Old Hag

Just a short story from the mind of Jesse.

          My heart is beating fast, like a bass drum beating to a techno song. I try to open my eyes, but they are sealed shut, like a welder’s final touchup to a thermoplastic masterpiece. My breath is faint, my lungs are heavy and I am drowning in my own panic. I try to move, but my muscles have given up on me, my body is lifeless except for my subconscious mind racing like a subliminal message affirmation video.  At that moment, I then realize I am not alone. I can feel the warm body heat of a person, hovering above me like my own soul having an out of body experience. Then my ears begin to bleed, not literally, but metaphorically; as I hear the laugh of a woman. At that exact moment I feel somebody grab my foot! I then awaken from my nightmare, only to see the ghoulish face of a woman staring at me. Her eyes are dark and empty, like architeuthis stalking a lone fisherman from below. Her skin tone is grey; pieces of rotting flesh are hanging from her neck, reminding me of an anatomy video I seen on Discovery Health.  Suddenly, I gasp for air and awaken from the nightmare that has haunted me for years. I then realize that it was all just a dream.

          It all started when I was 21, I was going thru a lot of stress and had constant worry on my mind. The dream seems to happen when I am at a low point in my life. I am normally a positive and happy person, but I am human and have my insecurities at times. Over the years the dream has not changed, I know every detail as it unfolds, yet it still sends a shiver down my spine.

          Countless hours I have spent looking for information on my dream, the scientific name is called Sleep Paralysis. But, my dream is different from all the other people who have sleep paralysis, my dream has that ghoulish woman who is in my room with me. I dug a little deeper and found out that many people have dreamed about the ghoulish woman, so much that there is a name for it, “Old Hag Syndrome”.  Reportedly, the old hag will sit on the chest of a sleeping person, causing them to gasp for air. She will then disappear when the person awakens. Children who are visited by her will grow up to be very sickly and have lots of health problems.

          When I am paralyzed I feel a list of emotions, I’m sad, scared, alone and helpless. The feelings reflect my life at the time of the dream. I am always going thru hard times, sending negative vibes out into the universe and thus creating a negative reality for myself. Not being able to move in my dream is a metaphor, for not being able to prosper and move forward thru my negative experiences in life. When I hear the laugh and my foot gets touched, I feel like that’s the world pushing me down and laughing at my dreams to succeed in life.  The old hag is there to remind me not to give up on my dreams, or she will be paying me a visit.

          There are two types of emotions that the brain can produce, love and fear, all other feeling are just a vine that stems from one of those emotions. I believe this to be true, my dream occurs when my brain is producing a lot of fear and anxiety. Over the years I have managed to keep the old hag dream at bay, by loving myself and spreading my positive vibes to everybody I meet. The definition of success is getting up one more time than you’ve been knocked down. I live my life by that definition. The old hag has literally made me a better person.

 

Reviews

[Jesse-boy]

It's a personal experience. I wasn't sure how to label it, so I put it under short story. Thanks for your grammar correction.

[AmongSavages]

It's written more like an personal narrative than a story, but your images of the hag are very descriptive. If you classified it as a personal narrative or a nonfiction piece, it would fit the writing better and bring more understanding.

P.S. through* not thru