The Left Side

You know you have that one side, the one that you prefer to sleep on every night. When you turn to it you get the feeling of exhaustion leaving your body, slightly, very slightly. You relax, you fall asleep easily. For some people, not unlike myself, it's the left side.
Now let me explain, I'm a hairline insomniac. I don't really... feel comfortable enough to sleep most nights. Now that may be due to the fact that, uh, I'm a skittish, very suspecting person, I guess. My bed is pushed to the corner of the room, and if I do sleep, it's facing the door from a position where I can see everything. I have to have a TV on or something, something that generates noise and light. Sound, it seems, pushes my personal and imaginary demons away, but if I wanted to sleep... if I wanted to sleep, I have to sleep on my right side, my window behind me and my curtains closed tightly together. My door jammed into the frame as hard as possible. So if my door is opened, I would hear it and wake from my admittedly uneasy slumber.
As I mentioned before, however, I like to sleep on my LEFT side. Not my right, my LEFT side. Sadly, if I want to sleep at all, I have to sleep on my right. My right side seems to make sleep even more torturous and uncomfortable for me than usual, but every time I adjust to my left... I feel something watching me. Or think I feel something at least, with my back turned to the room. I try but I just, I can't. I feel this creeping fear turn into panic; I flip around to my right and nothing. Just like always.
But, the reason I'm telling you, a completely random stranger, I just feel that you need this story, that you need to KNOW about the left side.
So here's my point. A couple nights ago, I tried to sleep on my left side. I hadn't got the creeping fear that normally comes with it for maybe ten-fifteen minutes. I was exhausted by that point, and being on my left was just so comfortable; my past all-nighters were already slipping away. I mean I was nearly asleep really. It was 1 AM, which is rather early for me. My TV was on softly, casting its warm glow as I had some long ass playlist repeating itself on YouTube; the door was closed tightly, the windows locked and curtains shut together. I felt as safe as I could possibly feel.
Then, there it was, the fear brewing in my mind: the rising of my neck hairs and the sudden quiet that pervaded the room, even if my TV was playing music. It was still too quiet, everything just seemed to hush. I wanted to turn around, but I didn't, I felt that I needed to do this, sleep on my left side one night, then my irrational paranoia would disintegrate. Eventually, it got quieter and my fear got the best of me. I flipped around to my right side, the relief and comfort of my left fading into the sounds of shifting blankets and an obscure song playing quietly. Nothing in my room, or leering behind me; I fell asleep in maybe twenty minutes, and then it was over.
Now you might be asking why I don't just sleep on the other end of the bed, but I can't. If I try to sleep on the other side of the bed I cannot see the entire room. Even if the bed is pushed to the corner, it does not reach the other end of the room; leaving a bit of space at the foot of my bed. If I try to sleep with my back to that space, the panic comes just as if I was sleeping with my back to the room. So if you were trying to point out my stupidity, just don't. I have a reason why I don't change my position, okay? Anyway, the next couple nights I didn't even attempt to try to sleep, and definitely didn't try to sleep on my left side.
The paranoia you know, it gripped me, like when you're a little kid and you think something's in the closet or under the bed. Or maybe when you get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom but you're too scared to open the door or, maybe even too scared to get out of bed. It was like that, a panic, a creeping, growing.... fear. It wasn't always like that; it was different sometimes. I wouldn't feel it at all even if I was trying to sleep on my left side, and if I slept: IF I slept; then I would wake up in the next hour or so and the feeling would be there, as constant as my refusal to sleep most nights and my ever-growing paranoia.
Last night I tried it again though. This time, I told myself, this time I would do it. I would stay asleep and when I woke up I would be stronger; I would be alive and safe when I woke up: I would finally be able to sleep on my left side. As you can tell, by my rather ruffled appearance... That, that didn't happen like I wanted it to. So I will tell you my last failed experimentation with sleeping on my left side.
Last night, or this morning—if you would rather—I tried to sleep around 1:30 AM. No, maybe 2, yes 2 AM. I couldn't... I couldn't... I couldn't go to sleep. My TV was still on that same damn playlist, restarting every three hours. I had nothing better to listen to really, and the softly flowing music was enjoyable, if yet a bit unsettling at times. However, I still couldn't sleep. I told myself that maybe if I turned my light on, or if I turned onto my left side. When I did, I was greeted with the sudden comfort of switching to my left, the fear wasn't even there at first. It didn't creep, it didn't do what it has normally done before. It didn't show itself in any way, shape, or form. It just let me fall asleep comfortable and warm; I didn't feel a strange breeze or hear my door bang open, and then I suddenly woke up like this.
Scratches, bruises, and I'm pretty sure a rib or two is cracked. I can't go to a doctor though you see, they'd lock me up for my insane imagination. They'd probably say that it was somehow self-inflicted and with where some of the cuts are I wonder if it is. I bet the bastard forced me to do it in my sleep, or at least forced me to make some of the injuries. It wouldn't be possible for most of the others. Whatever that thing is, though, or was, it did something to me. Not just to my body. To my mind, I feel different. Off. My head is all woozy and I have the unfading need for sleep, but I can't sleep, I won't, I refuse to fall asleep.
And now, in the end, the left side is dangerous; you turn your back on something you feel is there and then you wake up like me. My fears are not conquered. I... I'm the one that's conquered. But now you're probably thinking I'm insane. That's OK, I can deal with that, but don't say I didn't warn you about the left side, facing away from the thing that mauls you as you sleep. I don't know what it is, I don't even know what it looks like. But if you think that it's there, don't turn onto your left side.
Category:Dreams/Sleep
Category:Beings
Category:Mental Illness