First Time Sleep Paralysis/Bedside Figure

Long-time lurker, second-time poster.

George Carlin said, "Nothing is as boring as listening to another person talk about their dream." I know that if anywhere that statement is not true and people ARE interested in each other's dreams - especially when it comes to sleep paralysis nightmares - it would be the GLP community.

Long story short: I had my first ever sleep paralysis episode which included a "visit" from the ubiquitous bedside figure. I am no stranger to nightmares or lucid dreaming; I have one at least one nightmare a month, and every three months or so, I have a nightmare so terrible that my mind has mercy on me – becomes lucid – and I am able to “divert” the attention of the nightmare antagonist until I can force myself to wake up. I was not able to do so this time.

I understand that shadow men and old hags are the most common bedside figures. During my dream, I saw a hooded figure, like a monk. Of course, I could not see his face, but he was definitely male.

In the dream, I’m sleeping in my bed from my childhood home. I open my eyes and the hooded-figure is standing to my left, in front of my bedroom window. It is night, but the moon is bright enough where I can see his robe is brown and he is holding a pillow. Again, I cannot see his face. He says, “Earth is being invaded. We are putting all of you out of your misery before things get too bad here.” I am not sure if he and his “kind” were doing the invading, or if it was something else doing the invading, and he was working for a third party. I did get the impression that there were billions of him, and one of each of his kind was in every household at that moment to kill everyone on the planet. He then started lowering moving the pillow toward my face in order to suffocate me. I did not get the impression that he was “evil.” Rather, the feeling I got from him was that this was just “business”. However, I think this is what made it all the more frightening because there would have been no negotiation, no pleading, no begging; he was simply there to get a job done – “they” ALL had a job to do, it was nothing personal. As usual, my mind tried to intervene because things were getting too scary. My mind tried to wake itself up, only this time, it wasn’t working. He was suffocating me with a pillow. Then suddenly, my mind woke up, but my body was still being suffocated. I tried to scream (in real life…I think) and tried to move to shake the last vestiges of the dream off, but I could not move. I was completely powerless. At last, my mind and my body finally synced, and I woke up officially, gasping for breath.

The nightmare aspect itself is not what's got me shaken up (this was FAR from the worst nightmare "plot" I've ever dreamed), it's the following that's blown my mind:

1. The absolute CLARITY of it; how 3-dimensional it was, for lack of a better term. The fear element was so REAL, that my reaction was stunned disbelief, which I believe is how I would react in real life if I were about to die, not just simple fear, but more like a "OMG this CAN'T be happening, not to ME!!" feeling. The plain old terror of “Aaaaagh, I’m being chased by zombies!” is almost cute compared to this.

2. The fact that I’ve experienced something that I’ve read about from many others, but not quite ever took seriously as a cultural-crossing event. It has been a challenge to my thought system. This must be what a person who sees a UFO or a ghost for the first time might feel like.

My question is this: did I experience something which for mysterious reasons millions have experienced throughout history, or did I dream this because it was embedded in my psyche due to reading others’ experiences?

Thanks, GLP! Sorry this is so long.