Many people struggle with what is commonly called sleep paralysis. They wake up in the night and cannot move. It feels like they are pinned down to the bed. It is often accompanied with a feeling of fear, even terror. Often, they want to cry out, but they cannot speak. It doesn’t last long, usually episodes only last a minute or so. Some people even report that they see, hear of feel things that are not there during these episodes. Millions of people suffer from this to varying degrees. The question is: What causes this? And how can it be cured?

 As strange as it sounds, often this problem is a spiritual problem. I wrote a book called Soul Care and I teach Soul Care Conferences™ around the world and I have met thousands of people who were experiencing sleep paralysis, but after experiencing some spiritual healing they were completely cured from this and other symptoms which I will address later. While teaching a class at Alliance Theological Seminary last night, I mentioned sleep paralysis. One of the students in the class came up to me at break and told me that he had experienced sleep paralysis his entire life until he took a class with me and received some spiritual healing. That was over a year ago and he has not experienced this phenomenon since.

UNPACKING THE CAUSES: Issues of the Soul

 Your soul is like a suitcase. Over the last few years I have been traveling a lot – about 150,000 miles on a plane each year. When I go teach a conference someplace on the planet, I carry a suitcase with me. It is packed with nice neat clean folded clothes as I begin my journey. But by the time the three-day conference is over, the clothes are dirty, I put them back in the suitcase and I leave for home. Before I can take my next trip, I have to unpack the dirty clothes from the suitcase otherwise there is no room for the nice neat clean clothes for my next conference. Our soul is like that. Sometimes we have dirty laundry in the suitcase of our souls and there is no room in there for nice neat clean clothes. We have hurt, pain, anger, sadness, guilt, and shame packed away in the suitcase of our souls and there is no room in there for peace, joy, and freedom. We must unpack the suitcase of our souls.

Sometimes the things we have to unpack are simply human things. We have been hurt by something someone has done to us and we have to process the hurt and forgive the person who has hurt us in order to empty the suitcase of our souls. Unpacking the suitcase can allow us to access great freedom in our souls. Some of the symptoms we experience in life can be present because of the unprocessed issues of the soul. There are certain inviolable principles of the soul. They are like the laws of nature. You can’t violate them without a consequence. You can exercise your free will and jump off of a 20-story building, but you can’t violate the law of gravity without consequences. You will fall and there will be dire results as a result of your choice. This is true with the soul. There are inviolable laws of the soul and when we cross those lines, we suffer consequences. You can hold in anger and become bitter at someone, but you can’t avoid the unhealthy consequences that bitterness creates in your inner being. When you process your hurt and forgive, you experience newfound freedom.

UNPACKING THE CAUSES: Spiritual Matters

But sometimes the things we have to unpack from the suitcase of our soul are spiritual. We live in a spiritual world; we are spiritual beings and there are other spiritual beings in this world with us. They are invisible, but they are no less real than the law of gravity and no less consequential. There are good spiritual beings and there are malevolent spiritual beings out there. Christians believe that Jesus, for example, died and rose again, and that He is alive. He is a good spiritual being who can still interact with people. I can tell you that I have seen his power. I have prayed for people in Jesus’ name and I have personally witnessed a tumor disappear before my eyes, a woman get out of a wheelchair and walk, people who were bent over with crippling diseases straighten up and walk upright, legs that were too short grow out, and a variety of other miracles. I have no power to do any of these things. It was Jesus’ real yet spiritual presence that caused these things to happen as I prayed for them in His name.

Yet there are also evil spirits who seek to harm people. When you read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life on earth you will encounter stories of Jesus casting out evil spirits from people, and people experiencing dramatic life altering results. The most famous story is about a man who lived in the tombs and was given to violent episodes (Mark 5:1-20). The man was chained because he would often violently lash out at the people around him. He was also given to self-harm, cutting himself with stones. But Jesus commanded these dark evil spirits that were tormenting this man to leave him, and the man was forever changed; all his violent episodes were eliminated.

I grew up in a modern Western world here in the United States. I didn’t have a world view for these kinds of spiritual beings, even though I grew up going to church and hearing about these stories from the Bible. My modern Western worldview had blinded me to many spiritual realities. But in my early twenties I met a man who was tormented. He told me he was hearing voices and the voices were blasphemous and they were telling him to hurt himself and others. It led me to begin praying for people to empty the suitcase of their souls from these tormenting spirits that afflicted them. I have seen thousands of people find freedom and deliverance from all sorts of afflicting symptoms.

SEXUAL ABUSE SPIRITS

After thousands of deliverance prayer sessions, I have noticed certain patterns. Often people who have sleep paralysis are actually being afflicted by an evil presence. These spirits that cause sleep paralysis are sexual abuse spirits. They are spirits who have entered a family tree through an act of sexual abuse or rape. Sometimes the person with this presenting problem has been sexually abused. Other times someone in their direct family line – one of their parents or grandparents – was sexually abused and they were born with these spirits.

OTHER SYMPTOMS

Sleep paralysis is often not the only symptom of people who are being afflicted by the presence of these sexual spirits. Frequently, they have a very hard time sleeping through the night. Their sleep patterns are often interrupted and restless. After I have prayed for them in Jesus’ name and these spirits are commanded to leave, the person will sleep through the night – sometimes for the first time in their lives. I have seen this over and over. It is so common that when I am dealing with someone who has experienced sexual abuse I will say to them, “Have you had a hard time sleeping through the night? Your sleep is often interrupted and restless, right?” They will often look surprised and acknowledge that this is the case and I will say to them, “Tonight you will sleep well.” They often burst into tears because sleep has been so hard for them. It is so common, it is predictable.

Sometimes these people who have inherited these dark spirits from someone in their family (like a mother who was raped) also have experienced erotic sexual thoughts from the time they were very little. I don’t mean they have sexual curiosity – that’s developmentally normal. Little kids wonder about other little kids and they are curious about gender, and private parts. But this isn’t curiosity; these are erotic, lustful sexual thoughts. Often, I have heard people say these thoughts started when they were five, six or seven years old, even earlier sometimes. These erotic sexual thoughts are premature, long before puberty, and they are not developmentally normal. They are the result of tormenting evil spirits. These interrupting sexual thoughts will often plague them into adulthood at inappropriate times. For example, sometimes they will be in a sacred space, like a house of worship, and they will be struggling with interrupting sexual images. They are unwanted, unavoidable and cause the person to feel bad.

These spirits can also cause people to have sexual dreams. Sexual dreams can, of course, be human, just like lustful thoughts. But these dreams are often unwanted and leave people feeling dirty. Sometimes they are dreams about being raped or abused. Sometimes the person dreams they are the rapist or abuser. The person may feel like a seductress in the dreams. Often there is just a creepy feeling associated with these sexual dreams; there is something dark about them.

 Other times along with sleep paralysis, they will sense a dark intimidating presence in their room at night. Somet people will even see this dark presence. The presence is often accompanied with feelings of fright. The presence can, then, at times pin the person down to the bed leaving them with that feeling of sleep paralysis. Sadly, these evil beings will even cross the line to touch people inappropriately at times. Many people report that they wake up in the night and feel all the sensations of someone having sex with them, but there is no one there. They are being sexually violated by a dark evil spirit. It is a horrible experience that many people live with on a fairly regular basis and others experience periodically or occasionally.

GETTING FREE: Jesus Is the Cure

The good news is that there is freedom. I have prayed with thousands of people who once experienced these symptoms, but now they have been set free. Through prayer in Jesus’ name these dark spirits were addressed and commanded to leave, the suitcase of the soul was emptied of their presence, and the symptoms all went away.

 If this has been your story, there is hope for you. Get a Soul Care book, come to a Soul Care Conference™ and empty the suitcase. Get out that old dirty laundry and experience the peace and freedom that is available to you in Christ Jesus!