Broken Dreaming

It’s late, or to early. Either way, I lie awake, only I’m not really. I hear voices in the other room. I can’t understand what they are saying but it seems fine. This is usual for this time, others in the house are getting ready for the day already.

I need to get up. I'm so tired but there’s something I forgot to do. I need to get up before they come and wake me up to do it. I raise up and go to get dressed. I'm barely awake, barely able to concentrate. Then there’s a knock at my window. I knew it. He always knocks on my window to get my attention during the day but usually during the darker hours he doesn't want to risk waking the household and will knock on my room door. But for whatever reason he's at the window.

“Hold on,” I mumble. But the knock continues. This isn’t the normal knock used to get my attention. This is constant and at a steady pace. I’m half asleep and highly irritable (I'm not a morning person, especially at 4am) and the knock is continuing. At this point I’ve forgotten what I’m even doing. “I’ll be there in a second! WAIT!” I shout, louder than I intended. I know he likes to be annoying but this is ridiculous. Now the knocking is getting louder, as if to match my angry tone. I’m ready to scream at this point but then... I wake up. I’m lying in my bed just as before, staring at my dark ceiling. I’m listening for the voices but there are none. Only my cat lying next to me still slumbering away. I check my phone for the time, 2am. It’s not time for anyone to be up just yet. But then I remember, that important thing I was suppose to do. I lay there for a moment fighting the sleep my body was so desperately trying to fall back into. Get UP! It will only take a moment to do and then they won't bother you.

Finally, I force myself up. I drag myself through the house, half asleep and trying not to wake anyone else. I finish the task that was needed to be done. Don’t want any annoying banging on my door or window at 4 am. Good thing I woke up and remembered. But then I lie back down. I don’t fall back to sleep easily or quickly. But when I do, it’s still late or early depending on who you are. I’m once again lying in my bed, but this time there is a man I can’t see, hiding in the darkness. He starts to scream at me. He’s being very loud and threatening. All I can think to do is tell him to leave or I will. I just want to sleep. My body feels as exhausted as it did when I laid back down in the waking world. He doesn’t go anywhere. So I get up, turn on the light and walk out of my room. I'm annoyed and still barely awake. I stumble over and fall. I scoot backwards into my bathroom. I roll over onto my stomach facing the door and try to push myself off the floor to get up. But I can’t. I can’t move at all. I can’t breathe either. I can look up just enough to see a pair of men’s legs and feet in front of me. I also catch a glimpse of a gun, a pistol, as he points it at the top of my head. He says, “You can’t do anything about it now, can you?” and he opens fire.

He does so over and over again into the top of my head. The sound of the gun fire at the same tempo and noise level as the knocks on my window the dream before. It doesn’t hurt. It feels as if pressure, like someone slightly pushing down on the top of my head over and over and over again, as the “bullets” hit me. My head jerks or flinches down slightly at every “hit”. But I still can’t move my body. Then I slowly start to awaken again. I feel myself pulling out of the nightmare back into reality. But I still can't move. But my head, my head is still moving. Slightly jerking forward and down in a constant slight nod. I can feel it, going at the same pace as in my dream, but I can’t seem to stop, or move any other part of my body. It takes a few seconds, though it felt like minutes, to finally get my neck and shoulders to relax and my head to rest still. I gain the motion back in my body at about the same pace but still lay there confused and a bit bothered. My anxiety is up and my mind now going 1,000 miles a minute. What is going on with me tonight? What the hell was that about?

I’m no stranger to sleep paralysis but I’ve never experienced anything like that. I've mentioned before how amazed and interested in dreaming I am. Dreams and how our brains function fascinate me quite a bit. There is so much we don't know or understand and it truly intrigues me. But then things like this happen and I’m left frightened and confused. Perhaps I’m overthinking it. Perhaps it is something more or perhaps I’m just going crazy.