Prisoner.

I couldn't sleep well these days.

No, it ain't due to emotional stuffs, or life's various troubles or shit. I ain't facing those shit nowadays; it's just, well, I don't know, psychological problems? The hell is wrong with me.

For the past two nights, I've been sleeping for less than six hours. That sucks. Yeah, people might say they've slept much lesser, but I'm me, not them, and I couldn't handle it.

The simplest solution? Napping.

Yeah. Simple.

Sleep paralyses. Random occurrences of waking up and falling back to sleep. Fatigue. Anxiety. Lucid dreams. Well, the last one's a good thing, but the others aren't and never will be. Well, not really; I actually kinda like sleep paralysis, but it kinda ruined my past two afternoon naps.

For those who aren't sure what in the world is sleep paralysis, it's basically some kind of instance when your brain shuts off all your physical body functions (moving of limbs or head, talking, and in some cases, limited sight) before your mind actually enters "sleep mode". What happens when you're aware of your own surroundings, yet you no longer could move a finger? You're trapped inside your own body, and that in itself will result in extreme fear or panic to most people. You're a prisoner inside your own body, a criminal restrained by unbreakable chains who is forced to witness his worst nightmares materialize right in front of his bloodshot eyes.

No. I ain't exaggerating; it's pointless to hide the truth.

I no longer treat sleep paralysis as some kind of "scary nightmare ghost monster thingy", like what some people do. In fact I find it rather intriguing; sometimes I actually wanted the paralysis to continue just so that I could explore my subconscious a little more, maybe try to understand what's going on in my inner world, but it's freaking tiring.

Like seriously, it's more exhausting than sprinting across a 300m field, thrice.

When I got paralyzed for the first time, I was in so much shock that I actually wanted to scream (or cry). I loathed it. Why are our brains stupid enough to block the control of our limbs before we actually fall asleep? Why do our minds fall asleep much later than our physical body? Why is sleep paralysis such a frightening experience?

How ironic it is that I've came to fancy it nowadays.

One common occurrence during the paralysis (at least for me) is the presence of loud, sharp, high-pitched noises that are often disturbing. They're really mild compared to the other happenings; I don't give two shits about them.

Then there's the part which piques my interest; the complete alteration of the real world. With our minds still awake, we could perceive our surroundings with ease. Alright, I was kidding; it's never easy when you realize that you can see through your blankets, or when there's an extra window on your wall, or that your room fan's rotating when the power's off, or that your room's door suddenly opened by itself.

Merging your stupidly random dream world with cold hard reality, that's the true nature of sleep paralysis.

Oh, and sometimes it's near impossible to breathe, which is one of the main reasons for my exhaustion.

While exploring my subconscious, I might come to a point where I'll be too tired to continue. For some reason, I could snap out of the paralysis much easier than most people could.

And I'll experience a severe mood fluctuation almost immediately after it.

Hmm. Interesting.