Unsettling with Family History of Narcolepsy

by Katrina
(Upstate New York)

Hello, I am a 16 year old girl and I am sure I definitely have some sort of sleep disorder. My mother says that there is a history of Narcolepsy on her side, but she tells me I probably don't have it, because she herself doesn't.

I do get very tired during the day, and sometimes I cant even prevent myself from falling asleep, no matter how hard I try. I could sit down and immediately feel like I'm being pulled down, and I feel extremely drowsy in these times. If I am trying to not pass out I will often have hypnogogic hallucinations that sometimes scare me enough to wake me a little, but I will fall asleep anyway. Often I will hear noises and see things that aren't there when this happens, like I will hear people talking in the other room when I'm home alone, or I will hear footsteps and knocking.

I will see movement of things and there'll be nothing, and often I feel like I'm being moved without actually making myself move. Often when I'm asleep I will realize I am asleep, of course I cant really control my dreams or anything, I just watch the dream as it happens. And, when this happens, I will be able (I think) to feel real life movement, which confuses my mind because I am not moving in the dream, and just last night I had a horrific nightmare where something similar happened.

I went to sleep and before I even went to bed I was feeling creeped out by the house, and I thought I saw something moving in the corner of the room as I fell asleep and that made me even more on edge as I lost consciousness (I guess that counts as an oxymoron though) and after a while of no dreams, just me staring at darkness in sleep, and then, I started to feel something peculiar. I felt like, in reality, my body began to lift.

It started with my upper body, and I felt my legs hanging below. I was scared before I went to bed, and I myself believe in ghosts, and since I never knew the origin of this feeling, I was always afraid that there was something picking me up while I was sleeping. I began to panic, but then as I moved, I felt as if I was set down again. I moved slowly, and then in the dream I opened my eyes. The dream version of the room looked EXACTLY like the room I had gone to sleep in, and I was in the very same spot, with my phone next to me and the ceiling fan above me. I couldn't look around any more than what my head was angled to see, and since I was on my side I was nervous from being unable to look behind me. I then started to feel as if something was pulling at me from behind. There was no specific way to describe whatever it was, it wasn't a hand, it was more like I was being pulled by a force rather than a solid thing, like upside down gravity I suppose. I felt a burst of fear and grasped the bed tightly. I writhed as the feeling got worse and it took hold of my legs and back and pulled harder. I shouted and heard an echo, and as that happened I realized I was in yet another dream. I shouted again and tried to scream but it was like my throat was completely dry and my vocal chords didn't work, it was just a panicked high pitched whisper that came out.

As I was being pulled at I began to shout "wake me! Wake me!" In my terrified whisper, over and over in hope that I was saying it out loud in reality and somebody would come in and wake me up. I had to have said it around twenty times, and as I freaked out I lost grip and then was ripped into the air. (I am sure that in reality I was not picked up, but it very much frightened me, and this whole time I couldn't see what was moving me) I was hanging and it felt like hours, before I heard a click and all of a sudden I was dropped into the bed once more. Then, I was enveloped in darkness once more, my heart racing and a horrible fear clawing at me.

Then, I was awoken by my father, as it was seven in the morning and I was supposed to get up. As I began to open my eyes, I couldn't move and couldn't open my eyes all the way, and my eyes were darting all over the place and I was breathing unevenly. Then, i snapped up with a gasp and shuddered. I was in the same spot on the bed as I could remember, in the same room, and at first I pondered if the dream wasn't a dream, but then I realized that the blanket was still tucked under my side, which I had done before going to sleep because it had kept falling.

I get these types of feelings often in my sleep, (but never this intense of course) and usually at night I have issues falling asleep, it will usually take around an hour. (Last night i only fell asleep quickly because I was tired from swimming in the pool literally all day, around 8 or 9 hours, and because it was 3am)

An example of a few hypnogogic hallucinations i have gotten, one night I was lying in my bed, and as I was falling asleep, I saw a large dark silhouette of a man with two straight things sticking out from the side of his head, like a hat or horns, in front of my door. The faint light source was just showing through the door cracks, which is how I thought I could see the outline.

Another time was when I was lying on the couch after school and I was beginning to pass out. I very much didn't want to fall asleep, but I couldn't move, and suddenly I heard a car pulling up the driveway. I then heard the car door and footsteps come to the door. I was sure it wasn't real, as my dog usually barks at the slightest of sounds, but I jumped up nonetheless and looked out the window to the parking space, and the path by the door, and there was nothing there.

Once I was waking up and for a flash of a second I could have sworn I saw another silhouette of a man standing in the corner of my room, but then I blinked again and it was gone.

I read about hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations after looking up "why do I hallucinate when falling asleep," and that helped me learn.

The way I found this site was from looking up "Why do I feel like being lifted up in sleep"

I don't know what is going on, and it unnerves me anyway.

I drew a picture based off of one of the creepy things I saw when falling asleep. It looked like it was being ripped apart at the arms and legs, and it was in a very eerie pose.

Okay so I tried uploading the pic but it says it was too big.