I know that many of you are probably wondering why I am posting these crazy posts about ghosts and so forth, but I had intended on doing several articles for the paper around Halloween but ran out of time - then a couple of days ago I watched one of the Korean mystery/unexplained programs on tv and it perked up my interest again. Then, this morning, I was talking to one of my friends and he was complaining of having a ka wi nulita ??????????? ??????????? (”scissors pressed”) experience last night so I thought I would drop these on Marmot’s Hole while in the P.C. room. Sorry about that Marmot……
Nearly two years ago, a Korean man in his late 20s, found himself without a place to live after a relationship went sour and his lover threw him out. He returned to Taegu and sought the help of a real estate agency in obtaining a place to stay. He quickly signed a contract for a one-room (studio) apartment and that night moved in. That night he found it hard to sleep, perhaps it was the excitement and unfamiliarity of living in a new place, but for several hours he tossed and turned before he finally fell into a troubled sleep. He suddenly woke up in terror. Looking around him he was startled to see a black shape pass through his closed door and out into the hallway. He got up and checked the door and, of course, discovered that it was locked.
Convinced that he had had a bad nightmare he tried to go back to sleep, but an evil presence seemed to lurk on the fringe of his consciousness. Then something began to softly touch and explore his body. He desperately tried to move and scream for help, but he was unable to move or even open his eyes. After several minutes, but what seemed like hours, he was able to open his eyes and found himself staring into the eyes of somebody or something. They then disappeared leaving him scared and unable to sleep the rest of the night.
Unbelievably the same incident happened each night for the next four nights. Each night the intruder grew bolder until the point that the intruder was sexually molesting the man. The tenant, no longer able to endure the terror began sleeping in a nearby sauna, returning home only during the hours of daylight. He went to the real estate agent and reported his experiences and demanded his deposit back. Not unexpectedly, the real estate agent refused claiming there was nothing wrong with the room. The tenant returned to his apartment building and noticed one of his neighbors. He tried to ask his neighbor questions concerning the room, but the neighbor quietly withdrew to his room, refusing to answer. That is when the tenant noticed the amount of filth and dead insects in front of the other doors, but the area directly in front of his door was clean. The tenant moved out that day, losing his deposit of 3,000,000 won, but preserving his own life. He now claims to have been rendered impotent as a result of the ghostly intruder.
The above story is alleged to be true (my friend’s friend - can I be more vague?), and perhaps it is true to the “victim,” but it is without doubt another example of ka wi nulita (”scissors pressed”). This is a common occurence in Korea, especially amongst students and people under a great deal of stress. It is often cited by Koreans as being a spirit or ghost that haunts the abode - usually a school, dormitory, barracks, or a new apartment, but instead is probably nothing more than a symptom of severe stress known as sleep paralysis. According to International Ghost Hunters Society (http://www.ghostweb.com ) this is a sleep disorder. “Sleep paralysis is often described as being held down by an invisible force and can be extremely scary to the person being held in this confinement state. This sleeping disorder is most often associated with demonic or malevolent activity because the disorder ‘feels’ like someone is holding or pinning you down, thus preventing you from being able to move or to scream for help. According to Sleep Disorder Doctors, this disorder is common.” The victim of this disorder often describes “being held down, attacked, choked or sexually molested,” and often attribute this to ghost or demon attacks.
Just curious to see if any of you have experienced this before? I have had the experience a couple of times (unfortunately there was no sexual assault), but never thought anything of it until I told my Korean friends and then they did the typical thing - they freaked - and told me their version of this sleep paralysis.
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The sleep paralysis is a fairly common phenomena. If one sleeps a certain way where acute pressure is placed on the lower back of the skull, this many times results in this sort of paralysis, complete with auditory sensation. It has something to do with putting pressure upon a nerve (I read this from information on the web). I’ve experienced it and though it seems spooky and is rather unpleasant, it does not appear to have anything to do with ghosts.
For more information on this, check here: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_408.html
I noticed some talk about this experience as being astral traveling as well.
I had one especially vivid experience with sleep paralysis. It did not involve ghosts or aliens. (Almost all “alien abduction” stories are explicable this way - alien abductions aren’t as en vogue in Korea as the US, I guess.) It was a Saturday morning and I was sleeping in, and my eyes were open, so I could see part of the room. (I am told I often sleep with my eyes open.) I heard someone come in and put down a case or bag. (I wasn’t facing the door and of course I could not move to see.) I heard the rustling of leather, like the person was wearing a leather jacket. Then I heard footsteps as the person approach the bed - opposite the side I was facing so I couldn’t see anything. I heard more rustling and the creaking of leather, as I imagined the person was putting on leather gloves. Then I felt smothered as the person slowly pressed a pillow against my face to suffocate me. Then I woke up. The experience was far more realistic and vivid than any dream, and I can easily see how people conflate sleep paralysis incidents with reality.
There is a professor at the University of Waterloo who has an awsome site on Sleep Paralysis and does research on it. (you must google him yourself, as I no longer remember his site)
I myself had a freaky auditory hallucination, and my sister who sleeps with her eyes open had a visual hallucination like the poster above.
“Gawi” is NOT fun. If there was ever a reason for religion, “Gawi” is it. I don’t care how “reasonable” you are or how a devout atheist you are. If you ever have a “Gawi” related “visitation” by a malevolent being complete with audial and visual hallucination, you will start to read that bible, koran, upanishad, or whatever. Truly frightening experience.
Ok, here’s my old story. About 7 years ago, it was my first year in Korea. There were 4 of us in a place. However, we were told we were moving to a different place, and when we got there we were delighted. It was larger, and had a yard and a roof. We spent that Sunday moving in, and chatted a bit, then went to bed
That night, I had the most unforgettable …nightmare? not really. Experiences, of my life. Our bedrooms were arranged around a central living room. In the night, I woke up, groggy, convinced that there was something outside my door, and that it HATED me. The feeling was powerful enough to make me cower under the covers, almost sobbing. At some point of cowering, I went back to sleep.
We had to work early at that place. The next morning the four of us got up, and trudged to work. 10 minutes into our usual silent walk, my coworker said “I had the worst dream last week”
I snapped my head around. More importantly, in the process of doing that, I caught 2 of my co-workers snapping THEIR heads up and staring at him. He told his story. He’d felt that some “presence” in the living room had “hated” him there in his room.
Excitedly, all four of us shared that we’d had the same experience. The next night, we said goodnight wondering what would happen. Nothing.
We think there was a spirit (spirits) there, who were freaked at us waygooks, but then fled.
What makes me wonder is the sexual component of the relation. My wife tells me she heard (but not directly) similar stories. This reminds me also the incubus/succubus of our Western countries. I tend to dismiss the hypothesis of ghosts in this case just because I never read that a homosexual relation was attempted, but this should be investigated. In particular I don’t know whether accounts of incubus/succubus were linked to body paralysis. Interesting.
Just to finish with this topic I would like to mention a different non-medical non-materialistic explanation to some situations. When I was a child I used to see in my room, as clear as I can see you:), a sort of red humanoid monster which really was hating me. I used to cover myself, in terror. It was static in front of me, appearing each night more completely at the same place. One night it never came back. I know someone who has this experience once a year in average. It is important that this doesn’t occur in the same place (otherwise the following explanation can not hold). According to our buddhist master (a Tibetan lama), this is a spontaneous (i.e. without training by means of yogas etc.) of a wrathful deity, i.e. an aspect of our awaken mind which manifests itself outside, mixing with the external vision. The Buddha itself, just before becoming the Awakened, was (externally) attacked by the armies of Mara. Thus, this is a kind of movie projection and we believe the hatred comes from outside, but it is from inside as a reflection, because this feeling is one of the basic passion of human beings (together with ignorance and desire).
Anyway, I stop bothering you with religion. No ghosts there, I am afraid:) And no scissors as well.
The story of Hugh seems of a different kind, however, and could be a case of haunting ghost.
I’ve just begun reading your website. This story struck me so hard I decided to post (which I never do). I have had a number of horrifying sleep paralysis experiences in my lifetime. I can’t even properly related them to you because of the level of fear they inspire in me. I am a confident, strong man and rarely experience fear. These experiences were beyond my ability to cope.
I have had about 1/2 a dozen sleep paralysis incidents, usually involving aliens. It is quite scary and it really does feel like something is holding you down. After I discovered the term “sleep paralysis” I haven’t had one in several years.
When my family and I lived in Camp George, Daegu from 2000 to 2002 we had a regular visitor in our quarters. We never saw him directly, just in the periphery of our vision. He liked to watch us eat and, once, watched the wife and I in the bedroom. SHe admonished him for it and we were never interupted again.
Apparently some years before we moved in the Korean Housing Authority was remodeling the building and a worker who drank too much soju at lunch fell to his death there.
Theyre also called “terror dreams.” Theyve occurred with me on more than 15 occasions. When they happen with me, I cannot move and I cannot scream. I feel like Im being stretched out and everything is occurring in slow-mo. Even though I believe in ghosts, I dont believe these things are supernatural.
Ive noticed that in almost all cases with me, they almost always happen if I havent slept well in the last few days or Im stressed out about something. When they happen, Im conscious of it being a terror dream and I imagine that Im being battered by a wave (I surf). I relax and let the thing pass.
For more info about Sleep Paralysis:
http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/S_P.html
When I filled out the survey, the professor actually wrote me back! I was surprised. That was years ago, however.
Most Koreans know what “Gawi” is, but when I moved to the U.S., people didn’t even have a name for it. There most be some sort of genetic disposition for getting “gawied”. Even for those Americans that I talked to who told me about it, most say that they are simply “annoyed” by it, but very few actually talk about “malevolent entity” present during a gawi.
I was dreaming and at some point in the dream my “world” and vision became invaded by inky, cloudy darkness that got denser and denser, and that I could physically feel. It like my duvet was increasing in mass and size and wrapping itself tighter around me, although in fact I was only half wrapped in a light sheet. I could only see darkness and it kept getting darker. There was a feeling of evil and intense fear too, but nothing I can attribute to mysterious figures or a particular event in my dream. I got so scared and remember thinking, “I’ve got to wake up or I will die”, although at this point I was actually waking properly. However I couldn’t open my eyes or sit up and the dread feeling was still surrounding me, so I really started to panic! I honestly thought there was something supernatural going on, although after what was probably only about five seconds I suddenly managed to sit bolt upright and sat staring into the shadows of my room, my heart going like a rocket. I whacked on the light, went to the bathroom and stared at the mirror for a while, then eventually, once my heart had stopped palpitating I went back to bed (with the light on!). I haven’t experienced it before or since. This was here in Korea this summer. I was sleeping on my back, I think.
The only time I’ve thought about it since (apart from this re-telling), is after recently watching Ju-on: The Grudge, a Japanese horror flick. A few shadowy, bed scenes in there sent me right back to that night.
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