Hag Riding……

To possess someone else’s mind, usually during sleep. The witch ‘rides’ their victim through the night, and when they wake in the morning they’re exhausted and unrested.

The nightmare is an actual being in European folklore. A mare is indeed a horse. The mare of ‘the nightmare’ is a demon and the word for horse and the word for nightmare …..

The German word is Mahr and sometimes rendered as Nachtmahr.

In Dutch, the nightmare is known as the maar or mare, sometimes called nachtmaar or nachtmare.

Once you have closed your eyes, it is called a good night, but remember, your demon, your otherside awaits you in a place with no end, yet no beginning, once you become exhausted as if it was hell.     ~Umi

It’s the same dreadful demons
toying with your mind.
They wait till it’s dark,
or the lights are down low;
unnerving sickly attacks,
through your blood and bones.    ~Nobody

Being ridden by the nightmare……..

When a person goes to bed, he suddenly feels a pressure on the body, usually in the area of the chest. Sometimes the pressure travels from the feet to the head. The person cannot breathe.
The strong, frightening emotions of a nightmare can be overwhelming.
It is now recognized medically under the name ‘sleep paralysis.
In folklore, it was thought of as a magical attack, though whether by demonic incubus, ghost, harmful fairy, or witch varied according to place and period.

Powers:

Hags have the power of invisibility, the power of flight, can shape-shift, and have the power to paralyse their victims.
So , sometimes hag riding can be caused by a specific spirit, either that has come on its own or it can be one that another employs against a person.
Sleep programming is a technique of feeding powerful suggestions to your mind while you sleep, reprogramming your thoughts at the deepest possible level.

Think about hypnosis. It’s perhaps the world’s most widely-accepted method of self-change. The principles are simple: you get super-relaxed and enter a receptive state of mind, while the hypnotherapist feeds suggestions to your mind.

The power of pre sleep suggestion….
It’s common practice for many people to intentionally direct the workings of their subconscious mind while they’re sleeping. They may even get creative ideas , or answers to a problem that they have asked their subconscious to help them with before nodding off. Many writers have done this as well.

The witching hour

The hours between midnight and 3 a.m. have been considered the witching hour.

In folklore, the witching hour or devil’s hour is a time of night associated with supernatural events. Creatures such as witches, demons and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful. Black magic is thought to be most effective at this time.

Psychological literature suggests that apparitional experiences and sensed presences are most common between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m., corresponding with a 3 a.m. peak in the amount of melatonin in the body.

Astral projection 

Astral projection is a term used in esotericism to describe a willful out-of-body experience that assumes the existence of a soul or consciousness called an “astral body” that is separate from the physical body and capable of travelling outside it throughout the universe.

It is a (usually) voluntary out of body experience that allows the practitioner to perform any number of tasks as pure consciousness that would be otherwise impossible, or at least more difficult, due to the limitations of the physical body.

The astral or etheric body is usually separated from the physical during a deep state of meditation or even during sleep.  Dream walking and lucid dreaming are examples.

This ability can help a witch explore an area or see the destination without needing to physically travel there.

When you take it all into consideration, hag riding could also be the ultimate curse.