Posted by spoc on April 30, 2004, at 17:02:59
In reply to Re: spoc, posted by TexasChic on April 30, 2004, at 14:25:46
>...when you are just drifting off to sleep and must have just started the descent into some nightmare, because you are suddenly jolted awake and feel kind of terrified, possibly over something/someone in the room if you have recently watched a scary movie. <
>
>> I've had that happen, where you're jolted awake and feel like you just heard a noise, but can't remember what it sounded like. I hate that. Your description also kind of sounds like 'night terrors' which is an actual medical problem. My brother has had that and its really scary. He'll wake up and not be able to move or speak, and have this feeling that there is an evil presence in the room. I don't know what the explanation of the evil presence thing is (its described in medical literature), but I've read the paralyzed feeling is because the part of your brain that keeps you from acting out your dreams just last a little longer than its supposed to. <
---<<<<<< Has anything been recommended to your brother, or worked? Sometimes I wonder if any of this is why I stopped being able to sleep, or trying, so long ago. But that's from the head, not my gut instinct. Much of the time I don't remember my dreams, so I tend to assume it's not important. But who knows, maybe I'm not realizing something that is actually a part of how I feel when awake! And I wonder if the reason that I often don't remember dreams is *because* of how I stay up until I could just about pass out standing up (and then don't necessarily sleep for more than three to five hours).
But! As for the times I do remember... When I am jolted awake, sometimes there is that sinister feeling in the room, and other times it's just like a strong startle, like you mentioned. When it's more the terror variety, my heart will be racing, can't get to a light quick enough, afraid something will grab my arm as I reach ...
"Funny" experience and surely unrelated, but when I was in college, one night I was alone and drifting off to sleep, and I felt the covers start to almost imperceptibly tighten around me. I tried biting my tongue, which is how I always figure out if something is just a dream or not (because if I don't feel it, I know it's a dream, since I'm not really biting my tongue, only dreaming that I am!), and I *could* feel it! My head spun as I realized wow, this really IS happening, I am not asleep; does evil exist?! (I *was* ptetty groggy at that point!). Well, it turned out someone had hidden under my bed, which was up on cinder blocks, then ever so gently began pulling on the covers from underneath!
Do you ever do the tongue biting thing or know what I mean? Whenever something really bad seems to be happening and I do that and feel nothing, I get more terrified because then I realize I am in a world where anything can happen next, and must get out. I think I've read that it's not supposed to be possible to wake yourself then because you're 'paralyzed' in that stage of sleep, but I can drag myself out. I do it with gasping and throat stuff!
I do have a recurring dream that I've had for about as long as I can remember. It's that something is lodged in my throat and I'm choking. I'll stand up and cough and pound myself on the chest, until I slowly become conscious and realize it was that dream again. Years ago I even broke off several fingernails clawing the wall!
And, lately I've occasionally been waking up at any hour definitely terrified, but it's somehow like a sudden realization that it's too late, it's over, I'm over! Not *thoughts* that form after having had a bad dream, but more like I was just delivered that verdict.
Texas, do you usually remember your dreams? I saw that you enjoy scary movies. Does that affect them in any bad ways? I'm guessing that if you have a 'healthy' enjoyment of them as entertaining farces only -- unlike when someone is 'forced' to watch one or does so anyway when they know it will bother them -- that you'd be less prone to resulting nightmares. I don't actually think any of my night terror (or whatever) stuff comes from scary movies, because while I really do enjoy some kinds of them, I've only seen maybe one in years and never did watch them regularly.
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>> Also, I was wondering, how did you pick out your babble name?---
<<<<<<< I did so by about the most routine method out there because I was in hurry and didn't think
about.... stuff! Ya know? Anyway! I think some people assume it's a Star Trek thing, but it's not (would've spelled it 'spock' at least in that case). But as you may have 'heard' me say, I do have to laugh now at the parallels with me being so analytical and repressed at times! It wasn't supposed to be a meaningful name, but maybe it is! Still, I wish I picked a cute one, d*mmit! ;- )
poster:spoc
thread:340747
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040430/msgs/341913.html