Back with Sleep Paralysis

I keep reading these articles on sleep paralysis and know, my friends, that there is no cure for it and that 2% of the world’s population experiences sleep paralysis at least once.

What I find amusing is that everyone keeps advising that the only way to fight sleep paralysis is to relax and let it pass. Now, can someone please, tell me how in hell’s name can you do that? It’s impossible to relax when a loud sound is constantly buzzing in your ears, when your body shakes from all its joints and when you are aware that you cannot wake up no matter how loudly you scream or how hard you force your muscles.

I often have these hallucinations that I’m waking up, that I manage to move and that I am out of the episode, only to discover few moments later that it was just another hallucination.

The most disturbing part of sleep paralysis is the feeling of helplessness and of course the sense of reality of the hallucinations that are almost capable of driving you insane. Another frightening ‘symptom’ prior to an episode is the feeling that your body weights a ton – this usually lets me know I’m in trouble but it’s already too late to do anything about it, the episode starts in a matter of seconds.

Usually, a sleep paralysis episode cannot and will not last more than a few seconds, but we all know that when we dream, time is irrelevant – those few seconds could feel like hours of struggling against something you cannot control. I’m a control freak, and being faced with the impossibility to control my own body and mind scares the shit out of me.

The good thing is that I’m learning to fight off the hallucinations, at least it’s a beginning. Whenever a image makes its way into my head I remember myself that I’m having a sleep paralysis episode and that the image is not real and focus my attention back on relaxing or trying to fight it, however fighting it it’s pretty useless, it will only make you panic even more.

You know, it’s funny, this disorder is the reason why I do not drink anymore, not even a beer. Every time that I drink a beer or I pull an all-nighter, I have another episode of sleep paralysis, so I decided that I will do whatever necessary to avoid this madness which has tormented my sleep since I was a child.

I cannot believe that these psychologists, or psychiatrics haven’t developed a treatment for this disorder – it’s insane not to be able to at least alleviate the episode.

Therefore, my dearest readers, if you wish to avoid sleep paralysis – and I strongly recommend you avoid it at all costs: • don’t drink too much alcohol, or if you are known to be a ‘weak drinker’, don’t drink at all; • don’t deprive yourself of sleep; • keep a clean eating and sleeping schedule; • don’t do drugs – more so if you are susceptible to narcotics; • avoid stress at all costs.

A few advices to follow during an episode: • try not to panic, although I find that hard to do; • remember that what you might see or feel is not real, it is just a hallucination; • know that you will be just fine after you wake up; • concentrate yourself on moving a finger or screaming; • remember that hallucinations can be really smart and can fool you into thinking you’re awake; • know that the threatening presence you’re feeling is not real – just another of those smart hallucinations; • know that you are not experiencing an alien abduction, a ghost appearance, a demon possession or nothing of the sorts – it’s just a rather normal function of your brain gone terribly wrong; • don’t panic, the amount of fear and the stress can have strong effects on your body; • in addition, I have observed that most of my episodes happen when I leave the music on and go to sleep. I don’t know if this is a rule or not, but for me, music often triggers sleep paralysis. So, just to be sure, try not to forget your player open at night.

And no, I don’t have anything with sleep paralysis, apparently, it has something with me, Ştefan.