{"id":112,"date":"2015-09-19T08:31:09","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T14:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=112"},"modified":"2024-04-22T02:46:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T02:46:17","slug":"sleep-if-you-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2015\/09\/19\/sleep-if-you-can\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep. If you can"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was December 1997 when my husband, Paul, and I had our own place together. It was an apartment on Lillibridge Street in Lincoln, Nebraska. At some point in 2000, I woke up in the middle of the night. The clock read 3:37. A heavy pressure pushed on my chest and I panicked, ever so slightly. It had happened to me before. It happens to me still. It’s a result of sleep paralysis.<\/p>\n

Sleep paralysis<\/a> occurs as a natural part<\/a> of REM sleep. It can occur when falling asleep or upon waking. I am only familiar with the latter and it lasts several seconds to minutes. Practically speaking, it is the most terrifying feeling I have ever experienced. Regardless of knowing what it is, there is always a sense of fear.<\/p>\n

You struggle to move anything more than your eyelids, causing a panic to set in. You are acutely aware that nothing is moving, but you’re concentrating every fiber of your being to move something, anything. A fingertip. A toe. Your head. But nothing happens. You feel your heart beat faster and faster. It’s a futile effort.<\/p>\n

Despite not being able to move, you can see and hear and feel. Tears drip down the side of your face and come to a rest at the opening of your ear. You can’t clear the liquid away. Panic and nausea set in. I can slow my breathing down and rationally calm myself until I either fell back asleep or my body and brain were working together again, but the dread is always there.<\/p>\n

It had been some time since it gripped me until 3:37 a.m., that morning. I woke up and immediately tried to calm myself, but there was something else. Something I saw out of the corner of my left eye. The pressure on my chest grew and my anxiety increased. I desperately tried to move my arms. They remained on the bed, useless.<\/p>\n

My head moved a fraction of an inch toward the bedroom door. There was something there. A figure<\/a> standing in my doorway. I tried to yell, but couldn’t open my mouth. I wanted to shake Paul awake, but could not move. I tried to moan to wake him up, but there was no vibration in my vocal cords. I panicked some more.<\/p>\n

\"553px-Shadowman-3\"<\/a>
\nI could see my chest moving more rapidly. I could hear the sound of my own breathing, the air flowing from my nose. I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself. I must be halfway between waking and lucidity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m still asleep,\u201d I told myself. \u201cThis is just a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Convincing myself that it must be a vivid dream and the figure must be pareidolia<\/a> from the patterns on the bathroom door, I slowed my breathing and managed to turn my head and open my eyes. The figure loomed in my doorway. I stared at him and he at me. I couldn’t see his eyes. There were no eyes. Just blackness. It was all black. His top hat, cape, shirt, pants, boots. They were all black.<\/p>\n

I tried to yell again. I tried to move my body, but it was trapped. My mind could not overcome what kept me motionless. I closed my eyes again, squished them tight. When I opened them, the figure was still there.<\/p>\n

I began to think this wasn’t sleep paralysis and someone had broken into our apartment. I still could not move. Irrational thoughts mixed with rational ones as to what was actually happening. I wondered if the figure was going to kill me and leave Paul alone. Perhaps he would kill Paul and then me. Maybe he just wanted a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n

The figure appeared to take a step into the room when it turned and walked toward the living room.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho the hell was that?\u201d Paul asked me.<\/p>\n

My head turned to the other side of the bed and I looked at Paul. I jumped up and turned on the lights while Paul took the baseball bat from the side our bed. We walked into the living room, but no one was there.<\/p>\n

The lock, deadbolt and two chains were still affixed on the front door. The balcony door still locked.<\/p>\n

One of the most common reports with sleep paralysis is the feeling that something or someone ominous is there. But Paul had seen it, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was December 1997 when my husband, Paul, and I had our own place together. It was an apartment on Lillibridge Street in Lincoln, Nebraska. At some point in 2000, I woke up in the middle of the night. The clock read 3:37. A heavy pressure pushed on my chest and I panicked, ever so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[254,336,362],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","tag-nebraska","tag-sleep","tag-terror"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3912,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/3912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}