* * * * *

                                Riding it out

I got that feeling again, the one I get when I'm hit with sleep paralysis [1]
I'm awake, but feeling drugged out and unable to move or speak. Every since I
found out exactly what that feeling was, I was able to control the paranoia
and helpless feelings normally associated with it and kind of “ride it out”
as it where.

Except for today.

Not feeling quite right and still a bit tired, I went upstairs for what I was
expecting to be a half hour nap. Two and a half hours later I get hit with a
rather nasty sleep paralysis attack. I knew what was happening, but still,
the impulse to get up (or rather, attempt to get up) was strong and I ended
up just flopping around trying to get out from under the covers, unable to
call out for help.

I made a valiant attempt, but ended up flailing on my back when the mattress
started bucking up and down. Mattresses normally don't buck up and down and
knowing what I was going through, I came to the conclusion that I was not
being abducted by aliens, seduced by succubi or possed by Linda Blair (The
Exorcist) [2], but instead was still partially dreaming.

Experiencing sleep paralysis is bad enough—dreaming of experiencing sleep
paralysis is even worse. Or perhaps it's the knowledge of sleep paralysis and
dreaming you are experiencing it is bad. All I know, the next thing I'm
seeing as I struggle to open my eyes is a creature flying out from behind the
bathroom mirror (visible from the bed). Great, I thought. Not only am I
suffering from sleep paralysis, but I'm hallucinating at the same time. Such
thoughts didn't keep from from yelling out “Help!” although it came out more
like “Eeeaaaah!”

So I'm flailing around, trying to get somewhere by any means necessary,
yelling “Help!” or “Get away!” (to the flying hallucination from the mirror)
and wondering why no one was even coming to help, because they were just down
the hall in the living room. And this went on for what seemed like half an
hour or hour or so. I think I'm about to get up when I don't. I'm yelling
like Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein [3]. There's this hallucinated
creature on a loop, flying out from behind the mirror, disappearing, then
flying out from behind the mirror. And where is everybody? Can't anyone hear—

—and I snap out of it.

I'm finally awake, for real. In the same position as I was when I fell asleep
some two and half hours ago. And the reason no one heard me is that no one
was down the hall in the living room, because the living room isn't down the
hall, it's down the stairs on the other end of the Facility in the Middle of
Nowhere.

And I still felt like crap.

Bloody sleep paralysis.

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2003/03/15.1
[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/
[3] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072431/

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