IS IT NORMAL?

Dreams are fantastic as many illogical, impossible things can and do occur. They could be frightening or reassuring. We can fly in dreams, dead people come to life and inanimate objects speak.

Have you ever been awake at night and felt hands pressing down to your chest, groping for your throat? You want to shout out loud but couldn’t utter a single word or you want to move but it seems you’re stuck in something so hard. Then you notice a shadowy figure at the foot of the bed, & cannot make out whether it’s a man or a woman but you’re getting frightened every second by the presence of it. Your terror grows with the passing time and suddenly pressure releases and the presence in the room fades into nothingness.

It first happened to me few years back and everything was quite normal in life. That night I went to sleep after having dinner. It wasn’t even one hour when I saw a giant black shadow standing in front of me grabbing my arms and pushing me out of the bed. I tried hard to free myself but it was useless. I wanted to turn my face towards that shadow but as I tried my neck bent on the right side and I couldn’t see anything. It was like my body has lost strength to fight and I couldn’t move a single part. At last the shadow left me and I was relieved. When I opened my eyes my neck was tilted on the right side and I had pain moving it.

I wanted to forget this incident thinking that it was just a nightmare and nothing else. Then it wasn’t until few weeks later when it happened again and this time much worse. Then I realized it wasn’t just a nightmare or my imagination but something else. I woke up in panic and realized I wasn’t able to react. I could feel a heavy weight on my chest pushing me down into the bed and my body was paralyzed from head to toe. I wanted to call my mom for help who was sleeping in the next room but couldn’t utter a word. I was so frightened and couldn’t make sense of all this that was happening to me.

I thought I was being haunted and someone wants to harm me so I started saying prayers before sleep. For few days I was so relieved and I thought it was a ghostly affair that I was going through and now they won’t come back for me. But again it all started and prayers also didn’t seem to work for me this time. I felt helpless and miserable.

When you woke up from a nightmare you can tell it was just a bad dream but this was something different happening to me. I couldn’t distinguish whether this was all happening in real to me or not. If you’re awake and seeing things make you so scared that you woke up dripping sweat, shaking and hyperventilating in fear, you can say it’s not that as normal as a dream.

I researched on this problem and came across several reasons behind these night terror experiences. Some would say it’s because of stress and others would define it as ‘’sleep paralysis’’ in which your brain wakes up and body is still asleep leaving you in a state of paralysis.

No matter how hard I tried to rule out this problem, nothing matched to my condition at all and I never got specific explanations behind such incidents.

With the passage of time, I started getting more and more scared and stopped sleeping alone at night. I felt as if I am alone at night, those demons would come back for me. For several past many years I haven’t slept alone and if I had to in special circumstances I would hope not to see or hear anything that night. Sometimes I would consider myself fortunate enough when I had a sound sleep without fear.

Till today I find it hard to sleep alone at night and gradually I m learning to fight and overcome with my fear.

Have you experienced any such thing ever? Please share your experiences if you're facing or have faced something like this ever in life.