As a child, I was afraid of sleeping thinking I'd die as soon as falling asleep. This may sound weird, but several times a week I'd feel a terrifying sensation. It felt as if something would rush out of my body tearing me inside in a sound similar to a loud jet airplane during that split second where one's half awake and entering full paralysis of the body. Hence I was fully conscious, but I couldn't move or control my body (merely a mind, a soul, a spirit trapped in what was practically a corpse for a few eternal minutes).
The only way to break these strange occurrences was forcing myself to move my paralyzed body and scream. To say the least, screaming in terror (past the point of fear and horror) in the middle of night afraid to die then and there was enough to practically wake up the dead.
At some point, I started thinking that it was my soul leaving my body. Was I at that point stop my soul from leaving? I hated considering that my soul could leave my body while being fully conscious leaving an empty husk of a body behind.
At some other point in time, I even thought that I was experiencing the horrors of hell. Well I still don't know and perhaps I might never know.
One thing that helped me when I was in high school (15-17) was talking to the priest of the church I used to go to with my best friend. This priest seemed to understand what I was going through. He even asked me if I believed in witchcraft/sorcery (http://project05952381.blogspot.com/2010/09/witchcraft.html), to which I agreed, and he asked me never to practice it. He also told me to go to sleep tired and so I've tried to do since.
These episodes would come and go several years at a time. I've never known when they'd come or when they'd stop. In all, this has been a part of my life since I was at least eight (8). Eventually the frequency of these events has diminished, but never stopped. I haven't had an episode in several years, but I know it could happen again.
