Sleep Paralysis, Part Deux
Probably due to a string of late nights, I got sleep paralysis again.
I woke up around 3AM, because I heard drumming. It sounded like those beats you hear in horror films, when they're played in reverse so they steadily get louder and make a kind of ssssssssSSHHHHUMP noise. I remember thinking 'heartbeat' at the time. My eyes must have been partially open, because I could see my room, but then a kind of screen flashed over my vision with the next drumbeat.
It reminded me of a Youtube video screen. White text on a black background said '26 CHILDREN DISAPPEARED THIS YEAR'. Then it flashed through a bunch of photos of kids. I only remember one: a girl, about thirteen, with shoulder-length hair, wearing a pale blue summer dress outdoors. She had a watering can and was standing next to a tree stump, smiling but apparently caught candid. Then the text came back: 'WHO KNOWS WHEN THEY WILL STRIKE AGAIN?'
I don't know how, but I got this strong, terrifying suggestion that the children were not victims. The children were the 'THEY' the text was talking about. Watering-Can-Girl and the Other Children were somehow ... evil? Dangerous? I don't know.
I remember trying to open my mouth and feeling pressure against my jaw, like something was pushing back, holding it closed. That's pretty much what told me it was sleep paralysis. I did the usual routine: close my eyes, breathe slowly, focus on just moving my hands and feet. As my fingers started to move, I heard this high-pitched whining, something in between an old kettle whistling and a scream. Again, I got that horrible gut-feeling -- that the sleep paralysis was angry. It didn't want to let me go.
When I did wake up, it took two hours for me to fall asleep again And that was with the assistance of my friend/uni housemate, Tob,* who calmed me down over the phone. (He has insomnia, so I didn't feel too awful about bothering him at 3:30AM.)
But yeah. That really, really sucked.
As a writer (and occassional painter), I get a lot of my ideas from nightmares/night terrors/sleep paralysis. But I would gladly go somewhere else for inspiration if there was a guaranteed cure.
*Not his real name, but what I really call him, so close enough.
I woke up around 3AM, because I heard drumming. It sounded like those beats you hear in horror films, when they're played in reverse so they steadily get louder and make a kind of ssssssssSSHHHHUMP noise. I remember thinking 'heartbeat' at the time. My eyes must have been partially open, because I could see my room, but then a kind of screen flashed over my vision with the next drumbeat.
It reminded me of a Youtube video screen. White text on a black background said '26 CHILDREN DISAPPEARED THIS YEAR'. Then it flashed through a bunch of photos of kids. I only remember one: a girl, about thirteen, with shoulder-length hair, wearing a pale blue summer dress outdoors. She had a watering can and was standing next to a tree stump, smiling but apparently caught candid. Then the text came back: 'WHO KNOWS WHEN THEY WILL STRIKE AGAIN?'
I don't know how, but I got this strong, terrifying suggestion that the children were not victims. The children were the 'THEY' the text was talking about. Watering-Can-Girl and the Other Children were somehow ... evil? Dangerous? I don't know.
I remember trying to open my mouth and feeling pressure against my jaw, like something was pushing back, holding it closed. That's pretty much what told me it was sleep paralysis. I did the usual routine: close my eyes, breathe slowly, focus on just moving my hands and feet. As my fingers started to move, I heard this high-pitched whining, something in between an old kettle whistling and a scream. Again, I got that horrible gut-feeling -- that the sleep paralysis was angry. It didn't want to let me go.
When I did wake up, it took two hours for me to fall asleep again And that was with the assistance of my friend/uni housemate, Tob,* who calmed me down over the phone. (He has insomnia, so I didn't feel too awful about bothering him at 3:30AM.)
But yeah. That really, really sucked.
As a writer (and occassional painter), I get a lot of my ideas from nightmares/night terrors/sleep paralysis. But I would gladly go somewhere else for inspiration if there was a guaranteed cure.
*Not his real name, but what I really call him, so close enough.