Sleep Paralysis or The Curse of the Witch

I am in my body. I am in my body.

I am dreaming. I know I am dreaming because my sister and I are walking down a dirt road at night in the summer time. The ditches rise high on either side of us and spread out to grassy pastures. It is warm, but I don’t know why we would be walking at night. Then she is in front of us, about 50 feet away. Her butler holds a black parasol above her. Somehow there is enough light to see her, perhaps the moon is out. I don’t remember. I can make out the black parasol, the greens of the grass and trees along the ditch, the browns of the sand beneath her feet. But she is grey. A flat grey like she just walked out of an old photograph. Her Victorian-era dress is high collared and covered by a long silk, hooded coat. It is all grey except where the hood shadows her face. But I stare into it long enough that I can see her face. It is grey too. It is not a scary face, but it is mean and coarse with wrinkles and frowns. Her eyes are dark. I am not afraid of her, though I know she is a witch; I’ve seen her in another dream.

My sister and I run from the witch. It is a dream; you run from the bad things. I am alone on the dirt road now. I don’t like it. I turn over in my sleep, partly awake, and begin another dream.

I am in an old farm house in my little bed. It is the middle of the night, but I go outside. I am walking down a dirt road again. It is a different road than before. Instead of ditches and pastures beside me, there is nothing but woods. It is very dark, but the moon is shining, and there is just enough light to make shapes out. In front of me is a fallen tree. It’s branches reach out along the ground toward me, gnarled and old. The bark looks black in small amount of light I have. Suddenly, there is a pop-flash. The flash makes a burning sound, a sizzle, like it is burning a hole in the night in front of me.

Then I feel myself being pulled backward. I fly faster than I can think seeing nothing in front of me, until I am in my bedroom. Not the farmhouse. My bedroom now. My husband is asleep and I see myself curled up in bed. I am looking at myself sleep. This is wrong. I don’t like this dream. I need to wake up. I need to wake up now. But I can’t move my body below me. I open my mouth to scream at Ross to wake me. I have a cold right now, so I croak. I feel my throat scratch, I clear it, then scream again. “Ross! Ross! Wake me up! Wake me up!” I force my arms to grab him. I force myself to move. I am suddenly back in my body, in my bed. My husband sleeps beside me undisturbed. I never moved. I never made a sound. But I felt my throat clear. I saw my sleeping form below me. I felt my arms reach out. But they didn’t. I couldn’t move my own body because I wasn’t inside of it.

I am in my body now. I lay in bed grabbing my arms, feeling my skin with my fingers, making sure I am feeling the sensation from the inside. I get out of bed and realize I am trembling. I have never been so frightened. I feed the cat. I take the dog out. She knows something is wrong and won’t leave my side. She even stops eating to follow me to the bathroom where I splash water on my face. Can she tell if I am inside? I look at her brown eyes. They look carefully back at me. I feel her fur, I cling to it. I am clutching at everything I touch — the door knob, the water, the towel. I need to make sure I am feeling with my hands, that it is not a dream.

I am in my body. I am in my body.

As I am slowly getting dressed for work, I hear Ross move and see him lift his head to look at me. Knowing he is awake drives me to him. He holds me, not understanding, but I tell him I had a bad dream. I start to cry and he knows there is more I am not saying. He holds me and I cling to him like I did the towel. I feel his skin with my skin. He feels real and I think I can trust the feeling of my fingers to be real too. I am in my body. I tell him why I am so scared. That I thought I could not get back inside myself. That I screamed for him and grabbed for him, but was only tricking myself. I thought I grabbed him, thought that I screamed, thought that I could feel my own scratchy throat, but it wasn’t true. It was a dream. I rub his hands roughly. I am reassuring myself that I really am feeling it.

Finally, I rise from bed again and let him sleep. As I move about the room to gather clothes and shoes, I glance again and again at my bed, to make sure I am not still in it. I look so often that I wouldn’t be surprised to suddenly see myself still lying there. I almost expect it. But I am not in bed. I run my hands over my arms and legs, pressing hard into my flesh. I am here.

I am in my body. I am in my body.