Talk About Really Fucking Stupid

I had a "blonde" moment while sleeping, that very nearly became a nightmarish trauma. I remember dreaming; I was dreaming successfully, and although I don't know if I had the power to control the dream, I somehow sensed that I was dreaming. It felt kind of like I was in one of those half dream states, where I'm drifting off to sleep, and I can sense the dream occurring, because I'm not fully absorbed in the dream, and it's like I still have some control over my consciousness. I had a sense that I was still falling asleep, from first getting into bed, but when I finally awoke just a few moments later, it was over two and a half hours since I had gone to bed, and I know I wasn't lying awake for that long before drifting off to sleep. (oh noes, missing time!)

So anyway, I kind of felt the one dream coming to a conclusion, and I thought about what to dream about next. And here's where I did something extremely stupid, though I had no indication of how stupid it was until I fully regained consciousness a moment later. I thought to myself, I wonder if I could recreate a "Paranormal Activity" style home tape experience through my dreaming world, but with an "alien abduction" theme.

Really stupid, right? You know how you can tell that it's really stupid? Because it's really obviously fucking stupid! But that "check" part of my consciousness didn't seem to be functioning at the time. So off I went, starting to imagine myself in a home movie, wondering if I could will myself to have an alien abduction type experience - staged for the camera of course, but reality and fake tend to blur together when it's a dream! And you know how this is worse than seeing a movie of this happening? It's a dream, so I'm not watching it happen, I'm actually there!

So...lucky for me, in the "tape", I wasn't alone, but in a crowded room. Still, it's little consolation when I start to feel "sleep paralysis" start to kick in. I feel like I'm lying on a table, and suddenly, I can't move at all, as much as I try. And this is where I know it's coming. But it's not really fun anymore; I'm terrified. I try to scream, to get this crowded room to notice what's happening, so they can do something to help me, to stand between me and the terror - but my voice won't come out. Oh fuck.

I finally start thinking to myself, this is a really fucking stupid idea, and to my relief, I am released. I wake up. The weird thing is, I don't feel like this experience "just happened", I feel like I willed it to happen, at least with my dream consciousness. But do you know what would have been much worse? If I hadn't willed it. If it caught me by surprise. If I hadn't seen it coming. Maybe then I wouldn't have been able to stop it before it got really bad.

So here I am, awake, crisis averted, and I just want to go back to sleep. But now that I'm thinking about the nightmare, I can't shake it off. And me, with my hopeless curiosity, can't help letting my mind wander to what that experience could have been like. Intellectually, it's fascinating. But it kind of chills the blood, so it's not really an avenue I want to explore. But I can't control my wandering mind, so the best thing I can do is take a break from trying to sleep and write down my experience, so I can share it in the morning...

And now, the question is, can I return to a gentle, non-tormented, sleep?