Keep On Survivin' and Free Writing in the Mornin'

It's 6 AM right now and I, for whatever stupid reason, am not sleeping. I should be snoozing away. Judgement day didn't happen and I'm sure there's a paranoid preacher out there locking himself in a shelter somewhere.

I should be sleeping to wake up for church. A goal I set for myself this summer is to grow spiritually away from college. It's weird. I came into college thinking it'd be a spiritual desert away from my home church. That was my biggest challenge first semester of freshman year: prioritizing church above all else. I've been reaching it (can't say I've accomplished it).

However, the moment I go home, I am no longer motivated to go to church. Maybe it's because I've grown to like the smaller church atmosphere at school. I go to a super church at home. Super in the sense that it's huge. I roll my eyes every time I begin to think of all the cliques and socializing that is more apparent than God Himself at my home church. I don't grow spiritually there. Am I giving it a good honest chance? Maybe not. I already have this bad image of my church in my head.

I've kind of lost track of what I'm saying. But it's 6 AM and my brain is scrambled eggs right now. Back to growing spiritually this summer. One of the reality checks that's hit me in the head is that despite my eagerness to serve, I lack the wisdom to go with it. I think I'm solid when it comes to the Bible. I mean, I know my stuff but I can't spout out verses for everything. Solid. Not great, not terrible, but just solid. I'm still developing my views on certain topics that are touchy subjects in Christianity. I can offer my opinion, but I can't give you a definite answer.

This is quite the informal post I'm putting up. I actually had a whole different topic in mind. I'll save that for my next post. I guess I just rambled on with the hype over the end of the world passing by. My stomach won't stop growling, so I'm going to eat a doughnut (donut?) and sleep for 2 hours. What was I thinking making a blog post at 6 in the morning? I'm not delirious right now. Just free writing. Ok, not complete free writing since I kind of looked back to fix spelling errors. I may have missed some grammatical thingermabobs here and there. Cross my fingers I didn't because I need to sleep and can't afford to look back and read this all over again. Good night/morning?

Sleep and Chocolate Cakes

You know what's the worst? Ok, maybe not the "worst" thing possible, but it's still pretty bad. Sleep paralysis. That thing when you're dreaming but you're eyes are wide open surveying your room. Your body can't move. You see and hear things. Utterly creepy.

This has happened to me twice in my life. Both times in college.

The first time, I thought I was going to die. I never experienced it before nor have I ever heard of it. It was just another night during my freshman year. Hopped into bed and fell asleep like a baby. In the middle of night, my eyes opened. I remember I was facing the wall, which was all I could see. My body felt numb and cold. I tried to move but I couldn't. That's when my body started going into panic attack. You know how your leg feels when you lean or sleep on it too long? Yeah, that's what my entire body started to feel like. I kept praying to God to not let me die just yet. I had so much more in life I wanted to go through. Who wants to spend their entire life in school? I would go into more vivid details, but that's as much as I can remember.

The second time just happened two days ago. It felt like I just got into bed, but apparently I was already asleep for two hours. My body felt like a constant current of electricity was flowing through. I tried to move, but once again could not. I saw this chocolate cake. Yes, a chocolate cake. Then this paper plate would appear right next to it and scrape off the side of the cake. Every time it did that, it sounded like nails scratching a blackboard. The sound would get louder and louder. Then it would stop for 5 seconds. The plate would start scraping again and the torture began once more. Every time the sound was at it's highest pitch, my lungs would feel like it stopped working. I remember trying to gasp for air. I looked over at the curtain in my room and saw the silhouette of an old lady hunched over. After a few rounds of the scraping and staring at the old lady, I finally wrenched my arm off my body and I could move again. I sat up in cold sweat, but knew this time I wasn't going to die.

What did I learn from my most recent sleep paralysis attack? Don't go to sleep hungry.