Nikolai Gogol's account of sleep paralysis in the tale "The Portrait".
Sleep Medicine September 1, 2021 Carolina Aguirre, Marcelo Miranda, Ambra Stefani
Sleep paralysis, a common and frightening experience, was vividly described in Nikolai Gogol's 1833 tale "The Portrait" long before it appeared in medical literature. The account includes motor paralysis, visual and auditory hallucinations, and autonomic manifestations, making it the earliest known description of sleep paralysis in non-medical literature. Several classical writers, including Dostoevsky, Kafka, Dickens, and Maupassant, also depicted this condition in their works.