Facing the faceless

New York-based photographer Nicolas Bruno turns his nightmares into art to spread awareness about sleep paralysis

- BY SACHIN JOSE

Nicolas Bruno was just six or seven when he woke from an afternoon nap, conscious but utterly paralysed. “From the corner of my eye, a figure entered the bedroom and walked towards the window beside my bed. I tried to turn and face the figure, but my body was completely frozen,” recalls the New York-based photographer. It was the beginning of a lifelong relationship with sleep paralysis, one that would terrify him, reshape him, and ultimately become the foundation of his surreal photographic world.

In his early teens, sleep paralysis became a nightly affair, and that led to insomnia. Bruno started having difficulty in classes. “Each night, I would be terrified to go back to sleep and face the feeling of being paralysed while an ominous figure stood at the foot of my bed,” he tells THE WEEK.

Sometimes, he felt that these experiences transcended into an astral projection experience, where he could leave his body and travel through his home. Bruno, now 32, thought these experiences were just some horrible nightmares, or some form of haunting.

At the time, Bruno had no name for what he was experiencing, and like many people, he didn’t know the science behind it. Sleep paralysis is the temporary inability to move or speak while your brain transitions into or out of the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. This stage is known to kick off vivid and dramatic dreams for all people.