December 28, 2011 - Night Terror On a Plane

All you movie exec’s out there, the title is mine.  Sure it sounds like “Snakes On A Plane” but the plausibility factor of snakes on a plane is so much lower.  Then again, I did read about the guy who tried to smuggle 247 rare snakes onto a plane in his luggage.  That’s beside the point.  So Monday evening we flew out of JFK and made our way back to Zurich.  Just a quick shout out, I like traveling American Airlines, then again we have been fortunate that we are usually in an exit row or we get upgraded.  Those two things go a long way to making an airline nice to fly.  That and typically the flight crew is very nice.  So as I was saying; we flew back Monday evening and I even managed to fall asleep a couple of times.   The thing is, I rarely fall completely asleep on a plane, which means I’m hovering near the Night Terror stage of sleep.  For those of you who care, that would be the deepest stage of sleep before entering a REM sleep.  So there I am apparently sleeping, because I don’t know I’m the one sleeping, when something brushes my arm.  Yes I “know” that this had to be another human being brushing past me, but my subconscious thinks… well lord only knows what it was thinking.  The only thing I can be positive about is “Thank God for” (a) the many years of practice I have had subconsciously swallowing a scream.  The scream comes out more of a gasp in those instances.  I can probably credit my freshman year college roommate for that.  I hated screaming awake during nightmares and disturbing her so I got in the weird habit of sort of screaming.  Thanks Connie – it was helpful on the plane and (b) thank god for the fastened seat belts, because yes I did make a leap for it and yes they really do secure you into place.  Sometimes I think the worst part of a night terror isn’t so much the screaming and the “terror”, well and the occasionally sprinting, but trying the in-between stage of looking like I am awake and thinking I am awake, but still “seeing” whatever freaked me out in the first place and trying to figure out if what I am seeing is real, because during some of this I am waiting for my brain to catch up with the rest of me and it’s not easy figuring out if what is real.  So last but not least, thankfully L was sitting next to me because all she had to do was reach out and touch me.  That’s generally enough to anchor me, and let me know that she is real while the rest of me catches up.  Oh and it stops me from screaming.  I’m sure the other passengers on the plane would be grateful to know that.



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