Sleep Paralysis
Sleep Paralysis is caused by a basic brain glitch at the interface between wakefulness and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Some cultures attribute it to supernatural creatures. It interested me because, I’m Turkish and in Turkey, it used to be known as the karabasan—mysterious spirit-like creatures. I wanted to depict how different cultures see sleep paralysis as a form of creature and not something scientific. In Egypt, sleep paralysis is often thought to be caused by a jinn (“genie”)—a supernatural creature that terrorizes and sometimes kills its victims. In Italy, some interpret sleep paralysis as an assault by the so-called Pandafeche, a figure described as a malevolent witch or terrifying giant cat. In South Africa, Indigenous people believe the state to be caused by segatelelo (black magic), involving menacing dwarflike creatures called tokoloshe.