you have a nightmare.
of someone standing over you.
your in your room. your house. exactly where you remember falling asleep.
then you "wake up."-and cant move, cant speak.
you try to tell yourself to yell. scream. breathe. hyperventilate. move. run.
all in retaliation of fear of the image that just perpetrated your brain, intruding your sleep.
but you cant.
your frozen.
have you ever experienced this completely detrimental and utterly terrifying event?
i hadn't up until early november. i had been sleeping at a friends house in london when i awoke to the, hands down, most excruciatingly frightening experience of my life. a dream of a person cloaked in a black gown, no visible features, no movements, no words-just stood like a stranger in the night, over top of me, watching me. in the first moments of seeing this, i truly believed an intruder had come into my friends house. i attempted to scream and sit myself up but nothing happened. my body ignored any and all commands, pleas-have you, from my brain to "save myself."
minutes after i found myself able to move. after regaining any lost sense of control, i chalked it up to a bad dream and went back to bed (not before turning on a light AND the tv in the room.)
i diluted my brain of the experience and carried on my sometimes over active, deep seeded love for sleep, as many students can attest to having!
until it happened again when i returned to school.
just as vivid the second time. just as frightening. realistic. mind altering.
after the second occurrence of this- what i have learnt to be a sleep phenomena- i was truly petrified to sleep. to such a severity that when i felt myself getting tired i would pinch myself. drink countless cups of coffee and even set my alarm to wake me every so many minutes. it had become detrimental to my health and my education-completely debilitating my life, so to speak. after sharing my experiences with my parents about the events that had transpired, we decided it prudent to speak with my doctor-as it had begun to affect my health.
i was soon to learn the frightening facts, beliefs and theories on what i was experiencing.
now, i consider myself a realist. i believe in what science tells us. what can be proved in front of my very eyes-its the way i was raised and educated. i find this keeps me grounded.
but after talking to the doctor i have had since before i evacuated the womb, i learnt what i was experiencing was considered above and beyond anything that can be read in any medical journal.
yes-there is a term for what i was experiencing. its called sleep paralysis. when a person suddenly finds themselves unable to move for a few minutes, most often upon falling asleep or waking up. Sleep paralysis is due to an ill-timed disconnection between the brain and the body.
simple right? wrong.
my doctor then followed this medical assessment with that of a more deviate and eccentric theory. sleep paralysis, has been found in studies, to be an act of paranormal sleep phenomena.Sleep paralysis goes by an assortment of names around the world-as it has been recognized and studied on countless continents. names include the "old hag" in Newfoundland (for an old witch thought to sit on the chest of the paralyzed sleeper), "kokma" in the West Indies (for a ghost baby who jumps on the sleeper's chest and attacks the throat), "kanashibari" in Japan and "gui ya" or ghost pressure in China (because a ghost is believed to sit on and assault the sleeper).
after hearing this, what i considered to be an unorthodox, theory. i decided to research it; i got countless upon countless hits on the subject of sleep paralysis, oddly enough, the greater majority of these internet findings were that of the paranormal. i watched videos. read articles. observed medical studies. laughed at ridiculous theories. but they all distinguished the same ideas. this was out of the norm.
some people claim to experience this on a regular basis, some to the point of being hospitalized. and some may laugh and title this all just absurd and droll, i can tell you, after being a 5 time experiencer-its is by far the most extreme of feeling and emotions, all in the frightening sense. words cannot describe the moment to be truthful. you awake without breath, in fear.
imagine swimming in the ocean and seeing a 14 foot great white shark approaching you, jaws open. imagine that fear-now...welcome to my situation.
most people have had that dream that their 'running', or attempting to, yet their limbs wont cooperate-imagine that-but being awake, not being able to breathe and being in a complete state of panic and in addition to the immobility, the common symptoms that include feeling choked or suffocated, hearing strange noises like footsteps and voices, seeing beings or dark shadows, and feeling an existance of someone in the room. thats not your everyday nightmare.
after reading testimonials from a variety of individuals who were just as unfortunate as me to experience this, i noticed all had the same symptoms, even the EXACT same dreams. pure fear.
was i going crazy? were we all crazy? is it just science? alien abductions (as some more "out there" theorists attempt to claim it is) the old hag?
now i sit here, after just experiencing another episode (hence the 4am blog!) and wonder is it science, is it paranormal?
im a realist, but this re occurring event has led me somewhat astray from my abundantly average beliefs.
science can prove so much on the matter; basically saying its sleep paralysis and all it is, is a disconnection between the brain and the body amidst REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. but i somehow cannot imagine any scientific understanding or legitimacy for the things i see in my nightmares, or what some believe NOT to be nightmares at all. maybe im being a skeptic, maybe i really am losing my mind, or are just running on such little sleep that my brain is exhausted and fabricating ideas that aren't even, in fact, real. but the fear i feel when i awake from this experience is real- just utter, unaffected, 100% terror. my heart beats with the strength of ten men and my breathe runs as fast as usain bolt. my body freezes but my mind races and yells and demands with no reciprocation. i feel like i'm a star in a freddy kruger movie-only its real and i cant stop it, i cant turn the tv off and remind myself it isn't real, because the terror is real. some people i have discussed this with have simply stated "oh its just a nightmare."-a nightmare is the UNconscious mind. i can assure you, i am completely and disgustingly conscious when this occurs. i wish i weren't, i wish it were the run of the mill nightmare. one you wake up to in a cold sweat and thank god it was just a nightmare, then fall back asleep-basically unaffected.
i laugh even thinking i have spent x amount of time writing this blog JUST to put off the inevitable sleep that proceeds me. i just lavish the idea that this is normal. that others experience this to the extent that i do. that ill grow out of it. maybe its stress related. thankfully, with the understanding and empathetic nature of my family doctor i am attending a sleep clinic next week, followed by an EEG to maintain my noggin is, in fact, all in tact and in working order, so to speak. hopefully i can understand. be "treated."-whatever, because if there is a god, there is no way he would allow this to continue.
until the next 4am night terror, night mare, sleep paralysis, waking by the hag, alien abduction-whatever theory you believe, i wish you a good sleep, or at least one better than mine.
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