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This was one of the most powerfully frightening and sleep episodes to date.

I'm floating in a sensory deprivation tank. I chose to do an hour and a half session since it had been a long day. This experience happened in the later half of the float.


I'm listening to music. It's sort of a slow, funky R&B beat with a man singing directly to me. He has a wonderful, deep voice that sent me deeper into my comfort zone. I realize quickly that this isn't the wake up music for my session, it is all in my head. I smile, or at least I think I do, and continue listening for a whole, beautiful minute. It's amazing what your mind can create in sensory deprivation.

The music fades and a twitch brings me back to present. "That was wonderful," I thought. "That's more than enough to write about."

Reflecting back on all this, I now know I experienced a false awakening, and a very convincing one at that. So, in my false awakening:

I'm going to flip onto my stomach for the last 30 seconds of my float (sometimes when I know I'm about to get out of the tank, I lay face down for as long as I can hold my breath. It feels good on my back). My extremities feel numb, but I manage to flip over. I soon realize I'm paralyzed. I have no control over my legs or arms and worst of all, my face is under water. I begin to panic. A hot rush of survival fear rushes me through my situation. My mouth is muffled by water and my arms can't find their way to bang on the wall for help. I'm going to die. I hold my breath as long as I can until I realize there is no use fighting it anymore. I have to inhale. I choose not to have my life flash before my eyes, since I knew inhaling the super saturated salt water would burn out any sentiment I could gather, so I just decided to go for it. A moment of courage. With all my strength, I take a mighty breath. Farewell.

Woosh. I'm back in my real body, frantically trying to catch my breath and calm my nerves. I knew exactly what had happened, having experienced false awakenings and sleep paralysis before. Never have both happened simultaneously. I was rattled, I still am.

I accepted death. Rather than inhaling the salt water, I took the most refreshing gasp I've ever tasted. It was beautifully humbling experience.

(a dream I remembered from a few years ago)

Me and my mom had apparently just moved into a new place. There were boxes everywhere, no furniture, just boxes everywhere.
We were trying to gather up our pet fish had begun to swim out of the tank. Some flopped around on the floor, and we had trouble getting them since they were to slimy and smooth. Some were swimming around in tiny patches of water around the house. We kept trying to grab them out of the strange self sustaining hunks of water (only strange after awakening) but we could never seem to grasp them.

After a while we had got some it, but were freaking out because we knew the others were going to die. I notice my mom is not in the room anymore, and I hear a shriek come from the neighboring room.
I yell to her to ask her what happened.
She walks out holding two dead hands of a man. They were greenish blue, decaying slowly, and ripped up.
She says "You don't want to know."

The shock from the randomness of what had happened collapsed the dream at that point.