Across and Inside my Universe

Sleep Paralysis, the Hallucinogenic Kind

You do NOT want to experience this.

It's beyond the most horrific, terrifying, deathly, panicked, frantic thing I've ever experienced.

I've had this once or twice before, and had forgotten all about them.  Last week I had one.

I woke up, but I couldn't move.  The fact that I couldn't move didn't occur to me until I tried to fend off the evil entity(ies) coming through a portal a few feet away into my room.  They were coming in to kill me and take me away to a nightmare of eternal horror . . . I tried to fend them off, there was a specific motion I was supposed to do to fend them off, but it was then I found out I could not move.

I then kept trying to shout, "WHITE! . . . WHITE!"  over and over again, because either that would summon the right kind of help to stop them, or it would summon my husband to my aid.  I could have sworn that I actually yelled this, but when I finally was able to move and went out to my husband, he said he'd heard nothing.  I still felt the evil so strongly that I performed the movements a couple times at the physical object in the room from whence the entities were portaling, before I left the room, even though I knew it wasn't real.  It FELT real.

 I found a variety of websites, many of which use the same painting to represent this problem.  I've also read a wide variety of possible durations for this: anywhere from a minute or less, to several minutes, up to 8 minutes, and some said up to an hour or more!

There are some things that make you more susceptible, like irregular sleep schedule, lack of sleep, stress, sleeping on your back, and other things.  I found one site that mentioned bipolar being a potential factor.  I found another one that mentioned, with a technical term for something that seems like the exact opposite of sleep paralysis, if you are prone to moving around in your sleep, performing actions, etc. then you might be prone to the paralysis.  I guess both of them have your sleep/wake out of sync with the paralysis you are supposed to have only while sleeping.  I do tend to move around in my sleep, even hitting myself or throwing punches, and other things, as well as some infamous sleepwalking episodes.  Still, out of all the sites I looked, almost all of them did not mention these two things.

Some sources listed a few things you could do during the episode (although I'm not sure if I'd be composed enough, with the overwhelming terror), such as wiggle your fingers or toes (apparently extremities have a better chance of breaking through the paralysis).

Someone even made a movie of it!  I can't imagine anyone who's experienced the hallucinatory form wanting to bring those feelings up again, but then I don't understand horror movies either.

The World is a Poorer Place

For the loss of our dear friend and neighbor, Russ Thompson. It just is. He and his wife are the most Christ-like people we've ever known.

Just a few months ago he was giving me rides to therapy, and was happy to do it, despite me being worried that it was a bother. He said it wasn't and that he was happy to help.

This is the kind of people they are. That he was.

We only found out half an hour ago that he died, we must've got lost in the shuffle because we were very good friends, and, well, I called his wife half an hour ago, to ask how he was doing (he had leukemia) and she said, "You don't know?" and I said I didn't, although of course what she said next was unfortunately made apparent by the You don't know question . . . he had died. I felt like a complete JERK for asking her, "How's Russ doing?" and there she was, about to leave for the funeral home for the viewing. How jarring must that have been for her.

When my daughter overheard my shock as I exclaimed, "WHAT?" as she told me he was dead, she knew who I was talking to and so she guessed what had happened and burst into loud sobs.

How do you go to the viewing of a loved one just an hour or two after learning they've died? Two weeks ago we'd heard they were going to look into bone marrow transplant to extend his life, though not save it. So while I knew he'd eventually pass, I wasn't prepared much for right now. And now, to go see him laying there, dead and peaceful, so soon after the shock of the news, well, I know I'm going to lose it, and I don't want to make things harder for his wife whens he sees me losing it, but I'm not a robot. So how do I go and face this? I don't want to see him lying there.

How do I help my daughter through this?