Nightmares, Sleep Paralysis, and Sorting through Scientific Data
Weird Painting by Terry Marks “Nightmare in a Mirror”
This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.
I’ve been a vivid dreamer my whole life. I typically experience several dreams each night and wake up in between. I can usually remember my dreams and translate them into loosely accurate verbal narratives. Think of my descriptions as “inspired by dream x” rather than a faithful retelling, since logic and linearity are rarely features of my dreams..
My dreams are almost never pleasant and frequently meet the clinical definition of nightmares. That’s the scienc-y way of saying I wake up in terror mid dream panting and sometimes screaming. Other times, I do not bolt up or scream, because I am paralyzed. Sleep paralysis sucks. Sleep paralysis also keeps us safe. Dreams are nuts. We do crazy things in dreams, and if our bodies weren’t rooted in place by self-induced paralysis, we’d all probably die falling down stairs and jumping out windows. Usually our bodies come out of dream sleep gradually. By the time we wake up we’re all nice and un-paralyzed. Some lucky few, like me, don’t always transition normally. We wake up, senses full alert, unable to move or speak. Some can open their eyes. Some even see creepy phantom shadows. Some are stuck, eyes screwed shut. This is sleep paralysis. It lasts anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. By my best guess, my sleep paralysis lasts about 15-30 seconds. Just enough time to get really panicked. Let me tell you, 15 seconds is an eternity when you’ve just woken up from a nightmare, can’t move, can’t open your eyes, and are internally screaming but no sound comes out. It’s like a barrel of monkeys added to a barrel of scorpions and they’re all on speed.
The first few times this happened I ended up swabbing puddles of collected tears out of my ears, once I could actually move and stopped hyperventilating. Turns out you can cry with your eyes shut. It’s not so bad anymore. As they say, with knowledge comes . . . um, knowledge? After a bit of reading and stumbling across a podcast or two that addressed the phenomenon, riding out of sleep paralysis became a lot less stressful. It’s still unpleasant, but no longer terror inducing. Now I know just to wait. The dream is over and I’m safe. But this post isnt’ about sleep paralysis. This post is about how my husband is a grade a jerk.
Recently, I was watching the Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. I don’t think it’s a big spoiler to reveal that one of the characters suffers from sleep paralysis. It’s an excellent and appropriate use of a real world phenomenon woven in right beside ghosts, evil houses, and family legacies. Watching this character struggle with her literal and figurative demons was very interesting and sad. But when it came to the sleep paralysis I found myself deeply annoyed and resentful. Who are these people, and how dare they! I mean REALLY. I wasn’t ticked off because the show got it wrong. They nailed it. What ticked me off was that despite the fact that this character was being tormented while suffering a real medical condition, I was jealous. Deeply, face scrunchingly, purse lipped, all capital letters JEALOUS. You see, this haunted, long suffering woman had a partner who would hear her labored breathing and wake up during her paralysis to coax her through it. What a great guy.
@#$^@$% you, haunted, tortured lady. My husband NEVER wakes up when I’m having nightmares or paralysis. Once I even woke up moaning and grunting. He rolled over, away from me, and proceeded to snore. GAH! One time, when I sat up in the middle of the night to try to read the clock (which he insists must stay on his side of the bed), He reached out in his sleep and turned it so I couldn’t possibly see it. Not making this up. He will say I made it up, but he’s a notorious liar about what he does when he’s completely unaware of his actions. Lying liar pants.
So there I sat, watching this scary show, yelling at oblivious characters “Don’t go into the dark zombie basement!” and periodically peaking over my laptop screen to glare at my (equally oblivious) husband. Jerk. Mr. Jerk. Mr. Jerkface McJerkington.
This is of course completely unfair. It’s irrational to be jealous of a fictional character who has lived in fear of very real ghosts her entire life. It’s irrational to compare my husband to a fictional husband who is clearly a light sleeper. OH BUT I DO. I judge you husband and you are found wanting.
It’s possible that my resentment isn’t just an unrelated personal quirk. It turns out, vivid dreamers prone to nightmares might actually be more sensitive, empathetic, and creative than folks with run of the mill dream lives. So maybe, I’m just experiencing an empathy/sympathy gap, holding my husband to my own standard of in-tuneness to my sleeping partner. And yes, I DO wake up when he’s having nightmares, so there! Or maybe I’m just cranky because, again, nightmares suck.
This morning I woke up after a series of disturbing and really annoying dreams. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say: bureaucracy sucks, I should get to be Lady Gaga in my own darned dreams, and head butting yellow spiders need to bugger off. So I thought, hey, do all my wild dreams just mean that I’m more interesting/dynamic/inventive/smarter than all those boring undeserving lucky people with their blissful uninterrupted sleep? Yes, I am trying to manufacture a silver lining from 30+ years of poor sleep. So sue me.
So I google “Are people who have nightmares more creative?” Sure enough, a number of articles pop up:
People Who Have More Nightmares Might Also Be More Creative
Why People Who Experience Nightmares Are More Creative
Are People Who Experience Frequent Nightmares More Creative?
Haha! See I suffer because I’m better than all y’alls. I’m chosen! I AM special.
I’m also science educator, so I actually click on the links and start dissecting the sources of these articles and even click through to a few studies to look at their sample sizes and methods. Cause you know. Data.
Long story short. People who have lots of nightmares yawn more than people who don’t and tend to be involved in creative fields. So, eh. I probably just have nightmares because I’m high strung and suffering an extreme case of noticing bias. Most people don’t remember most of their dreams. We’re probably all having psychedelic nightmare scapes all the time. I just remember them better than most. I mean, it’s not like I have a history of holding on to stuff. Not at all. I remember you Justin Moore. I remember what you did in the second grade, and you will never be forgiven. It was MY TURN to be chalk board monitor. You will suffer at the hands of an indifferent god and my scorn will haunt you through the ages.
Yeah, so sleep paralysis sucks.
Funny thing. I used to sleep walk as a kid. I have ALL THE WINS!
There is no Justin Moore. I think his name was actually Jason, or Jacob. But I change the names in this blog to protect the . . . um, incidental?
*This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.
