Sleep Paralysis and Me!

[my_daroga]

I believe I've mentioned before that I'm often plagued by sleep paralysis, a common condition wherein, essentially, the brain is "awake" while the body is not. For me, it usually happens if I take a nap during the day, though it's infrequent enough (usually) that I still take naps hoping today, it won't happen. It goes in waves--sometimes I can't take a nap without it happening, and then I'll go for months without an episode.

For me, what happens is I get the sense of being awake and aware of my surroundings, down to what room I'm in, the quality of light, my position, etc. But I cannot move. I can't open my eyes or speak or wake up. And that's where the hallucinations come in, also frequently associated with sleep paralysis. They're especially terrifying because of the element of being partially awake: they're dreams that you cannot easily separate from reality, because everything else feels so real. It's been suggested that these hallucinations might account for stories of alien abduction, ghosts, and other unexplained assaults/terrors, which I can well understand, having experienced one such "dream" many years ago. The terror of paralysis is accompanied by some malevolent force in these hallucinations, inescapable and horrifying.

But what's really curious to me, and the reason I'm mentioning it now, is that I typically don't have those. I have the paralysis, and the hallucinations, but do you know what I hallucinate?

The people who belong there, going about their everyday lives and not able to hear me. Seriously, my "terror" is that I am asleep, cannot wake up, and Mr. Daroga/whoever can't hear me. Yesterday, which was movie night, I dreamed there were people over talking and cooking and I kept trying to call out to get them to wake me up. What's funny to me about this is that my particular brand of terror isn't aliens or ghosts or strange men--it's me. It's me being out of control, being guilty about sleeping, being unable to command my body. Even when I'm having the normal sort of dream, the most common element is narcolepsy. I am not narcoleptic. But in my dreams, I am often unable to keep my eyes open or I fall asleep driving.

So why is it that this is how my nightmares manifest? I think it's interesting that even asleep, I blame myself--that is to say, I do not create an external demonic force but instead fear my own loss of control.

I just can't help but think that's significant, in an almost embarrassingly obvious way.

Comments

[phantoms_siren]

That is strange.

I get that a lot in the summer, I can only sleep if covered with heavy blankets and the heatstroke/dehydration/sleep deprivation seem to create the perfect conditions for sleep paralysis. However I always hallucinate the same thing everytime- bees. Usually it starts with one bee but the long it lasts the more bees appear until bees cover everything. I think the message there is that bees are evil. Oddly its the only area of (sub)conscious that ins't focused on negative selfworth.

[my_daroga]

Oh that is interesting. Bees.It sounds terrifying, and I'm sorry. I guess we'll never know where these things come from, in our minds.

[lettered]

:o( :o(

Don't worry I'll wake you up.

<3

[my_daroga]

...

You weren't there!

[holyschist]

I've had a few episodes of sleep paralysis, but I didn't know it could come with hallucinations.

Although I suspect mine would be like yours (scary!). Or involve maggots. But I can't imagine hallucinating demonic forces.

I also have dreams about falling asleep while driving.

[my_daroga]

That's interesting. I bet the falling asleep while _____ is pretty common.

I think my hallucinations sort of ride the line between hallucinations and the natural outgrowth of the paralysis.

[holyschist]

In my case, given how many times I HAVE nearly fallen asleep while driving, I'm not surprised my subconscious is terrified of it, too. :(

[my_daroga]

That does make a lot of sense. I would be, too!