Last week’s testimony from a reader who’s experienced strange nocturnal visions drew overwhelming comment. Based on the flood of responses, it appears that Millennials’ spiritual affliction may be a real phenomenon that bears more investigation.
The following are samples of reports from the comments and from X.
I used to get the sleep-paralysis version. Half-awake, half-asleep, couldn’t move or breathe, could never *see* the darn things, but they radiated malevolence. Ran across a recommendation on crossing yourself when your hands aren’t free (in context it was about when you’re occupied holding the kids or something): use your eyes to look in the directions of the cross. So I tried that the next time, and lo, it worked! They can’t take it. They go away and I wake up. Three or four go-rounds after that, and they haven’t been back. They gave up. That was many years ago now.
The possibility that just looking at the cross can mitigate or end these attacks is a potentially valuable insight. Keep that one in mind.
I can relate. When I had just starting college, over the span of a week, I was visited by various things. The first night, I woke up and saw an (female) angel in the corner of my room looking out a widow. Problem was, the only window in my room was directly behind the headboard of my bed. She didn’t look at me, she was just intently gazing out the window at the moon in the sky. I felt at peace and privileged to see such a graceful creature. I think she may have been a reminder she was watching over me for what was to come.
The next night, I woke up and saw the silhouette of a cobra in my bed. In that moment, I felt like Goku with instant transmission because I just remember throwing back my covers and found myself immediately hitting the light switch, heart about to pound out of my chest.
The next night was a giant silhouette of a spider descending from the ceiling above my face. I had a similar reaction as the night before.
The night after was the first time I felt any kind of physical paralysis. I woke up and the silhouette of an old lady was sitting next to my bed. I thought it was my grandma at first (she would stay with us during the weekends) but after a few seconds of starting at the lady, I remembered my grandmother wasn’t with us that night. I didn’t sense any malice from her and after a while of just staring at her, I went back to sleep. Looking back, I chuckle at this incident because, while I couldn’t move or speak, my mind just smugly asked “I’ve been visited by so many other things this week, what do you want?”
The last thing I saw was waking up and seeing the ornaments on my bed post had changed from a wooden ball to a wooden block. I started to see wood shavings peel off the center of up to eventually reveal a mouse was eating its way from it. You can imagine, I jumped out of bed immediately in fright.
I know these weren’t dreams because I didn’t feel like I was dreaming but more importantly in each incident I counted from 1 to 3 which normally in a dream is mentally straining enough to break the dream. No such awakening happened when I did that.
Since then I occasionally see things in the dark, it’s not fun, but I try to pray my heart rate down and go to sleep. The other solution is staring into the darkness until my vision adjusts and the shades disappear.
NB: The cobra may not necessarily be as sinister an apparition as it first seems. The ancient Egyptians saw cobras as guardians and purifiers of holy places. And Old Testament authors associate them with the seraphim, who serve a similar role in God’s throne room.
I’m too desensitized by Millennial horror to be frightened by monsters, so my attacks are less obnoxious.
One example: Opening a shower curtain in a dark bathroom in a dream. Seeing a darkness inside that complete enshrouds me—and then, seeing two pairs of pin-sized, red-glowing eyes waltz over to me from ahead.
My heart becomes tachycardic each time one of them enters me. I don’t realize what happens until I miss my window to speak up—and then, I wake up.
It’s also good to know that desensitization is possible.
My youngest daughter was born during Lent last year. I had one of those dreams that’s different somehow; more detailed, more real, makes more real-life sense. I’m not a stranger to them.
In the dream, it was very early morning, maybe 2 or 3 am, and I was in my kitchen washing up a round of bottles. That was something I did for real enough times, it was a boring enough start. But then, a thick darkness began to descend on the house. When facing the kitchen sink, your view is the living room (open concept), and the whole area just got darker and darker. It was perhaps darker at the edges, or maybe that was just my vision. Whispers began to emanate from those black edges.
I put down the bottles, backed up a step, and with great difficulty croaked out the Saint Michael prayer as best as I could, finding it strangely hard to make a noise. My throat loosened up as I continued, and though I don’t remember for sure, I think the whispers stopped and the darkness receded, but I also woke up right as I finished the prayer, so the ending is quite muddy in my memory.
Though not a common thing for me, that was not the first time, nor do I expect it will be the last. It’s never quite the same, but I don’t see creatures or anything of that sort. It’s usually darkness or shadows, sometimes over a wide area, sometimes in a specific spot; sometimes, I only sense the presence of darkness without seeing anything unusual.
And now, a selection from X:
My wife used to get the sleep paralysis & physically abused by demons prior to our marriage. She’d wake up with bruises on her chest & the insides of her thighs. We were not Catholic at the time.
She was so scared, I actually started sleeping at her apartment on the couch. I could feel it when they showed up. One time I walked into her bathroom & a black & white snake materialized out of the wall & wrapped itself around my leg. This was in the middle of the day. Not while sleeping.
I started praying the St. Michael prayer whenever I’d feel them show up. Sometimes for a couple of hours. Eventually they’d leave. Then angels started showing up & I could see them two. She had 4 that would come stand at the 4 corners of her bed.
She used to sell really high end art & had some pieces in her apartment. I did a lot of research & came to the conclusion there was likely a demon attached to some piece of art she had. She threw it all in the dumpster & they left for good.
She still has prophetic dreams though.
Taken together, these various reports display some unsettling commonalities.
As mentioned before, I’ve been studying paranormal phenomena for decades.
Besides perennial night hag visitations and dreams about not getting on planes that end up crashing, I never came across anything like these accounts until a few years ago.
Nor did reports of these specific kinds get any coverage to speak of on shows like In Search Of or Unsolved Mysteries.
At one reader’s suggestion, I looked up US baptism rates.
Sure enough, the number of kids receiving baptism – and being raised by parents in sacramental marriages – declined in the postwar years.
But in keeping with the death of religion being a psyop, baptism has made a comeback of late.
And consistent with the corrected dating of the Millennial generation as those born between 1990 and 2010, we see that infant baptisms saw a pronounced dip (no pun intended) in 1989 and started recovering ten years later.
So perhaps Millennials have been subject to particular spiritual affliction.
But, God only allows an evil provided it will pave the way for even greater good. Millennials’ spiritual affliction seems to have scared parents straight, perhaps leading to more infant baptisms.
If you wanted a sign, that’s a pretty good one.
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