Nested Night Terrors

I've dealt with lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, and nested dreams for a long time. Ever since I was a kid really. If you don't know what these are, I'll offer brief descriptions:

Lucid dreaming - being aware of the fact that you are asleep and dreaming, sometimes even being able to control what is happening in your dreams.

Sleep paralysis - the inability to move or speak while feeling that you are conscious/awake.

Nested dreams - feeling as though you've woken up from your dream only to realize you are still sleeping. Can happen once or multiple times.

One of my first bad experiences with these phenomena was during middle school. I realized I was asleep but it felt as though something was hovering over me in my bedroom. I could see everything in exact detail, my sheets, my bed frame, my window, the night sky shining in... I could see it both from inside and outside of my body. I tried to scream and move, but I couldn't. Eventually, I woke up. Except, in reality, I was just brought back into another dream. Once I realized I was in another nightmare, I tried to wake myself up again. It happened multiple times until I finally woke up gasping for breath.

The other night, I had one of my worst experiences with these nested night terrors ever, and today I'd like to share them with you.

Normally, I avoid falling asleep on my back because for some reason, falling asleep on one's back seems to exacerbate these problems. It was pushing two in the morning, and I had to be up for work by 8:55 (perks of working from home). I knew I had to fall asleep quickly lest be plagued by fatigue all day Monday.

I rolled over onto my right side, facing the middle of the bed. My partner was sleeping soundly beside me. I closed my eyes, and within minutes, I felt like I was asleep and awake at the same time.

This sensation scared me. Once I realized it, It felt as though I was suffocating. I struggled to breathe. I tried to kick my legs and scream, but no noise would come and any movement failed me. After some minutes of effort, I did manage to scream. I started flailing in the bed, and I woke my partner with a start.

I apologized profusely, for I didn't mean to interrupt his slumber. He didn't think much of it and lulled himself back into dreamland. I decided then, to switch positions. I turned my body in a complete one-eighty and slept with my head in the middle of the bed and my feet on my pillows.

Except this didn't really happen. I never actually woke up kicking and screaming, I just dreamed that I did, and the sensation began again. I found myself for a second time, paralyzed and frozen in place.

On my third awakening, things finally felt normal. I woke up on the right side of the bed. I heard the AC humming in the background. I felt like I could finally breathe easily; my episode had ended.

I went over to the AC unit because it felt very cold, and I was ready to turn it off. Unfortunately, when I looked out the window, the skies in the fields across the street from my house were red. Lightning was striking the land, and loud booms began to occur.

Thanks to the light of the strikes, I was able to see two massive tornadoes forming, and they were heading in our direction. I started yelling at my partner to get the dogs. I ran across the hallway into my child's bedroom and scooped him up from his mattress. I then proceeded to run down the stairs to the basement faster than I ever have in my life.

I didn't feel tired from carrying a forty-pound, four-year-old. Surely it had to be the adrenaline of a terrifying situation. Once I got into the basement, everything seemed normal except for the fact that my childhood dining table was in the place where our pool table was supposed to be standing.

Shit, another nightmare. At least I realized it... Again, I tried to wake myself up. I forced myself to try and scream. I was trying to move my limbs in any way I possibly could to break free from this terror. I had two more false awakenings before I actually regained consciousness. Each time consisted of me looking out the window at something terrifying (aliens in one go and a SWAT team or law enforcement of some kind in the other). However, the strangest thing happened on that last awakening, something that has never occurred before.

Right before I awoke, I saw patterns at the back of my eyelids. Deep, colorful, geometric tapestries of light and shadow. All the colors of the rainbow, and even some I could not recognize, putting on a show. It was so bizarre that I wasn't in too much of a rush to finally open my eyes.

When I did open my eyes, it was with a gasp. My chest was pounding; heart nearly beating out of my shirt. There was a cool layer of sweat sticking to my forehead, and it took me a few minutes to catch my breath. I unlocked my phone to look at the time, and only thirty minutes had gone by.

From that moment, I was really scared to go back to sleep, but I did eventually, and the episodes didn't continue thankfully. I didn't fall asleep on my back that night, but it still happened, so now I'm reeling with the why's. These episodes are no fun, and from what I understand, they are quite rare. No one in my real life has ever had experiences like these, have you?

Thank you for reading. Let me know in the comments if you've ever had any events of sleep paralysis, nested dreaming, or lucid dreaming. If you're feeling up to it, let me know what happened too! I can't be alone in this.