I really wish I wrote more often, but 1) I can't find the time, or 2) I don't know what to write about. I'm not a particularly great storyteller, you see.
But what the hell, I decided I should write SOMETHING. The title of the blog has the word "babbles" in it, for crying out loud. I don't have to write flowery prose to keep my blog alive.
Maybe it's because it's senior year, or maybe it's because I'm suscpetible to extreme amounts of stress to the point that I make my hormones sabotage my body, but I've been going through more aches and pains than I ever have in my life. I think I've set a new personal record on this thing.
Symptoms have usually included:
1) Cold symptoms
I don't have a cold anymore since the "Back-to-school-everyone-is-sick" season is over, but I do run across mild symptoms frequently, such as blocked nasal cavity, runny eyes (and nose), or a parched throat that only a gallon of orange juice can quench.
2) Pain in the back of my head
AKA "뒷골 댕긴다" in Korean (how many of my blog readers know Korean? Anybody?)
It's the persistent pain in the area where your head ends and the neck begins. I'm not sure about other cultures, but it's a very common somatic symptom among Koreans under extreme stress (and I have also discovered, lack of sleep).
Sometimes old people temporarily faint from too much pain in the back of their heads when they receive shocking news or rage too much, according to word of mouth and K-dramas. Hopefully I don't keel over like that any time soon.
3) Digestive problems
Usually involves eating something wrong (I don't know how) and feeling nauseous for the rest of the day. It is most irritating when you feel like throwing up the entire day but you never do.
4) Sleep paralysis
The most annoying (and creepy) out of my aches and pains, this happens my sleep cycle is destroyed.
First, I feel a strange ringing vibration at the back of my skull, and then I feel as if I'm floating on air. I know that I'm not actually floating, but the sensation feels so very real, you almost swear that you are floating in reality.
Apparently, when you're in sleep paralysis, your mind is conscious but your brain is in REM mode, which creates this hyper-realistic feeling. And it's true; even though I know I'm dreaming, everything seems so real. I can see my room clearly as if I was physically awake. I can touch my pillow or blanket, for example, and I'd feel the smoothness of the fabric just like in reality.
This is why it really sucks when the hallucinations begin. Sometimes I hear things, sometimes I see things. Sometimes it's both. And most of the time, they're creepy situations, like I'm in the scene of a horror movie. Here are some "dreams" I've experienced during sleep paralysis:
-A long-haired ghost charged towards me screaming, I hid my head under the pillow, ghost started wailing and scratched the pillow with her long fingernails.
-Sound of somebody incessantly laughing
-A creepy little girl standing at the side of my bed saying, "Play with me. Play with me. Why won't you play with me? Play with me. PLAY WITH ME! PLAY WITH MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! *SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH*!"
-My grandmother just standing in front of me, incessantly laughing in an uncanny manner.
-Sound of screaming from next door, as if someone was being murdered.
-White lab rats the size of chihuahuas screeching and snarling at each other.
-Two girl ghosts playing next to me, when a third one appears and asks, "What are you doing?" The two girls reply, "We're watching this girl next to us sleep."
-Strangers breaking into our apartment.
-Sound of people talking, faster and faster, louder and louder.
Imagine if all this happening to you while you were in bed, and that it felt very, very real.
The worst part of it is that it's "sleep PARALYSIS", and therefore, when I try to escape this situation, I can't move my goddamn body. I can't even scream. I scream as hard as I can and no sound comes out save for a pathetic, hoarse whisper. It is the worst feeling.
The key to breaking this is to wiggle your fingers, and make an extra effort to sit up and wake up. What makes this extra sucky is that if you wake up and just go to bed straight afterwards, the paralysis begin again. You have to sit up for a good long while, or even stand up, until you calm down and go back to bed. It's even more difficult since you feel extremely sleepy after you wake up from a sleep paralysis.
So in summary, I'm not feeling very well this semester. Yaaaaay.
