<But I never experienced this kind of hallucination. From this we can infer that archetypes don't play any role in SP hallucinations. >

Helen

I will agree to disagree with you on this topic, your statement above about archetypes is based on the single case of your own subjective experiences, the fact that thousands of people have seen and described very similar images while in an sp state, does in fact imply that archetypes may be involved in sleep paralysis 'visual' hallucination events.

<Even though these stories are so old, we don't know the people who invented them personally>

your statement above, sounds very like the definition of an archetype to me.......see below:

Carl Gustav Jung developed an understanding of archetypes as being “ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective unconscious”.[1]

ie images from the unconscious, which are so old that no one can remember who invented them......

<It seems that if a person has never heard these stories, he or she will be more open to other interpretations of what is going on. But if the person has heard them, as soon as the first episode of SP happens, this person will "recognize" the pattern and it will trigger a specific hallucination. Is that what you meant on your first message? >

Helen

I suppose that the physical symptoms of SP could trigger a 'subroutine' that causes the sleeper to experience the archetypes (shadow creatures, hags, devils that sit on your chest etc), or has the program running in unconscious human operating system 1.0 while sleeping, triggered the SP attack to make the archetype known to the conscious mind? very interesting questions to consider...........

 >>but we have no stories about hags attacking at night or anything similar.

Helen,

After a quick search, I found some examples of 'hag' stories, some of which take the form of a shadow and prevent people from breathing, in Brazilian mythology (I realise that Brazil is a very big country and the events will have different names in different regions)but like I said in my previous post, you can find examples of these in most human cultures if you look....

Pisadeira — An old hag that wears sneakers and stomps over people's stomachs at night making them breathless. Usually appears when people go to bed on a full stomach.

cuca - menacing, supernatural, old hag that does evil things to small children who do not go to bed early.

Lady in White — the most widespread type of ghost seen in Brazil.

Matinta Pereira — a malevolent hag with supernatural powers whose legend is very well known in the state of Pará.


This is translated from a brazilian web site:

Acts as a Pisadeira

According to legend, the Pisadeira spends much time on rooftops. She is watching the movement inside the houses. After dinner, when someone goes to sleep on a full stomach it goes into action. Comes out of hiding and step on the person's chest, leaving her in a state of paralysis. However, the victim of Pisadeira can monitor everything in a conscious way which brings great despair for the people, because nothing can out of the situation.

>>Is there anybody who suffers from this who is from a minority, or non-western/middle east religion?

From my own SP experiences, research and reading, the story about being attacked by shadow creatures and hags while you feel like something is sitting on your chest and preventing you from breathing, is experienced all over the world in many different cultures, they just call them by different names. If these are not real entities which are attacking you, then they are archetypes which are likely built into the human operating system (aka unconscious mind) and the program that generates them, runs while you are sleeping, which is why people see and experience such similar things......