I was riding the early morning bus to Seoul. There was no worldly reason I should've been awake. I was drifting in and out of consciousness as the rhythm of the motor gearing up lulled me to sleep. I reclined my chair and took off my shoes. No Korean Soap could keep me awake.
Green and red fantasies played through my head.
My eyelids opened slightly. The sight of the motionless passengers blurred across my eyes.
I tried to close my eyes, but couldn't. My arm's would not move. An intense noise began to grow around me. I drowned in the sound of a thousand buzzing bees. I was caught between the two worlds; the awake and dream.
I became the impotent spectator, peering through my own eyes and unable to do a thing.
Sleep Paralysis is one of the strangest phenomenas I've ever experienced. Having learnt from my first experience, I knew there was nothing I could do but calmly let the moment pass. But it can be a very unsettling experience. You have cognition of whats going on, but are left helpless. Completely disconnected from your body.
I'll quickly explain my understanding of what Sleep Paralysis is to anyone who may not know.
When we dream, our Pineal Gland secretes and very powerful hallucinogenic called DMT. It is what's responsible for our elaborate and fantastic dreams. It is also what makes us believe that what we are experiencing is real. So even though we might experience making actions in our dreams (like running) our mind disconnects us from our bodies so we don't actually run while sleeping. So Phenomena like Sleep Walking is rarely experienced. So I think Sleep Paralysis occurs when you come out of a dream before your mind connects you back to your waking body.
Odd, post I know. And here are some equally odd pictures to go along with it. These are pictures of the Neon Crosses around Jeonju. As mentioned last post, Korea has a very visible Christian population and they love to decorate their churches with these proverbial beacons of light.
