"The phenomenon of sleep paralysis is so widespread it has become part of folklore around the world. "Many traditional societies include references to sleep paralysis as part of their everyday sets of working knowledge,"
"Particularly in the small outpost communities everyone knows what the 'old hag' experience is. So someone might get up in the morning and say 'oh I was hagged last night' and everyone knows exactly what happened to them. People in these traditional societies have a great range of explanations for the experience - everything from a condition of the blood, to vampires, to being haunted by an old woman . . . this knowledge seems to have disappeared from urban societies."
In fact in urban societies you're more likely to have people describe their experience as one of 'alien abduction', according to the study. "The little grey men have become a modern icon, so it's not surprising that they are stored somewhere in our memory." And our brain grasps these images to explain the 'fear' it senses.
"The emotion of fear accompanies threats and dangers. When you activate fear you activate a whole set of strategies to deal with danger. If you consider the fact that the part of your brain responsible for fear [the limbic system] is active at the same time that you're awake and paralyzed and helpless, this would tend to aggravate this condition."
Essentially your brain strains to find clues to understand what it perceives as a threat. The sound of the fan becomes a whispering voice, a creak becomes a demon climbing on the bed, and when the brain doesn't have a stimulus, it makes one up.
Despite this rational explanation, I still shudder at the thought of the evil presence I sensed in my room. It was so real I find it hard to believe that my brain could fabricate such a terrifying hoax. "More to be found in the ebook
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