NIGHTTIME STRUGGLES HAVE BECOME MY MUSE
In recent blogs I have mentioned how my family and I are currently going through an extremely stressful situation, and my mind has been affected by that over the past year. Additionally, I have experienced a greater number of sleep paralysis episodes, due to my sleep disorder being aggravated by this stress.
Earlier, I’ve dedicated entire blogs to the topic of my Sleep Paralysis Disorder. Therefore I’ll merely list all of the relevant symptoms I have, in regard to this particular blog. My symptoms include my muscles and eyelids being paralysed (just as I’m either waking up or falling asleep), not being able to breathe in a wakeful manner, experiencing hypnopompic hallucinations (partial dream images whilst I’m half asleep with my eyes open), as well as shuddering, plunging or jumping awake at the moment of dosing off to sleep.
Over the past year I’ve been getting at least one of those experiences on a nightly basis. Unfortunately, it’s certain that this will continue every night for another whole year, because our family’s historical abuse trial will be stretched out across 2026. Therefore my 3am night-time struggles are here to stay for a while. This is very difficult to accept, and it’s even quite frightening at times (especially when I see unsettling dream images briefly upon waking). But after saying all of that, I have recently found a silver lining to this situation. An idea that came to me a couple of months ago was that I could use these late night moments to write another book.
The early hours of the morning are not like any other time. It’s much like being in a world that’s extremely dark, lonely and silent. Those three descriptive words aren’t always negative either. In fact they can indeed be very peaceful to experience and listen to. When I wrote “listen to” in the previous sentence, I meant that whilst I’m away from the loud and busy daytime hours, it’s much easier for me to tune into my own imagination.
During the day I find this difficult, however during the dead of night I’ve discovered that it’s much less of an effort. Hence I have now completed a storyline for a fictional book,and have made a decent start with writing it. Previously I was doubtful that I’d ever write a fiction novel because I was rarely ever awake at the times when I am now.
This book will be titled “Nightmares in the Woods” and the storyline is an abstract representation of what I’m currently going through emotionally. I won’t reveal too much before its publication, though it begins with a character being in a dark forest infested by nightmares. Yet as the book progresses the character will learn positive life lessons, from journeys through much happier worlds that I like to purposely dream about. A fortunate part about my sleep disorder is that my dreams are almost always lucid, and if ever I’m anxious I can ask dream characters to take me to my favourite imaginary places.
To sum this all up, I will say that Sleep Paralysis Disorder and/or night terrors are very frightening to experience. But I must never forget that even when I know that a difficult situation will remain for a year or two, I can still learn ways of how to use the time constructively. As well, whilst experiencing something on a daily basis for several years, we’re given a long stretch of time to work these adjusted tasks into our regular timetable. Then afterwards, we could indeed hold onto those exercises and use them permanently, even after the difficult situation ends.