Nap-time Intro.

Naps are great, sleeping the productive day away in a blissful state of REM sleep is how I like to spend mine. And what's even better is that naps are widely accepted throughout this country with the Pew Research Center stating that 34% of American adults take one every day. The implications mean that a third of Americans are taking accounting 231.

There's nothing ostracizing about naps. Kick off your shoes and curl into a ball for all America cares. However through my own years of specialized nap studies, I've found that the oddest part about naps is not having your head nod off on the concerned looking woman next to you on the bus, it's waking up and experiencing whatever the hell your mind tells you to.

One reaction of waking up I've had is the old and familiar, "It's dark out, why am I up this early? Where am I?" All the while building up awareness around me until I conceptualize that I, in fact, had not been transported to the future by sorcery.


It's called situational awareness and some of us have it.

Of course, not all naps end with you lazily opening your eyes to a serenade of Morning Mood resulting in ample stretch time for everyone. Sometimes you're jolted awake like a dog taken out of sleep from a doorbell. Seriously, they look like fish out of water trying to get up. Loud noises like a door slamming, a roommate blasting music or the bat-alarm blaring will generally throw me in my commando ready form prepared to go all '80's Schwarzenegger. I Viking jump out of bed (because ninjas are past their prime) and am fully geared up to go fisticups with the unholy beast that woke me from my slumber.

The reason for this confusion after sleep has something to do with what is called the Arousal Threshold. This means that the level of sleep you're in when you wake up has a correlation with the amount of confusion you have waking up. Deep sleep, known as levels 3 and 4, means you'd wake up ready to choke a bitch. Waking in the lighter stages one or two means you'll casually wake up with some drool dangling from your mouth. So Inception wasn't so much a science fiction thriller as it was a documentary of sleep.

Us normal people aren't left alone when pondering if the experience they just had of playing air hockey against the shredder was a dream, or if he just had to excuse himself from the table to polish his helmet.

He loves the arousal threshold, if you know what I mean.

Even the philosopher Descartes, the man responsible for nearly 74% of all naps, had problems with this confusion. That confusing time between sleep and your awake state is called Hypnagogia, and that can have some pretty frightening stages.

Sleep Paralysis


Sleep Paralysis is pretty much the equivalent of a conscious coma. You're already awake, but unable to move, speak or get that itch on your nose. In most cases, people will describe the effects like having something heavy sitting on your chest, being choked and/or hearing weird noises around them, like footsteps. How would you like to wake up before your body can function and be surrounded by paranormal shit that the Ghostbusters would have a hard time corralling? The Renaissance was particularly fascinated with this ailment normally identifying it with demons or spirits of mothers-in-law they kicked out. It's a safe bet that many stories of vampires, ghosts and other things that go bump in the night got their start here. It's like the recruitment process for scary, just without the scandals.

Some studies suggest Sleep Paralysis is hereditary caused by brain synapses firing at a random rate. Others suggest that the feelings can be induced with something as easy as a migraine.

This is a pretty common way to wake up, it turns out. Just google "Sleep Paralysis Stories" and do my work for me.

Google?


If you hadn't had the joy of waking up to find yourself chained to your own bed with evil spirits ready to perform an autopsy, don't worry. Chances are that at least once in your life you'll find a nice little monster taking a Cleveland Steamer right on your chest.

Tetris Effect


Clearly anything associated with the wonderful Nintendo game has to be a great experience, right? Some of the time, yes. But we've learned before that the God's of Tetris can be cruel and angry. The Tetris effect is a process in sleep when a person dreams images or experiences that have occurred repetitiously. Now, I remember when my buddy and I would play Diablo II for literally weeks on end. Only stopping for Big K breaks in between cow sessions. I could blink and the game would flash before my eyes. That was fun and explains my distinct lack of social life today. But maybe you're not slaying mad cows like they owe you something. Maybe you're playing F.E.A.R 2 and have insane crazy bat-shit insane scary things appear in your mind.

Moo-moo moo-moo mootherfucker.

Not only does the Tetris Effect only appear with obsessive video game playing. Practically anyone can have this effect them. Chess players often experience it, or even just driving long distances can make you dream of that blue mini-van going twenty under in the left lane for fifty miles. Like sleep paralysis the Tetris Effect really can't really harm you, unless you hate geometry to an unnatural degree.

Hypnagogic hallucinations

We've all laid awake at night in utter frustration because we can't fall asleep. Usually caffeine, things on your mind or that random fucking burst of energy you get when you decide to go to bed. Luckily there are ways to counteract these trivial annoyances usually they involve just calming down. However, Hypnagogic hallucinations are an entirely different kind of monster. These attacks occur just before you reach sleep and are still in the Hypnagogia stage. You're still conscious, yet have lost control of your thought process. Piddle-posh, this is just you starting to dream. Now suck it up and go hang with that cow that's jumping over the moon, you say. Nope. These hallucinations are frightening and usually result with your body involuntarily jolting up to rescue you.

Soon.

Sometimes the hypnagogic hallucinations are just shocks in the body that gently take you out of near sleep. Though, more often than not, the usual feeling consists of a straight free fall through the air or hearing voices talk around you. (Normally talking about your clashing room decor, no doubt) Some hallucinations result in having terrifying conversations with people that aren't actually there. And there's nothing you can do about it. You can't wake up, but you can't fall asleep into dream land, either. You just hang out with the horrifying ghosts your brain has conjured up just before you fall asleep and do your best to maintain sanity. The person is stuck in limbo.

Hypnopompic hallucinations

Not to be confused with the previous Hypnogogic, Hypnopompic hallucinations occur during the stage of waking up from sleep. Just like hypnogogic, however, it induces a dream like state during your consciousness. It just so happens that these dream-like states are extraordinarily terrifying A lot like watching golf, but only slightly more disturbing. Check out this example from Andrea in Detroit If I may summarize, "I wake up paralyzed" Okey dokie, " I hear something in my bedroom" Perhaps the cat you forgot to feed, "a short, dark demon" Ummm, "watching me and knowing that I cannot move" Make it stop. "I SWEAR I can FEEL the footsteps sinking in the mattress." Excuse me while I huddle in a corner with my crucifix. This is how some people wake up to start their day.

Seen: Hypnopompic Hallucinations


Another effect of hypnopomic waking is mumble jumble spoken from the sleeper. Many of the time the language is associated with whatever dream the person is having, accompanying any imagery the mind imagines in the dream. So a person may wake up shouting, "Not the goat again!" and visualize some crazy British comedy scene.

Hypnopompic states make your brain try and rationalize the real world around it while still in dream mode. Some researched suggests that a depressed frontal lobe is slow to adapt to consciousness after sleep and causes the delayed reaction. In other words, your head feel like Melvin from Hitchhikers Guide with a spot of crazy.

Pavor Nocturnus (Night Terrors)


Otherwise known as the king of crazy. If you're not an English major and haven't read The Bees by Dan Chaon, go ahead, we'll wait.. We're betting the vast majority of you didn't go read, so here is a night terror nice and succinctly explained. Imagine a child sitting in his race car bed and you're just sure he's dreaming of becoming a puppy factory tycoon. When suddenly the child jumps straight up, screaming and whipping about like somebody just pulled the world's largest band-aid off their body. Even crazier, they're eyes are wide open and mouths just dropped open. Then they just fall back asleep like nothing ever happened and when they wake up the victim has no idea they ever went nuclear.

In case there's some skeptical asshole out there, science (huzzah!) helps explain night terrors Nightmares generally occur in the early stages of sleep (remember these?) during REM, which is why you can be easily awaken in that cold sweat. Night Terrors, on the other hand, wait until you're in deep sleep past the REM stages to create a scene that makes The Exorcist look tame.

Where respectable people go for exorcisms.

Since demonic children are vastly more frightening than possessed adults, night terrors are generally seen in young kids. The cause is widely unknown, attributed to a family history of sleep disorders or pissing off the wrong tooth fairy. Fortunately for most parents, night terrors are harmless and only 1-8% of kids ever get them. Even if they become little manifestations of devils, most kids out grow them in time. Wait.. most kids? Yeah night terrors can be found in adults, too. This video is from a forum dedicated to helping those with night terrors, some members suggested wearing a blindfold during sleep, check out the results.