TESTIMONY #1
(Recorded cases of vampire attacks in Eastern Europe sometimes feature Old Hag characteristics. For example, a case cited by both Montague Summers and Dr. Franz Hartmann features, as Summers notes, "typical instances of vampirism" and strongly resembles the Old Hag encounter:
A miller had a healthy servant-boy, who soon after entering his service began to fail. He acquired a ravenous appetite, but nevertheless grew daily more feeble and emaciated. Being interrogated, he at last confessed that a thing which he could no see, but which he could plainly feel, came to him every night about twelve o'clock and settled upon his chest, drawing all the life out of him, so that he became paralyzed for the time being, and neither could move nor cry out. Thereupon the miller agreed to share the bed with the boy, and made him promise that he should give a certain sign when the vampire arrived. This was done, and when the signal was made the miller putting out his hands grasped an invisible but very tangible substance that rested upon the boy's chest. He described it as apparently elliptical in shape, and to the touch feeling like gelatin, properties which suggest an ectoplasmic formation. The thing writhed and fiercely struggled to escape, but he gripped it firmly and threw it on the fire. After that the boy recovered, and there was an end of these visits.

MY COMMENTS:
Nothing compares to witnessing the attack, of course such accounts of witnesses like the victims spouse and so on are not considered with the ‘white coats’ babble on again how it was all SP and some hallucination.

TESTIMONY #2
When I was a freshman in college, I had just moved into a large apartment in a rehabbed Victorian building that had been vacant for about twenty years following a fire. The sound of the Beatles' Abbey Road album or the Moody Blues could be heard wafting out of our windows day and night. One night during my first week there I went to bed in a fine mood. I should mention that I hadn't been drinking and despite the times, I didn't do drugs. I turned out the light and settled down to go to sleep. As I was lying in bed thinking, I became aware of a rustling sound emanating from the turret . I focused on the sound, trying to determine its origins. A breeze over papers? A mouse? As soon as I dismissed these possibilities the rustling sound stopped and was replaced by the sound of stealthy, shuffling footsteps that were headed in my direction. The sense of a presence was suddenly so strong that it filled the room. I was terrified. The critical detail here is that I clearly remember pulling the blanket over my head (I was lying on my back.) The next thing I knew I was paralyzed--I couldn't move a finger. The footsteps continued their approach and the next thing I knew, a tremendous weight settled on my chest, forcing me into the mattress. I felt that there was a menacing presence, a personality at work that wanted to meddle with me in particular. It was nasty! The intense, dreadful weight continued to press down on me, almost like a large animal settling itself on my body. I thought I would go through the mattress. I knew that I was awake, I was not dreaming, and that something evil was in the room with me. Somehow, my childhood years of Sunday School paid off and I prayed to be released. In that instant, it was over. The following morning, I tried to tell myself that it had been just a dream.To this day, twenty-odd years later, I don't believe I was dreaming.. After that, I slept with the light on and my bedroom door open. Months later, one of my roommates was sick with the flu. Her room was cold so I offered to switch with her until she felt better. That night, she stayed in my room and closed the pocket doors. The rest of us were watching TV. elsewhere in the apartment. A number of friends were there. Sometime after midnight, we heard the doors of my room screech open on their runners and slam into their recesses in the wall. My roommate came screaming down the hall, saying that something had sat on the bed. She felt the bed sag beneath the weight, though in her case, it wasn't on top of her. She also felt and heard something clawing and scraping at the bedspread. After my roommate's experience, we two scaredy-cats decided to share a room and kept the hall light on. Though nothing like that ever happened again, we did have some exciting times with a Ouija board in that apartment. We left that place at the end of the school year and found another old apartment that proved to be just fine. The students who moved into our former place reportedly had problems there, too. Unfortunately, we never compared stories. I should mention that my fascination with the subject of ghosts led to my getting a Masters degree in Folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. While there I studied with Dr. David Hufford, who wrote The Terror That Comes In The Night. I wrote a thesis entitled "The Old Hag Experience Within A Haunted House Tradition." I found people who claimed that more than one member of their family experienced variations of the Old Hag within the same house. They only discovered much later that they had shared similar experiences while living there. I also interviewed two people whose Old Hag attacks precipitated out-of-body experiences. IMHO Old Hag attacks occur, or at least are reported more frequently in settings that are considered "haunted." This may be a case of "Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?" Does a house with a reputation of being haunted encourage someone to interpret the experience as supernatural or does the experience itself promote the house to be called haunted? In poring over collections of both contemporary and past ghost folklore from around the world, I noticed that Old Hag attacks accompany other manifestations with startling frequency. I also found that elements of a typical "Old Hag," like the rustling sound, the sound of footsteps or the percipient suffering temporary paralysis, are elements commonly mentioned by people who report seeing an apparition, even in broad daylight. Hufford's book should be read by anyone interested in the Old Hag. Although riveting to read, it is scholarly and gives medical science its due. No conclusions are drawn. If you do read it, however, you may choose never to sleep on your back again.

Fuseli: L'incubo abbandona il giaciglio di due fanciulle dormienti, 1793, Zurigo, Muraltengut

MY COMMENTS:
We see Prayers either are an instant cure for SP, or do as they usually do in warding off real ‘night terrors’ that attack one in the night. This also reminds me that those who experienced the OLD HAG are the ones best to analysis and research the phenomenon.

Medical “Sleep paralysis”, (cataleptic somnambulism) I feel is more clearly defined from
what is a demonic attack. First realize this is ALWAYS the scientific explanation for what they used to call an OLD HAG, vampire, Succubus, Incubus visitation.
You must consider the source of the explanation as they are in a ‘humanistic’ ‘atheistic’ theory, from people who believe that everything supernatural in origin is not an intelligent ghost or spirit, but has a natural explanation.

Logically, I thought my first thought if I would wake up paralyzed in bed.
Would be OH MY GOD! I AM PARALIZED!

“There’s something evil ion the room, it’s coming out of the darkness, oh! It’s sitting on my chest I can’t breath!”

See the difference?

Le démon d'homme qui vous baise la nuit

A Testimony related to this:

Frank, 40, awoke late one and was unable to move his body .I cite this example, since it can compare with what a person is thinking, feeling, experiencing as they awake paralyzed. This should NOT stray far from any other persons account of waking up paralysis by any means. His first thought was: "Oh my God, I can't move!" It wasn't a fear of something beyond being paralyzed, he didn't sense an evil presence, hear disembodied footsteps walking towards his bedside, view an OLD HAG, creature, ghost or anything. Such thought were the furthest from his mind. Like all humans the experience had him fearing of things related to being paralyzed, nothing more. He was only focused on the helpless feeling of being disabled, especially since this took him by surprise, as he didn't find out until later after a trip to the hospital , that he had a stroke. He thought of how is he going to work? What about the family? Will he be in a wheel chair the rest of his life? "Will I die next?" All of this in the first 5 minutes.Note how the reaction of waking up simply paralyzed is different, from experiencing the OLD HAG attack.Tell me where one suddenly gets diverted form the thought of being paralyzed to that of a paranormal encounter considered a physical attack?A thing learned here is as an investigator, listen to your witness closely and you can tell if it was ‘medical’ or in fact ‘paranormal.’ It is beyond normal to fabricate a night terror from the thought of being incapacitated the rest of ones life. Science always goes with science, as we know all paranormal can’t be explained with science, we also must refrain from relying upon it for every case of so called Sleep paralysis, and maybe accept the fact the one who experienced this phenomenon could have indeed had a dark visitor that night and not simply SP.The thinking in that persons mind greatly differs from the one who feel there is something paranormal about the whole thing, as opposed to just a stroke or medical condition. Witnesses are insulted, flat out in disbelief as to an explanation of sleep paralysis for the experience. Bottom line if you had it happen to you, you know it was unquestionably more than SP. This apply to all paranormal experience science even goes to say was our imagination, or with multiple witnesses, some mass hallucination.Keep in mind those who didn't actually experience this phenomenon are the ones telling us it is ‘sleep paralysis’. When you have had it happen to yourself, you know Sleep paralysis’ is much harder to believe than a paranormal explanation in something that compares to the stories of the ‘OLD HAG’. As a child, you parents tell you "It was only the wind"; "There are no monsters in your closet", this is when we are children. So as Adults these people of science patronize us like children. We don’t want to do this to Clients.
Another Notable quote:

Cindy A. writes:
Now, years later, after learning more about it, [After my own OLD HAG encounter], I was shocked to discover that science says it’s a brain disorder. How can that be the case when we both experienced the same thing at the same time? When thousands of people from all over the world have actually seen the old hag, and the descriptions are the same. Call me crazy but I disagree. Unfortunately, I have no way to prove my theories, except that I have experienced it first hand, and it is terrifying.

MY COMMENTS:
I agree with Cindy a more logical mind would actually go with the OLD HAG not simply being common hallucinations while having a sleep paralysis. and most have never even heard of it before the experience, then find many other share the same experience. Again be leary of 'science alone' when it requires physically proof and validation, this is one reason many consider Parapsychology a pseudo-science.

This is from an article on Sleep paralysis: (Shadowlands.com)Surprisingly, though, is the consistency of such reports made by societies and cultures with no previous knowledge of each other or their lore.[Such as the ‘OLD HAG’] The main details remain constant. A man or woman is attacked during the night, usually lying on their back, when an evil entity sits upon their body, causes paralysis, and even sometimes chokes or smothers it's victim. Though their motivation may differ, (possession, revenge, or just wanting to upset the living) the attack remains strikingly similar. And these stories are not limited to Western cultures, in fact, quite the contrary. In Thailand people refer to being Phi um (ghost covered) and phi kau (ghost possessed), and these experiences include a feeling of pressure, paralysis, and something black covering the body. In Japan, kanashibara ("to tie with an iron rope") is a common known and accepted experience. In the Far North one speaks of agumangia (Inupik) or ukomiarik (Yupik) in which "a soul" tries to take possession of the paralyzed victim. In Laos, da chor is described as follows: "You want to listen, you can't hear; you want to speak, you are dumb; you want to call out, you cannot; you feel you are dying, dying; you want to run away. You urine with fear in your sleep.

MY COMMENTS:
This was from an article I felt leaned to saying all OLD HAG AND night terrors were SP related. Then they go onto say the above statement which should help make one rethink this SP only theory, in that many different culture experience it as more of a paranormal experience or attack.Keep in mind most of us never read about this before the first hand encounter. It’s not so widely shown in movies that one already makes up an image in their mind then experiences it.The encounter is demonic in nature, That suffocation and strangulation is a common attack in the night by a demonic. So see a black shadowy figure do this in the same way, as another witness says the lurking black figure hunched over his paralyzed body, then moved swiftly over him like a crushing weight. Others see the ‘Old Hag’. These same encounters often begin the same way and end with sexual assault. (Succubus/Incubus).This is one reason one should say a protection prayer before bed, and to wear the proper protection symbols and medals on oneself as you sleep. My (undisclosed) encounter was the only time I was physically attacked, later that day I found my Saint Benedict medal had fallen off during the night before I went to bed on the bathroom floor.

La reine de toutes les sorcières de nuit

TESTIMONY #5

NANCY W. WRITES:

In 1973 we bought a small house in a nice section of a small town in western Kentucky. The house wasn't that old—it was built in 1934—and we were only the second owners (we bought it from the second wife of the man who built the house). The things that occurred there happened only occasionally, and different things happened to different members of the family. We were not aware of all of each other's experiences until after we moved, some thirteen years later. My own experience left me shaken for a long time. At approximately two o'clock one morning, I was awakened from a sound sleep. No apparent reason. I had not been dreaming. The bed faced a doorway into the hall, and the door was open. In the doorway I saw a figure dressed in a long robe, possibly with a hood. All I could see, other than the black outline, was a shining glow where a face would be.I was petrified and found myself unable to move. I seemed to be paralyzed. I kept telling myself I had to be dreaming and, if I could just awaken my husband lying next to me, everything would be all right. All I can say is that there was a feeling of extreme evil that seemed to be coming from the figure. After several attempts to speak my husband's name—my voice seemed to be paralyzed, too—I finally croaked out "John." I managed to say my husband's name a second time, and finally a third time. Each time I said "John" the figure became smaller, and it disappeared completely when my husband woke up .I was shaking from head to toe, my paralysis disappearing with the vision. My teeth were chattering so badly that I was unable to speak coherently for many minutes. My husband is a realist and kept trying to find a logical reason for the apparition—the streetlight, headlights, neighbors' lights—but he never could convince me that what I had seen was a normal phenomenon. I used to get peeved at my son Ed because when I went to his room to awaken him for school or work he was never there. Usually I would find him on the couch in the den. About a year after we moved he told me the reason he would never sleep in his own room: he was terrified in there. He had been awakened on many occasions, usually in the early morning hours, with the feeling that someone was in the room, even though he could see no one. During these times he would be paralyzed, unable to move a finger, for many terrifying minutes. On several occasions he was awakened by being lifted bodily from the bed and dropped. He never saw anything. He just had the feeling of a presence in his room, and the only good night's sleep he ever had was on the couch in the den. After hearing this, I began to quiz my other children to see whether, anything had ever happened to them in this house. My son Mike, before I going into the navy, had had the same bedroom that Ed had his experiences in. He told me that on one occasion he was awakened from a sound sleep early in the morning to see a figure at the end of his bed, just I looking at him. He describes it as an old lady in a gown and bathrobe. After several seconds he turned on the lamp by the side of the bed.

MY COMMENTS:

A case of a 'black shadowy figure' being the 'NIGHT TERROR

In closing - I have no doubt ‘sleep paralysis’ can happen, but as we began to approach the 21st century I realize they try to explain all ‘Night terrors’ with a bias towards ‘science only/humanism’ as being purely psychological or medical. (As with SP)It is important that we as an investigated team, weigh all possibilities without such BIAS and truly listen to the client/witnesses to determine what truly applies to their specific case. Portions ©2006, 2008 Kenneth Deel, Demonologist Paranormal Task force