I'm a very particular dreamer

Date: 12/8/2016

By ofblackcats

I'm a person who used to suffer from sleep paralysis at least thrice a week, (I only get s.p. once every week or two now), and it never gets less scary, you only learn how to snap out of it faster, what works for you and what doesn't. Most times I get s.p. when falling asleep, but the few times I get it while waking up it is always immersed in dreams. The first time it happened, I had been dreaming I was in class talking to two classmates, I remember feeling my whole body go numb as I regained consciousness, I opened my eyes and saw my digital clock, it was 2:37a.m., I could no longer see my dream but I could still hear my classmates talking, but their voices slowly became angry, violent. It was a strange noise, it felt like they were both whispering and screaming at the same time. I remember I couldn't breathe and I closed my eyes and I tried and tried to snap out of it, but I couldn't, my methods were not working. At last, I was able to turn around and it dissipated as if magic. When I moved to see what time it was, my clock read 5:02a.m. I had been paralysed for almost three hours. I cried and could not go back to sleep. After that, I learnt to put tripwires or warning signs; if I was dreaming and something was about to go wrong whether it be a nightmare or the beginning of sleep paralysis (if I don't get s.p. as often now it's only because I've learnt to stop it before it begins), something in my dream would feel off, there would be something in it that didn't feel right, like it didn't belong, that would tell me I should wake up because things were about to go south. And if I ignore the signs?? Well, there are these recurring characters (mainly one, Ian, but that's a subject for another day) who will come up to me randomly and tell me to wake up, stear me somewhere else in the dreams, many times to a door, and urge me to go through and wake up.