Dream Log: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 --- "Trapped"

                I went back to my room to take a nap, but I never quite went into deep sleep. It was a cross between reality and REM. The bad thing is I kept thinking and perceiving and never knew the difference. I found myself outside at one point, making snow balls while others were having a snowball fight. It was snowing outside (the snowflakes were the size of my hand) and I dismissed the fact that it was already late evening. The snow was so compactable that it was almost like rubber. I made a snow hat, it was awesome. The fun ended when I thought it would be a good idea to try and read some text somewhere. The mixture of trying to convince myself that I wasn’t dreaming, barely holding the words together on the page (trying to keep them from changing, like they’re supposed to in dreams —- the fact that I stabilized them is very disturbing), and some cue from my subconscious that was displayed subliminally through the text, spooked my imagination. I was thrown into a terrible cross between sleep paralysis and night terrors. I was awake in my bed, having that feeling you get when you’re bouncing between consciousness and sleep but never quite jump the fence on either side. With a ferocity that I’ve never experienced before, I felt the most terrible sense of lowliness, anxiety, fear. I heard voices from my past, from my present, and some I did not even know, all so vivid that I cannot even imagine them now. Many of them were laughing, loud, from other rooms, from inside me, right in my ear. Others were simply talking; I could hear everything on my floor. I heard coughing, moaning…the moaning was terrible. Women in pain, almost animalistic, from miles away, yet I could hear. This was all frothing up from one great, humming body of noise, the voices of millions.

            I couldn’t move.

            I was paralyzed. I could hardly feel my own breathing, numbly felt my hand and fingers moving at a slug’s pace. I couldn’t escape through sleep; the voices only became stronger when I did that. I couldn’t open my eyes, because I knew without question that the most terrible thing in existence, whatever my subconscious would perceive that to be, would be standing right over me, eight feet tall, darker than pitch, gazing into my soul. I felt every single fear at that moment, every bit of social anxiety that has haunted me since I was a child.

            Finally, I snapped out of it. I jolted up, breathing heavily, listening for the voices, searching the room for shadows. My first move was to turn my dorm room upside down in search for my totem. I haven’t found it yet. It’s always in my pocket when I’m dreaming, but it’s never lost.

            I believe I know what it’s like to be a paranoid schizophrenic now. I was trapped in there with my subconscious, and there was no escape.