"Nightmare on Church Street" - 11/13/2006 (FA) (Lucid)

"Nightmare on Church Street / First Battle with Sleep Paralysis"

11/13/2006

Dream #1(a)

(Huh…how freaking typical, that a monumental success with the Lucid Tasks of the Month would be immediately followed by one of the worst dream experiences I’ve Ever had.)

So, apparently, I was attending a college in this dream (that reminded me a lot of my old high school) and we were just leaving campus for the day. I’d gotten a ride home with two guys that I didn’t know (and didn’t really trust because of their “I’mma thug” personalities), and they said we had to stop in the hood they lived in, to take care of something, and then they’d take me on home. We drove around for a long time, through a really bad part of town (that I was completely unfamiliar with) and made a few stops. It was pretty obvious that one of these guys was pushing dope. I didn’t think all too much of it - having had some level of exposure to these kinds of situations - and just kinda sat back and waited for them to do their business.

We ended up stopping by some chicks’ house, in the middle of the hood, and the guys I was with started playing cards or dominoes or something, on a table outside, in the yard. They obviously weren’t too worried about taking me back to my place any time soon. I kept myself occupied by talking to one of the girls at the house and we ended up laying on the ground and chit-chatting with each other and whatnot. Sooner or later, I’d fallen asleep with the girl draped around me. When I woke up it was around midnight. The two guys were still playing games and the girls were asleep. I told them it’s about time we left because I had to be up early and I wasn’t planning on staying out all damn night.

They finally got up, and we left. Only thing was, we only drove about a block away, still in the middle of the hood, to where these guys lived. They got out and started to head inside. I was like “Where the Hell are you guys going? You’re supposed to be taking me home.” They said something like “We are home. You can walk,” and they went inside and locked the door.

So, there I was stuck in the middle of the damn ghetto, at midnight, without even a clue as to which way my home was. Fed up, I just started walking.

The streets were completely empty - devoid of almost any streetlights. To make things worse, the thickest fog I’d ever seen in my life had rolled in and brought my visibility down to about 50 yards – If That. Long-story, short: I wandered around, aimlessly, for what seemed like hours, and kept passing the same damned church. Every street I turned on; every alley I slipped through; and every route that I took brought me back to the same damned road with the same damned church.

This seemed to carry on for an insanely long time. It was so bad that, once I was able to notice small patches in the fog, I saw that the sky over the hood was actually a ceiling. I was, apparently, trapped in some sort of puzzle, and every attempt I made to get out of it warped me back to the same street. The church and some of the surrounding buildings lost all of their real-world color and took on a strange, funhouse-ish purple and orange tint, with tiny sections of color breaking through what would, otherwise, be nothing but pitch black and fog.

(I thought) I'd started to get an understanding of the supernatural nature of this place, so I decided to see what I could do, to break the loop. Instead of walking down streets, to escape the neighborhood, I decided to try one of the doors to the buildings lining the streets. I walked over to the nearest building and pushed open the front door. Unexpectedly, I walked directly into someone’s bedroom, as if I’d just stepped in from a hallway that was already inside their house. It was a tiny, nearly pitch-black room with two beds. I could tell that there were people sleeping on the bed (though it was too dark to see anything but their silhouettes) and, figuring that I was still in the hood, I remained as quiet as I could, in order to not be mistaken for a thief and, subsequently, shot. I noticed their bedroom windows were open and facing the opposite side of the house from the street I’d come in on, so I decided to give it a try. I went over and climbed out one of their windows and still managed to end up on the Same Goddamned Street as the one from which I'd come in.

Feeling completely hopeless, I wandered around in the fog, for a while longer, before finally waking up.

***

Dream #1(b)

(False Awakening)

(Lucid) 

When I "woke up," I was on my side, facing the wall. Relieved to be out of that dream, I wanted to roll over and check the clock, to see what time it was. However, I realized that I couldn’t move. I tried harder. Nothing. I was stuck, facing the wall and the only things I seemed to be able to move were my eyes.

(I’ve never tangled with any other instances of Sleep Paralysis - assuming that’s what this was and not just a Dream of SP - except for the light, easily breakable SP that I’ve experienced when trying to WILD. This was a whole ‘nother ball game.) I couldn’t move, At ALL. I began to panic. So many thoughts were running through my mind.

I thought of death. (Don’t ask me why.) I was asking myself “What if this is what death is like?” “What if the last thing I saw was this wall, and it’s simply etched in my dying consciousness. So, my final memory - this wall - is all that I will be left with to view, for all eternity?" Minutes ticked by, and I was still stuck, wondering if this was, in fact, what had happened. (I never tend to think this extremely, in waking life. I should have known something was up.)

I was determined to prove myself wrong so began to use all my willpower to roll over. I pushed, rocked, did whatever I could, to try to move, and I finally lurched out of my position - off of the bed - and fell onto the floor. I noticed that I didn’t feel a thing, though. My body was still paralyzed. It took Every Ounce of Energy that I had, just to move my hands. I clawed at the ground and strained to pull myself over toward my computer, having to drag my lifeless legs behind me. It felt like it took forever, just to get across the room. When I looked up at the computer, from the floor, I noticed that the monitor was black, which was odd because there was still just enough light in the room to see my surroundings. I figured the Power Save feature was on and I struggled to lift my semi-paralyzed arm up to the mouse. When I moved the mouse to turn the screen on, it came on as planned, but instead of my wallpaper, it was streaming with blood and chunks of human tissue. The grotesque imagery was waving, rhythmically, as if it was one of the Windows Media Player visualizations, set to Full-Screen. F*cking Horrible sight, when you’re looking for a bit of stability in a world gone mad.

Panicked, I drew my eyes away from the screen and slapped my hand at the floor lamp beside me to get some light. Nothing. I tried the other switch. Nothing.

That’s when it finally hit me…I was still dreaming.

After that, I finally woke up, still facing the wall.

(My question is: Was any of the SP I experienced real? Did I wake up in SP, struggle with it for a minute, fall back asleep and Dream of falling out of bed? Did I wake up in SP, stay awake, but have residual dream imagery of getting out of bed and crawling to the computer, while the paralysis I was feeling was the sensation of my true, waking world body, in SP? Or, did I not wake up at all, and the entire experience was a false awakening? ….damn….who the hell knows? I’d rather not have another experience like that, though.)