A Nightmare
by Ben Clayton
I first felt them, and soon I woke to them. They
crawled slowly over me. Was I truly awake? I was aware of
my disorder. A disorder where I would become conscious before my body physically woke. I felt them and I tried to move,
but my body did not respond. Was this a dream, or was it
really happening?
I used all of my energy, just to attempt to open my
eyes, but they refused me. I had been through this experience
before, without the spiders of course. I attempted to control
my breathing. Normally, I would do this until the episode
was over, but the tiny legs of the spiders, hundreds of them,
crawling over me made it extremely difficult.
Were they real? Clearing my mind, I attempted to
meditate beyond them and continue to focus on my breathing. Opening myself to the energy around me, I attempted to
pull it together and surge to wake. I pushed the energy into
myself, but my body failed to respond. At least it failed to
respond in almost every aspect except one. My eyes opened
slightly.
I still wasn't sure if I was awake or asleep, but through
the slits in my eyes, I could see the tiny, black, eight-legged
creatures, crawling all over me. They covered my legs, and
were beginning to darken my chest.
Chills ran through me. Were they even real? Was I
asleep? Normally I wasn't afraid of spiders, but not being able
to move, and being unable to react to an outside presence;
that was enough for me to forget my meditation and my
breathing.
Trying to look back at the spiders, I found my vision
blurred, making access to whatever world I had seen, now
inaccessible. I could still feel them though. The spiders were
crawling all over me now, beyond my legs, arms and chest.
There were now running around my face and over my head.
Or were they. Were they really there? I could feel them,
but was my judgment impaired by a dreamstate? Doctors had
described to me that when I experienced episodes, the part of
my brain that created dreams was still functioning.
To the point, there had been instances where I was
falling asleep, and the dream portion of my brain had already
begun. I had seen strange things in waking dreams. A figure
standing over me, paper floating in front of window blinds.
I'd even seen a woman in a rocking chair, rocking a small
baby to quiet sleep.
All, or most of those, might seem terrifying, but over
time, you get used to these episodes. However, this was different. I wasn't waking up, and during those, I was falling
asleep. I could still move. In this instance, I was paralyzed.
In the past, I had tried to call out, but again, this took
extreme effort. Beginning my breathing rhythm, I tried to
block everything out. Spiders crawling over me, and paralyzed, I was trying to be calm.
I opened my mouth slightly and felt myself utter a
semblance of "help." If my wife was beside me, and if I was
awake, she would recognize my condition and she would
shake me in an attempt to break the episode. That is, she
would do that, if I was not covered in eight legged creatures, which was perhaps her greatest fear.
A mind can only take so much, and mine was on
that line between rational and terrified fright. I began
imagining the spiders, with the tiny hairs exiting their
legs, and bits of webbing grasping me here and there, to
hold on as my chest continued to raise and lower in normal breathing repetition.
How could I not question that concept? What was
my current normal breathing repetition? I was trying
to stay calm, and to control my breathing; conserving my
energy for another attempt at waking myself.
As much as I wanted to believe that I was in control, I bypassed any awareness that I was siding with
the terrified fright and not with the rational calm.
It was then that I felt my head move. I remember
falling asleep on my side, but the spiders were on top
of me. I must have rolled to my back while sleeping, if
the many eight legged arachnids really were there. In
my attempts to wake, my neck felt as if the muscles had
released and my head turned to the side, into my pillow,
harboring my breathing.
Beyond my fear of being paralyzed, unable to respond to thousands of tiny legs crawling over me, I
was now finding it difficult to breath. I prayed that this
was a dream, but I felt so lucid. Using the energy that I
had hoped to store, I yelled for help. If I wasn't dreaming,
then only a mutter escaped my lips. Adrenaline pumping now, I did it again, with the same result. I fought and
battled with my body to respond, but it refused.
Would I die this way? What would they say? “Be
thankful that he died in his sleep.” That offered me no
comfort, for I knew the truth. Would it be a full autopsy
where they realized that it was oxygen deprivation that
had “done me in”. I doubted that anyone hearing that
cause of death would get any comfort.
Then, at that moment, I moved my head, but only
slightly. Was it the adrenaline rush, allowing me the push
to move, even so slightly? Was it a subconscious response
to my obscured breathing?
I didn't care. I was able to breathe again. In that
moment of release from distress, being paralyzed seemed
of no concern. I might not die from this. I might not die
from the condition, this time. The question from there
was obvious. When would I die from it?
With calm breathing again, I finally took solace
in that it would not be this time. However, these moments seemed like hours, and I wondered., would I
wake? Would I move again, see again, taste, touch, smell,
feel again? I remembered an old book, turned into film,
called, “Johnny Got His Gun”. I remembered the condition that Johnny had been in and how he would never do
those things again.
True, adrenaline pumping, sweat pouring, fear, and
I wasn't sure I was even able to create a sweat. If I was,