Woman Mistakenly Gives Herself Sleep Paralysis After Sniffing Poisonous Flower

Updated September 8, 2021

When we see a sitcom or a funny movie take its characters into the wilderness, chances are good that it'll feature a scene where a character casually cleans themselves off with a leaf only to discover that it was poison ivy all along.

And in addition to being a good challenge for the production's makeup department, this trope serves as a good reminder that the lovely sights we see in nature aren't always as innocent as they seem.

Because as one musician and her friend recently learned, poison ivy is far from the only plant that looks deceptively normal but can ruin your whole day.

On June 24, pop singer-songwriter Raffaela Weyman uploaded a TikTok that saw her and her best friend (pictured) getting ready for another friend's birthday party.

TikTok | @songsbyralph

But on the way, the pair discovered a yellow flower on the street that they both found beautiful, so they decided to carry it with them.

And as Weyman described it, the flower smelled about as pretty as it looked.

Instagram | @songsbyralph

According to a comment she left on an Instagram post about her discovery, she said that it smelled like a combination of lilies and honeysuckle.

So in her words, "Me & my BFF found this beautiful flower and spent the night deeply inhaling its smell."

However, they would eventually learn that this was the last thing they should've done with this flower.

TikTok | @songsbyralph

According to Better Homes and Gardens, the flower is known as "Angel's Trumpet," and while it's considered a lovely and aromatic flower, the magazine warns that every part of it is poisonous.

This is due to the presence of a chemical called scopolamine, otherwise known as Devil's Breath.

Wikimedia Commons | Jim Evans

As Val Curran at UCL’s Clinical Pharmacology Unit told The Guardian, "When I used to give it to people [in experiments], they hated it – it makes your mouth really dry, it makes your pupils constrict. Certainly high doses would be completely incapacitating."

All in all, she described the chemical as "horrible stuff."

And based on Weyman's TikTok, that seemed to describe her experience with it pretty well.

Shortly after they arrived at their friend's party, Weyman and her friend felt sickly and had to leave, but things would get weirder for them that night.

As Weyman put it, "I had my first sleep paralysis dream and the craziest nightmares."

Although its reputation for literally turning people into zombies is something of an exaggeration, it is known to be incapacitating enough that sufferers of its effects will seem like zombies and they'll almost certainly experience some unwanted hallucinations.

So no matter how pretty and fragrant these large blossoms (which can also be seen in white, orange, and redder colors) may be, don't get too close to them.

h/t: The Guardian

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