1) Shadow People: Shadow people, patches of shadow in the shape of human figures, are commonly reported by victims of sleep paralysis. The figures are rarely seen directly – they instead appear in brief flashes and in the suffer’s peripheral vision. Some are reported to be malevolent entities, choking their victims while whispering horrors. Others are noted as simply watching leading some believers to hypothesize that the shadows are benign interdimensional travelers. Shadow figures have a long history in Folklore, from the Witch of Endor in the Old Testament to the shades of the underworld in Homer’s Odyssey. Tales of their existence continue to evolve, with recent accounts describing a menacing “Hat Man” that feeds off the terror of its victims.
2) Ravenmocker: In the folklore of the Native American Cherokee tribe, the Ravenmocker is the most feared of all wizards and witches, for they’re known to visit the sick or dying at night to rob them of life. A Ravenmocker will fly through the air in a fiery shape, making a raven-like cry as it descends upon the house of its victim. Outside, he will find others of his kind, taken invisible, while for the chance to enter and torment the sick man inside until he dies. Once inside, they frighten the man, lifting him and throwing him on the floor while his friends only see a dying man struggling for breath. And when death comes, the witches eats the man’s heart, adding to their lives the time taken from his.
3) Mare: Once thought to be the product of demons, nightmares derive their name from the Old English word Maere, meaning evil spirit. This treacherous female goblin, a mare, was believed to visit people while they slept, sitting on their chests and strangling them. The male equivalent, an alp, similarly hunkered down upon victims, cutting open their nipples in order to drink breast milk or blood. Found across many medieval European cultures, the mare and alp were thought to enter homes through key holes, with the intent to kill. With new scientific evidence, however, the ubiquity of such demonic visions is now better understood. When people gain consciousness during sleep, their muscles still paralyzed, the terror can create strong hallucinations.
4) Machine Elves: Psychonaut Terence McKenna was the first to popularize machine elves in the collective consciousness, with others later corroborating. Induced by psychedelic drugs, especially DMT, machine elves are faceless multi-dimensional beings that appear machine-like. Walking within a psychedelic world of fractal shapes, these machine elves are eager to meet you, talking incessantly and excitedly. Known to sing objects into existence, the machine elves are also infamous for jumping in and out of human bodies transferring innumerable bits of information as they do so, thereby leading to the utmost confusion, exhaustion and even trauma. Beings similar to machine elves have been reported in indigenous Australian, African and American cultures.
5) Aliens: A Roper Poll published in 1992 that four million Americans reported experiences akin to alien abduction. An explanation for many alien abductions can be traced to sleep paralysis, in which the victim awakes paralyzed in the middle of the night, often experiencing either a floating sensation or downward pressure accompanied by deep feelings of terror and helplessness. Sleep paralysis may strike nearly 40 to 50 percent of all people at least once in their lifetime. And one study found that those reporting abductions were smarter and no more fantasy-prone than the general population.
