A Pain in the Neck

Today, I woke up with a pain in my neck and upper back which rapidly became a headache to boot. I wish there were chiropractors in the Czech Republic but there are not so I make do with a heat patch and two headache tablets. I know that the heat patch will probably do the trick and that the headache pills will not. It’s bizarre really but I had this problem for about 15-years now and it must be related to the way I have slept. My chiropractor in The Woodlands could fix it with a quick twist of the neck! He always told me I had knocked a vertebrae out of alignment high up in my neck most likely by hanging my head off of the back of the pillow. I think he was right as last night I awoke semi-paralyzed with my head hanging off the back of the pillow and it took a while to move it.

Actually, the whole incident reminded me that just recently, I have been having some strange dream-like experiences again. Not where I cannot move my head but where I simply cannot move at all and always coming out of a nightmare where something unseen is throwing me around and that unseen something follows me out of the dream. I think this has a name – sleep paralysis or better still The Old Hag. In fact, I have suffered from this phenomenon on and off since childhood when it used to terrify me. Now, I actually find myself panicking a bit and then even in that state realizing what it is and waiting patiently for it to end. While there are medical and psychological explanations for this I also think that it has something to do with leaving the body also and waking up before all the bits have synched back again (Astral and physical or whatever terminology you prefer to use).

I have commented about the dream before on the blog. It is usually a normal dream. I am walking around a house or castle or somewhere and gradually become aware of a terrifying presence. The presence then is able to throw me around unseen. I sometimes will at that point be dug in the ribs and woken up as I often scream or shout out and wake everyone in the house up but, if there is no one to wake me, I end up in the Old Hag situation.

Interestingly enough, a week or so ago, I was in Amsterdam on business and staying at a hotel there. I experienced both nights a variation of this whole experience that still has me puzzled partly because I cannot recall all of the details despite telling myself in the dream that I should do so. i.e. I remember me telling me remember this but don’t remember what it was I was supposed to recall…. wonderful. However, I seemed to be hovering just above my bed thinking I was asleep yet marveling at how light it was and that it would soon be time to get up. I kept blacking out or falling back asleep but then experiencing this same condition which seemed also timeless. The whole effect was to believe that the night – both of them, were pretty endless. It was quite bizarre and all I can think of is that I was out of body but didn’t know it? Perhaps I did and that is what I wanted to recall – who knows? The strange thing is that I was also aware of the presence in this situation similar to the Old Hag.

It’s situations like these that make me believe that not everything is as we think it is. There are plainly mental states and/or planes of being achievable in meditation, trance and sleep that extend the known universe some distance. I just wish I had the ability to fully and properly explore them. But, based on this illustration, it’s quite easy to see how I get a pain in the neck!

hag

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