"Maybe you’re being visited by an incubus,” my friend joked after I had described the previous night’s episode to him.

To me, though, there’s nothing amusing about the thought of a demon in my bed. While I have never truly believed that these episodes were caused by paranormal activity, I have literally awoken to my worst nightmare.

The night terrors started about a year ago. On that first night, I lay in bed for what felt like hour after endless hour. Unable to drift off into a much-needed sleep, I strained to open my eyes in a drowsy haze.

I could hear a continuous wavering sound in my ears, a sound heard while walking through tunnels of wind. My body felt as if it were being weighed down by force. I found breathing overwhelmingly difficult as the sheer panic of being suffocated set in.

As I seemed to sink lower and lower into my bed, I saw my room enveloped in darkness through the slits of my fluttering eyes. Amidst all this chaos, I felt a presence in the darkness. A shadowy figure slowly loomed into view, getting closer and closer. I tried to call for help, to somehow fend off this attacker, but there was a disconnect. A pair of hands seemed to inch their way up my legs.

And then just as quickly, the figure disappeared and I could move again. Had this really happened, or had I dreamt it?

To my dismay, it happened repeatedly, sometimes up to four times a night. I started to wonder, would I lay there frozen forever if I stopped trying to fight the anxiety and gain control of my body?

More than anything, I wanted to fall asleep without worrying about switching into an alternate reality.

As I confided this information to the same snarky friend, I never expected a diagnosis. “Oh, that’s just sleep paralysis,” he said, dismissing it as if were a paper cut. “Nothing to worry about.”

After I did some research, I came to understand his calmness. Through WebMD I discovered I had “isolated sleep paralysis,” which wasn’t serious enough to require medication. During the dreaming stage called Rapid Eye Movement, a natural defense mechanism called muscular atonia prevents all muscles from acting during a person’s dreams, except for the diaphragm and eyes.

In sleep paralysis, the person is fully conscious during REM sleep, but the brain can still be in dream mode while the eyes are open. This explains the shadowy-figure-incidents, not to mention alien abduction reports I’ve heard.

I found that it happened more frequently on nights when I slumped into bed immediately after drudging, zombie-like, through a hellish school day and then dragging myself out of bed to study for my AP Biology exam until 3 a.m.

Once I learned that increased stress, an inconsistent sleeping schedule, sleep deprivation and sudden lifestyle changes all contribute to sleep paralysis, I had to re-evaluate my schedule and manage my time better to prevent myself from freezing up from all the stress.

My advice to stressed-out Lowell students who may be susceptible to the same condition? You might feel helpless and defenseless in your sleep, but you can help prevent sleep paralysis while you’re awake.