I guess I should have written about this this morning. Oh well. Better late than never.

I had an episode of sleep paralysis last night and this is the second or third time this has happened that I can remember in my life. If you've ever been through this you know how completely terrifying it can be. The first one I can remember happened when I was living in North Chattanooga after Aaron left and that one I thought there was an alien in the room with me. And now you know why I'm deathly afraid of Grays even though I'm a science-fiction writer. It is quite simply going through a night terror dream completely paralyzed and completely awake. That first one was so terrifying that when I broke out of it I could literally feel my heart working in my chest and I was just as terrified that I was having a heart attack. It scared me so bad I cried hysterically for the rest of the night.

Last night was just as frightening but at least this time I kept my head, so to speak. This time it was the usual paralysis combined with feeling clawed hands gripping me all over my body. This time the confusion profusion coughed up "demons!" One isn't too logical when these things happen. "Demons!" in rapid succession went to "Say the Lord's Prayer" went to "Wait a minute I'm not Christian it only works for things you actually believe" to "Say the Havamal!" and in my fright starting to think of the words of a Norse saga I once wrote and memorized and not the Havamal. (see the "Runatal" section, but I got my version from Ralph Blum's The Book of Runes when I was a kid.) I was kind of stressed at that particular moment so the fact that I managed that much means I'm at least able to keep my head in some form or fashion.

Anyway. It's a damned terrifying experience. Having read on it, it seems the hallucinations mean I've got the more serious version.

Okay, so I guess I'm going to have to cut out the laying on my back.