GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #489: SLEEP PARALYSIS

 I've suffered from sleep paralysis for a long time. It used to be fucking terrifying because it seemed so real. I never saw the Old Hag that others swear by, but what happens to me is that I'm in bed and something is under it trying to drag me down to join it. It's actually impossible. If there was such a thing down there, there is no way it could pull me down and under because, well, I'm too fat to fit under my bed for one, and for another there is no room on any side of my bed. Maybe if I was a child.

But maybe a decade ago I stopped giving a shit about this. I started thinking, fuck it, let the bastard take me. And when I surrendered myself to this feeling, I suddenly stopped having sleep paralysis.

There is some speculation as to what causes this phenomenon. I think it happens when our bodies fall asleep but our minds aren't quite there yet.

Imagine my surprise when, during my first week back home after my most recent amputation, I experienced sleep paralysis again. This time was different, though. I felt an odd sensation in the back of my skull. If someone had been monitoring my brain in a scientific setting, I'm sure my readings would have lit up like Klieg lights. It burned with an electrical feeling, like someone had plugged something into the back of my head Matrix-style.

And then I left my body. It wasn't cool like you'd think. Nothing looked right around me. If I had to compare it to something, I'd say it's like when Frodo puts the ring on in Peter Jackson's LotR movies. It's kind of like a shadow world where everything is dark and the winds howl constantly. It freaked me out, especially when I saw the hunk of meat I left behind. Holy shit, that's me! Or rather, that's supposed to be me. I tried to lay back down, matching my spirit limbs to my physical limbs, and at first it didn't work. I thought, shit, maybe I died. Maybe I'm locked out of the physical realm now.

Grandma hadn't died yet, so I felt a slight relief that I wouldn't have to deal with that or the looming homelessness that would come after. But dying was a bummer, man. I had so many books I hadn't written or read yet, and I would never get to do that. I figured that when the final synapses of my brain stopped firing off I would cease to exist.

And then I woke up.

I know it was a dream. I know I didn't actually die or have an out of body experience, etc. But when I woke up I tried to recreate what I'd just gone through because it was, indeed, a hell of a ride. I'm not a roller coaster guy, but I thought this must be what it's like for people who enjoy that sort of thing.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #399: DID I DIE?

 There are sometimes that I think I died, and I'm in the afterlife. And what a shitty afterlife that is. For example, I occasionally wonder if I died when I was in the hospital in January 2020 after I lost my job and went on the drinking binge to end all drinking binges, the one when I went in for pancreatitis and wound up getting stuck there for two weeks going through severe alcohol withdrawals. When 2020 kept getting worse and worse, I figured yeah, I'd died in the hospital. This is just some fever dream of the brain. I just have to wait for the electric impulses to end, and I'll be gone for good.

Not too long ago, I was fucked up on pills in an attempt to get some sleep. I hadn't gotten any the previous night, so I needed to make sure I zonked out in the morning. I was in the twilight between high as fuck and actual sleep, and I looked up at the ceiling. There was a golden door there, and I thought, holy shit, I really did die. Now it's time to get out of here.

After I thought about it I realized it was actually something reflected up at my ceiling from the backyard. It looked like a door, but there was no knob or anything. I giggled to myself and sleep finally took me.

It reminded me of when I was in the hospital before the worst of the DT's hit. Whenever I'm in the hospital, for whatever reason, the bed is positioned directly under a reflective light so if I want to look up and see how pathetic I appear, it's nice and easy to do that. I was a lumpen form in a hospital bed, bloated and ugly like how the scandal sheets get pictures of celebrities when they're not looking their best.

But this time I saw an Old West street with horses and tumbleweeds and gunslingers and everything. And there was a very pretty woman who beckoned to me, holding out her hand like she could pull me through the light and into her world. Intellectually, I knew it was a hallucination. But goddam, it was a good one. I wouldn't have minded then and there lifting up a hand to leave this fucking place.

Instead I called for the nurse so I could get my next morphine shot.

How's that for a fuckin' dark GF column. I'm not even in a bad mood right now. It's just something I thought about while eating lunch today. Gotta watch out for those ceiling doors into other worlds . . .