes in the opposite direction than other peoples') could be a factor, but I have no evidence for that.

So, I was thinking, SP is obviously related to a delayed ability for my brain to stop releasing the chemicals that naturally cause a state of paralysis while sleeping. However, I also think that these times must be opportune moments for 4D STS to make attempts to attack me. I've seen too many things I cannot explain otherwise, but maybe NewOrleans is right. Maybe it was like how it was for Laura seeing things when she was in her bed and that they were fear-based projections. But it's as if I see them before I get scared and seeing them is what causes me the fear, not just being awake and frozen.

As it is, I am happy to note that it's been over a year since I saw the last monster in my bedroom and I, like RyanX have noticed a reduction in the rate of occurrence after changing my diet to exclude dairy, gluten, refined sugar and alcohol. :) Scarlet :love: Forum
 
FWIW, I had SP quite often and it wasn't until early this year that I began to really get serious about Astral Travel and one day when falling asleep I found myself in the familiar "Crossing zone" where you can allow yourself to go unconscious or fight with your will to break free. For once I decided to just let it be (After decades of believing this was possibly a doorway to death or some terrible experience, believe me, it was not an easy choice), I was sort of testing my mettle as well as feeling a bit courageous. Anyhow, when I "let go" instead of fighting or feeling afraid I popped right out of my body. I don't consciously remember thinking about astral projection immediately before or during the experience though. I started to move towards my bedroom door in front of me but for some reason I felt fear of passing through it and somehow caused myself to go backwards which happened so quickly I went through the back wall and before I knew it was outside. I didn't like that at all and went straight ahead and I believe I rushed back into my body due to being in fear.

I had always assumed I would be able to control my astral body with the same exact thoughts as I use for moving around now but it was as if there was a slight adjustment that needed to be made, I wasn't able to spin myself around or turn, I was like a Joystick that could only go N,S,E,W but also straight up and straight down.

I started thinking this may have been a dream but over the next week I ended up projecting 5 more times.

The reason I bring this up is that due to my experiences I began to be believe this state of "sleep paralysis" is the threshold between the conscious and the subconscious and possibly a window into 4th density of some kind, not just a state between simply being awake and asleep, which is TECHNICALLY what it is. But isn't this the state practitioners tried to reach?

I read that Edison used to meditate holding metal balls in his hands so that they would drop into metal bowls if he fell asleep while meditating because the place he wanted to reach was the state immediately before falling asleep and it was so easy to slip right past it into sleep that he would be woken by the loud clanging sound and have the ability to retry.

There seems to be something connected with fear in this state, there always seems to be a panic to wake oneself fully however I kept allowing myself to stay in the state and what happened one day was stranger than astral projection.

I was laying on my bed and had the window half open. I began to fall asleep and started to experience somebody talking into my right ear. I just listened, didn't move, didn't try to speak, it was unintelligible EXCEPT while I was hearing it I understood what it was saying, only afterwards trying to remember, it made no sense. Then I began to feel my headphones had slid down and were on my chin, all of a sudden I heard the voice coming from the left and slightly tilted my head and saw three shadowy figures run across the small room then fade. As I lay there just listening I realized it must be extremely windy outside, it sounded like the trees were whipping around and I could see the branches and leaves thrashing. All of sudden I heard an extremely loud sound coming from my backyard, I couldn't make it out exactly but the closest I can come to describing the sound would be to imagine somebody taking a large dumptruck filled with Aluminum cans and begin tilting the dumper, allowing them to fall on to the asphalt. Except it sounded like there were several trucks doing this and it just kept on and on and on. I thought my neighbor might be dumping out cans on his patio but it was impossible, the sheer volume and duration of time the sounds went on...Well it was after hearing that I decided to get up and take a look around. The first thing I noticed was that my headphones had not slipped down onto my chin, they were on my ears like they were supposed to be...And there was no wind, nobody in my neighbors yard, no cans, nothing.

It was like the merging of two worlds. I'm sure there's some cold, hard, scientific way to explain it, some part of the brain switching on or off, chemicals doing this and that, etc. But that just tells us the mechanics. People so often mistake the explanation of how something works as being the explanation for what it "is", and what is happening, that's a big mistake.

Going back to the OP's "Grim Reaper" thing, when I was still in a crib, I would see a hooded figure stand above me and breathe at me. Scariest sound you could ever want to hear. I even drew a little sketch of it when I was 3 or 4 and dubbed it "The Standing Thing". Haven't seen it for many, many years though.

Like I said, for what it's worth.
 
Hi Cuchulain, please search the forum on lucid dreaming and astral travel. Both are 'phenomenon chasing' and, as such, are almost always a distraction from true esoteric awakening.
 
anart said:
Hi Cuchulain, please search the forum on lucid dreaming and astral travel. Both are 'phenomenon chasing' and, as such, are almost always a distraction from true esoteric awakening.

I'm extremely interested to know how deciding not to fight sleep paralysis is "phenomenon chasing"?

These things happened TO me, I didn't do anything but stay calm instead of freaking out like I've done for a decade and a half when I believed I would "End up like Jimi Hendrix", because when I was a teen I watched a documentary about him and a friend of his said that "When you go to sleep, there's two paths you can take, Jimi took the wrong one". That statement has haunted me for 17 years. I finally faced my fear and had no control over what happened.

Kind of like saying seeing a ghost is phenomenon chasing.

I think you misunderstood the meaning of my post but don't worry, I'm a terrible story teller.
 
Re: The Grim Reaper

Cuchulain said:
I'm extremely interested to know how deciding not to fight sleep paralysis is "phenomenon chasing"?

I didn't understand your post that way. You were actively experimenting. As you said yourself: "I began to really get serious about Astral Travel"

Cuchulain said:
The reason I bring this up is that due to my experiences I began to be believe this state of "sleep paralysis" is the threshold between the conscious and the subconscious and possibly a window into 4th density of some kind, not just a state between simply being awake and asleep, which is TECHNICALLY what it is. But isn't this the state practitioners tried to reach?

One doesn't really get far with beliefs. And why exactly a window into 4th density?

You didn't just ''stay calm'', you went on experimenting. Staying calm would mean to take these things for what they are and continue on focusing on what is Real in the present. The thing is, you won't get any answers during such travels, all you'd get would be beliefs and maybe's on what this could be or what that could be. Basically a great waste of time on your part, not to mention how dangerous it could be as well.

You also said that you listen to music before sleeping? The C's once noted that that can turn your brain into ''jelly'', perhaps that also contributes to your experiences during sleep. As well as nutritional deficiencies. So in the end you gotta ask yourself; what is more important to me? My health and well-being and the focus on my life in the real world? Or experimenting with Astral Travel, something I know little about and is basically a guessing-experiment? Let's not forget that knowledge protects and ignorance endangers... Just my thoughts here.
 
Oxajil said:
Cuchulain said:
I'm extremely interested to know how deciding not to fight sleep paralysis is "phenomenon chasing"?

I didn't understand your post that way. You were actively experimenting. As you said yourself: "I began to really get serious about Astral Travel"

Cuchulain said:
The reason I bring this up is that due to my experiences I began to be believe this state of "sleep paralysis" is the threshold between the conscious and the subconscious and possibly a window into 4th density of some kind, not just a state between simply being awake and asleep, which is TECHNICALLY what it is. But isn't this the state practitioners tried to reach?

One doesn't really get far with beliefs. And why exactly a window into 4th density?

You didn't just ''stay calm'', you went on experimenting. Staying calm would mean to take these things for what they are and continue on focusing on what is Real in the present. The thing is, you won't get any answers during such travels, all you'd get would be beliefs and maybe's on what this could be or what that could be. Basically a great waste of time on your part, not to mention how dangerous it could be as well.

You also said that you listen to music before sleeping? The C's once noted that that can turn your brain into ''jelly'', perhaps that also contributes to your experiences during sleep. As well as nutritional deficiencies. So in the end you gotta ask yourself; what is more important to me? My health and well-being and the focus on my life in the real world? Or experimenting with Astral Travel, something I know little about and is basically a guessing-experiment? Let's not forget that knowledge protects and ignorance endangers... Just my thoughts here.

Hi Oxajil,


First off, I don't want to make two posts...I want to apologize to anart, I didn't even say "Hello". It was late and I was having trouble sleeping, no excuse though, I hope you understand.

Oxajil,

I really meant what I said when I said I am terrible at telling stories, I'm a terrible communicator. I've wanted to take Communications courses at the CC for some years now but financial and physical problems have prevented me, I gained a little bit by reading some books and thankfully so, let's just say it didn't help much.

When I said it wasn't until this year that I began to get serious about astral travel, I was saying I didn't really believe it until it happened to me. I figured it was possible, I guess, but when it would come up in a book or on the web I didn't take it too seriously. You know how there seems to be levels of belief, you can read something or hear it and believe it with all your heart but it isn't the same as when you experience something. It was more like that, I assumed it was probably a reality but that some people may be lying or exaggerating or even confused and didn't give it much thought. Then one day trying to take a nap I felt the dreaded SP coming on and just relaxed instead of fighting it, like I already explained. Thats how it happened. The time when I heard the strange sounds and saw the figures was when I was trying to take a nap and there was no SP, I was just kind of bouncing back in forth from being awake and asleep, I think it's called twilight sleep or something. That time there was nothing to fight because I wasn't having SP and didn't really know what was going on until I assessed it all later. Basically, I think I was simply half asleep and partially dreaming.



As for "What is a 4th density window?" And highlighting "I began to believe". One simply tries to understand what has happened to oneself when strange things occur, not belief in the sense of a doctrine or tenet I hold, just my only available explanation at that point. I really don't know anything about this type of stuff, I'm a spiritual toddler. Poor choice of words on my part.

The point of my post was that I have seen or heard things but they always seem to be at the stage in between sleep and waking and I related some of the scarier things that had happened to me. I wasn't offering any concrete explanation for them or pretending to know much of anything about the phenomena I experienced, I don't know what a 4th density window is that's why I wondered, that I had possibly experienced one of those "merging" type things Laura talked about in the Wave since I also may have heard one of those loud booms they described back in 2004.It seemed like I was in between two worlds but they are overlaid on top of each other it would seem since all these things occurred in my "space". Again I am not claiming to know how to explain what happened, only what it felt, seemed or sounded like.

I don't listen to music while sleeping, I have some relaxation and sounds of nature type stuff for when Im having trouble sleeping. I was "programmed" a long time ago to believe everything was from the devil, literally everything having to do with the occult, spiritism, psychotherapy, hypnosis, etc. Even a lot of normal everyday things, I even had a pastor who thought photographs were engrained images... So I'm pretty well schooled in the art of not chasing phenomena :evil: but let me read what anart has given me and go from there and I will try my best to be more clear about what I am saying in the future.

It's easy to pick apart what somebody says, word for word, because frankly as a society were not very skilled at the exactness of speech, in fact, I think most of us talk too much and say very little and it frustrates me because I don't know how to fix it other than do what Im doing now which is to sit and go over and over and over, changing things to be more precise but I'm only able do do it now because you guys have questioned me about the things that were nebulous.

Anyhow, It hasn't happened for a long time now and I don't think I've had SP since those couple weeks in which these things occurred.

Take care guys.
 
Cuchulain said:
Going back to the OP's "Grim Reaper" thing, when I was still in a crib, I would see a hooded figure stand above me and breathe at me. Scariest sound you could ever want to hear. I even drew a little sketch of it when I was 3 or 4 and dubbed it "The Standing Thing". Haven't seen it for many, many years though.
Hi Cuchulain, and thanks for sharing your experiences on here! When I read that you had also seen something that you describe as a "grim reaper thing" I felt a sense of relief that I was not the only one who claims to have seen it other than my blood relative, who claims it must've been a dream. Mine didn't make any sounds, but I remember feeling like it was sucking energy(?) from my chest area in some sort of a spiral vacuum, if that makes any sense.. :huh:

Cuchulain said:
I really meant what I said when I said I am terrible at telling stories, I'm a terrible communicator. I've wanted to take Communications courses at the CC for some years now but financial and physical problems have prevented me, I gained a little bit by reading some books and thankfully so, let's just say it didn't help much.
I know when I've taken classes at college that I don't seem to learn nearly as much as when I apply what I've learned in "real life" situations.

This forum is composed of people from all over the world and some speak English more fluently than others. Since we aren't able to hear the tone of your voice or see the expressions of your eyes to better understand what you are trying to say, we must rely on the words that you've typed. So then, perhaps this forum would be a great place for you to practice your communication skills! Well, it's just a thought and thanks again for your posts here! :)
 
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