Replies to '01/05 "Am I Cursed?"'

I have a sleep disorder, sleep apnea.  I have both obstructive and internal, and have had them both since I was 95 pounds at least, as a young teen.  My sister and husband (when I married) would both wake me up for holding my breath/forgetting to breath and also snoring.  I'm a very pretty girl, and no one would guess that I have such a "silly" or unflattering disorder.  Anyway, I went to get it diagnosed, and there was an episode of my sleep (about 6 months) where just before I dozed off, I would have these hideous flashes of awful, monsterous faces that would jolt me awake, and it was awful.  For a while I thought they must be the demons that had tried to bother me during the day, the "spiritual forces" you can not see when you are awake.  So at the sleep clinic, I mentioned this to the staff, and they said that this is a type of hallucination that one gets between wakefullness and sleep, when you are "half in and half out" of sleep.  It is called a HYPNOGOGIC HALLUCINATION.  The brain does the same thing when you doze off and then "jolt" awake again, and apparently they can come in many formats.  It seems like they said that the same part of the brain that forgets to remind me to breathe, causing me to hold my breath is responsible for these horrid visions, and that if they get to bad, they do have a medication for them.  I also once had horrifying hallucinations in the night when I was awakened by what later was discovered as a panic attack.  The room kept fading out on me, and horrible things appeared - wierd and scary - and also not that big of a problem according to the psychologist.  My brainchemistry "hick-uped", and some xanex put me right again.  Apparently the brain chemistry can do alot of wierd things, all in the line of normal.  I think people with this problem should go to a SLEEP STUDY CLINIC and see if they are having some sort of sleep disorder, maybe.....