As a teenager I could sleep for days. It came so naturally. If you were to find me awake, you’d find me in a group of my friends passing around the ol’ doobie. I think this contributed to my sleeping habits (& possibly to what is to come), but that was fine with me. Being asleep meant being completely numb to everything happening around you. I’d rather be in dreamland than dealing with the stress of everyday life. Especially as a teenager.
Eventually though, even sleeping became a stressful situation. I was developing sleep paralysis. This wasn’t a ‘one time of night’ situation either. This was a ‘every time you fall asleep you will awake to the most horrifying scenario you could imagine’ type of situation. If you’re unfamiliar with sleep paralysis, basically you wake up in total paralysis, unable to move or speak. Many people hallucinate things, since your body is still technically asleep, you are still able to dream. Only everything you dream seems to be happening in your bedroom in real time. Most people see horrifying things, since it is only natural to be afraid in this type of situation.
This went on for a very long time. I stayed stressed and anxious constantly, forcing myself to stay awake all hours of the night every night. Eventually I got used to it though. The tall man in the corner of my room with a top hat on, just no longer bothered me. I knew it was fake, just my mind playing tricks on me. Until one night, same as any, I had woken up a million times aggravated that I couldn’t stay asleep longer than ten minutes. Eventually back to bed I went. Once again I had woken up in a paralyzed state. At this point, there’s no hallucinations, no nothing. Just me, laying there, mad at the world. As I lay there waiting for it to end suddenly a sound pierced the air that I can only describe as running electricity. It’ll fills the room. Louder than anything I had heard before, I can’t cover my ears to shield myself from this awful sound. I feel my body rise, as if it’s floating off the bed directly above where I was once lying before. A light appears. Becoming brighter and brighter until it fills the room, until I can see nothing more than this light. Luckily I can close my eyes. “Am I dying?” I thought “Am I being whisked away into the great beyond?” “Am I being… Abducted?!”, thoughts racing through my mind. These were my only thoughts to rationalize what could possibly be happening to me. I had never had an episode like this before. Terrified, I tried to fight it for what felt like eternity& suddenly, like gravity had finally taken over, I dropped. I fell from the grasp of whatever had lifted me into the air and hit my bed only to role off onto the floor. As I hit the floor everything had stopped. The light had disappeared and the room fell silent. I woke up, on the floor, back to my own reality left with nothing but my own thoughts.
This was the last time I ever had sleep paralysis…