Two Thousand Seven was an extremely stressful year for me because I lost the friendship of someone I dearly loved with all my heart. I found myself depressed for a long time, and my eyes teared for no reason, I cried almost daily, and wrestled with God daily. To make things worse I started university in September of that year and the stress level just shot up! So I became not only emotionally and spiritually tired but also physically and mentally tired and very sleep deprived. One day in early January of 2008 I went to sleep around 3:30 AM (because of school work I had to stay late), so I laid with my back flat on the bed looking at the ceiling and because I was so exhausted as soon as I put my head on the pillow I fell asleep.
Suddenly (what seemed like a second after I fell asleep) I had a nightmare, the scariest nightmare I’ve ever had: In the nightmare I dreamt that I was laying on my bed with my eyes open—just like when I went to sleep. I could see everything clearly in the room and I wondered in the dream, “This can’t be a dream! There are so much details and everything looks so real!†You know how in dreams there are usually those blurry spots or vignette corners? Well, not in this dram: everything was crystal clear and in focus from corner to corner! I could move my eyes but I couldn’t move any other part of my body. I tried to move my hand and legs but it didn’t work, I tried to move my head and I couldn’t—it was like I was paralyzed below the neck! But the feeling of paralysis was so real! Then I saw this dark smoke rising from under my bed—the smoke didn’t have a smell and it was almost in the shape of flames. Those flame shapes had eyes and like little hands waving and they moving closer to me. That scared me a lot since those shapes looks like ghosts or some type of evil spirits. So I tried harder to move but I couldn’t, I tried to shake my head to wake up from the dream but I couldn’t move, and tried to scream to call for help but I couldn’t make a sound! That’s when I thought, “Holy Spirit help me! I don’t know what’s going on! I need your help!†And suddenly I woke up! My room looked exactly like it was in the nightmare—nothing changed. But now I could move normally and the evil spirit shapes had gone. I looked at the clock and it was merely 10 minutes after I had gone to sleep.
My Worst “Nightmare” by Fadi
Next morning I felt uneasy because I knew I had a terrible nightmare but I couldn’t remember what it was! On my way to university I remembered my dream so I told a classmate, “Last night I had the worst nightmare ever!†Without me saying anymore he replied, “Do you have sleep paralysis?†I thought, “Sleep paralysis? What is that?†I had heard of the term ‘sleep paralysis’ but I wasn’t familiar with what it is, but the word ‘paralysis’ made me think, “I think I do have sleep paralysis!â€
So when I went home I researched ‘sleep paralysis’ on the Internet and I found the following on Wikipedia:
Physiologically, sleep paralysis is closely related to REM atonia, the paralysis that occurs as a natural part of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep….When it occurs upon falling asleep, the person remains aware while the body shuts down for REM sleep, and it is called hypnagogic or predormital sleep paralysis….The paralysis can last from several seconds to several minutes “by which the individual may experience panic symptoms”. (described below) As the correlation with REM sleep suggests, the paralysis is not entirely complete; use of EOG traces shows that eye movement is still possible during such episodes. In addition, the paralysis may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger. Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual because of the vividness of such hallucinations. The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful or dream-like objects may appear in the room alongside one’s normal vision.
Some reports read that various factors increase the likelihood of both paralysis and hallucinations. These include:
* Sleeping in a face upwards or supine position
* Increased stress
* Sudden environmental/lifestyle changes
* A lucid dream that immediately precedes the episode.
* Excessive consumption of alcohol coupled with lack of adequate sleep.Many perceptions associated with sleep paralysis (visceral buzzing, loud sounds, excited mental state, presences, and the paralysis itself) also constitute a common phase in the early progression of episodes referred to as out of body experiences. Mental focus varies between the two conditions; paralysis sufferers tend to fixate on reestablishing operation of the body, whereas subjects of out-of-body episodes are more occupied by perceived non-equivalence with the body.
Source: [ilink url=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis”]Sleep Paralysis[/ilink]
Those episodes of sleep paralysis happened about 4 more times in the next couple of years. I think the last one was in 2009. In each episode the same thing would be repeated with the difference is that the smoke (shape of evil spirits) would be of different colors, such as dark and light gray. Each time the paralysis ended with me crying to the Holy Spirit for help. Sometimes I woke up, and other times I just continued my sleep afterward. However, only the first time was scary…for some reason the subsequent times weren’t scary.
I also wondered why only crying to the Holy Spirit for help seemed to work in ending the paralysis and the “terrifying hallucinationsâ€.
One thought on “My Worst “Nightmare””
You are still better off. I only found out now why I felt helpless during “nightmares” but I could not say “In the name of Jesus, be vanquished!” like what my teacher advised me. I could not utter words to “drive away” whatever it was that had caused the nightmare.
This reminds us that we should not only take care of our “spirits” but our physical bodies as well since physical and mental stress could cause such conditions.