On the Precipice of Dreams and Reality
I’m on a competitive figure skating team, but instead of doing tricks to earn points, we sneak up and tickle people at specific checkpoints before someone else gets to us. There are “Caution: Wet Floor” signs all over the ice and after the competition, we give police officers boxes of cheerios. This somehow helps the process of cleaning up the rink.
***
Whether or not you believe dreams have meaning or that they’re just random explosions of whatever crap our brains are holding in during the day, we can all admit that they can get bizarre sometimes. I used to think that everyone dreamt like this every night. Turns out, they’re much less frequent in most people. I wondered why I was different, why I was having these wild occurrences night after night while my friends told me it only happened to them every so often. My questions were finally answered after I started seeing a sleep specialist: I have narcolepsy.
It’s safe to say that narcolepsy isn't portrayed very well in the media. Most of the representation falls into the category of providing false information. The one that comes to mind first is the play scene from the Nickelodeon T.V show, Victorious. The characters are rehearsing a play that centers around a father who wants to be an astronaut but cannot because of his narcolepsy. The son asks: “What’s narcolepsy?” And the response that is given is: “It’s when you’re only falling asleep, even when you’re not tired.”
The scene continues for about two minutes, making narcolepsy the punchline of almost every joke as the father dramatically falls asleep during conversations, can’t tell his twin sons apart because he’s “too darn narcoleptic” and even asks his wife how she is able to love a “sleepy loser” like him. It all seems harmless and hilarious until you realize that it’s a real disorder that real people struggle with everyday and its portrayal is very inaccurate and insensitive.
The sleep attacks that are most closely associated with portrayals of narcolepsy, although the levels of muscle weakness vary and aren’t always falling into a sleep state, actually only happen in people that have narcolepsy with cataplexy. There are tons of overlooked symptoms, such as poor quality of sleep, sleep paralysis, hallucinations and vivid dreamlike experiences, and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). Though there are many people that have narcolepsy without cataplexy, like me, many live in silence because of a lack of understanding.
***
I’m on a farm and a barn starts to burn down. A group of people has to get all the candy out before it’s completely immersed in flames. There’s a playground a few steps away, where a group of children are having recess. I am told to go over there and teach them about the civil war.
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I know I’ve been throwing a lot of big words around, but I promise these are the last ones: hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, or: “visual, tactile, auditory, or other sensory events, usually brief but occasionally prolonged, that occur at the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnagogic) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic).”
If you’ve ever experienced sleep paralysis, think of that except you’re half awake and there are figures and objects in the room that speak to you, touch you, or just stand there looking at you. They’re similar to dreams within dreams and can have many layers. Even when I confide in my friends about my disorder, I never really talk about these. I can’t help but get stuck on how crazy I will be perceived as if I start describing how I hallucinate while falling asleep.
The hallucinations usually come in sets of three or four on nights after my sleep schedule has been thrown off. Each time I pull myself out of one and try to fall asleep again, I’m sucked right back into fighting off imaginary figures.
***
Someone touches me. I can only see their outline. They pick me up and whisper my name. They have me in their hands now, I need to wake up. Am I awake? I must be awake, my eyes are open. No, I’m asleep. I don’t know. Kick. Kick as hard as you can. It’s working, I’m kicking. Hit them. They dropped me. Crawl back to bed, hurry! Breathe heavily maybe someone will hear you. Wait, my eyes are opening. I thought they were already open. Move. Is this sleep paralysis? Wake up!
***
The biggest difference, for me personally, between sleep paralysis and hallucinations is that I never feel physically restricted, other than not being able to speak, in the latter until the end when I’m about to come out. I always believe I am actually kicking and moving. In my mind, I am fighting to the fullest extent to get away from the present danger. Sometimes I’m aware that it isn’t real and I try to wake myself up by forcing myself to breathe heavily or throwing myself onto the floor. Even when I think I’ve accomplished this, I still wake up in bed. One would think after experiencing this so many times, I would know what is happening at the moment it is happening. Sometimes I do, but most of the time I don’t. Sometimes I think I’ve woken myself but I’m actually still in it. It’s a vicious cycle.
The inability to distinguish dreams from reality is another oddball of narcolepsy that no one really mentions. They aren’t all bizarre, sometimes it’s just having a conversation with someone in a dream and then going about my day as if it actually happened. Sometimes, when I’m awake, I’ll tell stories from my childhood or bring up topics I thought I discussed with someone and no one will know what I’m talking about. It’s insanely frustrating when I insist that it happened and everyone else tells me that it didn’t. Turns out we’re both right, in different ways. These memories are actually just dreams I had that were so vivid they are unable to be distinguished from reality in my mind. It’s something I’ve had to learn to deal with, but it can still make me feel like I have to question every thought I have.
It’s discouraging and embarrassing.
***
I go to school in the sky (think Sky High type vibes), but I keep falling off the edge. Every time I do, there happens to be an extension cord dangling, from seemingly nowhere, and I grab it. I hang on for dear life among the clouds but each time I let go, I land on a plane that flies me back to school.
***
Narcolepsy isn’t one of those things that really goes away. You basically just have to develop coping skills and find the right treatment for you. But there are some bright sides to look at. I mean, who else gets told by doctors that it is recommended that they nap every day? Who else gets to have wildly bizarre, but sometimes quite entertaining, lucid dreams every night? Always find the positives and deal with the negatives, just like everything else in life.
Cara Weaver is a passionate writer, reader, editor, activist, and university student. She enjoys creating anything that comes to mind and testing the boundaries of genre. She specializes in spoken word poetry and emphasizes the importance of using it as a form of self-expression. She is from Upstate NY and spends most of her time in the company of her family and dogs. Outside of writing and reading, Cara likes to stay busy and active. She hopes to be a voice for those who have long had theirs silenced and won't rest until there is justice for everyone. Her work has previously been published by Young Writers USA and received recognition from Scholastic Art & Writing. She was a part of the team of creators behind Omnivisum Literary Magazine and currently works as a contributing writer for Women's Republic.
This article was edited by EIC Kailah Figueroa
Copyedited by Tah Ai Jia