Sleep Paralysis and Nightmares

I believe I didn’t start having dreams until when I was about 11 or 12 years old. When I was a little kid, I didn’t really dream of anything—it was mainly just blackouts all night, no remembrance about anything. Middle school era was when it all just kind of started for me. From that day, many different kinds of dreams started to emerge in my slumbers, and to this day I still clearly remember some of the dreams I had, as if it only just happened yesterday. There are plenty of them—I can even list them out.

Middle school was the very first time I experienced sleep paralysis too. Ever heard of it? It was a condition where you suddenly jolt awake from your sleep, but your body is still in REM mode, so it feels like you are paralyzed and can’t move a finger. I still remember exactly how the sensation felt, although it might sound crazy and irrational to you. At that moment, I seriously felt like I was being sucked into something powerful like a blackhole, but I couldn’t move or shout no matter how hard I tried. I felt like if I was just giving in to the sucking power, I would seriously die. Hence, I forced myself to wake the hell up by slowly wiggling my toes and fingers. I did wake up at the end, breathless, shocked, and confused.

As I got older, it started happening more often, especially when I didn’t have the most ideal emotional state—worried, stressed, anxious. There was this one night when I had sleep paralysis back-to-back a couple times. There was another night when I started hearing scary sounds. There was another night when I felt crazy vibrations in my body and heard loud noisy crowds all at once just before the sleep paralysis happened. I started to get curious about this happening, so I started researching about it on the internet. I found out that it somehow relates to lucid dreaming. Some states that when we’re able to trust and give in to the sensation, you would then experience being lucid in your dreams. It is when you are 100% aware that you are currently in a dream state and not in real life hence you can control what you can do in your dreams. It was not easy to give in to the sensation. It was crazily eerie, I couldn’t explain it to you unless you have experienced it yourself. Instinctively, your body would try to jolt awake when you got sleep paralysis. However, after experiencing it for so many times repeatedly, nights after nights, my body just gradually get used to it. If I get sleep paralysis now, I would probably just think to myself, "Again? Welp. I'll enjoy this when it lasts then. I'm sleepy though, be fast." I'm not even exaggerating, LMAO.

There are many methods in order to lucid dream, sleep paralysis is one of the ways to do it. Another method that I also tried at that time was noting down every single dream I had the second I woke up to remember them clearly and not forget them. So I did that for some time. I didn’t remember exactly when, but I believe I started having my first lucid dream when I started senior high school—around those times. It was an absurd experience. It was just unbelievable. It didn’t happen often, but when it did happen, it felt surreal.

With this practice, then it unintentionally became a habit until now, although I can’t be 100% aware of my dreams like how I used to, but sometimes, I can be aware for about 30% to 40% at least. There are some dreams I have now that are scary and quite have an urgency, but because I am aware that they are merely dreams so I am not really terrified, I manage to just chill. For example, when I had a dream of getting chased by a serial killer with a yellow shirt on, I managed to just jump and kind of fly through the stairs easily, then got away from him. Another time, when there was a sudden heavy flash flood around my home, I just walked through it mindlessly because I knew it was only a dream and everything would be okay nonetheless. But then, there were some dreams that were so damn vivid that it left me deep in a trance of slumber, I couldn’t even realize those were dreams, not even 1%—it just felt so real. There was that one time when I dreamt of seeing a big building that went on full fire in front of my very eyes. It felt so vivid and real that in my dream, I just started questioning whether it was real or just a dream.

Lately, I have been having vivid dreams that are crazily petrifying. About two months ago, I dreamt of a school attack that felt so eerily real. I was in a class, studying with many other students and two female teachers. Suddenly, a male student just shouted, “I can just kill you if I want to!” Another female student then stood up and ran towards the female teacher that stood in front of the class, slashing her arms many times with something sharp—a small blade. Then, she went to the other students and hurt them too. I saw blood everywhere and the class became chaotic—everyone was shouting and panicking. Somehow, we couldn’t really go out the door and leave. I felt like we just kind of got stuck inside of the class. At that moment, I tried stepping backwards, away from the chaos. I remember feeling trapped and suffocated like there was no way out. Suddenly, the female student brought a huge knife and stride towards me. I managed to grab her wrist and said to her, “This is not the way. Please don’t do this.” — something like that. Abruptly after, there were some policemen coming into the class and managed to bring her away, also some medical staff to treat all the injuries. Afterwards, suddenly the vision in the dream altered into a small pond in a calm forest. I saw some frogs jumping around it. I also noticed a presence of someone else around it—not really sure what gender but I noticed them wearing a triangle wooden brown hat and vintage Chinese-like clothing. I saw them bringing and using a fishing rod too. Then the vision went back to the class—everything went back to normal but the eeriness was still there.

The day after, I had another nightmare. This time, it was not as vivid, but still terrifying.

The dream started when I needed to get into a dance practice with one of my girl friends on another floor in a building. When we got into the lift, I positioned myself in the back of the lift and my friend stood close to the door. When the lift door was about to close, she suddenly stepped out of the lift abruptly, leaving me alone without saying a damn word. But no, I was not really alone in that lift. There was someone else. There was a fair-skinned man that looked just a bit chubby. At that moment, I didn’t know why I just instantly panicked internally, like something was off. Then I stepped forward slowly, close to the door of the lift. I wanted to get out of there fast, so I looked over to the buttons to click one of them. But they all looked weird—the numbers on the buttons were all two digits and they were all twinkling yellow lights crazily at different times but repeatedly. Suddenly, the man went close to me and started to forcefully take off my light-yellow cropped jacket.

I just realized something as I am writing this right now.

What the hell is wrong with the color yellow? Every time I see the color yellow in my dream, it is always about terrifying, urgent things. Believe it or not, this is probably a coincidence too that I am wearing a yellow shirt at this very second I am typing these sentences that you’re reading.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Someone tell me what the fuck this means please.

Back to the topic.

The chubby guy kept continuing his attempts to get close to me inappropriately and take off my yellow outer. In my mind, I remember thinking, “Oh my God. I’m gonna get raped. I have nowhere to go. My life is over. I’m stuck here.” By that time, I also remember hearing loud voices and the dream started to blur as I began to regain my consciousness. The loud voices turned out to be my Chihuahua dog, Chili, barking loudly in the middle of the night. Usually when this happened, I would be fucking annoyed at her, but at that exact time, she instantly became my life savior. Thank God she barked, or else I’m gonna lose my mind, like seriously.

After these two intense dreams back-to-back for two nights, I was freaked out for several days after. I have never ever in my life dreamt about these kinds of things before. So this was something else.

Some weeks after that, I dreamt of a similar setting—that exact lift. But I was not yet inside. I was positioned on an elevator towards that lift. This sounds very irrational, but in the dream, I remember thinking that the only way out of the building is through that lift. So I was terrified to go in. I was terrified that I would experience the same thing again in that lift. I remember feeling powerless and hopeless. I didn’t know what to do. For some time, I just stood restlessly near the elevator, ruminating whether to go in there or not. I remember thinking to just give up and get in the lift no matter how scared I felt. I remember thinking (in Indonesian), “Yaudahlah mau gimana lagi. Gak ada jalan lain juga.” — meaning: “Well fuck it. There’s no other way anyway whatsoever.” When I was about to step towards it, out of a sudden, there was a group of girls that shouted at me (in Indonesian), “Eh lewat sini aja, ada jalan lain.” — meaning: “Hey, come here, through this way. There’s another way.”

When I heard that, I instantly brightened up, I felt light and relieved. I didn’t have to go inside the lift to find a way out. The group showed me the way out— it was a flat and a bit steep cemented way down, light-brown colored. I felt safe going through that path, so I did.

Today is October 16th, 2024. Last night, I dreamt of something horrifying again. I don’t want to go into the detailed sequence of the dream but in short, I was sexually assaulted by a man I didn’t know, in my parents’ room. I laid down on the floor and he touched me inappropriately, but I just froze. I couldn’t say no or move away. Suddenly, my dad barged into the room, saw what was happening, and the man finally stopped. I instantly stood up and left the room afterwards. When I was already out of the room, I repeatedly shouted, “Bastard! He’s a fucking bastard!” (referring to the man) and slammed something that was on my hand to the floor—I don’t remember exactly what it was. I freaked out for a moment, but I remember hearing my dad also muttered, “He’s a good guy. I never remember him doing bad things. I’d invite him again.” Then that was it. I felt crazy and I lost it. My chest stung badly.

I woke up and stared at my bedroom wall for some minutes to process what the heck I just dreamed about. I went on TikTok, heard a man saying comforting words then my tears just seeped out voraciously. That was a crazy experience.

Seriously, what is my subconscious mind trying to tell me?

She’s too obsessed with feeling stuck, powerless, and oppressed lately, isn’t she?

What should I do?

I swear to God, I would prefer getting scary sleep paralysis back-to-back for a month straight, rather than having this kind of dream for one night. This dream tops every other nightmares I ever had before. This is the worst of the worst.

But through this dream, I realized how horrifying it is to experience SAs and even worse, your loved ones not believing you and still surround you with the perpetrator. I am just speechless. Whoever you are that’s experiencing this in life, I wish I could hug each and every one of you.

You are worthy.

—Later, love!