Ever had one? If not, you’re blessed. Before I tell you what happened, let me give you the cut and paste mini definition of a night terror. This is the clinical version, for any of you that have any sort of faith in the metaphysical – you might have a slightly different idea as to the what and why of night terrors.
A night terror, also known as pavor nocturnus, is a parasomnia sleep disorder characterized by extreme terror and a temporary inability to regain full consciousness. The subject wakes abruptly from slow-wave sleep, with waking usually accompanied by gasping, moaning, or screaming. It is often impossible to fully awaken the person, and after the episode the subject normally settles back to sleep without waking. A night terror can rarely be recalled by the subject. They typically occur during non-rapid eye movement sleep.
I have been having a hard time lately. Sarah moving out, general depression, the IRS notified me that they were going to garnish my wages so essentially, Im pretty screwed. Needless to say I’ve got a lot going on. Anyway, I usually read before I go to sleep to quiet my mind. If things aren’t going well, sleep doesn’t come easy. It’s not un-common for me to hear things in my head. I know its in my head, but as I get closer to sleep sometimes they are a little creepy. Last night I heard a little girl say something along the lines of “Maybe its time to give up” or something like that. I don’t remember exactly but it was creepy and negative. Last week I had downloaded some hypnosis MP3’s from a bit torrent site. One of them is for success and motivation, the other is to enhance creativity. I imagine they are both supposed to contain some sort of hidden audio that is supposed to plant things in your subconscious. I had wondered about the safety of downloading bootlegs of these things. A motivated audio tech with malicious intent could put pretty much anything in there, but do I even think they even work? Who knows.
I grabbed my Ipod and some new headphones that Michael Koss had given me, put on my BiPap mask, then the headphones, I looked like a fighter pilot preparing for a battle. I put on the MP3 for creativity. I had listened to the other one before but it was so new age, with wind, bells, a waterfall. It was annoying, so I put on the one for creativity. Same deal but a little more tolerable. Now, when I am falling asleep its not uncommon for me to see a sort of movie type thing in my head. I don’t really see it, I can just sort of imagine it if that makes sense. For a creative person I am actually really bad at true visualization, if I close my eyes I just see black. I was about 25 minutes into this hypnosis MP3 when all of a sudden I started seeing these colorful vines start to materialize in front of me, they were animated, they didn’t look real but sort of reminded me of the animation from Pink Floyd’s movie The Wall. Very interesting, very unusual, it was reminiscent of the hallucinations from mushrooms or acid in my youth. That right there is a bad sign. Just as I was starting to see that they were getting brighter and more vivid, the mp3 ended. My curiosity was piqued – could I reproduce this? I restarted the MP3, a little louder this time. I was tired.
I started analyzing the music. It was strings, like a harp, with the sound of ocean waves behind it. I noticed that some notes had an accent and were much louder, I wondered if this was being used to plant the hypnotic suggestion. I thought I probably was over analyzing it and I was not going to get the same effect. Then I saw a bright flash, like a camera flash and I think I remember seeing a small figure of a man, glowing green. I dont really remember, but more colors and almost like there was a light in the room. Then the vines came, all colors, twisting and growing, getting bigger. I guess I fell asleep.
I dont know how long I was asleep, I think the mp3 is around 30 minutes long so it couldnt have been more than a few minutes. I woke up with it still playing, I could open my eyes a little, at least I think I could but I was paralyzed. I couldnt move, I could hear the music but now I could hear a voice. The voice was metallic sounding, almost robotic and maybe backwards or scrambled. It was evil, it was terrifying. I think I realized fairly quickly that I was having a night terror, but it didnt make it any less scary. I would imagine this only lasted a few seconds but it felt like 5 minutes and now I remember thinking, that is the voice that is encoded in the music, that’s the hypnotic suggestion, I am hearing what my subconscious was hearing and almost translating, my mind balancing between reality and whatever dimension we enter when we are asleep. This really didn’t calm me at all because the voice sounded truly nefarious.
I an not new to night terrors. I used to get them when I was a kid, usually it involved something to do with strangulation. I have major issues with my neck. I have also read that there are some common events in night terrors, many people hearing breaking glass, many people see large insects crawling on them, and many see someone else in the room with them. I have also heard that it is your unconscious trying to hit you with your absolute worst fear or phobia. No one can scare you more than you can scare yourself. I don’t understand why our brains would want to do this to us. Personally I feel crazy enough as it is. I experienced a group night terror from MDMA in 2002. Me, my girlfriend at the time, and best friend all had them on the same night. I am going to write about that experience very soon, it is hands down one of the most terrifying events of my life and I will never forget it. It is also why I mentioned the metaphysical at the top of this post.
I need more phobias and craziness in my life like I need a hole in the head, but in the name of science I think I need to try it again.
Sleep well.
