A Familiar Experience ...

The Sun Headline 'Demons Try To Strangle Me As I Fall Asleep, says:

A couple's night-time terrors in new film Paranormal Activity are scaring the nation - but for one fan the fear is all too real.

Physics student Matthew Richards, 18, suffers from a terrifying but little understood condition called sleep paralysis. It strikes as he is falling asleep or waking up, is accompanied by terrifying hallucinations, and leaves him unable to move any bit of his body. The attacks can last for minutes and come with nightmare visions of DEMONS trying to strangle him.

Matthew, from Manchester, says: "It might be a vision with twisted human faces.They can push down on your chest and you feel like you can't breathe. Now I'm at university, and just moved to a new bedroom in a hall of residence, the incidents come once a week. At home, it was about once a month."

Doctors and pyschologists have been unable to explain or help but some believe the condition has affected up to FOUR IN TEN Brits at some point - and Matthew has suffered since he was a boy.

He says: "I saw a doctor when I was little but they put it down to nightmares.

"I then saw a psychologist and they couldn't help because they knew nothing about the condition. Around my GCSEs I tried to get some help, but medics thought I was on drugs. That's how little understood it is. At uni, I went to a GP again and they had never heard of it."