Learning is a Life Long Process

I love to learn. I watch nature show, medical shows, read articles on the internet and randomly select books all the time to learn something new. My subjects are random many times and I am so into googling things that pop into my head that Bruce's fingers get ready by just me looking at him when I wonder aloud "hmm, what is 'insidious'?" He says "I'm on it."

Just last night I had to ask him to google "use soy milk as a substitute for milk in cookies" - he said there were too many answers and gave up....but he only put in "soy" - you have to be specific sometimes in your search for knowledge. So, here I am today, learning about something that has happened a lot this week and had been more sporadic in the past. Of course, it has to do with sleeping again, but give me a break - this is a major preoccupation in my life right now.

Throughout this week, I have felt I have been awake and had been engaging in common activities but then I find out I had been asleep the whole time and was just then waking up. For instance, I believed I had gotten out of bed in the morning, opened my closet and was picking out my clothes for the day. I was getting into each side of my closet and selecting what I would wear - I could see it and feel it and thought I was doing it but I found that it hadn't really happened. Not too disturbing because it's happened in the past, but is has happened almost every day for a week...so an investigation ensues.  When this happens, is it a dream? Is it a hallucination? Is it something else?

When I dream, I know it's a dream. I can't really see people's faces but I know who they are; normal things happen in strange places; familiar places have strange changes, yada yada yada.

When I hallucinate, I know I'm hallucinating (shortly following it's disappearance) because I am sitting up and reaching for or retaliating from whatever I had seen (kids, spiders, ruins, whatever).

What has been happening this week felt like something in between dreaming and hallucinating - I was still laying down in bed not moving but mentally I had gotten up and was getting ready or talking to people. Bruce wasn't there so I assume I looked like I was still asleep; however, it didn't have the dream quality. So was it a dream or not?

What I learned was this:

False awakenings
A false awakening is one in which the subject seems to wake up, whether from a lucid or a non-lucid dream, but is in fact still asleep.Sometimes the experience is so realistic perceptually (the sleeper seeming to wake in his or her own bedroom, for example) that insight is not achieved at once, or even until the dreamer really wakes up and realises that what has occurred was hallucinatory. Such experiences seem particularly liable to occur to those who deliberately cultivate lucid dreams. However, they may also occur spontaneously and be associated with the experience of sleep paralysis.

I know I experience sleep paralysis (yay narcolepsy), but I didn't realize this was a part of it until it happened one too many times in a week.

Ok, TMI time. You can stop  if you like. I have been paying close attention to my ups and downs so I have a theory on why it happened so consistently this week. Menstrual cycle. After more digging, I found out that a lot of women suffer from the same problem but the doctor's don't know what to do about it. My symptoms get worse all around and I have trouble getting out of bed, maintaining alertness throughout the day, so why not some hallucinations and sleep paralysis to top it off. I thought maybe it was all in my head, but reading about other women going through this has made me feel better that it's not a problem I'm making up but something that actually occurs. Studies have proved it but there doesn't seem to be anything that will help it. Some suggest increasing iron during that time. I'll have to try it next time.