Last Saturday morning, just before getting off work, I called my father and said I would come pick up my daughter. He told me not to bother. There was a funeral being held on the street, and parking would be impossible, so he would bring her upstairs himself in the afternoon. I said okay and went home.
After lunch, my father dropped her off and left right away. We spent the afternoon on homework, and by evening we had dinner. When it was time to shower, I suddenly noticed the bathroom light would not turn on, so I gave up on that idea and sat on the sofa scrolling on my phone and watching a show. At some point, I fell asleep there.
I woke up groggily and saw it was already after eleven. My daughter had gone into the bedroom to sleep, so I went to my room too.
I do not know how much time passed after that, but I was suddenly jolted awake. My mind was unusually clear, yet my hands, feet, and even my head seemed numb and beyond my control. The sky looked as if dawn was about to break. I shifted my eyes from side to side. On both sides were white walls. It was definitely not my current bedroom, though for a moment I could not tell where I was.
I tried to call out, but no sound came. I vaguely heard a dog barking, just a few times, and then that stopped too. Everything went quiet again.
Maybe less than ten minutes later, I could move my arms and legs. I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked ahead. To my surprise, I was at my parents' home—more precisely, in the room that used to be mine. While I was still wondering why I was there, I tried to get up and look around. Then the sky changed in an instant, from almost dawn to complete darkness. I checked my phone. It was not even 3 a.m.
Sleep paralysis is that state where you regain awareness while sleeping but cannot move your body. In sleep medicine, it is considered a form of paralysis during sleep. I had experienced it before and once wrote about it, but this time felt different. It had the unmistakable effect of sleep paralysis, yet the setting itself had changed, which is why I still cannot decide whether it was really sleep paralysis or just a dream that felt unusually real.
Dreams can sometimes come with a strong sense of physical perception. I used to dream often that I could fly, and in those dreams I could even feel the cool rush of wind. After looking it up, my guess is that I may have slipped into layered dreams that night. It felt strange, but also fascinating.
It may have had something to do with my schedule. I work only overnight shifts, so my sleep is reversed between day and night. On top of that, the temperature had dropped sharply over those two days, down to around minus three or minus four degrees Celsius. I went to sleep wearing thick pajamas, and my chest felt somewhat compressed. Older people often say that pressure on the chest makes nightmares more likely. After this experience, that old saying did not seem so easy to dismiss.