I have a psych appointment for next week, hooray!

I'm really kind of excited to talk to a professional about my whole deal. Probably way overdue for this.

Go you, with the mental heath self-care!

swear I felt someone get into bed with me, feel the weight as they settled in, etc, and I would be frozen, unable to move but knowing something awful was going to happen

This happened to me for the first time a couple of months ago. SO CREEPY.

Sometimes it feels like a cat got in bed with me (when Tim is not also in bed). Since we keep them out of the bedroom, this is concerning. I usually check for a cat, and will go so far as to go out to the living room to see where the cats are. When I verify that it wasn't them, Tim concludes it was the ghost of his former cat Spike.

Sleep paralysis! It's awful. I used to have it all the time, but now it's only happens to me once in a while.

I'm one of the olds that has Netflix DVD service still.

I still have the DVD service, too! There are so many things I want to watch that aren't available for streaming that I've maxed out my queue. I've been letting DVDs sit for months at a time, though, so my current strategy to get more use out of my service is to do a Friends rewatch.

Also, the migraine is trying to manifest, and I'm pelting it with drugs. That made for an interesting mid-afternoon walk. (I'm walking hills in my neighborhood. I imagine I sound like a gasping pipe organ that can't produce notes but just rattles and wheezes. Poor neighbors. So far no one has rushed outside with a defibrillator for me.)

Slight photophobia, shoulders are tense (huge symptom), ear is starting to hurt (horrible, no-good, very bad symptom), my upper teeth are starting to hurt on the same side as the ear (also very goddamn bad -- combined with the ear pain, it means my trigeminal nerve is irritated, motherfucker), and I have mild spacey vertigo (but yes, I still took a hill walk, because I am insane and committed to cardiovascular health).

And yet? No actual "headache" pain. WTF, body?

My sister is asking me if hallucinations are in focus if you have shit eyesight and your glasses off. Like, do they drop resolution with reality?

They were for me, but my eyesight was better as a child.

I don't understand quite how the sleep thing works if you sleep with a cat. How does it know that it is me and not the cat moving around. The one I used was with my telephone, and I had to lay it on the mattress. It seems like it would be bad with a human bed partner as well, but my cat often sleeps and walks around on top of me when I am asleep.

I still have Netflix DVD service too. But I keep a DVD forever.

I rationalize it to myself as something going wrong with the mechanism that makes you not sleepwalk ... giving me that temporary paralysis feeling at the wrong time

Less a rationalization, that's pretty much what's happening. Per my research into the subject, anyway. You're dreaming, and paralyzed as you should be when dreaming, but you're awake. The mechanism that syncs all those things up goes a bit wonky. Sleepwalking, you're asleep and dreaming, but not paralyzed.

The similarities among stories of hauntings and alien abductions tells me there's a part of the human brain that creates these "stories" and sensations, but why?

I don't understand quite how the sleep thing works if you sleep with a cat. How does it know that it is me and not the cat moving around.

I think the sensors are ones you wear on your person, like the FitBit that's a bracelet, or a sensor you clip to your clothes.

this whole hallucinations thing makes me understand where alien sightings/abductions come from.

damn y'all.

brains scare me.

When my older brother was around three or four, he'd see wolves outside the window while he was in bed. And sometimes he'd see our cousins come in his bedroom, except their heads were not attached to their necks--the heads were floating an inch above the necks, leaving a gap.

I used to semi-frequently (mostly only in hotel rooms but I'm in those more often than most) dream someone had come Into my room, and I'd wake up and swear I felt someone get into bed with me, feel the weight as they settled in, etc, and I would be frozen, unable to move but knowing something awful was going to happen...and them I'd fully wake up and still be freaked out but be able to move and know there was no one there.

Oh oh oh! One of my students wrote about this phenomenon. It is, as the anecdata her suggests, fairly common and usually associated with disrupted sleep. If it happens frequently it might be an indication of an underlying sleep disorder. It's also a likely source for beleif in things like alien abduction and demons like the succubus.

Like, do they drop resolution with reality?

I vote no. One of my recurring anxiety dreams growing up involved blurred vision and being unable to see clearly. I stopped having that dream in my late teens, and it didn't come back after I started needing glasses. I don't recall any dreams where I perceived myself to be wearing glasses.

YDMV