People often ask me why I am fascinated by horror. It's a complicated question to answer, but it relates to an early memory of mine that could easily have been featured in any of the books or movies that I've grown to love. I was about five, and in bed. I had woken up quite suddenly and was hanging on to my duvet for dear life while something at the foot of the bed tried to drag it off me. I don't know how long the struggle lasted, but it ended when I finally found the voice to scream and my parents rushed into the room to see what was going on. Needless to say, they did not find anything hiding in the gap between the foot of my bed and my bedroom wall, and yet, the same thing happened a few nights later, and perhaps a month after that it was not the duvet the invisible intruder was trying to drag away- it was me! Night time, and especially bed time, became so traumatic for me that I would flatly refuse to go upstairs unless one of my parents (or my long-suffering older brother) was upstairs too, because I was convinced that if I was alone I would come to harm and nobody would be on hand to help me. I also struggled to get any real sleep, waking up frequently throughout the night and experiencing all kinds of odd phenomena. Sometimes it would be a shadowy shape leaning out of the darkness to peer at me, which seemed to vanish as soon as I opened my eyes fully and would only reappear when my eyelids grew heavy again; other times, it was the distinct feeling of something heavy pressing down on the covers next to my ankles, as if something huge and unseen was perched on the side of the bed. I heard strange scratching sounds in the walls, at sometimes I would feel something jabbing at me from below, making my mattress bounce and shake. I did not have a single night of good sleep, and as a result, I was a pretty miserable and unpleasant kid.
But I adapted. I would take short naps on car rides to and from school, and I learned which of my night-time visitors were 'safe' and which were not. The dark shape looming over me? That one I could ignore, because it never got too close. The shaking mattress? That would require parental intervention or it would get worse, and I would scream for help as soon as I found my voice. It affected other parts my life, too: most children have imaginary friends, and I was no exception, but mine were the things I saw at night. That served to isolate me from my peers at school. Other kids imagined playmates from their favourite TV shows, or fantastical creatures from fairy tales; my most prominent imaginary friend was a giant, shape-changing black mass with glowing red eyes, able to take on any form (including what I can only describe as a nightmarish My Little Pony, because let's face: every five year old wants a pony at some point!) I grew irritable and depressed, and if I could avoid going to sleep, then I would.
This all sounds pretty fantastical, I know, but my parents took it very seriously. Both myself and my brother are adopted, and there was concern that my 'nightmares' (a term that sent me into a rage, incidentally, because I was sure I was not sleeping when they happened) were the result of that very deep emotional trauma. I was sent to child therapists, who I tortured at length with drawings of my disturbing imaginary friends. My school teachers were kept on high alert, too, trying to decipher what it was that distressing me. I was taken to doctors, who said I would either grow out of it or was acting up for attention. I was taken to therapists, who all agreed I was a very imaginative child but that there was no underlying reason for my night terrors. One tentatively suggested I should be taken to see a priest; I never saw that therapist again, and, knowing my mother (and despite her Christian beliefs), I am sure that the hospital received a very strongly worded letter about it. But the incidents continued, and my family adjusted. My parents would sit upstairs for a while when I went to bed and only come down again once I was asleep, and even our dog did his part, coming in to check on me at night or keeping me company if I was too afraid to drift off. On nights like that I would sit up and read, or watch videos on my portable TV/VCR combo. I can't pin-point exactly when I turned to horror, but I was definitely a lot younger than I aught to have been. The things I saw in movies like The Exorcist seemed oddly comforting, as if seeing other people being thrown off their beds by unseen hands validated the things I had experienced myself. I began seeking horror out, looking for things that matched up to what I was going through. I was looking for answers, and it seemed that only the horror genre was able to give me any.
I think it is worth saying at this point that I do not actually believe in the supernatural, but I did, for a time. I consumed any media I could find about ghosts, demons, and even alien abductions- anything I could find that shared any of the features of what I had been going through. I went from being the angry miserable kid to the weird kid, the one you don't go near much, or only talked to if you wanted to hear about something strange. I slipped into the goth subculture, finding comfort in the idea that the dark and the macabre could be beautiful as well as terrifying. I started scouring second hand book shops for anything I could find that I knew I wasn't meant to read, and the stack of books my teachers had to confiscate from me (I used to read in class, rather than paying attention) began to look like a veritable who's who of classic horror, including such gems as Stephen King's IT and James Herbert's Shrine alongside slightly more age-appropriate offerings, like the Point Horror series. At one point, I actually had three copies of Jaws on the go, because one of my teachers was so determined to take it off me that I kept back-ups hidden in my locker. I am a very slow reader, but it's amazing how defying authority can motivate one to overcome difficulties and finish a book in record time. But no matter what I read, and what I tried, the horror I saw on the page and on the screen did not come close to the terror that haunted me at night. And so I began to love horror for another reason: in books and movies, the monsters rarely win. The invisible presence is exorcised, the demon thrown back into hell, and- most importantly- the un-believed victim is exonerated.
My own exoneration came much later. I was around fourteen and attending boarding school when one of the house mistresses finally had enough of my disruptive night time behaviour, and actually sat me down to ask me what was going on. I was already in a separate room by myself since my night time habits and general demeanour (combined with the fact that I was starting to realise that I was not actually a girl) made me an unpopular dorm-mate, but I was still causing trouble. My room was above the house mistress's room, and I think the sound of me pacing around or yelling at the shadows (which was how I made them go away when I woke up) grew old fast for her. So, one night at about 3am she came up to ask me what was going on. She brought me tea, and made me tell her everything. She had seen the pictures of my old imaginary friends thanks to school art projects, and had read some of the disturbing things I had written for my English assignments, but she was the first person to put the pieces together and finally give a name to the demon that he been haunting me.
“Have you ever heard of sleep paralysis?”
Perhaps I had, in passing. Sleep paralysis is a common theme in many horror stories (including a few that I had read), being an easy mechanism to allow non-believers to discredit or overlook the plight of the victimised characters. I don't think I had ever realised that it was a real condition until then, writing it off as another fiction in my ever-growing pile of books and movies. The idea that the human body could mess up something as basic as waking up seemed ludicrous to me when I read it in works of fiction, but hearing about it from my sensible, no-nonsense house mistress was very different. She explained how the hallucinations were the mind's way of trying to interpret what was going on while the strange sensations were the result of the actual paralysis; without it, she said, people would wander around in their sleep- and that made perfect sense to me, since there was more than one sleep walker in my year group at that time. I don't think I can fully describe the relief I felt, and the anger and confusion. How could doctors and therapists miss something so simple? I am older now, and know that doctors are not by any means infallible, and there is one thing that the books get right frighteningly often: the concerns of children and teenagers are usually written off as folly. But there it was- I had my answer, and suddenly, the horrors at night seemed less horrific. It's just as it is in the movies: when you can see the monster- when you can study it and see the cracks in its make-up and the flaws in its construction- it becomes much less frightening.
After that, I began reading up on sleep paralysis, still looking for answers. I had tried to ward off the nightmare visions with some of the things I had seen in horror movies (yes, really), and they had not worked, but perhaps science could give me some relief. Ironically, stress, lack of sleep and agitation are known to make sleep paralysis worse, which meant I had been trapped in a vicious cycle for most of my life, with my own fears making it more likely that I would suffer an attack. I tried to combat these things, but it was only when I reached my late twenties and was given an additional diagnosis of sleep apnoea (along with a CPAP machine to help me breathe at night) that the episodes dramatically lessened. It turns out that my body not only fails to wake up and go to sleep properly: it also forgets to keep me breathing! The doctor at the sleep clinic said I had one of the worst cases he's ever treated, with my body attempting to counteract the problem by waking me up repeatedly throughout the night, each time risking another episode of sleep paralysis. But with a CPAP machine to help me breathe, I now only have that risk once or twice a night, and the nightmare incidents have all but vanished. As a result, my depression has lessened, and my mood improved. I can concentrate better, and have more energy. Most importantly, though, I no longer dread going to bed at night! It seems strange to think that I was nearly thirty before I got a good night's sleep, and as I look back, I find it hard to remember exactly what it was like to live in a constant state of exhaustion. Really, though, I'm just glad that it never killed me- something that is a real possibility for people living with untreated sleep apnoea.
There is another benefit to leaving my sleep paralysis behind however: I am no longer desensitised to fear. The feeling of terror fades fast when it is not linked to a present and pressing situation, and experiencing terror is exactly what horror gives to us. Whether it is the long, lingering fear of a well-crafted ghost story, or the visceral repulsion of watching a gory dismemberment, horror allows us to explore intense emotions that the everyday world does not- or rather, should not. And yet, we are still fascinated by fear, and the thrill that we get from experiencing it. So, if you ever find me sitting up at night with a good book, it is because I now want to be scared, and not because I am searching for a way to escape from fear.
But I adapted. I would take short naps on car rides to and from school, and I learned which of my night-time visitors were 'safe' and which were not. The dark shape looming over me? That one I could ignore, because it never got too close. The shaking mattress? That would require parental intervention or it would get worse, and I would scream for help as soon as I found my voice. It affected other parts my life, too: most children have imaginary friends, and I was no exception, but mine were the things I saw at night. That served to isolate me from my peers at school. Other kids imagined playmates from their favourite TV shows, or fantastical creatures from fairy tales; my most prominent imaginary friend was a giant, shape-changing black mass with glowing red eyes, able to take on any form (including what I can only describe as a nightmarish My Little Pony, because let's face: every five year old wants a pony at some point!) I grew irritable and depressed, and if I could avoid going to sleep, then I would.
This all sounds pretty fantastical, I know, but my parents took it very seriously. Both myself and my brother are adopted, and there was concern that my 'nightmares' (a term that sent me into a rage, incidentally, because I was sure I was not sleeping when they happened) were the result of that very deep emotional trauma. I was sent to child therapists, who I tortured at length with drawings of my disturbing imaginary friends. My school teachers were kept on high alert, too, trying to decipher what it was that distressing me. I was taken to doctors, who said I would either grow out of it or was acting up for attention. I was taken to therapists, who all agreed I was a very imaginative child but that there was no underlying reason for my night terrors. One tentatively suggested I should be taken to see a priest; I never saw that therapist again, and, knowing my mother (and despite her Christian beliefs), I am sure that the hospital received a very strongly worded letter about it. But the incidents continued, and my family adjusted. My parents would sit upstairs for a while when I went to bed and only come down again once I was asleep, and even our dog did his part, coming in to check on me at night or keeping me company if I was too afraid to drift off. On nights like that I would sit up and read, or watch videos on my portable TV/VCR combo. I can't pin-point exactly when I turned to horror, but I was definitely a lot younger than I aught to have been. The things I saw in movies like The Exorcist seemed oddly comforting, as if seeing other people being thrown off their beds by unseen hands validated the things I had experienced myself. I began seeking horror out, looking for things that matched up to what I was going through. I was looking for answers, and it seemed that only the horror genre was able to give me any.
I think it is worth saying at this point that I do not actually believe in the supernatural, but I did, for a time. I consumed any media I could find about ghosts, demons, and even alien abductions- anything I could find that shared any of the features of what I had been going through. I went from being the angry miserable kid to the weird kid, the one you don't go near much, or only talked to if you wanted to hear about something strange. I slipped into the goth subculture, finding comfort in the idea that the dark and the macabre could be beautiful as well as terrifying. I started scouring second hand book shops for anything I could find that I knew I wasn't meant to read, and the stack of books my teachers had to confiscate from me (I used to read in class, rather than paying attention) began to look like a veritable who's who of classic horror, including such gems as Stephen King's IT and James Herbert's Shrine alongside slightly more age-appropriate offerings, like the Point Horror series. At one point, I actually had three copies of Jaws on the go, because one of my teachers was so determined to take it off me that I kept back-ups hidden in my locker. I am a very slow reader, but it's amazing how defying authority can motivate one to overcome difficulties and finish a book in record time. But no matter what I read, and what I tried, the horror I saw on the page and on the screen did not come close to the terror that haunted me at night. And so I began to love horror for another reason: in books and movies, the monsters rarely win. The invisible presence is exorcised, the demon thrown back into hell, and- most importantly- the un-believed victim is exonerated.
My own exoneration came much later. I was around fourteen and attending boarding school when one of the house mistresses finally had enough of my disruptive night time behaviour, and actually sat me down to ask me what was going on. I was already in a separate room by myself since my night time habits and general demeanour (combined with the fact that I was starting to realise that I was not actually a girl) made me an unpopular dorm-mate, but I was still causing trouble. My room was above the house mistress's room, and I think the sound of me pacing around or yelling at the shadows (which was how I made them go away when I woke up) grew old fast for her. So, one night at about 3am she came up to ask me what was going on. She brought me tea, and made me tell her everything. She had seen the pictures of my old imaginary friends thanks to school art projects, and had read some of the disturbing things I had written for my English assignments, but she was the first person to put the pieces together and finally give a name to the demon that he been haunting me.
“Have you ever heard of sleep paralysis?”
Perhaps I had, in passing. Sleep paralysis is a common theme in many horror stories (including a few that I had read), being an easy mechanism to allow non-believers to discredit or overlook the plight of the victimised characters. I don't think I had ever realised that it was a real condition until then, writing it off as another fiction in my ever-growing pile of books and movies. The idea that the human body could mess up something as basic as waking up seemed ludicrous to me when I read it in works of fiction, but hearing about it from my sensible, no-nonsense house mistress was very different. She explained how the hallucinations were the mind's way of trying to interpret what was going on while the strange sensations were the result of the actual paralysis; without it, she said, people would wander around in their sleep- and that made perfect sense to me, since there was more than one sleep walker in my year group at that time. I don't think I can fully describe the relief I felt, and the anger and confusion. How could doctors and therapists miss something so simple? I am older now, and know that doctors are not by any means infallible, and there is one thing that the books get right frighteningly often: the concerns of children and teenagers are usually written off as folly. But there it was- I had my answer, and suddenly, the horrors at night seemed less horrific. It's just as it is in the movies: when you can see the monster- when you can study it and see the cracks in its make-up and the flaws in its construction- it becomes much less frightening.
After that, I began reading up on sleep paralysis, still looking for answers. I had tried to ward off the nightmare visions with some of the things I had seen in horror movies (yes, really), and they had not worked, but perhaps science could give me some relief. Ironically, stress, lack of sleep and agitation are known to make sleep paralysis worse, which meant I had been trapped in a vicious cycle for most of my life, with my own fears making it more likely that I would suffer an attack. I tried to combat these things, but it was only when I reached my late twenties and was given an additional diagnosis of sleep apnoea (along with a CPAP machine to help me breathe at night) that the episodes dramatically lessened. It turns out that my body not only fails to wake up and go to sleep properly: it also forgets to keep me breathing! The doctor at the sleep clinic said I had one of the worst cases he's ever treated, with my body attempting to counteract the problem by waking me up repeatedly throughout the night, each time risking another episode of sleep paralysis. But with a CPAP machine to help me breathe, I now only have that risk once or twice a night, and the nightmare incidents have all but vanished. As a result, my depression has lessened, and my mood improved. I can concentrate better, and have more energy. Most importantly, though, I no longer dread going to bed at night! It seems strange to think that I was nearly thirty before I got a good night's sleep, and as I look back, I find it hard to remember exactly what it was like to live in a constant state of exhaustion. Really, though, I'm just glad that it never killed me- something that is a real possibility for people living with untreated sleep apnoea.
There is another benefit to leaving my sleep paralysis behind however: I am no longer desensitised to fear. The feeling of terror fades fast when it is not linked to a present and pressing situation, and experiencing terror is exactly what horror gives to us. Whether it is the long, lingering fear of a well-crafted ghost story, or the visceral repulsion of watching a gory dismemberment, horror allows us to explore intense emotions that the everyday world does not- or rather, should not. And yet, we are still fascinated by fear, and the thrill that we get from experiencing it. So, if you ever find me sitting up at night with a good book, it is because I now want to be scared, and not because I am searching for a way to escape from fear.
ABOUT S R JONES
DEATH'S WHITE HANDS
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