Ravage of the Incubi

"Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super- abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares." -Peter Ustinov

Sleep paralysis is:

"A frightening form of paralysis that occurs when a person
suddenly finds himself or herself unable to move for a few minutes, most often upon falling asleep or waking up. Sleep paralysis is due to an ill-timed disconnection between the brain and the body."

A couple of years ago, I began experiencing the always unpleasant and often frightening effects of sleep paralysis. The first time it happened, I didn't have an inkling of what I was experiencing. I laid down to take a nap and when I drifted off to sleep, my dream came in the form of a long string of rapid-fire images, each of which only lasted a brief moment. The images were all of people, places, and things that were presumably from this world, and I believed them to be from the past, present, and future. It was as though someone was quickly flipping through an infinity of satellite television stations. There were sounds that accompanied each picture too, but each was so brief that they blended in with one another and an overwhelming static that made it sound like I was trying to tune into a radio station where I could barely get any reception. One of the images that especially stood out in my mind was the Statue of Liberty, which was missing its nose much in the same way as the Egyptian sphinx.

The strangest thing of all about this experience was the sensation that accompanied it. I was aware of my body, and knew myself to be either sleeping or in some other altered state of consciousness, but I was absolutely unable to move. I then turned 110% of my willpower toward trying to make myself move, which resulted in what felt like every inch of my body being able to move about a millimeter, but very, very quickly, back and forth. I couldn't seem to move my body beyond that limit, yet it was doing everything it could to cause as much movement despite that. It basically felt as if I was shaking from head to toe, and when I woke up I was convinced that I had had a seizure while I was asleep. Although I'm not very interested in science fiction at all and never have dreams within that genre, it really did feel as though I was receiving some sort of digital signal from some alien life form. It was bizarre. After researching the phenomena later on, it was easy for me to understand why many people who experience sleep paralysis believe themselves to have been abducted by aliens.

I did not have sleep paralysis again for a few months afterwards, until I had a couple of distressing interactions with a disturbed individual who I suspect might have been possessed (yeah, I know it sounds crazy). Soon afterwards, I began experiencing sleep paralysis fairly regularly, where I would become aware of a dark figure above me that I believed to be feeding off of my energy. This would often occur after waking myself up out of nightmares only to discover that the nightmare wasn't over yet. I would technically be awake, but would fall into what is called hypnopompic hallucination.

A hypnopompic hallucination is:

"A vivid dreamlike hallucination that occurs as one is waking up. "

Basically, every time that I wake myself up from a nightmare, I get stuck for what feels like anywhere between two and three minutes of fear and panic. I'm not sure what is better, staying in the nightmare or experiencing the sleep paralysis.

After a couple of sessions with a Reiki master, I was no longer troubled by the incubus that was bothering me, but almost two years after I still experience sleep paralysis, but without the accompanying presence that is so common.

I'm posting this because I would really love to figure all this out, to understand scientifically, psychologically, and paranormally what is happening. I want to know if the explanations that come with each contradict each other, or if it's possible for them to coexist.