by awake on July 3rd, 2014, 1:55 am
It began at age 16 on a very normal night. I was in bed asleep when something brought me up to a level of what I would call "semi sleep". In other words, I was aware of my surroundings but was unable to move or speak. It felt very much as if something without any weight or substance had laid on top of me and meant to suffocate me. I tried to yell out for my mother, but couldn't utter a sound. I tried to fight, but unable to move, it was a battle on some other ground. It seemed to take every ounce of inner strength I had to fight it. I finally won the fight and flew out of bed screaming. After this, I began having nightmares of particularly gruesome images which I had never seen in my waking existence: live corpses that had suffered various types of brutality or dismemberment, persistent darkness, as if a world without sun or electricity, ghosts, demonic figures pursuing me. Though the nightmares were quite scary, the "semi sleep" experiences were of more concern to me. They seemed to occur at times when I was more exhausted. After the first experience, whatever it was did not get into bed with me, it simply stood over me and watched. As the years past, it became more sadistic as, after my daughter was born, it would stand over me until I was aware of its presence and equally aware of my inability to react, then it would proceed out of my room and into my child's room. I would struggle many times until my husband would feel my squirming or hear my sobs and yank me out of it. I was so terrified of sleep, and therefore sleep deprived, that my husband insisted I see a Dr. He prescribed Xanax. More harm than good. Finally, after 20 yrs of this torture the nightmares and ''semi sleep" disturbances just stopped as abruptly as they started. I still dream very vivid dreams that collect in my waking memory. I can recall a dream with the same detail after a year as I can after one hour. If anyone has some explanation or similar experience......please share.