You are lying in bed when suddenly you awaken to the sense of a presence in the room. Before you can cry out, this malevolent presence descends invisibly upon you, settling upon your chest and pinning you to the bed. You lay there, paralyzed and painfully awake as it presses harder and harder, stealing your breath. When the weight is finally lifted, you are left feeling violated and drained.

The incident described above is a classic hag attack. Believed by skeptics to merely be the result of sleep paralysis or a confusion of the hypnogogic state for wakefulness, hag attack is a phenomenon recorded by people from around the globe. Researcher David J. Hufford feels there may be more to the hag attack than just bad dreams. In his seminal work on the topic, The Terror that Comes in the Night, Hufford suggests that "poor observation and incorrect reasoning cannot account for all reported supernatural experience."

Is hag attack real? From Hufford's research alone, there is little doubt that individuals from all walks of life have experienced these frightening nightly visitations. By what entity or natural phenomenon may be responsible remains to be seen.

[Image: The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli, 1781]