I use the google personal page for my home page. Which is the same as the Yahoo! or MSN versions in that you can personalize the search page thingy to suit yourself. I like to have the "quote of the day", "wierd headlines", "weather" and "how to" articles enabled. Every once and a while there is something worth reading.
Today my "How to" article is "How to cope with Sleep Paralysis", something that I have never heard of before, but rang a very loud bell as I read the article.
My mother will be the first person to tell you that I have ALWAYS had a very active imagination. I spent (and still spend) a lot of time daydreaming about all manner of strange things...how a conversation SHOULD go, how the world SHOULD be run, what happens to the characters in a book after the story is finished, how I would go about doing just about everything I do....really, I spend a lot of time imagining things.
So when I wake up in the middle of the night unable to move or speak. Absolutely terrified because the dark man at the end of the bed WILL kill me...It's just another internal thing...right?
According to the University of Waterloo, It is a common sleep ailment and is caused by bad sleeping habits. My mind comes fully awake out of REM but my body has not followed as quickly.
The hallucinations are common side effects. I'm not the only person who sees this man...He's also seen as a hag who sits on your chest to suffocate, an alien abduction, a demon, a ghost, a rapist, an angel, an out of body expirience, the falling sensation, the "Calvin" (you know the comic when Calvin wakes up, brushes his teeth, gets dressed, has breakfast, opens the door to go to school and falls of the face of the earth, only to wake in his bed and do it again.)...these things are seen in bedrooms in all countries and in all walks of life. Some are recorded in folk legends going back centuries. The story of Lilith of course being the first one to come to mind.
Personally I've experienced this Sleep Paralysis for years. It's one of those secrets I never even talk to Dan about. It's the reason I got excited about Feng Shui...(Maybe I just need to change the energy of the house to scare the man away) I know it's not reasonable or sensable, but if you have ever experienced it you know how unreasonable that fear is in the middle of the night.
So here is my confession, and a bit of an experiment. According to the University of Waterloo most people have expirienced this at one time or another...whether they remember it or not. Since it is the middle of the night or just before falling asleep it is usually written off as a very vivid dream.
Has anyone else had this sort of thing happen to them?
Do you fall asleep on your back?
Are you stressed?
Do you take naps or sleep odd hours?
Just interested is all...it's good to know I'm only crazy, and not being stalked by a bad guy ;)
2 comments:
Never had that experience...but I tend to sleep on my stomach or my side...my parents have told tales of me sleep walking on occasion though!
Always a degree of stress with my life...but that's what I use to motivate me to accomplish things. And naps are things I sometimes dole out as 'treats' for a hard day of work **grin**
When I was in Uni, my sleep patterns were all over the map...but I'm pretty solid in my sleep patterns now...
Shaymus
I recall waking every now and then and being kind of "out of body" -- not being too concerned about it, but not being able to move. Never felt that there was a man/being in the room, tho. I *used* to be a heavy sleeper, and that was more when this sort of feeling would occur now and then. Now -- I wake at the drop of a hat, so I don't think I'm getting to that really heavy sleep when this is more likely to occur. That's my theory, anyway.
oh ya -- I'm usually on my back in these experiences, although I am a tummy sleeper by preference. My most recent recollection of it occuring is before kids, so I guess I would have been a student at the time, and following the usual student kind of sleep patterns! I don't really remember, though.
jackie
Post a Comment