If you have spent any extensive amount of time in the Southwest, no matter what sort of background you happen to belong to, you have probably heard stories about La Llorona, a morose ghost who roams the night crying out for her missing children.
There are different versions of the legend of the Weeping Woman, but most end with this: after being betrayed by a man (isn’t that always how it goes?), she- like a more modern-day Medea- killed her children in a fit of rage. However, after realizing what she had done, she became distraught. Some versions end with her killing herself, usually in the same way she dispatched her children, which many say was by drowning them.
Much as there are many accounts on just who she was and what happened, there are also differences in just who she chooses to go after. Most often, her victims are said to be naughty children out after dark that she catches and drags to whatever dark place she hides during the day, as replacements for her own dead little ones. Sometimes, however, you will also hear tales of an unfaithful man, often a drunkard, being charmed by a lovely woman at a bar that he later comes to find out is the horrific, decaying body of a ghost. Whichever tales you choose to believe, there is no doubt in the minds of many that she is out there, her vengeful spirit wandering the night. I have had my own visit from La Llorona, though I must admit it wasn’t nearly as exciting as most of the others.
My mother often refers to me as her “ghouly girl,” and I like to consider myself a connoisseur of all things paranormal folklore related. I have countless books on the subject, detailing the backstories of ghosts from the Eastern Seaboard to my very own home in the state of Arizona. The stories surrounding cities I know perhaps fascinate me the most, as instead of passing by places day-to-day, I now have some character to attribute to them.
It’s funny that I tend this way, as I’ve never been much the sort for horror movies or any sort of overly gory media. I guess I’m just too visual of a person for that kind of thing, preferring reading over watching, where I am able to picture things to my level of comfort. Still, it has never stopped my ever-whirling mind from thinking of some of the most disgusting, horrific nightmares, usually causing me to wake up in a cold sweat, heart racing, and reaching for the rosary in the drawer beside my bed.
It was in this way that I first encountered the Weeping Woman, and I hope it shall be the only time I ever come across her for the rest of my life. It’s all very strange, things happening the way they did, to begin with, as I’m not much of a night person. I am the type to throw on a cozy pair of pajamas or soft pants the second I get home, whether that be eleven in the morning or nine at night. I don’t like being out much once it gets late. My mother always told me that nothing good ever happens after 10 pm, and the more time I spend in this city, the more I am inclined to believe her. Most of the outrageous crime stories I read about seem to take place sometime between 10:30 and 6 am, hours when I am peacefully at home sleeping.
It was a few months back, early spring I think, when La Llorona decided to make her presence known to me. Like most nights, I was in bed early, slowly drifting off to the sounds of the train and streetcar in the distance, a podcast on low volume playing on my phone.
I think this podcast was likely where my fatal mistake lay. You see, being invested in all things creepy like I am, I have a tendency to also like true crime. While this may be fine for a short nap during the day, or even as a sort of white noise while I am working on whatever project happens to have my attention at the moment, it is not necessarily the best choice for heavy-duty sleeping. When I am in a deeper part of my circadian rhythm, the descriptions of the grisly murders that have been carefully recorded by some millennial YouTuber find their way into my subconscious, conjuring up all sorts of uncomfortable images that then dance across the screen of my mind as I slumber on.
While I am one of the lucky sort that is able to lucid dream very easily and very often, it is something of a two-edged sword. More often than not, I end up caught in a loop, desperately trying to escape whatever strange or odd entity has decided to play a prank that night, and failing each and every time. It is also not uncommon for dream paralysis to occur when I am caught in one of these loops, each escape attempt becoming increasingly more difficult. My legs turn to stone, and my eyes refuse to open wide enough to take in everything that is going on around me, so I am left blind and helpless in the middle of I-don’t-know-where.
With all the times I’ve experienced dream paralysis, you think I would have had my share of rounds with the regular sleep paralysis that most experience, but, strangely, I have not. Until one time, that is.
As I believe I’ve mentioned, my dreams tend to be extremely vivid. My brain could be filtering out the most absurd nonsense anyone has ever heard of while I am asleep, and yet it still manages to feel so real to me. On the night in question, I believe I was dreaming of being bedridden, a case of being trapped in one’s own body, where I could hear and see those around me, but they more often than not didn’t respond to me at all.
I was watching two older women stand over me, talking about me, when suddenly another figure appeared in the corner of the bedroom. She looked like a bride, strangely, dressed in a grubby white dress with tangled black hair falling out of a loose veil. For a second, her face appeared beautiful, until I saw what lay beneath: death-bleached skin barely clinging to her bones, with large, dark red circles under her eyes. Somehow, I knew instinctively that all those legends I’d read were now making an appearance: La Llorona had come for a visit.
She began pointing at me, talking about horrible things I couldn’t remember doing, and telling the other two women that it had come my time to be taken to the bleak underworld the Weeping Woman has called her home for God only knows how many centuries now.
I could only watch in horror as she made her way over to the bed, climbing on top of me, sucking the life out of me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She was suffocating me, her black eyes boring straight through me.
With a start, I woke up, but the nightmare wasn’t over. While the other two women from my dream had vanished, I could still feel something sitting on my chest, a something much too heavy to be my cat. She was still there, I could feel her, and I swear I saw the pale outline of leg sweep in a swift arc across the mattress.
I tried to scream, but nothing came out. It was like my lips were glued together. The pressing continued, and I felt my heart rate speed up. I was quickly descending into a panic. I had to end this– and fast.
I tried to yell again, about half a syllable of the Good Lord’s name making it past my lips. No. I was not going to die tonight. Not here, not like this. I am only in my early twenties– I still have so much life ahead of me!
I struggled against the specter’s grip, fighting whatever held my tongue down until I was finally able to croak out, “Jesus!”
The second the name left my lips, she was gone. I felt the pressure from my chest ease, and the room was once more empty, as though she’d never been there at all. And perhaps she wasn’t. Even as a scholar of psychology, it is far beyond me to understand all the workings of the human mind, why it conjures the things it does, and if they are ever in any way connected with the paranormal. I’ve had my run-ins with ghosts and ghouls, of course, everyone has, but quite a few were harmless and have only ever bothered me when I was awake and about.
I lay there in bed, breathing heavily for a few moments, before reaching for the aforementioned rosary I keep in a drawer on my bedside table. Running my sweaty fingers over the cold beads brought a huge sense of relief, and after a while I found myself able to calm down and go back to sleep, before my alarm clock woke me with its obnoxious ringing a little while later.
That was my first and only encounter with the weeping woman. I still get nightmares from time to time, but never sleep paralysis. I hope I never do again, because if I never see La Llorona’s horrid, sorrowful face again it will be too soon.
However, there are some nights when, lying in bed, I think I can hear her mournful wailing somewhere out in the distance. For as long as there are people tormented by night, she will be out there, waiting.