From time to time I suffer from sleep paralysis, a terrifying condition in which you think you’re awake but can’t move and can’t breathe or can barely breathe. There may also be hypnagogic hallucinations that cause you to think something is actually going on.
When this happens to me, my heart pounds so hard that it feels like it’s going to rip a hole in my chest. I’m in a total panic and feel like I’m suffocating. Once out of it, it takes me a while to spool down—sometimes a long while.
Luckily my husband, who normally sleeps about as lightly as a tree stump, has somehow learned that when I make a certain soft little whimpering sound, he has to respond and jostle me awake. Not gently, either: I wouldn’t care if he shoved me out of bed or left me black and blue, just as long as he made it stop.
These incidents, when I may look like I’m safe in bed, are the most horrifying and frightening experiences I’ve ever had. I don’t doubt that I could die in one if the strain was too much for my heart. And no one would think anything but that I had died peacefully in my sleep.