I’ve read about people with psychosis claiming to be tormented by devil. Personally I experienced episodes of sleep paralysis, and I remember seeing dark figures “attacking me”
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Well, mostly by association, i’d wager. Most folk are raised in some form of religion and each tend to have the devil type of archetype. All the bad in the world. Especially see it in tv and films. So the mind sees something bad, something that incites fear and it needs to make sense of it. so it grabs all kinds of imagery from your mind to comprehend what is going on.
That is what I’d say on the mater. some one more educated in psychology would know better, naturally!
One of probably three things comes to mind:
– the mental disorder/abnormality *actually is* demonic in nature
– the person experiencing the disorder/abnormality is predisposed to associate anything “really bad” with demonic activity
– absent any other *plausible* explanation, it’s ‘easier’ to say something was demonic vs the shadow of a tree at night on your wall (for example)
There may be other reasons, but these are the top I can come up with
Are you looking for a scientific or spiritual answer ?
Well, that might *not* be so common. Evidence suggests that hallucinations from schizophrenia are [shaped by culture](https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/). Because we in the west share a lot of similar culture – in particular, Christianity, and the notion that there are evil Bad Things out to steal your immortal soul – we are more inclined to hallucinate harmful or demonic visions.
Intense religious belief and delusions go hand in hand. Anyone unhinged in that way is likely to buy into whatever religion their culture does full send, and most religions genericise any supernatural badness into ” demons”.
Sometimes people have visions of nice things that aren’t objectively, externally real. I experience occasional sleep paralysis, but it doesn’t feel like an attack to me. It’s just shadowy figures hanging out with me. “Oh, hey sleep paralysis shadow person. What’s up?” But mental disorders are a lot like alcoholism. One person can have a drink or two every night and be fine. Another person can be an alcoholic with just one drink a night. It depends on whether the alcohol is a problem for them. If someone is having visions of nice things and it isn’t bothering them, then it isn’t likely going to be treated as a mental disorder. It’s likely going to be treated as a religious experience and the person having those visions is likely to join a church and be very well respected in that church.
I don’t talk about it a lot about my own sleep paralysis because I know it would be upsetting to my friends who have traumatizing sleep paralysis.
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