Ask the Author: Robert Pruneda
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Robert Pruneda
Devil’s Nightmare was very loosely based on actual events.
I can’t remember my exact age, but when I was somewhere between ten and twelve years old, my sister introduced me to a parlor game that supposedly would allow us to speak with the dead. The game had a planchette and a board with alphabet and numbers painted on it, along with four complete words: Yes, No, Hello and Goodbye. I knew what a Ouija board was (and I had seen a movie about it), but I had never played with one before. It seemed like innocent fun . . . until I started using it by myself. Apparently, you’re not supposed to do that. Meh, I didn’t care. It was just a game, right?
I don’t have a story about ghosts throwing me across the room or demons possessing me. None of that happened, but aside from experiencing horrific nightmares and anxiety attacks, what really terrified me was an incident that happened at approximately 3 a.m. in my bedroom. I woke up feeling an intense amount of pressure against my chest, and I could not breathe. It was then that I noticed something hovering above me, just inches from my face. Fear paralyzed my body when a pair of demonic eyes appeared within the silhouette. I wanted to scream, but the pressure on my chest somehow left me completely mute. To this day, I have never been so terrified about anything in my life. Finally, my lungs filled with air and I let out a hysterical cry for my parents. The apparition disappeared as soon as Mom and Dad rushed into my bedroom and turned on the lights. I burned the Ouija board in the fireplace the next day and haven’t played with one since.
That incident in my bedroom in Austin, Texas was probably nothing more than a common phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. I’ve also had it happen to me as an adult. Basically, you wake up and are unable to move, speak, or react. It’s almost like you’re somewhere between sleep and waking up. Your brain and body haven’t quite synched up together. The demon I saw was likely a hallucination from a waking dream.
While science can explain what happened to me that night, it didn’t make it any less frightening for me as a kid. But what if it was real? What if had broken some sacred spiritual rule and inadvertently summoned a demon? What if there was an ancient curse involved? While I only loosely based Devil’s Nightmare on my childhood experience with the Ouija board, it still gave me the heebie-jeebies when I thought about it while writing the 360-page novel.
I can’t remember my exact age, but when I was somewhere between ten and twelve years old, my sister introduced me to a parlor game that supposedly would allow us to speak with the dead. The game had a planchette and a board with alphabet and numbers painted on it, along with four complete words: Yes, No, Hello and Goodbye. I knew what a Ouija board was (and I had seen a movie about it), but I had never played with one before. It seemed like innocent fun . . . until I started using it by myself. Apparently, you’re not supposed to do that. Meh, I didn’t care. It was just a game, right?
I don’t have a story about ghosts throwing me across the room or demons possessing me. None of that happened, but aside from experiencing horrific nightmares and anxiety attacks, what really terrified me was an incident that happened at approximately 3 a.m. in my bedroom. I woke up feeling an intense amount of pressure against my chest, and I could not breathe. It was then that I noticed something hovering above me, just inches from my face. Fear paralyzed my body when a pair of demonic eyes appeared within the silhouette. I wanted to scream, but the pressure on my chest somehow left me completely mute. To this day, I have never been so terrified about anything in my life. Finally, my lungs filled with air and I let out a hysterical cry for my parents. The apparition disappeared as soon as Mom and Dad rushed into my bedroom and turned on the lights. I burned the Ouija board in the fireplace the next day and haven’t played with one since.
That incident in my bedroom in Austin, Texas was probably nothing more than a common phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. I’ve also had it happen to me as an adult. Basically, you wake up and are unable to move, speak, or react. It’s almost like you’re somewhere between sleep and waking up. Your brain and body haven’t quite synched up together. The demon I saw was likely a hallucination from a waking dream.
While science can explain what happened to me that night, it didn’t make it any less frightening for me as a kid. But what if it was real? What if had broken some sacred spiritual rule and inadvertently summoned a demon? What if there was an ancient curse involved? While I only loosely based Devil’s Nightmare on my childhood experience with the Ouija board, it still gave me the heebie-jeebies when I thought about it while writing the 360-page novel.
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