What is the Hat Man? 'Shadow people' and sleep paralysis

Tales of things that go bump in the night are often met with scepticism but one nightmarish figure keeps cropping up in reports from all around the world. 

Since the late 2000s, posters on social media and online messageboards have been sharing their experiences of waking in the dark to find a shadowy figure, dubbed the Hat Man, looming over them.

The phenomenon has attracted widespread attention, inspiring documentaries and the launch of a dedicated blog, The Hatman Project, where people can share their experiences.

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Something that "probably began with a trick of the light as processed by the human subconscious" has become a "dominant character within the digital culture", said Rolling Stone. The spooky being has "inspired its own lore and countless witness reports, lately fuelled by TikTok's fascination with the paranormal and occult".

Who or what is the Hat Man?

Descriptions of the Hat Man are "remarkably consistent from one account to the next", said Rolling Stone. "It's the tall silhouette of a man in a brimmed hat, a presence that tends to appear when you're in bed at night, somewhere between sleep and consciousness."

Of course, said the magazine, as more people talk about Hat Man online, the more power the myth obtains and the image becomes self-perpetuating as those "consuming it automatically become disposed to recognize the Hat Man in their own bedrooms".

The Hat Man is a modern-day example of a "shadow person", a paranormal concept which dates back to ancient times. For about as long as written records have existed, "people have described a frightening night-time vision that paralyses them with fear and seems to suck the breath right out of them, often by pressing directly upon their chest", reported Quartz.

The "shape of the frightening figure occasionally varies", but victims usually report feeling "utterly paralysed with terror, and breathless, as if fear had frozen them from the inside out", said the site.

What about the 'Benadryl Man'?

On internet forums such as 4chan and Reddit, many claim to have seen a version of the 'Hat Man' triggered by the overuse or abuse of diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in the over-the-counter allergy medication Benadryl. This particular form of the hallucination has sometimes been nicknamed the "Benadryl man", said Drugs.com. On many forums on which people detail their experiences taking mind-altering drugs, the Hat Man has become both an "inside joke and mascot", said Rolling Stone. Among believers, "any mind-altering substance taken to excess is thought to grant access to the Hat Man, even caffeine".

What is sleep paralysis?

Sleep paralysis is a state in which the line between sleep and wakefulness is blurred, so a person starts to become aware of their surroundings but is still in a state of temporary paralysis called muscle atonia, which the body goes into during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep to protect us from acting out our dreams.

Pinpointing the cause of sleep paralysis is tricky. Family history, stress levels, substance abuse and certain mental and physical health conditions appear to correlate with a higher likelihood of experiencing sleep paralysis, according to science magazine Discover. Sleep paralysis can also be a side-effect of medication including  "SSRIs, tricyclic antidepressants, anticholinesterase inhibitors, beta blockers, and sleep medications".

One in five people have an episode of sleep paralysis at least occasionally, according to the Seattle-based Sleep Foundation, and accompanying hallucinations are very common. These are often informally referred to by sufferers as "sleep paralysis demons".

What are sleep paralysis demons?

These "nightmarish hallucinations" have been found "throughout history", said The Telegraph.

However, Christopher French, a psychology professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, told the newspaper that while people can experience various different types of hallucination, "certain themes tend to occur more often than others". In the Middle Ages, he added, sleep paralysis was blamed on "sex-crazed demons" who had their "wicked way with their paralysed, helpless victims", a belief "beautifully illustrated" in Henri Fuseli's 1781 painting "The Nightmare".

The term "nightmare" is itself a Middle Ages word related to sleep paralysis, said Sleep Foundation. It was originally "night-mare", referring to a usually female supernatural being that would sit on top of someone's chest "to suffocate them". The Guardian said that the word "haggard" derives from the same phenomenon, with the people of Anglo-Saxon England believing witches descended on victims who were "ridden by the hag".

Sleep Foundation goes back even further, citing the Mesopotamian legend from around 2400BC of Lilitu. Author Ryan Hurd, the founder of the Dream Studies website, describes the later Judaic tradition of Lilith, an "owl-footed half human demoness" who "steals upon men at night" in order to breed half-human/half-demon babies. Greek physician Paulus Aegineta, in the seventh century, thought sleep paralysis was caused by Pan, "the faun-like God of nature and the wild", leaping onto the chests of victims, said The Guardian.

Culture also affects reports of sleep paralysis demons, clinical psychologist Brian Sharpless told Global News, which is why they look "very different from one era or country to another". People from East Asia are more likely to see a ghost, while "dreamers" in Zanzibar say they have been "attacked by a giant black bat called a popobowa". "Every culture puts their own little spin on it," he added.

Why do people experience sleep paralysis demons?

While the exact cause of hallucinations like the Hat Man are unknown, experts believe they "occur when people experience the vivid dreams of REM sleep while they are awake", said the foundation.

Some say the figure of the Hat Man may be subconscious reworkings of figures from popular culture, including popular horror films in recent times. Christopher French, a psychology professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, said the first thing that came to mind when he thought about the Hat Man was Freddy Krueger from "A Nightmare on Elm Street". He told Quartz: "This notion that you can be attacked when you’re asleep, that’s when you’re vulnerable. And of course, Krueger wears a hat."

"For centuries, cultures across the world have attributed these hallucinations to black magic, mythical monsters, even paranormal activity," Baland Jalal, a researcher at Harvard University's department of psychology, wrote in Scientific American. Jalal suggested that people who fear supernatural demons in the night are more likely to experience the phenomenon again. "It appears that the more people fear sleep paralysis, the more they experience it, and the stronger its effects are", he said. Accompanied by a belief in the paranormal, sleep paralysis can therefore be not just frightening but potentially traumatising.

"The human mind is vastly more mysterious, and occasionally malevolent, than one would have thought."

Can you stop sleep paralysis?

While doctors have some understanding of how the condition occurs, sleep paralysis "still remains something of a mystery", said Discovery, which means there is no single cure. 

During an episode, sufferers should focus on breathing and awareness, and "try to initiate movement with a small muscle, like a finger or toe", said the magazine: "this small action can help bring an end to the paralysis episode".

In the long-term, stress and trauma appear to be contributing factors, and there is evidence that "meditation and relaxation" can help reduce the chances. In one study, participants who used those techniques cut the number of episodes they experienced by more than a half, and hallucinations by more than one-third.