Anyone who has followed the incredible rags-to-riches story of Bruce Lee’s incredible journey from a poor and troubled childhood to his meteoric rise to fame in ’60s and ’70s martial arts action movies will be aware. from the mysterious legend surrounding him of his battles with a demonic entity.

For those of you unfamiliar with the circumstances surrounding this, I will try to elaborate and select from the many bizarre myths and wild stories that have spawned over the years since his untimely death in 1973.

Some have suggested that there was a curse on the Lee family and that Bruce and his father inherited it and that in order to hide Bruce from the demon, his father adopted the Chinese custom of giving him a girl name Léi Saifung Pinyin: Li Xìfèng, which literally meant “little phoenix” Many people believe that an evil spirit was responsible for Lee’s death on July 20, 1973.

Of course, all of this has been mythologized over the years, most notably by the 1993 movie ‘Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story’, which was supposed to chart the actors’ rise to fame and eventual death. The film grossly exaggerates many elements of Lee’s life and towards the end shows Lee in a martial arts battle royale with an armored samurai demon.

But is there any truth to the Lees Demons story? I think so. . . but not in the way you’d think and not in the literal sense of demonic persecution.

Sleep paralysis is a phenomenon experienced by millions of people around the world and those who suffer from it often present the same symptoms; they wake up to find themselves completely paralyzed from head to toe and often experience unpleasant symptoms such as vivid hallucinations of old hags or more commonly; dark shadowy figures.

In his 1996 book ‘Bruce Lee; Fighting Spirit’ Bruce Thomas includes a chapter called ‘The Shadow’ which includes statements made by Bruce’s family and friends recounting their battles with a shadowy black figure in his sleep who held him back, a typical symptom of sleep paralysis.