Things have been going fairly well as of late with the slight exception of last night. I wasn't feeling too well & I knew it was a result of not enough sleep over the past few days. I decided to go to bed early to catch up on my sleep. I'd made that decision earlier in the day & come the time I'd mentally set to accomplish this, I was oddly pretty close to wide awake at that point .. or should I say - my mind was - my body - not so much. You know the feeling, your body is tired but your mind is going a mile a minute ...
Regardless, I proceeded to kiss my boyfriend goodnight, grab my cat & trudge on towards our bed with a steadfast determination to hit the hay at an early hour. Of course, I knew my mind was racing at that point (which often leads to ISP) so I left our hallway light on in the master suite for "comfort". I know, I'm a 34 year old woman but the light makes me feel better damnit - shoosh!
Nonetheless, I must have had about 6 or 7 rolling cycles of SP (or RISP as read in an article today - also referenced on my blog - I'm too lazy to look up the reference but if you scroll down & read the article by Sirley you'll find it).
All of the cycles were memorable but the one that sticks in my head (& the one I shared with my other half) was the last one.
You see, because my mind was going a mile a minute (which is never good when you're trying to sleep) & I knew my boyfriend would soon (not sure when, but soon) be coming into the bedroom to go to sleep as well ... I was anticipating the possibility of being woken up. Doesn't sound like a big deal right? Well, when you have RISP it is a big deal because it can add to the anxiety involved in the simple procedure of falling asleep.
Ok, I got a bit off track. Nonetheless, so ... the one that sticks in my head went like this: I "woke up" & sensed that my boyfriend wasn't in the bed with me because I saw the light was still on, so my natural instinct was to see what time it was. Now, I have my Blackberry set to turn off at 2am & restart at 7am so I anticipated having to turn it back on to check the time (I was assuming it was after 2-obviously). So, I "reached" for my blackberry with this in mind only to find that although I was sending the signals to brain to perform this easy/normal-every day task - it wasn't happening. I looked down at my arm only to see it not moving. I thought to myself, "self, it's ok, you're just stuck, stare at the light & you'll wake up". I did this to no avail. I then thought, "ok, move your big toe" - I know - sounds like the "Kill Bill" movies but, darn it - it worked & poof, my toe moved, cracked & I woke up.
It was quite refreshing yet disturbing. I was upset that I'd been going through RISP episodes for over 2 hours - around 2-1/2 to be exact but at the same time I was happy that I'd come out of a pretty harmless episode of your standard SP with complete ease. How did I manage that? I'm not entirely sure but I'll tell you this. I refused to even get scared, I simply accepted what was happening & found a solution/a way to make it stop. That's it. Whether or not that will happen from now on remains to be seen & quite frankly I'm a bit doubtful. There are so many instances where it seems I am in no control whatsoever & at the mercy of "someone" else. I'd like to be hopeful, but it's difficult when I compare this instance and the few other good instances to the amount of bad instances I've had. Unfortunately, the few are few & far between ...
I'd also like to point out that my other RISP's included a number of the different symptoms associated with SP however never all of them at the same time. To be more specific, & to give another example, I completely "hallucinated" that my boyfriend had opened the door, walked into the bedroom & then into the bathroom at one point. I then woke up & it had not happened. I was a little baffled because it seemed so real but at the same time, part of me knew it wasn't real. I also heard loud explosions, doors opening, voices etc .. all while I was going "in & out of sleep".
Anyway, so much for me catching up on my sleep last night but ... I will say, as bad as it was - I did at least get to lay down for a few extra hours last night & I woke up refreshed so - I'll take it any way I can get it :-)
Sleep well!
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