psychological sundries
It’s the kind of day outside where moving through the air is just effortless… Temperature perfect, sun mild, the hint of a breeze. Opening the office door and stepping outside seems like the most natural thing in the world–it doesn’t always, especially when one is assaulted by a sizable temperature difference when crossing the threshold.
Some days I feel like I have ADD. Sometimes I can’t concentrate on anything for any length of time and my mind wanders all over the place. I feel like I’ve had it for years, since I have a slightly forgetful and disorganized streak, when I was younger I’d daydream all the time and wouldn’t always listen to my parents (not disobedient, just inattentive). On the other hand, depending on the activity I can focus for hours on end, and when I’m interested in the subject matter I can absorb information and detail very effectively. I’m starting to wonder whether it’s a time of day thing, or a dietary thing–whether there are outside circumstances that influence my state of mind in this manner. It’s vexing in that my scatterbrained state sometimes even seems to override my best efforts to focus. Does this happen to any of you? Or am I the only one?
When I’m in the process of falling asleep at night, I am very often aware of the onset of sleep paralysis. I’d say on average at least one night a week I am. It’s been like this ever since I can remember. Even when I was four, five, six years old I’d have dreams, nightmares, and hallucinations at all hours of the night, as well as the awareness of sleep paralysis. It wasn’t traumatic–many of them were good or harmless dreams, those nightmares that I had would come and go and my experiences with sleep paralysis, while intense, were brief. I was known to talk in my sleep quite a bit too, and even sleepwalk on occasion (my parents can tell stories…). I still dream a lot and for the most part am not overly affected by it, but the sleep paralysis issue has always stuck with me. I don’t know if any of you have experienced it, but for the uninitiated, it’s like being pulled against your will towards sleep and having no say about the matter, being partially or totally conscious of the situation, sending signals to your limbs, commanding them to move but getting no response. Now being pulled towards sleep normally wouldn’t be such a bad thing (I’m a big fan of sleep in general), but every time this occurs, if I just let myself go and allow sleep to close in, it never does. It’s hard to explain, but it’s almost like my mind becomes trapped in a kind of limbo state where I’m half-aware and half-unconscious, and paralyzed throughout. Needless to say it’s a very distressing set of circumstances, so whenever I’m conscious of the onset of sleep paralysis I shift my body to another attitude (usually by rolling over). Sometimes it sets in too quickly for me to catch it, however, and I have to try as hard as I can to send signals for my limbs to move so I can pull out, the alternative being pulled into the sleep/waking limbo state. When I was younger it used to produce a kind of mild terror in me, somewhat akin (I would think) to the sensation of being trapped underwater, although certainly without the real risk of the latter situation. But nowadays it’s just a curiosity of my daily sleep routine. It happens and I don’t think much of it.
I actually have a few friends who have the same problem with sleep paralysis. One of the girls I lived with in college had a few really bad freakout incidents after waking up and being completely unable to move, so she asked me to come in and check on her in the mornings. I have no idea if I would have been able to tell the different between paralyzed awake and actually asleep, but I think it made her feel better.
As far as the brain racing around thing, yes, I think it’s safe to say you’re part of a good sized club. I myself focus *very* intensely on things (which has made me afraid to go anywhere near a hypnotist) when it’s something that interests me. It started when I was young and I would be reading – I actually was *in* the world of the book, not reading the words on the page. But on the other hand, there are definitely days when I can barely string two coherent thoughts together and I feel really spacey. Since I’ve started meditating every evening for about ten minutes, it’s helped a lot to be less up in my brain and disconnected. I’ve also suspected it has something to do with diet or other environmental factors.
my roommate, emily, has sleep paralysis. not so much recently, but during college, she had pretty frequent episodes, and when she’d finally wake up, she’d be in a state of panic. I know it affected her much more when she was dealing with stress and/or anxiety. i had no idea that you deal with it too. i don’t know, sounds pretty scary to me…
If she was just lying there, immobile, but her eyes were at least partially open, it’s a good bet that she was experiencing sleep paralysis. It is hard to tell sometimes, though.
Glad to know I’m not the only one :) Interesting about being *in* the world of the book… What books have you read that have offered the most compelling alternate realities?
When I was much younger the possibility of it scared me to the point where I had trouble falling asleep… I think being more self-aware about the factors that influence it helps.
I sometimes would go over and nudge her just to check, but it’s hard to tell. I wanted to help but I didn’t want her to be asleep and then wake up and have me sitting there with her. :-)
Actually, for whatever reason, most of the books that I read (or the fiction/narrative books I read) I’m actually *in* the book. I can’t describe it very well, except like I said the words aren’t just on a page any more. I’m in the story and watching things happen. I had to train myself to respond to certain things, like someone calling my name, because otherwise I was completely oblivious to everything actually around me.
It started when I was younger and reading more fantasy type books – Madeline L’Engle’s series I just loved, also C.S. Lewis and Susan Cooper’s series. I’ve always had a very vivid imagination, so it’s probably not terribly surprising. But it makes reading lots and lots of fun, better than movies because it’s nearly three dimensional.
I’ve always been the same way with the possible ADD but being able to focus for hours on end with certain things. I’m definitely with you on the sleep paralysis. I guess I just thought that was normal most of my life. I used to sleepwalk a lot when I was little and I’ve always had very vivid dreams that I can remember when I wake up.
I’m a huge C.S. Lewis fan. Did you read his Space Trilogy, or just the Narnia series? Also, have you ever read anything by Lois Lowry? Her books are very easy immerse oneself in as well.
I’m starting to think that awareness of sleep paralysis is a more common thing than I thought it was… Makes me like less of a nutjob :)
Wow, and if I didn’t leave out words like “feel” I think my case for sanity would be even stronger…