If you woke up from your dream sweating with fear and had the feeling that some force was crushing your chest, causing you to struggle to breathe, this may represent two different things, depending on your sex.
If you are a woman, you may have suffered an incubus attack; if you are a man, you may have suffered a succubus attack. In the past, when sexual pleasure was considered sinful, women who had erotic dreams were said to have been visited by the incubus, or male demon, whilst a sexually voracious succubus, or female demon, was said to visit a sleeping man. These evil spirits were thought to pin down and paralyze their sleeping victims in order to have sex with them. The words ’incubus’ and ’succubus’ are still used today to describe the sensation of having a weight press down on your chest, accompanied by a feeling of dread and being unable to move while you are sleeping. They are no longer applied to dreams about sex, which are of course natural and normal.
Incubi (plural of ’incubus’, meaning ’one who lies upon’ in Latin) were thought to be particularly fond of seducing nuns and other women committed to the celibate life. Sexual repression is thought to be the most likely explanation but the cause of this phenomenon remains unclear. Dream experts have ruled out demons and malevolent spirits as the cause, suggesting instead that they may have been caused by temporary breathing difficulties combined with sleep paralysis, a condition that occurs in the state just before dropping off to sleep or just before fully awakening from sleep. The condition is characterized by being unable to move or speak. It is often associated with a feeling that there is some sort of menacing presence, a feeling which often arouses fear but is accompanied by an inability to cry out. The paralysis, which experts are unable to explain fully, typically lasts a few seconds but leaves a lasting impression on the dreamer.
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