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Batibat
People say the Batibat is a big, heavy hag. Stories say she sits on sleepers and makes the night feel too heavy to move.
Folklore is retold; versions differ.
Sources: Wikipedia: Batibat (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikidata (CC0)
The story
The batibat is a spirit of Ilocano folklore, and the same belief is known in the Southern Tagalog area. People describe her as an old, very heavy woman who lives in a tree. Ilocano speakers use batibat as a word for a nightmare. In Tagalog stories the same being is called bangungot.
The tale goes like this. If people cut down her tree and use the wood as a post in a house, the batibat moves into what remains. She does not want anyone to sleep near that post. A sleeper who does is attacked in the night. She presses on the body, enters the dreams and causes sleep paralysis and bad dreams. People say you can wake yourself by biting your thumb or by wiggling your toes.
The batibat now appears in modern media. Examples are an episode of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, an episode of Lost Girl, and the 2020 horror film Evil Takes Root: The Curse of the Batibat.