@lalaladododo I like telling people about Belle Gunness. "And in the middle of the night, he woke up and she was standing over him in the dark, dark room with a candle, staring down at him with angry, twisted look..."

And now I'm trying to remember which female serial killer liked to murder babies with pins--oh, Nannie Doss, who killed both her grandsons. (One as a small child because she didn't like her daughter's boyfriend, the other right after he was born.)

@lalaladododo I read Belle Gunness's post thanks to the Hairpin about six months ago. I mean, the CSI/Mentalist/Criminal Minds writers would actually have a pretty tough time dreaming that up.

@A. Louise - That pic was giving me the creeps before your comment; now all I can do is laugh at it! Thanks, now I'll be able to sleep tonight!

@JanieS - I want it so much. You would probably enjoy the (not a mystery, but still amazing Codex Seraphinianus.

@leon s Why, yes. Yes I would. Because now I need to know those people having sex turned into an alligator.

@tofuswalkman I experience sleep paralysis on occasion. For the most part, I usually am just disoriented, temporarily convinced that I am paralyzed, or simply have a horrible feeling of dread before I realize what is happening and remind myself that I'll wake up fully soon. However, once, in a hotel room, I "woke up" and saw a little girl standing at the foot of the bed. I tried to tell my boyfriend and was unable to speak or move, only make a slight gurgling noise. Suddenly, the "little girl" moved towards us quickly and was nearly on my chest when I woke up fully and was able to move.

Since I have experience sleep paralysis before, and because I need to continue sleeping at night on a regular basis, I think it was sleep paralysis combined with a nightmare since I had been drinking throughout the day at a wedding. But, in the spirit of Halloween---WHO KNOWS?

@KatnotCat AAAAAAHHHH DO NOT WANT

@KatnotCat When I'm under a lot of stress, I'll have night terrors (and wake myself up screaming) but the only time I ever had sleep paralysis, I could hear someone outside shoveling snow and "opened my eyes" to see what time it was, only to see something that closely resembled a Nazgul standing beside my bed. And I couldn't move or make a sound.

Took me a solid month to get over the fear.

@Faintly Macabre In some ways, it's even creepier that it's the only time I've ever had a hallucination/night terror during sleep paralysis. Every other time has been distressing, similar to a panic attack, but not terrifying in that way.

I remember initially being confused (again, I had been drinking a lot that day) because I really thought there was a little girl there and I assumed she had gotten lost in the hotel but had no idea how she had come into the room.

It was a newer hotel. If we had been staying in some old inn or B&B I probably would've forced us all to leave at 3 a.m., no fucking questions allowed.

@MilesofMountains Me too! Mostly because in the grand scheme of things we have no effing clue what's really down in the deep ocean. I mean, WTF is this?

@Daisy Razor Oh, god, the audio of those sounds gave me the most terrible feelings.

@machinesss Sleep paralysis often? HOW DO YOU DEAL?
It happened to me for the first time a couple of weeks ago while I was visiting my parents. My husband hadn't come with me, so I was sleeping in their guest room alone when it happened. I woke up so terrified that, at 27 years old, seriously considered waking my mom and asking her to bunk with me.

@machinesss I used to get it a ton in high school; now I only really get it if I'm really tired and sleeping upright (like on a bus). Do you get hallucinations, or just the paralysis? I've never had a hallucination from it, very luckily.

@Faintly Macabre I tend to get it when I fall asleep, usually on my back, with the lights on or when I'm really tired. I have a highly irregular sleep schedule, take too many stimulants, and have anxiety and stress so it seems like I'm a pretty good candidate for it haha.
I used to get hallucinations of someone being the in the room with me (apparently according to wikipedia referred to as 'The Intruder'), sometimes someone I know or just something that I know if I don't move RIGHT NOW it's gonna hurt me. That's mostly stopped now, thankfully.

@etheline. It used to be really scary! But now it's gotten to the point that I am just freaked out for a few seconds and then go back to sleep because it's happened so many times haha

@machinesss Oh, I get it when I fall asleep on my back, too! I also get 5x more nightmares when I sleep on my back, so bad combination.

Ugh, that sounds really scary. After the first few times I got sleep paralyzed, I realized that relaxing and trying to wiggle a finger or toe (or falling back to sleep if I wasn't too panicked) usually broke me out of it, so I never had it too scary.

@Faintly Macabre: I've gotten sleep paralysis before, with auditory and visual hallucinations. The first time I got it I thought I was going to be abducted by aliens, no joke. Now every time I think I'm hearing the auditory stuff I have to tell myself "CALM THE FUCK DOWN, you're just sleeping again" and I focus on wiggling my fingers.

@machinesss - I might get sleep paralysis, but I also can't tell because I have frequent false awakenings?

Like, I will very often (let's say, about one night every 2-3 weeks?) "wake up" in my bedroom. It will be my room. I will get up. Things will (usually, but not always) eventually get surreal. Once in a blue moon I'll realize they are surreal, and all of the sudden, BAM - lucid dream.

But more often than not, things are getting weird (Common ones: I am running late for work and my feet keep falling off. There is an epic gatsby party in my house. Intruders are home invading me. I am frozen and completely unable to move) And then...I just "wake up" again. EXCEPT. Sometimes I have a lot of them in a row.

The "unable to move" ones are the worst. Because I have them, and I "surrender", accept the fact that I am unable to move, and 'try to go to sleep' - except, I don't know if I'm ACTUALLY AWAKE and it is sleep paralysis, or I am having a false awakening and in that dream I am paralyzed.

The worst thing is when I have a series of false awakenings. Because then I actually wake up and....I'm not sure if I'm for reals awake, or if I am just dreaming to be awake, since many things that happen in my dreams are just regular "Brush my teeth, get a shower, get dressed, walk to the bus, etc"....usually the dreams get weird within an hour or so of activity, so I assume by the time I'm on the bus or subway I'm actually awake, but for basically the first hour of every day of my life, I am not sure if I'm dreaming and about to wake up or actually living my life.

Uhhhhh.....that sounds really weird now that I say it. Does this happen to anyone else?

@leon s I get a mix of very mild sleep paralysis and slightly lucid dreaming as I'm waking up sometimes. I always think I'm "awake" until I actually wake up, but then once I'm really up I know it. It's not quite the same but I totally know where you're coming from.

@machinesss I hate it! I get it a lot. I got it the other morning. This was combined with a lucid dream I was having. Usually though, it's combined with me seeing things in the room that aren't there. Cpap device worked for a time, but then it hasn't for awhile.

@leon I get that sort of thing, except I have to fight to move. If I just lay there I will be paralyzed forever so I have to struggle until my brain snaps out of it (at least thats what it feels like, there's always a pervasive sense of panic so struggling is really the only option). Brains are weird.

@leon s

I have false awakenings pretty frequently--they're not usually stacked, although sometimes I'll have two together and then I'll wake up for real. They don't usually get weird; most of the time I just feel grumpy when I wake up for real because I already got up and got dressed, dammit!

@hopelessshade "The current location of her skeleton is unknown."

aaaaaaaaaaaaah

@Decca Jestyn told knew what was up, don't you think?

@Decca Oh MOST DEF. she does.

@Decca I know right? It's one the creepiest wiki pages ever, I can't even put my finger on why though. Although I read that some police officer knew more about a woman (somehow connected) who had an illegitimate child? And he wouldn't reveal who she was? I can't remember the details but that part made it all the more confusing.

@TheBelleWitch Editing ate my link! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_witch

@TheBelleWitch Mental Floss had a good article about the Bell Witch the other day that links to all kinds of goodies.

@aphrabean - So we get to burn Ke$ha at the stake then, right? Right?

@Ham Snadwich THIS IS SO CLOSE TO ME!!! Now I want to go find Goatman.

@kangerine My phone does this too! Maybe our future ghosts are.... calling each other? 0_o

@Nomejodas I could not handle that. Are you able to go back to sleep afterwards? Do you even want to?

@zaibi great