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Thursday, April 09, 2009

Sleep Paralysis

So a couple of nights ago, our interior infrared motion detector went off in the middle of the night. This was proceeded by me having what I thought was a panic attack - I woke up thinking I had heard something and was unable to move. When the alarm sounded, we both immediately sat up in bed and tried to decide what to do. After waiting for some time, and not hearing any noise, we agreed that Daniel should investigate.

I hid in the bathroom and Daniel went to clear the house. After being gone for a while, he came back to say that no one was in the house, but the sliding glass door in the basement was unlocked. We had most likely left it unlocked on Sunday after we ate lunch on our deck. So was someone in our house? We don't know.


This was the first time that I had ever told Daniel that I occasionally have what I thought to be panic attacks in the middle of the night. Generally they are close to when I fall asleep, sometimes I wake up with them. When this happens, I wake up unable to move any part of my body. I want to get Daniel's attention but I can't even talk. It is a very bizarre experience. Eventually my mind will overcome the fear and I will somehow persuade myself that I am ok and I will be able to move again.


After talking to Daniel about this and thinking about it some more, I tried googling to see if there was a name besides panic that describes what I go through. Well evidently it is called
sleep paralysis. After reading more about this, I am pretty sure this is what I experience several times a year.

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