After Peter left for work this morning I was being a lazy bum and decided to take a nap. As I was falling asleep, I experienced the ever-so creepy phenomina of sleep paralysis. (Yes, I went to Wikipedia to look this up, but it is still true...)
"Sleep paralysis is a condition characterized by temporary paralysis of the body shortly after waking up or, less often, shortly before falling asleep.
. . . Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain awakes from a REM state, but the bodily paralysis persists. This leaves the person fully aware, but unable to move. In addition, the state may be accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations.
More often than not, sleep paralysis is believed by the person affected by it to be no more than a dream . . . The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision."
(by the way Wes, this is the painting I was telling you about that one night. See the camel?)
I was terrified while this was happening. I was hallucinating that someone was in the apartment walking hurridly and talking and opening and shutting cupboards. I could hear their voice and their footsteps but I could not see them. I know my eyes were open because I was frantically looking around and seeing the door, the closet, the dresser, windows, etc. I did not like it.
There was a time I remember feeling something crawl onto the bed and lay on top of me. That made me think about the painting I posted a link to and the image of that gremlin thing would not leave my mind.
No more naps for Jen.
"Sleep paralysis is a condition characterized by temporary paralysis of the body shortly after waking up or, less often, shortly before falling asleep.
. . . Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain awakes from a REM state, but the bodily paralysis persists. This leaves the person fully aware, but unable to move. In addition, the state may be accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations.
More often than not, sleep paralysis is believed by the person affected by it to be no more than a dream . . . The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision."
(by the way Wes, this is the painting I was telling you about that one night. See the camel?)
I was terrified while this was happening. I was hallucinating that someone was in the apartment walking hurridly and talking and opening and shutting cupboards. I could hear their voice and their footsteps but I could not see them. I know my eyes were open because I was frantically looking around and seeing the door, the closet, the dresser, windows, etc. I did not like it.
There was a time I remember feeling something crawl onto the bed and lay on top of me. That made me think about the painting I posted a link to and the image of that gremlin thing would not leave my mind.
No more naps for Jen.
3 comments:
Yuck! that's sick. (In case no one knows, Jenn and I had a discussion about the incident where you feel awake but you can't move and you try to fight to wake up but you just have a weird dream and when you finally wake up you realize it wasn't a dream because you're just as conscious as you were- which she informed me was sleep paralysis. What was more creepy, is that I told her that when it first happened to me was while I was living at Matt's house, shortly after Christmas and I had gotten a semi-big leather camel decoration that said, "made in India" on the bottom, so I began to get suspicious that it might be this "indian camel thing" that was causing this creepy experience. I actually started sleeping in the living room, and then finally moved the camel into the living room and started sleeping in my room- then she informed me of a painting depicting this experience and that there is a camel in the background- creepy!) Long story, but worth knowing I suppose. Thanks Jenn.
"it may be linked to post-synaptic inhibition of motor neurons in the pons region of the brain. In particular, low levels of melatonin may stop the depolarization current in the nerves, which prevents the stimulation of the muscles, to prevent the body from enacting the dreamt activity (e.g. preventing a sleeper from flailing his legs when dreaming about running)." basically this means that if Jen ever wants to nap in a fright free state, all she really needs to do is tan. hypathetically during the tanning process, melitonin is produced as a byproduct of tryptophan. as you tan, a small levil of melitonin is obsorbed into the bloodstream (also the reason you turn pale over time). this melitonin in turn will either be obsorbed int the muscular tissue or lost in the urin or feces of the individual. this will allow the person lower their likelyhoods of sleep paralysis.
one cause for sleep paralisys is a sudden enviromental change (such as gettin married and moving to a different state). either that or sleeping flat and facing upwards (or possibly narcalepsy).
If you're worried about nightmares, don't eat sushi close to the time you go to bed. I learned this the hard way on vacation, when I had sushi as a midnight snack my mind proceeded to torment me all night. I would wake up, shake myself out of it, then when I fell back asleep I would fall into the nightmare again. Other things are on the list of nightmare-causing foods (I dunno about sleep paralysis being in the same category), but maybe the creepy hallucinations were caused by something you ate? All I know is, no more midnight sushi for me!
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