Sleep paralysis can be a rather frightening phenomenon for those who are not familiar with it. Well hell, it's still a frightening phenomenon for me, despite familiarizing myself with it for years already. The earliest sleep paralysis experience I could remember was during my school days, Form 3 to be exact. I was sleeping at the wrong side of my bed when I dreamed about meeting a couple of freaky people who tried to suffocate me with my mattress. I immediately woke up, but found myself unable to move any of my limbs. I couldn't even call out my dorm mate beside me as I felt that my voice was stuck on my throat. Being overly ignorant of stuffs like sleep paralysis, I made a conclusion that it must be the dreaded 'makhluk halus' (djinns and the likes) looming in my dorm, and proceeded to tell the whole dorm about how I was harassed by makhluk haluses, making them read Surah Al-Mulk every night for the whole week. Hahaha.
And oh, that was nothing really. A few weeks after that, the 'djinns' in my head decided to give me a more intense sleep paralysis. I was sleeping with my hands above my head (my favourite position at that moment. IDK why tho) when during what I believed to be a hypnagogic state, I felt something furry caressed my hands. I was shocked as hell, and wanted to get up, but I felt as If I was being pinned down on my bed, my limbs tied on the four posters. That was when I felt something sitting beside my face on the bed, like some sort of toddler wearing diapers. Once again, I tried to scream, but no voice came out. My dorm mates were all sleeping soundly, leaving me alone in the dark, facing great terror on my own. And yup, you betcha - the next day, stories about 'dikacau makhluk halus' and 'kena hempap' circulated in the dorm. IDK dude, it could be them djinns for real, but then again I was in a hypnagogic state and hallucinations are not uncommon during such state, so yeah, what can I say, DMT is one hell of an endogenous substance.
(Looking back, I might even have false awakenings both times, considering how I found it difficult to scream. Sheesh, if only I knew about lucid dreaming earlier.)
But that's not my point. What I was trying to tell you is that somehow, after years of not having sleep paralysis (I think the last one I had was around 2 years ago), I had one last night. Damn freaky. I was listening to some binaural brainwave stuff with hypnosis-like suggestions last night, switching from my usual isochronic tone because I was getting sleepier by the minute and felt that I couldn't stay awake for the whole 30-minute duration of the isochronic tone. I put the mp3 on loop, fell asleep in the middle, and woke up after 30 minutes or so to take off my headphones. No hypnagogia whatsoever in the middle, so I told myself, what the hell, be grateful you have one lucid dream this week, and got back to sleep. After one hour or so, I had a freaky false awakening which lasted for about 5 seconds before I woke up and found myself lying on my bed. It took me a while to realize that I was no longer in my dream (I didn't do reality checks or anything, I just know the feeling :P). I managed to half-open my eyes, closed them back and attempted DEILD. Shortly after, I found myself back into that false awakening dream and did a reality check by looking at my hands (with the word 'AWAKE' scribbled on my left hand). They were blurry as usual, so I became lucid for about 10 frickin seconds or so. Or even shorter than that, I'm not sure. I wanted to get up from my bed and do one of my dream tasks (i.e. walk through my bedroom wall), but didn't manage to do so because the dream disintegrated very fast and before I knew it, I was already out of my dream. Disappointed, I tried to do a reality check just to make sure it was not another false awakening. To my utter horror, I couldn't move my hands at all, not even my fingers. I tried to lift up my head and look at my little alarm clock, but I couldn't do so. I was starting to panic, but I quickly calmed myself down, suddenly remembering what I've read last Sunday about sleep paralysis and hypnagogia and the likes. Was still mildly frightened though, so I didn't attempt any DEILD/WILD whatsoever. I think I had one more false awakening and one more sleep paralysis after that, but I couldn't remember much of them. Had dreams about Mardhati and Fathuddin cancelling their flight (lol but why?), dad with two Siamese kittens and me going out with my 'client' for a quick brunch at a cosy cafe before Mom woke me up at 6.30 a.m. Awesome.
So yeah, although my lucidity only lasted for a few seconds (and I think I couldn't even call that a lucid dream - maybe a semi-lucid dream or something), I can now safely say that I am not immune to any lucid dreaming aids like binaural beats, isochronic tones etc (I almost thought I was immune to them - or, as I put it in my main blog, 'too Goa to lucid dream with aids' lol). And yay for awesome hypnagogia! Now that I've convinced myself that binaural beats are not placebo, I might have better luck with my iDoser psychotropic doses later :P
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