text: Waking from sleep is usually an intensely relieving experience for me. Having just barely escaped the crushing paralysis and vague, waif like figures surrounding my bed, coming into consciousness feels like eluding a slow, painful death at the hands of these beings. They always move into the room slowly, the fear mounting in my chest as they get closer. Are they aliens or ghosts? I have never known their purpose but they come for me nightly. By the time they are above me I can’t move my body, unable to escape due to the paralysis that has totally set in. The way out is always the same. Focus on my big toe- the mere movement of a toe could be enough to shatter their possession over me and bring me out of this spell. In an instant, I’m awake, sucking in air and reveling in the notion that once again I have just escaped annihilation. I get up to grab a drink of water, relieved to have made it out of the darkness. But, something is off. I can’t focus on the room. I am unable to move at a normal speed. I feel like I am in slow-motion. The thirst increases as my ability to move vanishes. Again I feel the sickening notion that I am not alone. My heart starts pounding and I cannot feel my limbs. I know what is happening to me but I am incapable of stopping it. Something is different this time. I am completely lucid, aware that I am experiencing sleep paralysis again. It is a dream within a dream. I have been here before. Regardless, the bodies are returning and the nightmare feels just as real as ever. I must put a stop to them. I naturally know that I must fight back. Accepting their presence in my life and merely escaping will not stop their persistence. I begin to create energy in my body, working against the fear by feeling anger instead. I can feel heat radiating through my body and out of my chest. Although I am physically powerless, I feel like I could burst into a million pieces and slice through the haunting figures around me. Perhaps this is truly the only way out. As the energy and heat increase throughout my body my mouth involuntarily opens and a beam of light shoots out. The light simultaneously flows through me and out my fingers and toes. My body is burning. It lifts off of the bed and hovers, golden light surrounding it. The beings cower in the corners of the room and I know the moment has come to transcend my body and enter back into reality. With one last push of energy from within, my skin and insides explode out, shooting like daggers into every last vestige of space within the room. The blackened forms lining the space melt into puddles and seep through the floorboards as my infinite golden light illuminates the darkness. At last, I am free.