The Attack

As far as I can recall these weird attacks go way back in the early 90's. I once had an entry in my lost/hacked journal tackling about it in not more than 400 words. Pondering about it now, as I write this post, it has been, after all, a decade already and the attacks seem like a long-running horror series, with one theme and storyline, and without an end in sight as the fear it gives me lessen to a degree.

The attack has been a sporadic companion in my pre-sleeping hours. From the countless of times that the experience has pulled me to plunge into the abyss, I have already noticed determinants when the attack would surely visit me the moment my head hit the pillow; when tired and tried to stay awake pass the typical hours when I usually hit the sack, and second when I have had slumbered too much during the day.

But then, sometimes, it comes without portents. It suddenly catches you unprepared, an invisible monster has trapped you between its paws, and is about to swallow you whole.

Lying on the bed, drifting into sleep, when one is having a stream-of-consciousness thoughts paving the way into an entry into the subconscious, the attack snaps out my control on my motor skills. This is the time when my body literally falls asleep, but leaving my consciousness intact. It's staying in the void between wakefulness and dreaming.

The silence whirr of the electric fan becomes a thunderous din. Proportional to the amplification of silence, my heart beats faster in panic. A horrible sense of vulnerability engulfs me. Stray evil spirit in the air can swiftly fly into me and I cannot defend myself. Sometimes, I imagined Beelzebub popping out in the darkness of my room, towering before me.

It is during this time that I try to move my limbs to wake up. But without success. Though I learned through time that I need to relax myself before I could do that.

I have told my buddies about this and their united diagnosis to my experience is bangungot or nightmares. They may have a point there considering that I have a penchant to sleep after having a meal. They say I probably no longer pray and have lost my faith. They too may have a point there since I would casually tell people that I don't have a religion. But this does not mean that I don't have a god. I still pray to the One above. It is just that I don't subscribe to what the different churches around me say about what God wants me to think about Him.

But this simple diagnosis cannot explain everything. If that is bangungot, why in the hell I'm still alive today? And bangungot happens when you're in the middle of your dreams. This one happens just when I knock on the door of Dreamland. The only problem is that my body sleeps first before my consciousness.

Could have I entered the "worlds within the world before us" as Carlos Castaneda quoted don Juan Matus, a Yaqui indian sorcerer. And have done that without the influence of peyote?

During those attacks, I could feel strong cosmic winds. It's frightening. But lately, the intensity of the fear is no longer that severe.

Does the decade of sporadic attacks is meant to teach me something? What if I control my fear? Relax and open my eyes to the mysterious vista that would have an apparition before me. Then, later on, try to sit, then stand up, and then probably fly into the space and experience getting tossed by the strong current of cosmic winds. That would be an experience.

But right now, the attacks just became pesky pre-sleep conditon that make me transfer to the living room to get a better sleep.