When I was very small, a frequent position I would find myself in was prone on the carpet next to my bed. My comforter would be yanked far enough off the mattress to serve as padding, and my arm would serve as a pillow while I stared at carpet fibers thinking of the next thing to do. My toys would be strewn about, Batman here, Spider-Man there, Oscar the Grouch over there, all laying prone like me, dead to the world. My close friends and I gave my room an air of Civil War battlefield while we rested.
I was laying like this in my bedroom during the only sleep paralysis dream I have ever experienced. The room was well lit by some offstage fluorescent light, the curtains were drawn, and my all my toys joined me on the carpet, including some liminal dream additions. I realized that I could not move, and the panic of immobility set in pretty quickly. This was not a new sensation. Any child who dogpiled in one of those tubular playground slides with ten other kids knows the feeling of total, involuntary paralysis. I struggle, but I can barely manage a squirm. This was a feeling that I avoided at all costs when I was young. It guaranteed panic.
One of my toys begins to shift around. Some Rugrats character from a picture book, an uncanny blob with six purple tentacles for arms. Reptar was not present to save me, so I began to scream for help. But, because I was dreaming, the only sound produced was a muffled hum, miles away, only audible to me. The scream bounded around in the space between my eardrums, unable to exit my mouth.
The blob stands upright on its two potato feet, and red eyes search the room until settling on me. The thing begins taking slow steps, navigating Batman, Anakin Skywalker, and Elmo to inch closer to me, its prey.
My screams and struggles crescendo, if only to me, and when the blob is within six inches from my face, it pounces.
I wake up before I am killed, eaten, or tortured by the Rugrats entity. This dream remains crystal clear in my mind, over twenty years later.