My Hypn( ot)ic Life.

My Nephew, Yugesh , one day asked me if I knew what was Hypnic jerk. To tell the truth i didnt have the darndest idea what it meant. I checked it in the dictionary.

I guess all of us some or the other time feel it in our sleep. It ‘s like you fall with a thud.

I get it all the time.sometimes, what I would like to call as mother of all hypnic jerks. If there was an Olympics of hynpic jerks I would even defeat the Chinese. And that should mean a lot. Imagine defeating a Chinese in anything?
The Chinese have a bad habit of winning everything.

I fall from huge huge heights and fall with a thud but always on a haystack.Imagine i take care of myself even in my dreams!

I never knew that English had even had a word for that.

Come to think of it english has a word for every misery I suffer from.

In my dictionary there are two types of people. The lucky and the unlucky ones.

The lucky ones can sleep peacefully even if their bed was transported to the war zone in Iraq. And the unlucky ones like me. I cannot sleep peacefully even on a feather bed.

My brother is among the lucky ones. I remember the time, when we were kids, a cat from the alley entered our room and we thought it would be a great idea to catch it instead of letting it go. I ushered my cousins in. we closed all the windows and the door. Imagine the lights on. The doors and windows closed. And a bunch of wildly screaming kids trying to catch the hapless cat. The poor cat with nowhere to go was jumping from the window on my sleeping brother. Finally with no place to go she got into my sleeping brother's quilt! In all that din,my brother slept peacefully all through like a baby!

It’s a known fact that I get nightmares. and i scream. no one likes to share my room.
( It's like whether my screams are worse than my snores.)

For half my life I used to dream of being gagged by thieves and the sound used to die in my throat. I used to croak heelllllp. it was half a sound.

It used to happen at least twice a week.

Then one night, probably my 30th birthday, suddenly I found my voice and screamed with all my might. a long ferocious scream.

Now my family swears that they loved me more when I croaked.

I even screamed many times in the train while traveling. But mercifully my voice was drowned by the train’s noise.

I remember once in Miami I had some guests from India. These people when they arrive here suffer a change in their biological clock. So they get up at all odd times.
not wanting to disturb others, these gentle souls open their laptops and either chat with their loved ones or watch songs on Youtube.

Back then , my mom had recently expired and i was depressed and was having trouble sleeping. So I used to take sleeping pills.

One morning around 4 am I heard a very doleful voice singing something similar to “o saathi re tere bina bhi kya jeena.” a very popular song of the 70s. I pinched myself. I was awake. I felt like the child of sixth sense. “ I can hear voices.”

I was living among Spanish people with no indian face around. and this was a very old song. besides i hardly ever listened to hindi music. Something was wrong. I had to see a psychiatrist I thought. i felt terribly depressed. something wrong was happening.

Morning at the breakfast ,I told my guests , two nice and decent south Indian friends, that I had to visit a Hospital. Concerned they ask my why. I explained that I was on sleeping pills I was depressed and now I was hallucinating. i heard singing. i said gravely trying my best to imitate Haley Osmont.

One of them sheepishly said that he was humming it. I was aghast. 4 am! and He hardly knew hindi. how could he sing.
“ yes.” He agreed. “ that is why I was humming and not singing!.”

Another time there was one visitor who was claustrophobic. One night he was sleeping alone in one of the bed rooms. The other visitors came late from a party. They decided to have one more beer before sleeping. As they opened cans of Budweiser beer, it made the sound like a shot gun. This guy was so terrified that some cowboys had entered the house, he tried jumping , like Rajnikant, out of the large window with all his might.

The cracking of the window glass woke him up. But the macho man sipped a glass of cold water and slept into another adventure.

and i was left counting my savings! Good bye cruise to Bahamas.

I had to pay a hefty amount to my rental community.

It was one big nightmare. Nah, it was a Hypnic jerk.

When i think of it i get it even today. even when i am awake!