Should anyone think they have known fear, yet has not from a night of restful slumber awoken to immobility and ensuing vivid hallucination, they know only the castle and not the beast that dwells within.
It is easy for us to relate to one another the feeling one gets when suddenly startled or frightened, whether it is from a real threat, or just an animated relative playing a joke. It is a reaction common to all animals, not excluding humans. It instantaneously triggers a rush of chemicals and hormones in the body that prepares us for a fight-or-flight reaction. The hair suddenly stands on end as the body instantly goes ice-cold and then within the space of a gasp becomes boiling hot. The muscles tense as breathing and heartbeat both quicken. Fear, hate, irritability, anxiety and aggression instantly become dominant emotions, and then, rather quickly, the rational mind regains control and assesses the situation. Intense feelings and emotions subside and determined, calculated action -or even laughter- is invoked to cope with the situation. This is fright. It is fleeting.
Similarly we have all at one stage or another experienced prolonged fear, where the mind continuously skips from fight to flight, with no course of action immediately apparent to resolve the situation. Such an experience may vary in intensity, and may even be brought on willingly. A person may decide to watch a movie designed with this in mind, or jump out of an aeroplane. Or someone with a phobia may be cornered by the object of their fear. Such a situation may also involve a series of frights as described above, continuously stimulating the neural pathways that govern this response. And yet eventually the conscious, rational mind wins out. The ordeal ends. The movie is over. This is fear. We know it intimately. We flirt with it.
An unfortunate few of us have even lived through true horror. Abuse, violence, disaster and war can all bring us face-to-face with how horrible life, and more often than not, human behaviour can be. This is something that cannot easily be shared with others, as the memories of such events may be dulled down by the mind, or even completely blocked out. Even when vividly remembered, such an experience cannot possibly be conveyed to those who have not lived it. To say “I can only imagine” in reply to a tale of such events falls far short of being the truth, as our imaginations are limited in invoking real emotion, actual sensations, and can easily opt out of the imagined scenario when necessary. Yet even in this most dire of times a strong willed individual can process, scream, fight, create, rationalise, understand and hope, all in an effort to survive. Most of all, there is sometimes even support for the individual, during, if at least not after the horrific ordeal. This is horror. I wish it not even on those who bring it on others.
Yet all of these things cannot stand in comparison to what the mind goes through when one night, after blissfully drifting off to sleep, you awake to the sound of an intruder in the house, or some unnamed, unknown presence in the immediate vicinity. Or maybe even just a bladder in need of tapping. At first a trip to the bathroom or enquiring eye around the house brings a moment of comfort, but soon the threat becomes real. You are in peril and you know it, but from where or whom can seldom be discerned. As waves of fear rush through and over your body, breathing becomes a labour, movement constricted and then… you awake in your bed. It was just a nightmare. You know this for at least now you are awake. Yet the fear lingers… It is usually at this point where the decision is made to get out of bed and just make sure that all is well and our meagre security measures are still in place.
Now, as you try to soothe the frightened mind your attempt at removing yourself from your bed is rendered nothing more than fanciful, as the limbs refuse to move. As if restrained by shackles crafted from dread itself, not even a finger is allowed to stir, despite your most desperate attempts. Quickly now you resort to a desperate scream for help, but the voice itself is paralysed by horror and all that a weak and strenuous breath can force out of a fear-clenched throat is the softest of whimpers, barely loud enough to be heard even by the afflicted himself. You are now alone in your peril. The mind tries to rationalise, but the senses numbed and distorted by fear, the body immobile, weak and impotent can draw no logical conclusions. And so, eerily, slowly, it begins to construct its own explanation.
In the middle ages, when superstition abounded, witches and demons were imagined to be on the chest. Their weight rendering the sleeper immobile and their evil intentions could not be fathomed by innocent, mortal minds. The very soul was often imagined to be in danger, as an instrument of darkness extracted it, laughing and leering whilst the poor victim could do nothing but lie frozen, wishing he could scream for help.
More modern hallucinations during this horrendous affliction seem to draw from pop culture, as extra-terrestrials are blamed and envisioned to be the culprits. Using some strange, alien paralytic, they render the victim quiet, motionless, helpless, as they probe and manipulate the body for their own sinister and unsettling purposes.
To other minds, the dream often takes on the form of some intruder releasing some immobilising gas so as to go about their business, which to a panicked and trapped mind is no doubt some terrible attack on the person. And to that same mind such a dream can become very real.
Still stricken with immobility the body refuses any command to move. You feel the muscle trying, but the more you try to move it the heavier it becomes. It is being held down, forced down. Unnatural sounds are heard all about and culminates in the source manifesting right by the door. You want to turn your head to look, but no movement is allowed in this vile state. This is not a dream. The vivid reality that a half lucid mind under unimaginable stress creates is more than a dream. More than mere hallucination. It is as real as any other moment in your life. Except this is the worst moment of your life. The fear that resulted from realising you are paralysed has now become a paralysing fear. The sheer and utter dread that comes from hearing yourself whisper forgotten moans when all you want to do is scream, now frightens you into silence. And you are on your own, without help.
Then you see it. With eyes willing to be opened to no more than slits, you sense motion in the corner of the room. Something is peering in through the curtains. It is waiting. It knows you cannot escape. It knows you can do nothing but lie in waiting panic for it to come in and mutilate your body, your mind, your very being in ways that you cannot conceive. One last time you attempt to wail for help. If only you can draw someone’s attention. But all you can manage is the softest of breaths with an incorporeal undertone of “hhhhhhhh…”
And then you realise, you know with absolute certainty, that it is all just a dream. For after all, you have had this dream before. You have had it a thousand times before and you will have it again. But now, all that matters is waking yourself up. The inconceivable sense of terror and anxiety that grips the mind and the body alike, will all disappear if you could just find a way to wake up. It will all end, it will all go away and let you return to peace if you could JUST WAKE UP!
And then it happens. You wake up. The fear lingers, the head feels like it is filled with mercury and the limbs are still heavy as if they were made of lead. But you are awake and know you must remain so until the panic subsides. So you go to the bathroom, wash your face, light a cigarette and convince yourself that it will all be okay. That there is nothing by the window, no one in the house that means to do you harm. That tonight was the last time you have had to suffer through this terror. That it will not happen again. You know you are lying to yourself, that tomorrow night it may come again. But for now you must calm yourself down. You take the last drag of the cheap cigarette that your parched mouth and throat finds revolting. If only you could lift your hand so as to bring it to your lips…
And slowly you realise that you never lit that cigarette. Never even took it out of the box. Never washed your face. Never even got out of bed. It is still your prison. You are still paralysed. It is still outside your window. It is still peering through the gap in your curtains. You don’t know what it is and you wonder why it is now suddenly by the door. Slowly it turns the handle. It is opening it. If only you could turn your head to look. If only you could see what this indefinable horror is. If only you could scream.
