The Most Terrifying Thing About Dreaming

When I was a child, I had crazy dreams. No, not the ambitious kind--the nightmare kind. One in particular stands out among the rest because it was a repeat nightmare. I recently remembered this dream by having a twitter conversation with Rebecca (from Adventures of Bug and Boo). What surprised me was that my memories of this dream were almost as terrifying as the dream itself.This dream, which I've dubbed "The Centaur Dream" was unlike any other nightmare I had as a child. It was so bizarre that even at a very young age, I knew it was just a dream. Basically, an evil centaur came and kidnapped me from my home. He took me to a house that looked exactly like my home, but the entire bottom floor was a big garage. He would put me in a guillotine and leave me there for what seemed like hours while he and the other strange animals talked about how they would torture me. I would beg them to let me go home, but they never would... Like I said. This was such an unreal dream. However, I couldn't wake myself. I was present enough in my wee little mind during the dream to know it was a dream, but I couldn't stop the "dream movie" from playing.I remember being terrorized by the centaur and thinking, "If I could just move my arm, I could wake up and all of this would be over!". I know now that I was experiencing sleep paralysis. That experience went on for at least a year, nightly, between the ages of 5 and 6.I am extremely happy to say that I haven't experienced another sleep paralysis since those dreams ceased. It still floors me that such a thing can occur inside a sleeping brain and effect the entire body's response. Suddenly, your mind cannot control your body. The experience is nothing short of crippling fear. Will I wake up? Is this permanent? How can I stop this dream? Sleep paralysis is absolutely the most terrifying thing about dreaming.Have you ever had an experience with sleep paralysis?... or maybe just a crazy dream with a centaur? I want to know. Drop me a line below!