He gave me three answers, one of which was, "The state between sleep and being awake is the 'Hypnogogic State.' (People tend to experience sleep paralysis and out of body experiences in or around this state.)" This intruiged me because for two years I'd been have these crazy paralyzing dreams, so I looked up 'hypnogogic state' on the internet.

The first thing I found was a message board. I read an entry and the guy was describing these symptoms he'd been having, and I was like, "Oh my goodness, that's exactly what I have." I never knew it was an actual 'thing,' I just thought I was having really freaky dreams. So, I researched it more, and there really wasn't that much on it. I also went to the library, but there wasn't anything there on it. I printed some pages off the internet and took them to my mom and said, "I think I have this," and I started describing it, and she was like, "You have that too?" Hey! Crazy news day! So, apparently it's hereditary. She'd never said anything about it before, I'd never really talked about it either; the only thing I ever really said to anyone was, "I had another paralyzing dream last night."

So, ya, it's a sleep disorder called sleep paralysis, and I have it. I was pretty excited to find out that I had it 'cause it's crazy. I have a sleep disorder. It isn't a fun one either.

"Sleep paralysis strikes during the transition between dreaming sleep - called REM sleep for its telltale rapid eye movements - and being fully awake. During REM sleep, experts say, your body keeps you safe from acting out your dreams by temporarily paralyzing you," (ABCNEWS.com: The Terror of Sleep Paralysis). Basically what happens is my body doesn't wake up from its paralyzed state, so I wake up and I can't move. I'm dreaming while I'm awake and I can see everything around me as if I were awake. And I feel a presence, a bad one, and I want to move but I can't. I exert all my energy to try to move even just a finger but I can't. Some people can move their fingers and toes, and that's how they wake themselves up, like my mom, but I can't move at all. I have to moan to wake myself up, which is really hard 'cause it's like my vocal chords are paralyzed too. I try to open my mouth and my jaw stays clamped shut. I hear voices, usually either my mom, dad or sister, and I try to get their attention to come and help me, but they're not really around, it's just in my head. I'm completely helpless. It's the scariest feeling.