Re: Dead Arm
- From: "Bill Hileman" <discgolfdad@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:31:24 -0500
"Edward M. Kennedy" <ei@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:fk8qop$k0e$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Bill Hileman" <discgolfdad@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
You know what REALLY freaky?
When you only partially wake up, very marginally conscious, but still
aware of the surroundings and you can't move at all as if you're
paralyzed. This has happened to me on occassion, really weird.
Apparently there's a natural chemical that the brain releases to
inhibit full movement while you sleep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis?wp_ml=0
Also known as "Old hag" syndrome from the frequent phenomenon of
thinking you're awake, but are unable to move, and feeling a presence
with you, like an evil witch pressing down on your chest or watching
you from very close by.
I think a lot of perceived "alien abductions" are probably this exact
experience.
I get this a lot as a form of sleep apnea. It only happens
when I sleep on my back. I usually think I hear someone
entering the house, and I can't move. The lack of oxygen
eventually kicks in and I wake up gasping for air. It is
quite freaky. It's more common when I'm stressed out or sleep
deprived.
It can get incredibly weird. I've had out of body experiences
where I wake up from a dream within a dream within a dream.
I have no idea what's real until I finally wake up. I can
see myself sleeping at times as if I were above the room,
and I sense something is horribly wrong but I don't know
what.
These dreams can be quite terrifying. I am no longer scared
of death. There are worse things. I have a premonition that
I will die in a car fire. Death can't come quickly enough.
I've done that as well, dreamed that I've woken from a dream, and I'm
usually retelling my wife what I had just dreamt - while still dreaming, of
course.
I likewise have a preminition of my own death, only it's not very specific,
it's just that I won't die from what everyone I know thinks I will die
from - cigarettes. It'll probably be one of those freak things like getting
breast cancer (yes, it does actually happen to men, too) or it will be some
really stupid freak accident that my family will be too embarrassed tell
anyone - they'll tell them I died from cigarettes.
As to the apnea, I read something that I found very disturbing. Sorry, I
can't cite it, but it stated that scientists had located the very small
section of the brain that regulates your breathing, that strange situation
where you can, of course, control your own breathing, and at the same time,
it's automatic, so you can breathe while you're sleeping. The article went
on to say that the number of brain cells dedicated to this particular
function are actually quite few, and eventually, they tend to die-off. It
stated that they now believe that a lot of the people who "died peacefully
in their sleep" were victims of this to the extreme... the last brain cells
that regulated breathing simply stopped working. I have nights where I'm
not asleep, or really even tired, just distracted, so I know it's not my
apnea, where I'll suddenly realize that I haven't been breathing, and I have
no idea for how long, because I don't necessarily feel the panic one
eventually gets from that... I just realize I'm not breathing, and force
myself to start. I focus on that for a few minutes, then my mind drifts and
it happens all over again. Those nights I'm afraid to go to sleep, except
that I do have my CPAP to supposedly keep me breathing. But then I wonder
if even that might not help, because when I'm awake, it's not like I need
assistance to breathe like I do when I'm sleeping...
.
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