The Sleep Paralysis (Ephialtes)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Hippocrates, in your stone room on Kos,
460 BCE, the lamp flickers low.
You wrote of the weight, the enemy pressing down,
on a sleeper's chest at 2 a.m.,
air thick with olive smoke.
Ephialtes, child of Gaia, you come unbidden,
cold stone on my skin, 15 degrees Celsius chill.
I address you now, my invisible lover,
 pinning me to this woolen blanket.

[Chorus]
This paralysis, REM atonia's grip,
neurons firing in the pons, holding the body still.
But in the myth, you're the demon Ephialtes,
Gaia's son, earth-heavy, suffocating the night.
Breathe with me, through the terror,
like a Buddhist sigh, impermanent wave.
Let the hallucination pass, 3 a.m. shadow.

[Verse 2]
In that Athens bedroom, reed mat underfoot,
bronze figurine of Athena watches silent.
Your pressure builds, osmotic, like Polybotes' rage,
but neuroscience whispers: ventral medulla's fault.
I speak to you, Ephialtes, as to a tool I wield,
this fear, a scalpel cutting through illusion.
Midnight to dawn, the zeitgeber fails,
panicked breath echoes off damp stone walls.

[Bridge]
What if I welcome you, heavy earth child?
In wabi-sabi decay, your visit a cracked vase mended gold.
Hippocrates saw no gods, only body's humors,
but I see the synapse spark, the predictive error.
Release me now, or stay till dawn's light.

[Chorus]
This paralysis, REM atonia's grip,
neurons firing in the pons, holding the body still.
But in the myth, you're the demon Ephialtes,
Gaia's son, earth-heavy, suffocating the night.
Breathe with me, through the terror,
like a Buddhist sigh, impermanent wave.
Let the hallucination pass, 3 a.m. shadow.

[Outro]
Ephialtes, my nightly companion,
fade with the lamp's last wick.
Till next midnight, in this endless cycle.