Sleep Paralysis

Had my first (that I remember) experience with sleep paralysis last night. A nightmare, night terror so bad, that when I woke, I was so overcome with fear, I literally could not move.

Couldn’t get up, get out of bed, nothing. I was able to wake my wife verbally, and she took care of the lights, and then brought me back to reality, and helped me out of bed.

The small interesting part though, was that during the event as I slept, I had the underlying distinct feeling that I had been through that “situation” before. (the situation being what was happening in my mind)

Overall it was a God-awful experience, and one I’d be just fine with never going through again.

Doug.

Cycling. It’s not just for exercise.

Let me state right off the top; I’m not talking about bicycle or stationary bike cycling. I’m talking about emotional, mental cycling. Blowing through every emotion and feeling there is, in a month or less, without actually doing a damn thing.

I go for 2-3 weeks of actually feeling good and/or “level”. But then one day, without warning my bottom drops out and I hit the skids. And then I spend 3-6 days mentally just, “circling the drain.” I never know why, and I use tremendous amounts of energy trying to fix it, and at the same time just hold my shit together until it passes. I don’t try to fight it anymore, because there’s no point. I’ve tried. And if I can just hang on long enough, I’ll swing back “up”, and feel somewhat human again for awhile, and participate in some sort of living. Rather than just clinging to survival.

Maybe I should add my up, is not ultra high where I feel great and like I can do anything. It’s just sort of a level, even keel state of being. But my down, my bottom, is not a place people are meant to be. Certainly no way to try and live. Down there is where my mind tries to kill me. Its deep, black, cold, isolating, lonely, scary, and the very edge of suicidal thoughts and ideas. I can stare at the wall, or out a window for very long amounts of time without moving a muscle. All the while my mind is trying, wanting, to implode. Then at night when I’m trying to sleep, the nightmares start; night terrors usually. The monsters aren’t under my bed, they’re in my head. That when the torture starts, and it’s much more than a simple bump in the night.

Then after a few days it stops as suddenly as it started, and I wake up feeling level again…Cycling.

Up, down, up, down, up, etc, etc, repeat, repeat. Cycling.

Thank you for reading.

Doug

The “crack of dawn” gets to sleep in.

3:30am and I’m wide awake. The crack of dawn is nowhere to be seen yet, still pitch black out there. I’m up, a couple owls, and a few other nocturnal’s looking for food. We just had a massive thunderstorm pass through, great thunder and lightening show. I could blame the storm on waking me up, but that would just be false blame. The past two weeks my auto-awake time is approx. 3:30-4:30. I have NO. IDEA. WHY.

I’ve always been a light, and short sleeper. By light sleeper I mean someone can fart in another room and I’ll wake up. Short sleeper means I’ve always just slept about 4-5 hours a night. Sometimes 6 or 7, or an a real special unknown occasion, I’ll sleep for about 8 hours. It’s also pretty rare that whatever I do sleep is straight sleep without repeat interruptions. I’m up and down all night, so usually whatever I do get, is not very restful. And I’ve been like this since I was a teenager, and have always just assumed I’m mostly nocturnal rather than a day runner. (though I don’t sleep during the day either)

So here I am. Coffee, cigarettes, and thinking that this morning, maybe I’ll try to wake up the Rooster for a change….