A short story based on the prompt "Center your story around a character who can’t tell the difference between their dreams and reality"
It always starts with a flicker right outside of my vision as I drift off to sleep. It could be a shadow moving, a light flickering, but it presents itself; I know what is coming next. That brief flicker starts a panic, but it’s already too late. I’ve already slipped off to sleep. I am no longer in control.
That shadow, to me, is real. I sense danger; I feel the nightmares before they come. That last bit of consciousness before I drift off to dreamland. And I know it means sleep paralysis will follow. Then the uncertainty of whether I’m asleep or dreaming creeps in. Then everything turns into a nightmare.
Sometimes it’s as simple as thinking I woke up in the morning. I’ll snooze my alarm and go about my day. Sometimes I’ll get all the way to work before I realize I’m dreaming. Normally everything is perfectly plausible, then one really strange thing slips through and shatters reality.
I jolt awake, or almost. My eyes open, but I can’t move the rest of my body. All I can do is stare at the wall and try not to fall back asleep. Normally the process repeats 5 to 10 more times. The dreams continue to get weirder as they struggle to keep their hold on my attention.
Those dreams of false wake-ups have plagued me since I was a child. Alarms work their way into my dreams; words spoken over the phone become a phone call in the dream. And it normally happens multiple times before my sleep paralysis goes away fully and I’m actually able to get up. Leaving the realistic dream behind and continuing back into reality.
Those are my tame morning dreams; they are more frustrating than terrifying. But my narcolepsy also has another side. There is the playful morning side, trying to make me late for everything for just a few more minutes of control. Then there is the nighttime version.
I’m already asleep, and suddenly I’m woken up by a sound. My eyes jolt open, but my body stays motionless, still trapped in sleep mode. A shadow moves in my peripheral vision, disappearing quickly. I can’t turn my head to follow it. I can see it darting in my peripheral vision, in and out of focus. And then, it’s on top of me. Sitting on my chest, slowly pushing all the air out of my lungs. I still can’t move, I can’t throw them off. Somehow, it still dances in and out of focus. Then things go blurry, and I jolt awake, heart racing and short of breath. This process then repeats multiple times. Normally, the first time it happens, I don’t realize it’s happening until the very end. But by the end, I know I’m stuck in a loop and I just can’t get out of it. Sometimes I can tense the muscles in my hand, which slowly signals me to wake up, and if it doesn’t do that it helps ground me while I live out a nightmare. Repeatedly.
People say that sleep paralysis only lasts a few minutes, but I have full-blown nightmares during those few minutes. Repeatedly. Normally after a night like that, I call off sleep. It just does more damage than good when I get stuck in those loops at night. So the next day I’m dealing with normal narcolepsy tired on top of lack of sleep. That’s when things become really funky.
The next day is when reality blends into dreams and blends back into reality. I’m not sure if I actually fall asleep, or if I just imagine odd things happening in the real world. But I’m in a walking dream state. It’s my personal little corner of psychosis where I’m not sure if things are real or not. And it’s a living hell.
An example would be when I was younger, I didn’t understand that some things I remembered were dreams. I, for example, distinctly remember my father fighting fires in the front field with his bush hog, cutting down the tall grass before the fire got there. The fire was blazing; I could see it from the window. I could smell the smoke! But no one else in my family remembers it. It also was in a part of the house that wouldn’t have had a line of sight to the front field. I formed my total fear of fire around that memory. Until I recently voiced it to my family and realized I was the only one that remembered what would have been traumatic for anyone involved. But it never happened. Even at ten years old, my dreams were bleeding into my reality. They shaped who I became.
It’s a strange feeling, being out of touch with reality sometimes. Sometimes, it’s not so bad. My dreams are normally significantly worse than reality, so it’s pretty easy to spot. Some days, I find myself having to ask my husband for clarification on if something happened or not. That something can range from a conversation that never happened to misremembering an entire event. Normally, the feeling fades, but those sleepless and restless nights… The nights I spend tossing and turning, the mornings I get stuck in an endless loop of not waking up, the evenings I spend paralysed with fear from the shadow that isn’t really there… They all shape who I am, but not being able to tell the difference between dreams and reality sometimes is near impossible.
Note from the author: This is an authentic account of my narcolepsy journey. This is the reality that I live every day. Sometimes I go months without symptoms, but then I go weeks with nothing but symptoms. I manage in my way; sleeping medication helps, sleep routine helps, not sleeping on my back helps… but when the nightmares get bad, nothing really does. I rely on those around me to help keep me grounded until my body decides to allow me restorative sleep. Thank you for reading.
Originally published at https://blog.reedsy.com.
I tried out a Reedsy contest for the first time because the prompt was “Center your story around a character who can’t tell the difference between their dreams and reality,” and honestly, it felt too real not to give it a go. I just wanted to share here as well. I hope you enjoyed.
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Until next time,
M.