Goodnight, Luna

My name is Luna and while I've had my share of nightmares and sleep problems, none compare to this particular experience. The summer between sophomore and junior year of high school, I went to sleep away summer program for the first time. It was hosted at a college campus near my house, was to last for ten days, which was, up to then, the longest time I had ever been away from my family. On top of that, my period was due, and I was at the age where the logistics of getting my period away from home was something that really worried me.

Those were two things that contributed to my stress during that very first day, but there were other things. Some of the rules that were put in place by the program directors made me worry. If you opened them between 10 PM and 8 AM, an alarm would go off. In the event of a curfew breach, all the people in the hall were expected to line up outside their doors for a head count. We were given keys that we would have to pay $75 if we misplaced. I was at the age where having all these rules that I could potentially tread on gave me all sorts of worry.

All that said, the first day went fine. The activities were reasonably fun, and the people there were decent. My roommates were decent – I was in a triple – and one of them brought a whole suitcase full of snacks, which I thought was absurd. But anyhow, they let me have the top bunk, and when the counselor came at 9:59 PM to take roll, I was already tucked in, ready to go to sleep.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the rules. What if I needed a drink of water? What if there was some kind of an emergency? Surely, in a dorm full of teenagers, at least one of them was going to get their period, need to go to the bathroom. What then? Would they just have to open the door and set off the alarm?

These were the thoughts that occupied me, and I stared straight up at the ceiling at this splotch on the wall. It was bright enough outside where I could see a hazy outline of a dark stain on the ceiling right about my face. I don’t know if they still do Rorschach inkblot tests, but that’s how I felt staring at the stain. I figured that by staring at something that reminded me of a period stain – and then, it looked like the Big Island – I would stop worrying about my actual period, and that was sort of correct.

From the second I went under the covers, covered my head with a sweater, and closed my eyes, my brain was firing on all cylinders. I couldn’t possibly fall asleep, as preoccupied as I was. Then came the mess on the ceiling, and soon, I became fixated with that, how at one moment it was Hawaii, then the next it seemed more like a biscuit split open, then something else. It changed, little by little, and I felt all the more relaxed looking at it than I was before.

When the stain got boring, I only needed to turn my head to the left and look at snack girl fast asleep on her single bed. The light outside cast shadows from the shrubs outside, and I knew it was moonlight because as time passed, the shadows would shift. I spent a good deal of the night doing that, switching between ceiling splotch and shadows, all the while willing myself to attempt to fall asleep.

I really did try, and though I was starting to feel my eyes straining, nothing happened when I shut them. No matter what, I was uncomfortable. It was too hot, and then it was too cold. I suddenly wanted a drink of water. I wanted to go to the bathroom. I was hungry. I felt like vomiting. Nothing felt right. My head started to hurt.

I felt as if I were floating on the surface of the ocean, and every time I shut my eyes, I would only go down superficially, and that there was a darker column of water below me that I couldn’t sink into – simply put, I couldn’t fall asleep.

This wasn’t new. I’ve had sleepless nights before, and they had always preceded stressful or exciting mornings. From the age of three to six, I couldn’t fall asleep, or at least, I couldn’t remember sleeping. Up until I was ten, I regularly sleepwalked, and it became so much of a problem that my parents had to take me to a doctor to get checked out.

All this to say, I’m no stranger to sleep abnormalities, and I knew that after just this one sleepless night, I would have to find a good cup of coffee to keep me active the following day.

I shut my eyes and attempted to fall asleep for the last time when I felt someone slap my side. Alarmed, I opened my eyes and tried to cry out, but I couldn’t. Cold panic washed over me and when I tried to sit up, I barely got high enough to look at who it was.

Two figures, two girls, and I thought they must have been my roommates, ready to pull a cruel trick on me. No – to my left, snack girl was still asleep, and I would have noticed them climbing onto my bunk anyways. I let my eyes adjust in the darkness and saw that they were identical, lean girls, with straight black hair coming down to their shoulders. The one on the right was sitting on my thighs and she wore a green raincoat.

“You’re awake,” they said in my voice. I looked closer, and they looked back at me. They were me, both of them were me. “Hello, Luna.”

Believe me, even sleep-deprived and worried out of my mind, I still knew that something like that was impossible. At the time, they were as real to me as every other fixture of the room, all the furniture, my snack girl roommate, the blankets around me, the shadows on the walls, the stain right overhead. I knew that they were real, that they were flesh and blood, and even now, I can’t explain myself. 

I had only shut my eyes for a few seconds, and they appeared in that time. When they ‘woke’ me – and I say ‘woke’ loosely because I could swear that I hadn’t fallen asleep, I was awake that entire night – it was instantaneous. All of me was just as fatigued, exhausted as I was right before they arrived.

I realized suddenly that I couldn't move. It wasn't just that they were sitting on my legs, it was that I simply couldn't move anything below my neck. I was completely paralyzed and helpless. The two of them kept on watching me, smiling because I’m sure they knew what I was thinking.
“Luna,” said Left-Luna, “You need to get up early tomorrow. You need to be at the…”
She turned her head aside and began talking to Right-Luna and I couldn't hear what they were saying. They were laughing quietly between one another and every time I felt a new wave of terror rising up in me, they looked straight at me.

I tried calming myself down, and watching the stain on the ceiling again, watching its boundaries tremble and rearrange, was making me relax. Suddenly, I found myself propping up my upper body on my elbows, bringing me closer to the two other Lunas. It was much more comfortable watching them from that position, and when I looked at them again, they started to talk to me.

I can’t remember the details of the conversation, but I remember that it was mundane. They asked me things about my life and the people around me and I answered them easily. I remember, though, that the three of us were all talking in low voices, but still, it was probably loud enough to wake my roommates, but they told me they would stay asleep.

As calm as I had become, I never shook the feeling that the two other Lunas were off. They looked at me together, or they looked at each other and said things too quietly for me to hear. When I got uncomfortable – when I said I was thirsty, or that I had a headache – they sat down heavily on my legs. Left-Luna would grab my ankle or Right-Luna would grab my wrist, and I could feel this low frequency hum and my bed would tremble.

They could feel all my thoughts and emotions, and went from laughing with me to darkening the room and sending my skin crawling with cold ants.

“This is the first time you’ve seen us,” said Left-Luna, as she dug her nails into my ankle. The hum grew louder and I felt as if my brain were trembling with it. “Both of us. Usually it’s so hard to even wake you up, and even then, you can’t see us.”

“But we see you, Luna,” said the other one, “We see you. Goodnight, Luna. Sweet dreams.”

I found that I couldn’t speak anymore, and they sent me lying flat again, arms pressed to my sides. My mouth was shut but I could feel my jaw lock, my bottom teeth pressing against the backs of my top ones, pushing forward and forward as if I were trying to blast through an overbite. It hurt like nothing I’d ever felt before and the bed started quaking under me, and the hum became so deafening that I just wanted to wake up.

Only, the thing was, all of it stopped suddenly, and I was just where I always was – lying on my back in bed, staring at the ceiling. The stain was there. The shadows on the wall had moved, and I could tell from the light that I had been awake for hours and hours. I remained like that all the way until the sun peeked through the plants outside.

I won’t forget this, and I can’t explain it – I can only tell it as truthfully as I remember. When I got back home, I looked it up and read about sleep paralysis, which is about as good of an explanation as I can get. All I know is that from my fallible, malleable memory, I did not sleep a moment that night. Mentally, I was aware and present and lucid, and the two Lunas were just as real as I was. I spoke to them, I engaged them, and they manipulated my surroundings in a way that I should not experience beyond the realm of dreams. That’s all I know. I haven’t seen them since. Now, every strange thing that happens in my sleep will, at the very least, not be as bad as the night the other Lunas visited me.