In the Door Frame nosleep

Ever since I was a child, I have experienced extreme sleep paralysis.

In the same way that most kids occasionally wet the bed, I woke up seeing concealed figures hovering over me: staring, watching, waiting. My parents thought I was lying, or insane, or even schizophrenic; however, the doctors assured them that it was just a severe case of hypnagogic sleep paralysis; which is fancy medical terminology for vividly hallucinating as I fall asleep while having my eyes open and not being able to move while doing so. It is just as terrifying as you would think it would be. When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and a minor case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and later on in life, they told me that it explained the whole “seeing figures” thing and gave me pills as if it would make everything better. It didn’t.

As I grew older, the problem was not even the ungodly silhouettes that haunted my waking hours: that did not faze me like it did at first; rather it was the deep fear of not having control over my own body or control over what was going on. The feeling of having no command over the situation scares me more than anything else could. I have a deep fear that one day I’ll wake up and the figure will still be there, awaiting me. It’s just something I have learned to live with.

Last night though, the hallucinations were different.

It started out like most nights do: I brushed my teeth, then my hair, washed my face, took my assortment of pills, let the dog out, closed and locked my door exactly sixteen times (no more, no less), and turned off my light. It had been a long and stressful day, and I welcomed sleep with open arms that night.

Then my eyes opened.

Immediately, I noticed I was completely paralyzed and, as usual, the only thing I could actually move were my eyes. I felt like a mouse stuck to a glue trap behind a refrigerator: hopeless and awaiting my death. A feeling of impending doom and utter panic washed over me, my body enveloped in a tingling sensation. Not anything unusual, but even after all the years of experiencing it, it is something that will forever cause my blood to go cold. I tried to scream, but it was to no avail: I had completely lost control; I had no control over my thoughts, or my body, or my vision. A feeling of intense pressure crushed my chest and the shadows of my room appeared much more menacing than they had ever before.

Soon after the initial panic and paranoia set in, I saw the shadowy figure I had seen so many times before. It stood in the frame of my door, unmoving. I could feel it staring at me although its face remained unseen under its hood, and I stared back in complete and utter terror. Its cloak seemed to blow in the nonexistent wind, like a proud flag in a schoolyard, but the shadowy figure remained motionless. Try as I might, I could not make out any of it features. And the part that made me panic the most? The fact that my bedroom door was wide open, even though I had made sure to close it before I went to bed.

The figure began to move slowly towards me. It seemingly glided over the wooden floors of my sleeping quarters, and I could feel the sticky sweat pooling around my face. Watching it move towards me seemed to take hours, possibly days. Time is irrelevant when you are facing certain death. I kept trying to think about all of the websites I had ever visited that told me how to get out of the nightmare that is sleep paralysis, but nothing came to my mind. The wiggling-your-toes technique had never worked for me, and neither had a coughing one I had read about on a website just for people who suffer from the hallucinations. I was completely stuck, and the figure was almost next to me.

Then the figure reached me; its breath next to my ear: deep and slow. Panicking, I once again tried to scream out, trying to alert someone, anyone! But the scream wouldn’t come out, and the only thing I could do was lie there as its dark gloved hands reached for my exposed neck. The feeling of pressure on my chest became more intense and I grew more and more sure that this would be how I died. These were surely my final moments. My neighbor or girlfriend or a girl scout would arrive and open up the door to my apartment and find me dead, strangled by someone, not a single fingerprint found. My death would stump even the most seasoned detectives there were. I would become just another statistic and the case would grow cold. Or maybe no one would find me, and my corpse would stay in the same place forever, rotting and decomposing slowly over time. Bugs would crawl in and out of my orifices like a playground. As the steel-like hands wrapped around my neck I felt the cold embrace that would lead me to my demise. The air was being pushed out of my gasping lungs. This was it.

And then I woke up.

I was in my bed and it was pitch black outside my window. I was safe, but shaking. I was alive! The sleep paralysis had lost, and I had come out victorious. My alarm clock read 3:23 a.m. and I could not help but sigh in relief: none of it was real. I was okay.

I savored the feeling of being able to move my entire body, and I decided I should get up and walk it out. Maybe turn the lights on for the remainder of the night, just so I didn’t have to go through the whole ordeal again. Still shaking, I got up and walked to the lightswitch. As I walked, I stole one quick glance at the gaping doorway.

And there in the door frame stood the shadowy figure, patiently waiting.

Submitted June 10, 2016 at 07:16PM by Calzoneenthusiast http://ift.tt/1Pk8BoH nosleep