Chapter 7: Diary of Dreams, the Underworld and Demons on her Chest.

In her dreams, she was often driving a big, dark van. She would dream of listening to music too. During stressful periods, her PhD, her marriage and other, she used to suffer from sleep paralysis. She would wake up in the middle of the night, aware of the room surrounding her, sometimes mildy hallucinating but unable to move. At first, she though she was going nuts, she spoke to the kind person who was counselling her: it was a normal reaction to stress. Apparently. She did some research about it. In Wikipedia there was a long section on the folklore surrounding such cases as well as there interpretation of sleep paralysis from different cultures.

The original definition of sleep paralysis was codified by Dr. Samuel Johnson in his A Dictionary of the English Language as "nightmare," a term that evolved into our modern definition. Such sleep paralysis was widely considered to be the work of demons and more specifically incubi, which were thought to sit on the chests of sleepers. In Old English the name for these beings was mare or mære (from a proto-Germanic *marōn, cf. Old Norse mara), hence comes the mare part in nightmare. The word might be etymologically cognate to Hellenic Marōn (in the Odyssey) and Sanskrit Māra.

In Swedish folklore, sleep paralysis is caused by a Mare, a supernatural creature related to the werewolf. The Mare is a damned woman, who is cursed and her body is carried mysteriously during sleep and without her noticing. In this state, she visits villagers to sit on their rib cages while they are asleep, causing them to experience nightmares.

Folk belief in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the negative figure of the Hag who leaves her physical body at night, and sits on the chest of her victim. The victim usually wakes with a feeling of terror, has difficulty breathing because of a perceived heavy invisible weight on his or her chest, and is unable to move i.e., experiences sleep paralysis. This nightmare experience is described as being "hag-ridden" in the Gullah lore. The "Old Hag" was a nightmare spirit in British and also Anglophone North American folklore.

In Fiji, the experience is interpreted as "kana tevoro" being 'eaten' or possessed by a demon. In many cases the 'demon' can be the spirit of a recently dead relative who has come back for some unfinished business, or has come to communicate some important news to the living. Often persons sleeping near the afflicted person say "kania, kania" (eat! eat!) in an attempt to prolong the possession for a chance to converse with the dead relative or spirit and seek answers as to why he/she has come back. The person waking up from the experience is often asked to immediately curse or chase the spirit of the dead relative, which sometimes involves literally speaking to the spirit telling him/her to go away or using expletives.

In Nigeria, "ISP appears to be far more common and recurrent among people of African descent than among whites or Nigerian Africans", and is often referred to within African communities as "the Devil on your back."

In Turkey, and in many Islamic beliefs, Sleep Paralysis is called Karabasan, and is similar other stories of demonic visitation during sleep. A demon, commonly known as a djinn (cin in Turkish), comes to the victim's room, holds him or her down hard enough not to allow any kind of movement, and starts to strangle the person. Many people even say that they hear the voice of the djinn or of Satan. To get rid of the demonic creature, one needs to pray to God (Allah in Islamic beliefs) with certain lines from the Qur'an. If one does not pray soon enough, it is said that the demonic creature will strangle the person to death. Some women actually believe the creature raped them during the visitation due to waking up with pain around the area of their genitalia and with a headache.

Various forms of magic and spiritual possession were also advanced as causes. In nineteenth century Europe, the vagaries of diet were thought to be responsible. For example, in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge attributes the ghost he sees to "... an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato..."

Anna thought that this was fascinating. Yet scary.

It was Daft Punk on her iphone that made her heart beat so fast. She was having flashbacks of all sorts: Horse rides in the sunset or sunrise. The wilderness of the mountains above lush vineyards,  swimming in the lakes, dancing, frantically. Then, there he was. Dark and sweet, like Equadorian chocolate. They were like brother and sister. He taught her that life is simple and pretty, if you don’t have too many expectations. They hunt and swam together, they were just fine out in the woods, playing, riding, chilling. He could not understand her drive: ‘but why, we can be so happy. It will be you and me in paradise’. To her, he was as desperate as Queen of Carthage, Dido, after Aeneas. ‘I do not need a port’ she said. If I need to rest I will come back to you, my sweet, manly ‘Penelope’. But I must see the world first. Do you happen to know who Penelope is?’ He snapped back at her ‘Of course I do- she is this ancestress of yours- fuck that, you’re a girl, you need a nesting instinct. Stop hiding it under that tough exterior;’ he paused for a minute ‘but of course, you are different; you have always been so free, this is why I will always love you, as my sister, my friend. But now  I should shut up and let’s go out, Cuban night tonight in the club and the others are waiting’. And he was a great dancer but there was never anything sexual between them. Just pure, brotherly-sisterly love. He was a good man. Honest and strong. After she got married she found out his fiancée was pregnant and she hoped for the best.

Driving, she entered almost a state of trance. The clocks went crazy and she found herself suddently driving in the dark. ‘This is like Cephallonia’ she thought, ‘but darker’. A motorbike drove past her in the dark. The rider was all covered in dark leather. He nodded at her as he rode past. It was a tall cross motorbike. She though she might as well follow. He stopped by and she stopped next to him, in the dark bush. He spoke first: ‘I can’t get my helm out- I might scare you, little girl there’s some small injury on my forehead and a stream of blood coming down. I am as dead as a stone’. She recognised the voice and she felt her warm tears streaming down her cheeks. She whispered lightly:  ‘How did it happen, sweetheart, you left me here on my own, with no fatherland to come back to, no hearth, no sign of freedom, no brother, enslaved to my feelings for this land, always’. He sobbed inside the helmet. She said: ‘how can I always be the one talking, you never listened to me, never, you drove past and you hurt me with your death, deeply, you left me there standing with pains taking over my body, because I’ve lost you, forever, my love. You’ve always been so kind to me and now you tell me you and I were never meant to be-‘ He didn’t let her finish. He placed his hand on her mouth. ‘YOU left me first, you never wanted the quiet breeze you said, you wanted the wild galloping of the wild seas of the North’. They hugged and stayed there silent for a lot of time. She felt dizzy and a bit fainty. And then he was gone. She was alone again, her Silver Toyota shining under the moonlight. For a moment she though he was smiling at her, the man on the moon. She remembered their talk about the man on the moon; his tattoo of the wolf howling at the moon. She teased him for that: ‘I am shaping you up into a civilised man that thinks before acting’. He smiled kindly: ‘I love you Anna, I love your sense of freedom, you are free and you are my sister, for eternity. You are closer to your destination. Be happy with him, you both deserve it. Tell him to be careful’.

She moved further within the forest. Deep in the woods there was a little light. ‘Maybe there is a village hut of some sort’, she thought. She heard someone whistling a song. A happy tune: ‘que sera, sera... whatever will be, will be. ‘This is my father!’ She though’.  ‘It is you’. And the pear trees where shining her way towards the hut. Peebles under her feet and the smell of sunflowers and hibisci. There were two dogs barking outside the hut. One looked like Bobby. The other one looked more like Cerberus. It was three-headed and extremely feral. ‘what the fuck’ she thought. I am in the Underworld. She  knocked on the door. The man stopped whistling. She smiled to herself. ‘He’s cooking, again’. The little man appeared on the door and smiled. A kind smile. ‘Come in, child, you must be hungry’. She walked in. A smell of musk mixed with mushrooms. ‘Father’ she said: ‘Did you pick them yourself?’. They went on about the forest for a while. He spoke to her about the beauty found in Nature, the sound of the soft sea breeze travelling from the aquamarine sea to the dark forest.  After some generic chitchats and the like, they turned silent and ate their food. 


He asked her how is it going. She spoke about her travels, Norway, Israel, the Island of Lesbos, Scotland, Wales, and then Sweden, Turkey, Spain. He was happy. He then asked her how she settled in Sweden. 'I am the happiest I have ever been' she said. 'People there are good. It feels like home. And my fridge is filled with reideer kebabs my kind friend provided. And then there are the Swedes, I found someone to adore and I think he adores me too. We nest well together, so far'. And then she went on about the way Swedes hunt in teams on seasons for Elk meat, sometimes bear and how the Samis herd the reindeers, like they always did. She spoke about Peter, Johan and Jonas,  the sparkling snow and the man with the beard made of frost who had a big dog called Falcon and always spoke to her in Swedish and asked her where her father was. The tall, strong women of the north and the beauty of snowflakes falling thick and soft from the sky. She told him about the big hare in Gammlia and the new chinese friend she had who indulged into practical medicine and made healing soups. And then she made her way towards the door. She tried to hug him, but he was gone, a shadow. Then she slowly woke up. It was cold but the body next to her was warm. Strawberry blonde locks on her pillow, mixing with her dark curls. 'The King of Ithaca is asleep' she thought.