Hi decided to have a bash at writing a blog about my experiences with narcolepsy (herein/after referred to as N) -partly because its an interesting affair, but more because I know how difficult it is to cope with in a world so singlemindedly geared for ‘sucksess’. The intrepid, young fortune-seeker out there hacking away at his future with hammer and tongs or more likely keyboard & mouse these days, is likely to feel very disheartened about being disillusioned so early on in the game, with a ‘chronic’ and ’incurable’ diagnosis. Standard medication offered at present is invasive and mind altering at best. One is better off without it in the long run. The only ‘good’ thing about current meds is that it is likely to bring one into a place of desperation sooner than success will. In fact the same goes for any form of adversity that forces one to either think outside the box or drown in self pity. In my case I took Ritalin and Anaphranil for 20 years … long enough to invest much in the pride and success pony, enough to gain the potential for serious adversity in the longer run (Proverb – pride goeth before destruction). By this I mean that I built a beautiful house of cards in a spectacular place with meds induced (Ritalin) energy and imagined that it represented security for my family. Well it didn’t. I had so many car accidents that paying the repair bills eventually got the better of my overdraft and things quickly got to the stage where we either had to sell the house or rent it out and move in with in-laws. Fortunately my wife had graduated with a law degree while I was fixing cars so she said ‘don’t worry husband, I’ll be able to handle things for us’. She sure did but thats another story. Meantime lets get back to N and some kind of definition for those less familiar with the symptoms. It is regarded as a chronic incurable condition. this means one can apply for a social grant which really is just enough to pay for overnight shelters and keep one in bananas. This is to ensure that he stays alive and can vote for the current administration. Don’t be fooled into thinking that anybody actually gives a damn. The medical industry is about making money -not caring about others. That’s the job of the church isn’t it? But they are so busy trying to fund all the important causes that keep church(pty) ltd in business that they really just don’t have the time to find out why why their prayers don’t work anymore. SO whose job is it then? Where does one go to for real answers ? I thought about God but initially resisted. He’s the one who created adversity in the first place isn’t He? Oh yes, the symptoms. We’ll get back to God later. He has all the time in the world anyway and invented patience.
The symptoms in my case include EDS or excessive drowsiness syndrome, cataplexy or sudden loss of muscle tone, sleep paralysis and whats known as hypnogogic halucinations. I’ll leave the last two to your imagination for the moment and, while it warms up, lets look at these aspects more closely: Role up for the mystery tour!
EDS While the words ‘excessive drowsiness syndrome’ might initially conjure up a deja-vous sense of having been there & slept in the t-shirt, this is not at all akin to your seriously contemplative expression in church after a night on the town, or the feeling one gets when the beery-breathed husband’s mating cry causes ripples in your daiquiri under the sunlamp. People with EDS experience what I’ve come to know as 2 hour waking shifts. One’s ‘normal working day’ comes pre-packaged with two or three of these random windows of opportunity which can often last for as long as two hours each as mentioned, but which more often don’t, and which vaguely represent the time available to one to get things done. The rest of the time is spent either trying not to fall asleep, trying to wake up, or somewhere inbetween. Any extra time encountered will invariably be used wondering how to explain the stuff-up one just made or sleep-walking to the loo for another bum-numbing remnap.
Cataplexy seems to vary from patient to patient according to the peptides required by the already ceratonin-depleted brain in order to cope with emotions such as laughter, sadness, confrontation, anger, etc. In my case I have no problem laughing. In fact its my favorite thing next to pasta. It has contributed largely to my not being overwhelmed by N (and pasta). In the Queen of UK’s case, I can understand why laughter might be a problem. Not much humour here (not sure how true it is, but some say she gets cataplexy when she laughs) My problem happens with confrontation. No doubt this is linked with stuff that happened to me after I was orphaned at the age of four. We’ll get back to that later. If I attempt to correct someone face to face and have any reluctance to do it, a kind of ‘TILT’ happens for those familiar with the old pin ball machines. The immediate visible symptom of this that muscles in my face shut down but in fact, for a second or two it feels as though I’m about to fall over. The process of changing focus to counteract falling and pull myself together turns the attempted confrontation into a somewhat fraught affair, usually hurriedly terminated and mentally re-scheduled. The only way I can manage to get the message across is to either write it down or lose my temper. Anger seems to overide the cataplexy trip switch. It also happens with surprise. Like if I bumo into someone I haven’t met for a long time…rather awkward. Pwn seem very reluctant to speak about such things. I’ve noticed that most tend to be either in varying states of denial about the illness, perhaps to protect some form of cosseted illusion, or else happily munching on slow release turbo-booster drugs like Ritalin or amphetamine, that satisfy their meagre appetite for meaningful existence. At one point I got a kick out of being unbeatable at squash if I took a Ritalin before the game. Didn’t do my body too much good as you can imagine. Fitness is no substitute for common sense.
Sleep paralysis is a fairly common experience, not restricted to people with narcolepsy (pwn) that is initiated when a person wakes up in the 4th or deepest stage of sleep known as REM or rapid eye movement and is thus unable to move a muscle for as long as a few unforgettable minutes or in some cases, just for a fleeting moment. Most people I’ve spoken to seem to recall having experienced this at some point in their lives but for pwn, sleep paralysis usually starts in adolescence and then just carries on happening unless a compatible medication can be found that masks the symptom, or a more natural way found to remedy the situation. Personally I feel that although sleep parallysis can be a frightening experience for the rookie REM waker it is an important opportunity to investigate what is in essence an attempt by the highest aspect of one’s being, ie spirit, to communicate with one’s mind or soul via the fleshly body or hardware for the more technically inclined. Now I realise that this is loaded with all kinds of angst for rat-race enthusiasts but since I opted out of the rat-race five years ago I find it easier to see the wood in the trees. When one is prepared to render service just for the love of one’s fellow man, things take on a wholesome perspective. My interest is in this N affair is not only to impart what has been revealed to me on behalf of those who are prepared to seek beyond the material realm, but also to investigate and provide feedback on new medical developments which may become available that could assist those more keen on that approach, or ideally, the best of both worlds. I believe that the key to overcoming narcolepsy lies not in getting rid of the symptoms. It lies in overcoming fear. So … if you wake up parallysed one night, the first thing to do is to relax. I mean relax your head … your mind. Your body is of no concern right now, its parallysed remember. Understand that the reason its parallysed is simple – In REM sleep, one’s body is switched off because its time for one’s spirit to do a quick twenty minute virus check of one’s mind. Trauma experienced during the day produces a toxic virus in the mind known as fear. If fear is detected by spirit it creates a quick link to the great database of universal consciousness and downloads an antidote update. Obviously it can’t do this if one’s mind is busy with its day to day job of ensuring that normal bodily process are running smoothly. So spirit shuts down mind’s network link to the body hardware in order to have mind’s full cooperation for as long as it takes to check for viruses. In the good old days before the rat-race was so dangerous, the update used to sort out the problem mostly worked. Nowadays people are so good at denying service requests from spirit that its only recourse is to try and wake one up in the hope that the ensuing panic will induce a healthier lifestyle. So, to get back to the point, once you are in a relaxed frame of mind, despite being remmed out as I call it, say to your triune self. “Oh hello spirit, I see we’re busy with a virus check. No problem, let me know when you’re finished” and carry on relaxing. Even deeper if possible? As you relax you’ll find yourself drifting back into normal sleep. If you are a narcoleptic, normal sleep often doesn’t exist. This is due to insufficient orexin (which assists one to sleep properly) being produced in the hypothalamus. When pwn relax, (and eventually they do even if they don’t want to) they tend to simply go back into REM and the process continues until they get out of bed feeling as though they never went to bed. They then try to go about their day like everyone else, but within a short time find themselves needing to sleep again. If they don’t they tend to experience the symptom known as hypnogogic halucination which is simply the dream state occuring while one’s eyes are still open. Pwn will sometimes say something totally out of context while discussing something with friends or colleagues, then realise what has happened and say something like “sorry I lost it there for a second” or “that was just a bit of cataplexy. This also explains why pwn never seem to get clinically depressed. REM sleep is an anti-depressant and they have an oversupply. They just can’t stay awake because they never get enough of the first three stages of sleep.
The randomness mentioned of all the above symptoms turns any attempt to keep to an appointment diary into a rather novel attempt at stand-up comedy as one attempts to explain what went wrong to a rapidly shrinking list of friends and associates. Which, come to think of it is not all bad cos if you’ve got narcolepsy friend, you are gonna need incentive to grow a good, hardy sense of humour and a skin like rhinocerous hide. The good news is that N is totally painfree and can’t kill you. If all this sounds confusing, thats because it is confusing. It gets worse before it gets better. And it only gets better when one stops two things – a) trying to keep up with the rat-race and b) the only real disability – fear, mother of all corruption and illusion.
Ok, so now lets look at the other reason I chose to write about N. Pwn are interesting. In medieval times, they were paid handsomely as seers or fortune tellers and were often lavishly accommodated in royal courts. There’s a spiritual side to narcolepsy. In Afrikaans it is one of several ailments that are categorised as ‘geestesiektes’ or sicknesses of the spirit. Of course in our modern materialisticly inclined world, the medical profession and thus people in general tend to scoff at the wisdom handed down to us through the ages. Not that fortune telling is wisdom. In fact it’s just part of the deception we’re so keen on. Awareness of the spiritual roots of ailments is wisdom. Scripture says that awareness of YHWH is the beginning of true wisdom. If you don’t know who or what YHWH is, a little investigation will serve you well. just type those letters onto the google bar and hit enter. A terrible din ensues as most of those listening leave the room in horror… welcome to the sad reality of truth… most people are petrified of it. Perhaps we should examine how it came to be that YHWH, or God as He was named by English translators keen to water down the angst associated with anything Hebrew, should have become such an anathema to a large and growing percentage of His creation. Is it a coincidence that as he has become more ‘independent’ of God, the smartest of all the animals has become even more stupid when it comes to living harmoniously with nature? Is there not perhaps a connection? Well as I see it, the answer lies in what I think of as ‘The Mafia Mindset’. Who said ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’ again? He wasn’t talking about God was he? This mafia oriented society of ours is ruled by fear. Fear of the outcome of not conforming. In order to grasp the way this all fits together one has to examine the nature of spirit. Spirit is the creative realm. It is from spirit that this world, universe, etc was and is still manifested. If you have a problem with believing that there is such a thing, its because your ability to perceive the higher dimensions of truth has been short-circuited by your lack of interest in anything that exists above hip-level. I empathise. I was in that place once myself. The good news is that spirit doesn’t require our cooperation or interest to exist. It pre-existed us. It is the source realm .. ours is the manifested or default output realm. We can pollute it to our hearts content but the realm of spirit where our Creator resides will always be in control of our realm. When the time is right He fixes things the way He intended them to be.
This is almost understandable when one considers the attempts by so-called church leaders to suppress the obvious advantages of scientific breakthoughs over the centuries. On the other hand the ‘masses’ don’t tend to understand that the church mostly doesn’t represent the spiritually enlightened. They may be spiritually informed but not neccessarily enlightened in the true sense of the word. Think of it this way. If you were an agent attempting to discredit God how would one go about it. The most effective way would be to infiltrate the ranks of the opposition, pose as one of them and then start to discredit your enemy. Obviously secrecy would be of paramount importance so the work would have to be done very subtly at first until such time as the untruth gained momentum and one [having of course access to some serious financial backing] could thus complete the subversion of belief. What would you call people whose belief has been negatively affected by such means? Spiritually darkened perhaps? Even words themselves take on new meanings under such a scenario. Wicked becomes cool.
