Oh yeah, and I have a Sleep Disorder!

Writing that last post reminded me of the other thing I discovered recently: I have a sleep disorder! Luckily, it's not terribly serious.

About once a month or so, I experience what is called Sleep Paralysis. I didn't really know what it was until I was talking to a friend of mine at the station who experiences many sleep disorders, including narcolepsy. I guess it's very common in narcoleptics. I was always a little freaked out about it, but it was nice to know that it's reasonably common and not very serious.

Basically what happens to me is that I will kind of wake up and find myself unable to move. I know that I'm dreaming, but no matter what I do I can't wake up. It's hard to say just how long the paralysis lasts, but it can always be broken if I can get myself to move or speak. Sometimes, it is accompanied by some sort of weird, dreamlike hallucination. The last time is happened, I swore that a female ghost was climbing on top of me, which I guess is quite common. Weird!

This site offers some advice on how to cope with it. It looks like it's preventable without medication, and simply knowing what's going on seems to help to get rid of the anxiety that accompanies it. I can probably eliminate it in myself by not sleeping on my back and getting into a more regular sleep pattern. Also, I would not object to a little bit of #10.