M’kay, long medical query here. The only information I’ve gotten on these things has been from my school psychology books and my doctors, correct what you want. (That is to say, I googled it a while ago and can’t remember finding anything special.)
Ever since I was four or five I’ve had night terrors. That is what I’ve seen them called. What it is is when I’ve just fallen asleep, my level of awakeness, whatever it is called, rolls down and within a half-hour it reaches the peak of awakeness again, it seems. Most people’s brains learn before puberty to paralyze the body so it doesn’t open the eyes and look around while the brain is asleep and semi-dreaming. My brain is stupid and never figured it out. I’m seventeen, and from what my doctors and books have said, I’m too late to learn it. It seems that way. At least once a week I get a night terror. My brain does not paralyze and shut down my body in sleep enough, and my eyes open up. I see my room and my semi-dreams pasted on top. It generates a huge field of terror, wherein whatever I’m seeing (usually amusing things: a giant chicken in my closet, “transparent afghan rugs,” puppies and kittens dancing on my bed, a single sheet of paper; but there’s also nasty things: leprechauns, “evil spirits,” floor writhing with bugs, jellyfish) will seem to be occurring in my room, and I know that if it touches me, I die. So of course usually these things float down from the ceiling, or walk, or whatever, to touch me. There’s the terror. I read, but I don’t know for certain, but during these episodes, the person’s heartbeat goes way way high, around 170 beats a minute. All I know is I run for my life in still a sleeping daze to the door (if it’s not blocked), try to open it (sometimes I can’t and bonk my head), and will calm down upon leaving the room or just standing by the door confused for a moment. I then will just go right back to bed and sleep, and usually have no memory of the incident when I wake up. How do I remember these things? They’re rare, plus I tend to yip like a doggy during these and sometimes my mother hears and will “rescue” me and I tell her before I sleep again.
Those things are okay. They’re amusing, although possibly dangerous for my head or my heart. They have nothing to do with my levels of stress before sleeping, or the food I eat/do not eat before bed. They just…are. What I don’t like is my night paralysis, which seems to be the exact opposite.
These are never at night…they’re always in the late-morning time. After I’ve slept a good amount. I wake up, or try to, but my brain has completely shut off my body. I breathe and function brain-stemically, but I can’t move. It takes an incredible will of effort to get my brain to turn back on my body so I can move. It’s tiring, then I don’t get up because I’m exhausted from trying to move, and I slip back into paralysis again. It’s pretty bad sometimes, because I can barely breathe. My nose is nearly always stuffed up, and sometimes the position I’m in makes my tongue slip down back of my throat a bit and I barely get any air. This is primarily what I want to stop. My doctors have never seemed to convinced a sleep clinic could do anything. There seem to be good ones in my area (SLC, Utah), but I don’t want my parents to spend a lot of money or have a lot of hassle finding one. I have many many expensive medical problems and need many types of doctors, we just moved, and we don’t really have any yet for me. Don’t know if it’s forgetfulness or laziness of my parents, but they have enough troubles and before I commit to badgering the stupid insurance company to give us a clinic or two or none like normal and then going, I want to be fairly sure they could help me without having to give me sleeping medicines or whatever to dim my senses.
Any help appreciated.
I like sleep. Except when terrors and paralyses and crap occurs. I’m sure they can help with at least one problem, which would be nice…