There would be nights where I would be so afraid to go to sleep. … In sleep paralysis, sometimes you get to the point where you are sure you’re going to die. Sheryl Crow, in Rolling Stone magazine.

When I was a kid I used to dream frequently and vividly. I could remember my dreams with intricate detail and often had ongoing dreams in which I could plan for and would look forward to, similar to an ongoing imaginary story a child might play out day to day. As I merged into adolescence the dreams just kept getting more and more vivid and there were times where I could have sworn the dreams were reality and waking life the alternate sleep state.

I’ve been telling stories about these strange dreams I used to have for years now. They’re the kind of tales that get told over post dinner conversation with the family or friends and growing up I guess I never looked for official answers either. I never needed to know why until it all stopped happening.

At the peak of these dreams I was having regular OBEs (out of body experiences) and lucid dreaming and learned to control where I went and for how long. That is until things started to get out of control and what started happening scared me. I was still a kid, I had no idea and no reason to search for answers beyond what was happening so that made it all worse.

Today I have a name for what I believe was happening to me as I passed from childhood to adolescence and that is a condition called Sleep paralysis.

I would wake from a dream, be aware of my position, my breathing, the atmosphere and level of light in the room. I was aware of my body and that I was indeed awake and yet I wasn’t awake at all. I was still asleep, trapped within a period of time, unable to move, unable to scream or to get out of it. You feel like you’re awake. Its a false kind of waking where, within the dream itself, you actually believe you are wide awake and previous to this realisation that you aren’t actually awake you can walk around your house, continue with your life as if you would upon a normal waking.

But that’s where things get strange and you realise that something around you isn’t quite right. You can’t touch anything, can’t feel material things as you would in reality and then the shock of not being awake hits you, you can’t move, talk and the most frightening part, you cant wake up.

Sometimes I would feel a pressure on my chest as if someone were holding me down, sometimes they would cover my mouth or hold me down so tightly that I could scarcely take a breath. They never had a face or even a physical form, just a presence I knew was there and they left a dread feeling with me for the remainder of the day.

Eventually you push though it and the second waking occurs, the real one but those few moments are enough to rattle you for the rest of your waking hours.

I’ve been reading about Sleep paralysis of late, trying to get a deeper insight into the whole curious condition. My father had the same condition when he was younger and like me, one day it just stopped.

Apparently this condition has touched at least 30% of the population at one time or another and another interesting fact is that the condition normally only happens when the sleeper is in the supine position (flat on back, face up) and yep this is the only position it ever happened to me in. Its been linked to a form of narcolepsy, however I can’t begin to know enough to explain why. Haven’t yet read enough to go into any explanations. I’m looking forward to finding out more about it though. It gives my weird childhood a lot of rational explanations. If you can call Sleep paralysis rational..