When I was in my later years of high school, I remember teetering on the brink of sleep after getting back from a long day. I hadn't bothered to brush my teeth or even change out of my jeans as I bee-lined for my big squishy bed. I had left the hallway light on, my bedroom door ajar, and shut my eyes for what I thought to be the beginnings of a long night's rest.
That was the first night I was "pressed by a ghost."
I vividly recall groaning a bit and trying to reopen my eyes, my head pointed towards the bright doorway. But my lids wouldn't open more than a few millimeters. They spasmed as I couldn't fully open nor close them. I tried to get up but my arms, legs, and torso wouldn't budge. As I lay there fighting for control of my body and head stuck in one direction, I saw a short pitch-black silhouette sliding very slowly towards me from the door. Its body sliced out a distinct form against the bright backdrop and moved at a pace no human would. I struggled for a few moments longer, feeling pretty certain that I might not fully wake again, and blacked out until the next morning.
Needless to say, I was pretty spooked after that. Over breakfast I told my parents what had happened and they looked at me sideways, chuckled a little bit, and said I had experienced being "pressed by a ghost" for the first time.
In Korean, people use this colloquialism to describe sleep paralysis. For those who haven't had the great pleasure of experiencing this yet, sleep paralysis is being stuck in an unconscious state of awareness between sleep and being awake. It's the disruption of a person's REM cycle and can be brought on due to a number of reasons including fatigue, stress, anxiety, and host of other reasons including genetic ones. Treatments haven't been well researched as it is very rarely a chronic experience.
It turns out that many cultures describe this same phenomenon in wildly different vernacular ways. Some attribute it to voodooism, some as bouts of insanity. These demons have even served as muses for artistic representation in the past.
The understanding of this is hilariously little as well, Wikipedia even 'stating' that between "8 and 50% of all people experience this at some point in their lifetimes." Regardless of this useless 'fact' (at least I know that less than 51% of people experience this) it does seem true that this is biological, not cultural. But what makes it interesting is how specific cultures interpret and integrate this condition into their social beliefs.
Koreans specifically have carried with them the historical influences of Buddhist spiritual beliefs. We believe in ghosts and that spirituality weaves its way through historical stories and even our day-to-day language today. As a side note, these types of beliefs and practices have been in deep conflict with the wave of Christianity and Western thinking since of course, no spirits can exist in the bible other than the son of God. I'll go into this more in another post as it's an interesting time to be a young Korean as structural norms of society are being challenged since most people would rather believe in one spirit rather than a bunch of ghosts.
Fun fact, the phrase in Korean is "가위눌였다" which more accurately is structured as "(the) ghost pressed." What's quite funny and distorted in the modern day is that the very word for ghost is the same Korean word for "scissors." As such, when foreigners or even many young Koreans learn and use this phrase, they assume it actually means "being pressed my scissors."
Whether or not you speak Korean, this video is a pretty humorous but also terrifying attempt to socially describe the experience and offer suggestions of how to avoid the demons altogether.
Don't want to be poked by these freaky spirits? Drink less coffee at night and do a little yoga.
Anyway, have you ever been pressed by scissors? What did you do when you found yourself paralyzed? Let me know your experiences in the comments below!
