Growing up, sleep was one scary and unpleasant experience for me. At first, I didn't know what was wrong with me. I remember feeling scared once it was nighttime or even some times in the day when I needed to take a nap. Imagine feeling like there is a strange and scary being who opened your door, coming toward you and you try to move but couldn't. You just felt motionless no matter how much you tried to move or shout.
I knew something was not right with me. There has to be an explanation for what was happening but I didn't find out early. I later found out some years back that I was having sleep paralysis.
According to my google search a Sleep paralysis is a temporary inability to move or speak while falling asleep or upon waking.
Sleep paralysis most often occurs in people who have narcolepsy or sleep apnoea, but it can affect anyone.
For me, I felt it was deeper than the definition above. Sometimes I will feel like someone or something scary opened my door and stepped into my room trying to harm me and there was absolutely nothing I could do.
I will not be able to move or shake my body. No matter how much I try, I will just be there feeling motionless, and helpless and that hurts, really hurts.
There were times it felt like I was choking and struggling to breathe, other times it could be a form of dark shadow hovering on my bed, watching how I slept.
The worst thing is I will not know how to relate my experience to anyone or my parents as things like this will be termed spiritual. Attaching things to spirituality was very common in this part of the world but most people now know better.
I kept on struggling with this for as long as I could remember, and when I grew older, I started researching my problem. I realize that stress, and not having uniform sleeping patterns can cause this.
And that makes sense, for me to have sleep paralysis. For someone living on farmland, and working on the farm all day or having to trek a long distance to the farm during the weekend and still having to trek some very long distance to school every day.
Life is a bit difficult for us in our locality with little or no social amenities. We do everything ourselves, fetching firewood, clearing the farm, fetching water from the stream. Doing all of these was fun but very stressful.
And when the night comes it seems like all the stress of the day comes back to haunt me.
I later understand that, when sleep paralysis happens, trying to stay calm as much as possible, telling myself that this is not real, this is just a kind of dream, has helped me to overcome that scary moment and before I knew it I'm fine again.
As I grew into adulthood and moved into the city permanently, my sleep paralysis occurrence became minimal and these days I hardly felt it.
I no longer undergo a lot of stress. I have learned to manage my task better thereby increasing my sleeping quality. Learning about what my problem was and how to stay calm when it happens helps me sleep better and these days even if it is going to occur, I'm no longer scared of sleep paralysis.
I'm no more afraid of the night or taking a nap. I look forward to a beautiful warm night every day.
I later found out a lot of people go through this, and some of them termed it a kind of spiritual attack. I don't think that is true. In my experience, a stressful lifestyle and some kind of rowdy environment can contribute to sleep paralysis.
Please, this is just my experience and personal opinion. If you are having any sleeping problems, seek help by talking to a professional for advice.
Thank you very much @anttn for this prompt, as sleep paralysis is not something I have talked much about to anyone and writing about my experience here made me feel good.
