Up All Night

I've been having such a hard time sleeping these past weeks. I've been working late and my body clock's messed up. If I go to bed at 1 am, I end up sleeping at 3 or even 4 am. I even find it harder to sleep when I know I have to wake up early the next day.

I don't know if I should be amused or stressed about it. At night (or early morning) my mind goes into overdrive and I end up thinking of just about anything! I have epiphanies and new ideas, realizations and become reminiscent. I wish I had the patience to write all my thoughts at night so I won't forget them. I know I've had brilliant ideas at night but I can't remember them concretely anymore.

Another reason why I can't seem to catch some sleep is because I often experience sleep paralysis. It wasn't until recently that I found out that it's an actual disorder. I always thought I was just prone to nightmares. By nightmares I mean waking up during a scary dream and not being able to get up and move. I've had these kinds of nightmares since I was younger but I would have them only when I had high fever so I thought they were related. It wasn't until high school that my dreams became more frequent and I started to get used to it. I can already distinguish when I was still dreaming and I already knew what to do to wake myself.

During college, I started to get "nightmares" even when I took naps during daytime. They weren't scary dreams but I would try to move and shout and I would be aware of the activities around me but I couldn't wake up. They also became more frequent at night especially when I slept late after working on plates. When I would go to bed at 2 or 3 am, I could already expect that I will have around 2 rounds of nightmares. It was a bit stressful, and I would try to call a friend to assure me I was awake. I realized recently that it was similar to the movie, Inception where they used totems to assure themselves that they were already awake. Haha!

I only thought about Googling my situation last year and found out about sleep paralysis. All the descriptions were spot on! I also read that most people who were diagnosed with the same condition were prescribed with medicines but they didn't really help. Some people even took advantage of the situation and controlled their "hallucinations" once they knew they woke up in their sleep. I actually tried it but I can't.

As of late, I've had less of these episodes and I've learned to handle them so most of my hallucinations aren't scary anymore. It's just the not being able to breathe part that I'm not able to control. I still sort of panic that I can't breathe.

I still haven't decided if I should have myself diagnosed, I am not sure if there are actual diagnosed cases here in the Philippines since most of us just consider it as bangungot. (I did!) i'm also not keen on the possibility of taking medication for it since it's not life threatening in any way.

Have you experienced the same? Let me know! For now, I shall enjoy all the sleep I can and try not to stay up all night.