Moch

Ever since I can remember, the moment I fall asleep, I 'wake up' stuck in my body, unable to move, unable to sleep. The only thing I know that will wake my body up is my alarm clock in the morning, which is set to a ridiculously loud volume and, though I expect it to go off every morning, the noise of it scares me awake, physically. . As you can imagine, my 'wakeful' life is altered. And even more so is the void which is supposed to be the life that I live ASLEEP. When I was younger I told my parents about all this. They took me to see a doctor. A number of doctors, actually. It was, however, in vain. There were so many tests done. So many transmitters and wires that they hooked up to my head and body to monitor my brain activity as I slept. It scared me when I was little... and after some time the doctors scared me even more than what I learned was 'chronic sleep paralysis'..... So one day when I was nine years old, I told my parents that the symptoms had gone; that I was sleeping normally. My condition seemed a burden to them in my mind, and just the simple fact that I was a young girl scared out of her pants because she couldn't sleep, seemed to justify this huge, huge mistake. But regardless, it was the idea I got somewhere in there, that if I didn't seek acknowledgement upon it, it would someday go away- and I would someday be able to sleep like a normal person. Wrong. It got worse. By the time I reached fourteen, after waking in my body, as I would examine my room in the dark, my mind would play tricks on me. I expected to experience the paralysis every night, but I always woke startled, initially. After calming myself down, the fear would come back in delusional waves that made me question my sanity. I would look around the room, adjusting my eyes to the dark, and after a few moments of watching and listening to the silent hum of the house and the cars passing by on the freeway which was blocks away, I would hear something. A small creak in my room or a gust of wind from a movement near me somewhere- whispers that I could neither recognize nor understand. Soon this started to happen, the audio hallucinations became accompanied by the visual as well. Shadows, shapes and figures of my imagination lurked in the corners of the room and on the walls. By age fifteen, the whispers grew louder to a muffled sounding voice that I heard at least a few times during every night. At first it disturbed me terribly- the noises I heard, and the voice seemed to go together as one. I couldn't make out very well what he was saying, but I know the voice belonged to a man. He sounded like he was having a conversation, and it was as if he were speaking through a pillow on the other side of my room. I couldn't make out one single word. I don't know if he was speaking English or some other language, but I couldn't understand any of it. And even more strangely, his was the only voice I heard. So who could he be having a conversation with? I could follow the sound as he seemed to pace slowly around my room, just talking.... eventually I became very familiar with this presence and acknowledged it- at least with my mind. After a while it was almost comforting to hear the voice, to know that at least I was alive still. That I was awake- or dreaming, even if I was unsure which it was. But as I laid there every night, I would wonder who it was that I was imagining. By this age, my mind was just starting to develop what is now my great tendency to wonder about absolutely everything. I would ponder as I lay there until my obnoxiously loud alarm sounded, just waiting for the man to speak. I would wonder if I was dreaming- If I had really fallen asleep- If I had been asleep all of these nights and experienced the same dream every time. The year I turned eighteen, I moved out of my home. My parents and I lacked common interest and communication skills. My mom and dad worked full time during the day, and bickered at night. The three of us were a small family, and barely a family at that, but we did love each other. We parted on good terms- I just want