Monsters

 My mother shouldn't let me watch scary movies before bedtime.  Oh, that's right...

Last night I watched Monster University. It was about 3 AM. I woke up at about the normal time that I wake up in the night. I'd taken my thyroid pill and had a small drink of water - no food! The thyroid pill doesn't work if you have anything to eat for half an hour so my brief insomnia is perfect. This also helps my weight because I can't have those dreaded 'midnight snacks' when I wake up and by the time the half hour passes, I'm usually back to sleeping soundly.

But last night: Monster University. It was DVR'd so I skipped through to about the last third to pick up where I'd left off last night. (It usually takes me 2 or 3 nights to get through a movie because I fall asleep after about half an hour - like when I used to read bedtime stories to the kids - we'd all last only about a chapter a night.)  This movie is more fun than scary but I did jump when Sully popped into the window as Mike was leaving school on the bus. No biggie though, right? On to the credits and then off to sleep.

There was someone in the house. The cat was hissing at someone and she was acting strangly. I needed to get up and let whoever it was know I was here and make them leave. But I couldn't move.  I could open my eyes (at least I thought they were open) and I could see the ceiling but I couldn't move my head to look around. I tried to speak but nothing came out. My voice was frozen. I strained hard to get my neck muscles to move my head just a little so I could see the room. Nothing. Frozen. Paralyzed. I knew that I had to wake up before I could move. I knew that sleep was keeping me paralyzed - for my own protection. So I turned my attention to waking up. It didn't dawn on me that this was only a dream. It was real. The danger was real. But I still had to wake up before I could move.  I knew that. Wake up first and then deal with the danger - whoever it was.

Remember this dream? You've been there, I know you have. I've been there many times before this. Sometimes I manage to get my voice to work first and I wake to the echo of a shout. This wakes my wife and she asks me what's wrong. "Bad dream." is all I can say. I remember once when I was young and I got my arm muscles to work first and woke up to the echo's of my arm hitting the wall. I think that dream was about my sister teasing me and I was trying to get away.

I guess it's fortunate that our bodies are programmed to paralyze us when we're sleeping because it prevents us from acting out our dreams.  Our dream world and our real world often don't match up very well and the monsters we chase - or become - in one world,  don't belong - and can't survive - in the other.