photo credit: ste3ve

Having grown up in dreamlike dimensions of monsters, demons and ever-changing landscapes, it is easy for Mr Mackerel to understand the human consciousness and how the brain can be influenced. Leave that to Mr Mack! (He likes the smell of cinnamon muffins baking in the oven. He likes watching the mesmerising rainbow swirls in oil droplets on water, and the faintly gurgling sound of puppies discussing ethics beneath it.)

Mr Mackerel needs to polish some shoes, so he can focus and stop thinking.

First, as promised, the three easy steps to a hellish nightmare beyond imagination. If you’re a healthy person without sleep disorders, read below how to induce sleep paralysis. You will wake up, but your body won’t. You will feel like you’re in a coma and be absolutely terrified and panicked. And in that paralysed state your mind will hallucinate in a way normally reserved for people on an acid trip gone horribly wrong. The most well-reported vision is of people seeing a demon on their chest, choking them and raping them violently, more vividly than a dream has any right to be. It is the origin of the legend of the succubus and incubus. But many other nightmare visions can be involved, including auditory hallucations of sudden loud distorted sounds or the sound of someone calling your name.

The following steps are not 100% guaranteed to traumatise you, but they certainly help.

1. Sleep on your back.

2. Sleep irregularly.

3. Take daytime naps.

A result from these steps:

It was time for my 20 minute morning nap (of the Everyman sleeping schedule), and I was having dreams as soon as I closed my eyes, even though I wasn’t sleeping yet (I could open my eyes, close them, and the dream would still be there).

I was seeing a living room out the eyes of an African-American boy in his early teens and I said something I shouldn’t have said to one of my sisters, and she and the rest of my family asked what I meant by what I said. I couldn’t really explain it and to avoid having to explain myself I ran outside the house, though they followed me to the front door calling ‘my’ name (Michael! Michael!). It felt extraordinarily real.

Then there was a more typical dream, and I realised that I was in fact dreaming. I tried to see if I could control it, with only minor fleeting successes. I decided to create a new dream. I decided I wanted to try and play an Escape the Room puzzle in my mind. It’s a Flash game where you’re in a locked room and you have to find items in the room and combine or use them to eventually unlock the door. Hence, escape the room.

The room was just there immediately, though I have no idea whether it had a solution. In front of me was a computer and a desk. I looked at the desk. One of the drawers seemed to have a label on it. I took a closer look at the label, zooming in and out as if my eye were a camera lens until I could get it sharp. I was beginning to decipher it, but got fed up with it and decided to look at the screen of the computer. It was off, but I saw a dark silhouette in there (perhaps my reflection). There was this strange pull coming from the screen. I tentatively got up close to it and it tried to draw me in. I felt like I was in that screen myself, but I also felt like it would be a really bad idea to give into this stronger and stronger pull emanating from it. I was beyond the point of return, however, not able to back away. Not able to resist the desire to just give in. And then I surrendered. I felt the weird actual physical motion of being sucked into it.

That’s where it happened.

I dropped into a dense greyness, dropping through layer and layer and layer (about seven of them) of grey static, feeling very strongly the feeling you have when looking down from a very high tower. Finally, shocked, I was left inside the grey, with nothing.

I was still lucid, still conscious of what was going on, so even as I was falling through the grey I immediately tried to open my eyes and wake up. That didn’t work… I tried to kick my legs, but I couldn’t feel my legs. I was aware that this was happening and could make decisions. I was scared, and tried to scream. I tried screaming as loud as I could, but it was straining and I had no idea whether any sound came from me. I hoped that at least my neighbours would hear it and get help. However, I decided at that point that my sleep deprivation had somehow caused me to go into a coma and hoped to alert anyone that I was still conscious. I couldn’t see, hear or feel anything on the outside, so I couldn’t know whether maybe I was already in a hospital by now or still in my bed. I couldn’t be sure of how much time had passed. So I screamed. I screamed incessantly and yelled for help as ‘loud’ as I could.

This seemed to last quite a while and I just kept hoping that someone on the other side would detect my elevated heart rate or whatever else. Once more I furiously tried to move my limbs, when I suddenly regained control over my body and immediately got out of bed.

I stood next to my bed, in shock, but it wasn’t over yet. This couple came into my room, a middle-aged couple. I realised something was still wrong when they completely ignored me and started using my bedroom. It was like I wasn’t there. It was like I had died and new people had moved in. I frantically tried to alert them to my presence, but they didn’t notice me at all. Then I woke up again and got out of my real, actual bed. It was an immense relief. Strangely, only 5 minutes had passed since I went to lie down.

I didn’t know it was Sleep Paralysis. “This leaves the person fully conscious, but unable to move. In addition, the state may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger.” If I had known about it, perhaps I wouldn’t have panicked so much.

Interesting section on Wikipedia about the various names and explanations cultures around the world have given this experience:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis#Folklore