Tag Archives: insomnia

Sleep Paralysis

I never knew what it was called until they came up with a name for it about five or six years ago.  I’ve been having it since I was 14.  I believe my brother has been having it since he was 15.  My daughter has it but her mother, my ex-wife does not.

The reason why I’m bringing it up is because, although I’ve been dealing with this phenomenon at varying levels of discomfort throughout my life, it has never been as bad as it’s been in the past ten or twelve days.   I’m having it day after day; I’ve been to Emergency about it; I’ve even had a guy from my church come over and perform a kind of charismatic exorcism.  

I’ve probably averaged three or four hours of sleep a night for the past ten days or so.  Only on one night did I get a good seven hours sleep.  The night I went to Emergency the doctor there gave me 0.5 mg clonazepam on my request, which was the same medication I swore off cold turkey on May 10, 2004.  A reaction to a prescription of 6mg / day I was given on the morning my mother was to die caused me to start behaving very strangely, uncharacteristically.   Anybody who’s heard my story knows that between October 9, 2003 when Mom died and May 17, 2004 when I spent my first night homeless at the Burlingame CalTrain station, I lost everything I had.  I took clonazepam (klonopin) all that time till I quit cold turkey on May 10, 2004.  

The reason I bring this up is that I don’t ask for a clonazepam lightly.  But I’ve known that a low dose like that is usually sufficient to get me from a waking state to sound sleep without stopping at that horrible zone where you kinda feel like this:

What Are Your Experiences With The Sleep Paralysis Demon Like?

Seriously.  Something from somewhere is pressing upon you.  You don’t quite see it, but boy do you feel it!  It’s one of the most terrifying experiences I know of.   

The night of the exorcism (not quite the right word; I think he use the word “intercession”) I slept very well.  It seemed all sense of such invasive entities had stopped completely.  But last night the invasion resumed.  I jumped out of bed pretty mad.   When is this thing going to end?

I was so mad, I ran three miles at midnight, did eleven push-ups, then wiped myself out enough to conk out from about two till six in the morning.   My vital signs were good at the doctor’s visit – lost eight pounds, medium to low blood pressure, heart rate 56.  Lots of exercise lately, and not much rest.  That could be a factor, but man, I am getting tired of this!   

I called the guy from my church and we prayed I would just get a decent night’s sleep.  I’ve been contacting old friends, and preparing for the worst.   I’m not sure how much longer I can hold up.  I have never had it night after night, day after day, on the bus, in the doctor’s office, sitting on my desk, sitting in the cafe — it’s horrible.

I’ve alternated between thinking that the loss of my medication might have something to do with it, but it was happening before that as well.  I’ve thought the medication itself might be involved, but one way or the other, I don’t like it.

I know this isn’t my usual post, but I’m not sure I’ve got much longer.  Every night I wonder if I’m going to get to sleep, or if I’m going to wake up, when it’s done.   So, if I’ve seemed to be weird the past few days, this is why.   

Today is the third year anniversary of the day I stepped off that bus on July 27, 2016 to start a new life.  If you pray, please pray that the new life will manifest fully from here. I’ve been feeling like I’ve been half asleep and half awake. Half in Cali, half up here. Half outdoors, and half inside. I’m in paralysis. I want to be full and complete from here on in, and paralyzed no more.

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Tuesday Tuneup Eight

Q. Do you know who I am?

A. I really wish you would quit asking me that.

Q. Why did you summon me?

A. Because it’s Monday.

Q. Um – isn’t the Tuesday Tuneup supposed to take place on Tuesday?

A. Supposedly.  But with my track record, if I began writing on Tuesday, it probably wouldn’t happen till about Thursday, if at all.    And anyway, it will be Tuesday in about a half hour or so.

Q. Why are you up so late?

A. Sleeplessness.

Q. Why are you sleepless?

A. I don’t know.  Runs in the family.  My dad, my brother, we all have insomnia.

Q. But you don’t have insomnia every night, do you?

A. Not at all, sir.  On most nights, I sleep rather well.

Q. So why the sudden insomnia?

A. I don’t know.  Restless.  Stuff on my mind.

Q. Like what?

A. Wow – you sure do ask a lot of questions, don’t you?

Q. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?

A. Never mind.   What’s on my mind is, quite honestly, my own shortcomings.  My flaws, my faults, my mistakes.

Q. Is not to err human?

A. What?

Alexander_Pope_by_Michael_Dahl

Alexander Pope

Q. Is it not human to make mistakes?

A. I suppose so — at least according to the descendant of an ancestor of mine.  But I am not divine, and I just cannot forgive myself my mistakes.  There are too many of them.  They are too huge.   And try as I may, I never seem to make any progress toward correcting them.  

Q. Do they need to be corrected?

A. What do you mean, do they “need” to be corrected?   What kind of a question is that?  They’re mistakes!  If things are wrong, they must be made right.

Q. Why?

A. What do you mean, why?

Q. Why can’t you just let them be wrong?

A. You mean – not even try to correct the mistakes?

Q. That’s what I said, didn’t I?

A. Are you honestly trying to suggest that I make no effort to correct my mistakes?

Q. The mistakes are past, aren’t they?

A. They occurred in the past, yes.   I think the last one was about fifteen minutes ago, but it’s still past.

Q. Can you change the past?

A. No, I cannot.

Q. Then why are you trying to do so?

A. I don’t know, sir.  I honestly do not know.

The Questioner is silent.  

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The Siddhartha Monologue

You know, it sort of seems weird that I’m writing about writing, while writing.  I would think it would all be one giant act of procrastination, were it not for the fact that writing about my writing helps my writing while I write.

After I wrote what I wrote last night, I noticed a remission in the resentment against the irreverent rogue in question.  Thankful that he had become irrelevant, I turned out the light and lay in bed.

Sleep, however, eluded me.  My mind seemed almost automatically to dart over to Scene Three, right where I’d left off – at the beginning of the daunting Siddhartha Monologue.   After about an hour of tossing and turning, I said, “forget it!”  Got up, started cranking it out.

I don’t know what to say but that it was one of those rare experiences when everything seemed to come together almost supernaturally.  I wrote the last word, put a period at the end of it, and looked at the clock.

It was four in the morning exactly.  I had finished The Siddhartha Monologue.  Going back to bed, I rolled over, and in no time at all, I was snoring like a man.