Crazy Lake Thanksgiving

Last night was certainly interesting. As if having a hallucination about hallucinating a couple weeks ago wasn't enough, last night I had a dream about having an interesting dream, lol. Actually, dreams inside of other dreams have been pretty common for me.

I was swimming in this really interesting lake during my dream-within-a-dream. By interesting I mean crazy. It didn't follow the laws of physics. Instead of the surface of the water being flat with waves like sane, reality water, this lake had water hills that would stay more or less in one spot, and water valleys that had little whirlpools at the bottom. Actually, now that I think about it, the whirlpools were pretty much everywhere- on the tops and sides of water hills as well as in the valleys. I was having fun swimming up and down the sides of these hills with the random currents that were flowing everywhere, exploring a pretty wide area. There were willow trees all along the banks and on islands that were rocky and jagged. At one point I discovered a cave underneath the water and swam down to poke around and explore it. The walls were jagged and I was worried about cutting my feet and hands. I'm pretty sure I was at this lake with multiple other people, and that I knew who they were at the time though I don't remember now.

Then I woke up and found that I was at my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving and that I had fallen asleep while waiting for food to be ready. I went into the other room and found this great big cafeteria-style buffet thing, and a lot of my relatives were already eating. I was relieved when nobody roped me into a conversation because I was hungry. I got a plate and started to put cheesecake on it, but suddenly realized that I had zoned out and forgotten about my gluten-free diet. It freaked me out that I had forgotten because even a little bit of the cheesecake could have ruined my day. Luckily the cheesecake hadn't touched the plate so I could still use it. I started to scout around for possible gluten-free items, and found some black-eyed peas that looked safe, but was a little worried because someone had inadvertantly mixed them with the chili in the dish next to them and I was pretty sure they were contaminated. Looking around I realized that everything seemed to have a bit of something else in it because there were like forty dishes and only three serving spoons. At this point I got a little bit of a couple of things- salad and the black-eyed peas- and decided to just eat them very slowly. I was annoyed at myself for not planning better and having safe food with me.

It turned out to be fine, and my cousins arrived so I had people my age to talk to. I started telling them about my crazy dream, and then got a lot of family gossip from them. I was enjoying myself until it was finally that evening and I started making arrangements to sleep where my alarm wouldn't bother anyone. Despite my best efforts I ended up sharing a room with like five other relatives and was a little worried that I would disturb them when it was time to get up for my medication.

And then I woke up and realized that it is in fact the middle of August and I really didn't need to stress out about sharing a room with anyone aside from my dog, who sleeps like a rock anyway. My brain is apparently still stuck on the swimming thing, which is fine with me. That lake was pretty freaking awesome.

Dose-Changing Blues

My doctor raised my Xyrem dose almost a month ago because we were hoping I would gain a little more energy and wakefulness. Since then I've been dealing with a lot of bouncing around between extremes with the occasional nightmares and hallucinations on one side and anxiety, nausea and awakeness on the other. I finally feel like it's settled out this past week, but in addition to being more awake I'm back to my old unpleasant side effects of nausea, lack of appetite and anxiety. I decided over the weekend when I was really anxious that I was going to call my doctor today, but then yesterday I felt a lot better and was vascillating.

This morning I woke up really nauseated and anxious and decided to just call and see what my doctor wants me to do. I figured he would raise my Remeron or lower my Xyrem, and he chose the latter. I think it's the right thing to do but I have to admit that I'm a little annoyed. I've spent the last month dealing with extra junk because of the raised dose and part of me feels like everything I went through was in vain if we're just going to change it straight back. But I know that it had to happen this way because there's no way to know how I'm going to do on a dose without trying it, and sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Another reason I'm miffed is that now I get to deal with the dose-changing extra junk again as a lower it. I could technically wait a few days, but I'm tired of being anxious so I'm just going to go ahead with it tonight. Nothing like medication-induced anxiety to get the ball rolling, so to speak.

I'm also kind of relieved, to be honest. I don't want to be on the highest Xyrem dose, particularly. I do worry about its effect on my digestive system, which was more than dysfunctional before I started dumping salt in it three times a night. Also, I can't quite shake the feeling that I was doing better energy-wise before I raised it in the first place. It's difficult to know for sure about these things when your memory is crap and your brain is a little mushy on its good days, so I could be making this up, but I do wonder. And apparently I will find out in the next couple of weeks. If I can remember to wonder about it, that is. Haha.

When I called my doctor's office today to leave a message I forgot my message halfway through reciting it to the secretary, which was hilarious. I apologized and suggested that maybe they were used to that at a neurologist's office, to which she replied that they get that a lot. At the very least this stuff does give me some pretty good stories.

Fashion Police

Last night I actually did manage to get to sleep at a decent hour. I slept pretty well for most of the night. By morning I was tossing and turning some, and had an interesting dream in which I was this life coach person who was helping out people who had gotten makeovers on What Not To Wear. The last part of the show (after the hair and makeup) now featured me giving the person daily life advice and encouragement for the first day after they returned home. There were at least four people I was doing this for, one after another, and the film crew was there capturing it for the different episodes. We kept having to wait while everything got set up, and I remember stressing out about what I was wearing during the filming because I knew Stacy and Clinton were going to watch it later and I didn't want to be their next victim, but all I could find to put on were baggy t-shirts and faded jeans. I'm pretty sure my advice was really random- I remember explaining to one woman that she shouldn't feel bad for spilling a cup of tea at a party because it wasn't her fault and these things just happen sometimes. I also reassured her that remembering people's names is hard and not to feel bad if you can't keep track of them.

This just goes to show that I watch What Not To Wear more times a day than is probably healthy, lol. It comes on at convenient times when I'm sitting down to eat, and it doesn't help that my mom likes to tape it. I've been known to see up to four episodes in a day, more if I'm especially sick or tired. I enjoy it for several reasons that I like to tell myself are good reasons. For one thing, it's interesting to watch people go through a mental transformation in addition to the more superficial, outward transformation. It seems to really help people see themselves as important and gives them a boost of confidence. I also watch it to learn about clothing and appropriateness and how to tell when something really fits. You could say I've been going through my own image transformation for awhile now, and I need the advice.

I was very much stuck in a rut for many of the years I was sick and undiagnosed. I started to collect animal shirts when I hit my teenage years, and continued to buy the same size even as I began to lose weight. I did the same with already baggy cargo pants, and then switched to buying them in the boy's department when I stopped finding them in the girl's. This wasn't because I was particularly attached to my look; it was more because I was living in permanent autopilot and it never occured to me to come up with something else. I eventually got the inclination to come up with a new style when I had been in college for a year or so, but energy was very much a factor. Because of this lack of energy I hated shopping. I thought it was just something I didn't enjoy, but now I realize that I was trying to do too much at once. My mom and I would go to the mall and try to do it all in one sitting- but pretty soon I would start dragging. Nothing is enjoyable when you're about to fall over because you've been on your feet for too long.

It was because of this exhaustion and my bad experiences with shopping for clothes that it took me several years to even really think about changing the way that I was dressing. Once I did decide to change, it was a question of what to change my look to. I did some experimenting and found that I had no idea what I was doing. Finally I went to my aunt for advice, who encouraged me to look in more trendy stores. Since then it's been hit and miss for a year or so. I do feel like I'm starting to figure out how I want to look, but it's come on slowly. I've tried many things and given a lot of it to charity, but one thing I have learned is how to shop. Basically I have to pick a day when I don't have a class, important errands or anything else for that matter. Then I can go to one store, and because I'm standing the whole time I can only really spend an hour there. I usually end up with one or two items, if I'm lucky. Then I come straight home and lay down. The advantage to this is that I officially like shopping now. Trying a few things on is fun, even when I don't find anything that I really like. There is definitely an advantage to knowing your limitations.

I only started watching What Not To Wear this past year, and it's been really helpful in my quest to figure out how I want to look. But I have to admit that I also like it because it's just funny. There's something rediculously entertaining about watching the hosts sneak up on people. What can I say, I can't help myself.

Back to Reality

Today wasn't much, but it was a heck of a lot better than yesterday. I didn't sleep any better, though I do vaguely remember having interesting dreams even if I didn't remember what they were about when I woke up this morning.

I started off the day totally out of it but less nauseated at least. My dad and I went to get sushi for lunch, which is our weekly father-daughter tradition at the moment, and then took my car to get it inspected and the oil changed. We ended up sitting at the dealership for several hours waiting on it, during which time I took multiple unintentional naps, which actually turned out to be good for me. Dad had a book and I entertained myself on my iphone when I wasn't accidentally napping. On the one hand it was really boring, but it was also tiring. I was pretty relaxed, but sitting up gets difficult after awhile when your default position is completely horizontal.

Eventually we did get out of there, and my car smells all clean and nice and is running better now. It's so shiny- they must have waxed it or something.

When we got home I was feeling much better: more relaxed, but also very here and awake. The outside world felt so immediate and real today. I took my dog out and sat in the yard for awhile even though it was really hot just because I wanted to feel like a part of the world. I've always felt more real when I'm outside.

I didn't do any homework today, but I really needed a break. Sometimes you just need a day or two to chill. I'm not worried about next week anyway, as I should have plenty of time to finish everything.

Maybe this dose isn't so bad after all. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for less side effects again tomorrow.

La-la Land

Well, obviously the new dose is working. Good news, right? Well, I am more awake (which is, admittedly, pretty nice), but my former bad side effects are also putting in an appearance. I can't call my doctor until Monday, at which point I may end up on more Remeron. But for the weekend at least I'm stuck with no appetite, nausea in the morning until past lunch, and perhaps the most fun of all, anxiety. I hate being anxious for no reason. It's just annoying and makes life difficult in ways that life shouldn't be. I end up constantly tense and very shy and nervous, which sucks. But maybe my least favorite thing about anxiety is the effect it has on my sleep.

You would think that, having Narcolepsy, the last thing I would be worried about would be my ability to fall asleep. But Xyrem-induced anxiety actually makes it very difficult for me to fall asleep at night, and for the last four nights or so I've actually ended up staying awake thinking and being nauseated for most of the first of my three doses. The result is that I start losing even more sleep, so I end up more exhausted every day (even more than usual, that is) and totally zonked out. As a result, class has been especially challenging the past two afternoons. On Thursday I failed to eat enough lunch because I was nauseated and all food looked disgusting. I managed to force-feed myself half or so of a lunch, but then when I got to class I was shaky and unable to concentrate. I ended up leaving the room multiple times during the afternoon in order to force down enough rice crackers to avoid becoming completely non-functional. Even so, I only had an attention span for about one hour of four. I tried to focus on working on my project, but was about to fall over by the time I left. I turned up my music on the way home because I was worried about zoning out. Then it was straight to the couch, and I didn't even take my dog on a walk because I was too dead. And then of course I couldn't fall asleep again last night, so when I woke up this morning I knew I was pretty much screwed.

I had another four hour class today, and was only really there for an hour of it. After that it was a constant mental fight to pay attention. I seriously only got a little bit of the material into my head, and when I was supposed to be practicing in class I wound up staring blankly at my computer for minutes at a time. One of my fellow students kept asking me for help with things, and it took all of my mental effort to focus enough to formulate responses that vaguely made sense. By the end of class I was so glad to be out of there. Driving was difficult but I got an icee on my way home which helped a lot.

I'm hoping my doctor will get back with me early next week so I can do something about this. I'm not looking forward to my classes next week otherwise. This weekend's homework will be hard enough.

Spiritual Girl

Both of my parents are very ardent atheists, especially my dad, who has probably every book ever written on the religion-bashing front in his collection. You might even describe him as militant- he thinks the world would be a much better place without any religion, and basically believes that religions are the root of a whole lot of social problems and not much else. To be fair, he has a small piece of a point, though in my opinion he overdoes it. He loves to bring up religion with people and debate them on it, especially at family gatherings- which is interesting because his whole side of the family is solidly Christian. Every Thanksgiving when we visit his side of the family it inevitably turns into a politics/religion debate tournament. Dad, remember what you aren't supposed to bring up at parties?

He seems to get a little more extreme in his views as he gets older, whereas I'm the opposite pretty much. As you might imagine, I basically absorbed my parents' beliefs as a child and just parroted them to the world, which is what most kids seem to do. But at the same time I've always been a very spiritual person at heart. While I was copying my parents' ideas outwardly, I was busy making up my own religion in secret.

Thinking about it now amuses me very much because while I thought I had this secret religion that no one knew about I'm sure it was pretty obvious. I had all sorts of daily rituals involving leaves and trees and dancing around outside. As I hit puberty candles and altars were added, and it got more focused on small meaningful objects. At this point it took more of a new-agey turn because of my rather new-agey friends. We used to get together and have ceremonies and make up deep things to talk about. We had an elemental theme most of the time, and of course lots of candles and tea. It was really fun and felt meaningful in a way that I hadn't experienced before.

By then I was starting to feel tired a lot, and I remember when I had to stop the dancing ritual because I almost fainted once and could hardly stand up after the short exercise. I used to dance to specific songs that resonated with me for whatever reason, but even after I stopped being able to sustain a dance for an entire song I kept the concept. I would put a song on endless repeat and draw or think or arrange sacred objects in patterns on my floor by candlelight.

These rituals helped me feel safe even once the hallucinations started. I started to sink into that horrible mental haze full of monsters and paralysis and horror movie nightmares, and I had to find some way to explain it, some way to not feel like I was going insane. I theorized that what I was experiencing was impressions of ghosts, which makes sense if you think about it- the banging and creaking sounds on waking, the feeling of hands grabbing me when I was falling asleep, the intense reality of the nightmares. It sounds like every ghost story I'd ever heard.

This belief got me through a lot. On the one hand, there was a reason for what I was experiencing that made some logical sense, so I didn't worry about being crazy anymore. Plus it made these impressions and hallucinations seem like they were someone else's experience that I was only seeing, but that wasn't directly impacting my life. I kept up my own rituals, sometimes incorporating things from what Narcolepsy was throwing at me, and my secret religion got more complex. And now it really was a secret, because I was a teenager and therefore actually good at hiding things from parents.

When I went away to college I began to question the beliefs I had built up. After all, that's what college is for. About my sophomore year or so I had a total life crisis and switched completely to thinking that I was actually insane. I realized I needed help, but made the mistake of assuming every single spiritually-inclined feeling I had was a result of whatever was wrong with me. This made me really depressed- the most depressed I've ever been, actually, and believe me when I say I've been all the way at the bottom. I fessed up to my parents, who helped me through multiple doctors until I landed in the capable hands of my first sleep neurologist. I was a typical case, minus the cataplexy, and a sleep study confirmed it. I had my answer, but that didn't make me happy.

Completely religionless, then, I left for my study abroad experience in Tokyo. While there I learned many things, including how to be a spiritual person again. I slowly woke up from the haze as the Xyrem started to work on me. And by the time I left, I had a philosophy and spirituality once again all my own. In the years since it's had time to cure a little, and nowadays I think I've pretty much found where I want to be. It's a bit Kung Fu Panda (there is no secret ingrediant, lol), and live-and-let-live, and I've found that I still value nature and the elements and sacred objects. I do believe in something greater, but it isn't quite the same as a god; it's more like a universal feeling of connectedness among living things. I don't see it as sentient, exactly, but it's still very profound to me.

At some point my parents noticed I was diverging from their beliefs. For a little while this caused some tension in the house, but eventually my dad learned not to start religion-bashing tangents in front of me. I've been forced to stick up for myself on multiple occasions when I would rather not, and eventually got it across that I don't approve of the intolerance that some people, on any side of a religion debate, tend to express. So now it's not something we talk about, and that's fine with me.

I'm not sure how I would identify now. I'm no longer an atheist, but I really don't think I need a new label. My own sense of spirituality has always been a private thing, and it will continue that way. I don't feel the need to convert anyone or even explain all this to the people in my life. It's just something to keep close, something that gives deeper meaning to my life and the world around me.

Creepy Old House Party

I had a strange night last night. Well, stranger than usual lol. Usually when I get scared enough in a dream to start to feel paralyzed it wakes me up. Last night it didn't for some reason.

I was at my old house and there were a whole lot of people there- most of them I didn't know. My parents must have been having a party or something. It was kind of annoying to me because the guests kept getting in the way of everything, like constantly taking up the bathroom or preventing me from cooking in the kitchen. It was weird because there were tons of people but they weren't all congregated in the same area; it was like they belonged to smaller groups or were individually wandering around.

There was one guest in particular who really creeped me out. He was very tall and maybe in his 50s, wearing this long white lab coat. He had really frizzy bushy hair and piercing eyes. He creeped me out because he was always looking me over in a way that I didn't appreciate, and then would get this distortedly huge grin on his face. I spent most of the dream trying and failing to avoid him, and every time he managed to find me in a room alone he would grin really huge and it scared the crap out of me. I would start to feel paralyzed like I was waking up, but as the feeling would start spreading from my neck to my back I would shake myself off in the dream and run out of the room. It happened at least three or four times, and it never woke me up- I woke up normally, which for me is always pretty sudden, but I wasn't paralyzed anymore. I still have a clear picture in my mind of the creepy dude staring right at me from the screen porch while I stood in the pitch dark of the backyard where I had gone in my latest escape attempt.

Having the occasional really intense character in my dreams is something I've always done. While I'm asleep they seem like real people. Several of my favorite characters that I've developed into stories of their own came out of a dream to start with. I think it's pretty cool when it happens, even when the character is a really creepy one. So maybe I'll draw him, creepy distorted grin and all.

Three-Dimensional Day

Today was very interesting to look at, thanks to Xyrem and a little caffeine. The highlight was when I ran an errand and was amazed by the 3Dness of a parking lot. And yes, I would describe myself as easily amused, lol.

For I don't even know how long- possibly more than ten years- my visual world has been pretty flat. It took me awhile, but eventually I figured out that my senses are actually pretty dulled compared to most people. Even though I'm a visual person and my eyes work just fine with a little help from contacts, my brain really doesn't sort the information out very well. The funny thing is that until I first started Xyrem, I didn't have any idea. As a result, I thought it was stupidity causing me to run smack into things all the time. My friends never let me live it down after I ran straight into a pole at school once- then turned right around and hit another one, haha. What's really funny, though, is what came out in drawing classes.

Drawing from life has always been really easy for me, probably because my unusually flat vision translates well onto 2D paper. The bane of my drawing life for a long time, though, was perspective drawing. I could never get it right. I would eyeball the angles, they would look right compared to the hallway or building corner or whatever it was I was looking at, but the finished drawing would have so much depth that I was convinced it was wrong. I would erase and redraw everything to be the right amount of depth, but then the angles were all off and I would get hopelessly frustrated. To make it even more confusing, my too-deep drawings would get the better grades and when I asked teachers for help, that's the direction they would steer me. The whole thing drove me crazy because when I got it right it would look really wrong compared to what I was actually seeing.

Six drawing classes worth of confusing perspective drawings later, I started on Xyrem. I remember very clearly the first time I was awake enough to see something in a 3D fashion- I sat up in bed and looked at my door, which was open. It was jutting out at me really freaking far. I was shocked. I looked around and for the first time in god knows how long actually saw the space between objects. I started wandering around the house, staring at things from different angles. It was a whole new world.

Every time I've raised my dose, I've been struck with a better sense of three dimensions. It's like there are endless levels of it and I keep moving up- and each time it surprises and delights me. My parents are now used to me wandering around staring at stuff and walking in circles around furniture. It really amuses all of us.

By far my favorite thing to look at when getting an upgrade are trees. They completely astound me with how complicatedly 3D they are. In the opposite way clouds are cool because they're subtle enough that I can very rarely see the space around them, but when I do it's amazing.

So today I went to get some bubble tea and came out of the store into a strikingly 3D parking lot with really 3D cars and people in it. It had been noticable on my way in, but the caffeine gave me just enough more awakeness to bump it up a notch. I looked around and smiled at people, doing my best not to look too much like being in a parking lot was the highlight of my day, lol. When driving home I was good and only stared at trees when stopped at lights. Walking my dog was also fun. The sidewalk seemed to go on forever in front of us.

I'm about to hit the highest dose of Xyrem, so the days of amazement will most likely end for now. I will get used to this level and stop noticing so much. But it's definitely something I will never take for granted.

Life In The Slow Lane

The good news is that I'm starting to (finally!) really feel better after the sinus infection that had me on the couch for about two full weeks. The bad news is that all that stuff that fell by the wayside as I struggled to get caught up in classes while sick, like cleaning my room and getting my dog more than the very minimally essential exercise, is really starting to bother me.

I'm the child of the world's hugest neatfreak, and definitely inherited some of those genes, so knowing that it's been almost a month since the last time I vacuumed is making me crazy. But while I'm feeling good enough to cook every day and get just enough of my homework done to get by, I definitely haven't had the energy to vacuum. You know, all that standing up and moving around nonsense. To complicate matters, the only really good vacuum in our house is up two flights of stairs, and to top it off I can barely lift the damn thing to carry it down. We got a smaller, lighter vacuum for the first floor, but it doesn't work well enough for how nasty my carpet is getting. And adding insult to injury it makes this horrible high-pitched noise when you turn it on.

So I'm stuck waiting until I have the energy for that. In the meantime, trying to get back on our previous walk schedule is taking it's toll on my energy level. My dog needs quite a bit of exercise or else he starts causing trouble and trying to take over the house. We usually go twice a day for at least twenty minutes each walk, which is exactly the right amount of exercise for both of us (as I'm tired and he's very short). When we're healthy, that is. When I'm not doing so great it gets hard to keep up with it, but I know he needs it so as soon as I start recovering that's the first thing I try to add back into my schedule. Therefore, the cleaning must wait.

Meanwhile, even in my life, which is way slower than most peoples', after two weeks a bunch of silly little things start to pile up and nag at me. I have calls to make, letters I need to write, laundry to do, plus of course homework. But even though I have all these things vying for my attention, I know that the most important thing right now is to get enough rest to continue getting better. Also on that front I now have an appointment with a very good ENT, so now maybe I can actually do something about my almost constant multiple-year sinus infection.

Until then, more rest. Welcome to my life.

Murder, I Wrote

Last night I had a pretty scary experience. I had one of my now-rare nightmares, and of course thought it was all real and that I really was inside a murder mystery.

My mom has been into murder mysteries forever. She's always reading mystery novels, and watches shows like Psych, Monk, Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, etc. And one of her favorites is Murder, She Wrote. I used to watch it with her growing up, and we've both seen almost every single episode. What I like about it (and, actually, the other shows I listed) is that it's very light-hearted in a way. So it isn't stressful to watch, and it's fun to try and predict what's going to happen since a lot of times the episodes have a pattern. Like how the main character always has some friend who you know is going to get framed, or the fact that any time there's a red-haired woman you know she did it. And every episode ends with what my dad fondly calls the "ha-ha!", in which everything turns out okay and the last line is supposed to be funny.

Normally I enjoy Murder, She Wrote. But last night it wasn't so fun.

It started with me and my aunt staying in a room at this large, vacant mansion. There was (of course) a really loud thunderstorm outside, and it was getting late and therefore pitch black outside except for a couple of porch lights. We were supposed to be there alone, so no one else should be on the property. Our room had a tv on one wall and a sliding glass door without curtains or blinds that opened onto a wooden porch outside, which was illuminated by a porch light. We were watching tv, and I keep seeing movement out on the porch out of the corner of my eye. I looked out and kept seeing shadowy people sneaking past the door and going around the house. I told my aunt and she was totally not concerned and tried to explain it away.

It was strange because I was definitely in the episode, but somehow also knew all about the usual episode pattern- so I could try to predict what would happen. I realized that the shadow people were possible suspects and that a murder was going to take place that night, and we would probably find a body the next morning, and that I would have to remember all the details in order to report them to the police. At that point I was mainly worried about how I was going to remember everything.

We woke up the next morning, and, expecting there to have been a murder I led us in a search of the house. But no one had died apparently, so I decided it would most likely happen during the day as most episodes have the murder close to the beginning. I decided to keep my eyes open so I could have a chance of seeing clues and being able to figure out who did it.

All day, we kept meeting other characters in the episode, the details of which I tried really hard to keep straight, but it was very confusing and I couldn't keep track of who was important and who wasn't. No one died though, and I began to wonder- I mean, a murder mystery with no murder doesn't make any sense. Someone was going to die at some point, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out who it would be.

Later on I decided to explore the expansive grounds. I was looking around in the gardens and trees when it started to get dark and I realized I was lost. Finally I spotted the house, far away. I started hurrying toward it, seriously worried about the fact that this is exactly the time for someone to die. Then I realized I was surrounded. And suddenly I was hit by the terrifying realization that it was me- not one of those other people- who was going to be murdered. The fact that I was going to die in the next few minutes hit me so hard with terror that my eyes jerked open, and I found myself on my back in bed, paralyzed and surrounded by dark shapes of people who I was sure were going to kill me. I tried to move and realized the truth, and slowly and with relief I gained back my ability to jerk my head sideways and fully wake up.

I was very nauseated, very groggy, my eyes kept trying to shut and it took all of my focus to keep myself awake enough to not be immediately plunged back into the nightmare, which was hovering just on the inside of my mind's eye, waiting to suck me back in. I fought sleep with all I had until I was able to reach over and turn on my lamp.

Thank god for bedside lamps. I can't count the number of times that lamp has saved my ass. I sat up and fought more successfully to wake up. It was 45 minutes until time for my next dose of Xyrem, but I knew that without it I would just fall right back into the dream, and I was way too tired to stay awake for 45 minutes. So I went to the bathroom, trying not to imagine people jumping out at me to grab me and trying to shake the lingering fear of imminent death. When I got back I took my next dose early, and fell sound asleep until the morning.

When I woke up I was impressed with how Narcolepsy can make anything, even something as silly as Murder, She Wrote, completely terrifying. Go figure.