Sleep Paralysis

I am having an absolute nightmare, yet completely paralyzed from head to toe. I jerk my eyes open and lie in complete stillness fully aware that my limbs are malfunctioning, knowing there is nothing I can do to help myself get out of this horrid situation.

Sleep paralysis strikes again, and for the longest of times I have been trying to understand why it happens to me so often. There is a feeling of utter terror, knowing that you have lost all control of your body except your mind, watching helplessly as you lie in your bed or sometimes on the floor and hoping this would all end quickly. Is this how death feels like? To have lost all physical sensation, to be wide awake to witness your own limbs failing on you. And your dreams, they return and haunt you, as though mocking you for having such a weak body.

I wake up in a pool of my own sweat, my mouth is dry and my hands are clammy. I try and speak, but my mouth isn’t moving. I can’t twitch my fingers and toes however hard I try, eventually I knock myself back out and drift back into my nightmare. Everything reminds me of death. Everything reminds me how lucky I am to be alive. If sleep paralysis be a simulation of death, I am not ready to die.

My clothes are soaked and my sheets are a mess. I stumble down my bed and feel the sensation slowly returning back to my limbs. I check that I am still alive. 

Sleep is wonderful. Sleep is supposed to be wonderful. Except, sometimes it is not.