Sleep Paralysis

I'm off on holiday to France tomorrow for a week. It's the first non-musical, non-friend-visiting holiday I've taken in I don't know how long.
Now, I'm not exactly a workaholic but then again I'm also not adverse to pulling an all-nighter if the occasional job requires it.
Unfortunately for me, it seems the first couple of weeks of this month have been the busiest time in recent memory and so the occasional all-nighter has turned into "practically no sleep for nearly 3 weeks".
A sudden barrage of artwork jobs (to be posted soon once the proofs are approved by the people approving them) took me by surprise. Then there was the sorting out for Lords playing at ATP to erm... sort out. Then, to our surprise, we managed to score a record and publishing deal with Felix and being managerless I had to take a crash course in "spotting hidden clauses". Luckily, we seem to have associated ourselves with two of the best in the business.
I then finally plucked up the courage to go to the dentist after 10 years and the diagnosis wasn't as bad as I expected. Turns out my cracked and crumbling teeth aren't because I'm rotting from the inside out but are instead down to grinding them in my sleep. Stressed? You bet.
I made a few quick runs to get some as-yet-unprinted poster designs printed and managed to fit in a Felix photoshoot for the album on the way in Milton Keynes or thereabouts. This was immediately followed by a back-and-forth batch of emergency Lords practises in Leeds.
Just as I sensed critical mass approaching, it was time for ATP which was essentially a 3 day bender in the middle of which we apparently played a gig.
Because I hadn't seen enough bands, I booked a ticket for The Jesus Lizard's London show on the Monday after ATP. I didn't think it through. I went to bed at something like 5am on Sunday, got up at 9 to drive back to Nottingham via first Kenilworth and then Burton to drop passengers off. As soon as I got back to Nottingham I met Hoppy from Stage Blood and then met up with Paul Crick who was kindly driving us down. I felt like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas in the scene where he's making dinner for everyone whilst simultaneously being tailed by the police helicopter. But without the cocaine. The only way to deal with it was to crack open a beer in the car.
It was a long day to put it mildly. The only person who looked more tired than I felt was Creston Spiers whose amplifier seemed to have been built to further compound his situation and instead of emitting the sound of absolute rock thunder instead emitted an apologetic cough that accurately summed up the inside of my head.
I got in at about 4am like a zombie and went to bed. I cannot describe how much I was looking forward to going to sleep and that's exactly what I did.
Shortly afterwards I was woken up by what I though was a car outside my window. I remember I could hear the stereo playing Derby radio station Ram FM really loudly. The car lights shone through my blinds onto my wall. I opened my eyes and felt a bit weird. The presence of the car made me really agitated. My gut instinct was that I had to sit up and see what was going on.
But I couldn't.
I could look around though. I could see what was happening but no matter how hard I tried to move (and trust me, I tried hard) I couldn't do it. It was like the moments in dream where you want to scream but can't. But I was awake.
As suddenly as it happened, I was able to move as per normal and when I sat up and put the light on there was no car. No lights. Just my room.
I drifted off again. What seemed like a few minutes later I heard the stairs creak from over my shoulder. I figured Hoppy, who was staying over, was going for a piss. Then I heard the door handle to my room go and someone come in. This completely freaked me out. I was exasperated and wanted to sleep and still a little unnerved by the car incident anyway and then I found I was locked still again. This time was worse as I was sure someone was in the room. I concentrated my efforts to move out of the paralysis but I couldn't do it until suddenly I broke free like before to find no-one was there and my room was normal.
I shit you not, this then happened about 5 times in the space of what seemed like an hour. I almost got used to it.
The following day I looked it up online and it's known as Sleep Paralysis. Essentially it's when the brain chemicals that shut your body down and your waking senses aren't in harmony and your mind wakes up before the rest of you.
It's mentioned in folklore from around the world with fascinating consistency and has even been used to explain away the generic out-of-body alien abduction experience. I can see that. I seem to remember having similar confusing experiences as a kid too.
It may even explain away my broken teeth.
Apparently, it happens a lot to people who are severely sleep deprived which figures.
Thankfully, it's not happened since then but I have still been up until godknowswhen each night trying to finish things off for deadlines. For example, last night I was up till 3am putting the finishing touches to a poster and then today we recorded 2 songs with Lords starting at 10am in Derby, not counting the time it takes to load all my stupid amps into a car and drive there. Which I had to do slowly as I got a speeding ticket last week too.
So, in essence: FUCK THIS.
If you want me for the next week then; tough shit: I'm on holiday.