Recurring Linear Algebra Night Terrors - (No. 76)

I'm paralyzed from neck down, eyes wired shut, but I see the linear transformations float around in my head.

I've noticed these past few nights that I'm losing a good hour of sleep due to just being awake randomly in the middle of the night. I'm snoozing and then, I jolt awake, or more commonly, I slowly fade into consciousness, dazed and with my temples pulsating. It feels similar to fever dreams, when you are drastically sick, and your sleep is hot, blurry, and uncomfortably dry. The thing is, I wake up and I see linear algebra. Why!? It's the only thing I think of. It's over for me. It's too much. Proposition 2.3.5, definition of span((u1, u2)). It's over for me. I swear I've been seeing span and vectors float around in my mind.

Do you know that visual in movies, when there are the calculations and equations floating around in the character's head? I'd never thought it was a real thing, until I saw the definition for linear combinations amble about my head. It fills my head. I keep thinking about span. There must exist some c1, c2 within R^2... and such that... vector v equals c1u1 + c2u2..., and then if that is true... then there's a basis of R^2, and then you go to Theorem 2.3.10, and the 5 equivalent claims.

I can't take it anymore. On Monday, it went and done paralyzed me. It was early morning, around 7 I'd say. I had already woken up a couple of times, and I was trying to catch a few more trace minutes before my 8 AM class. My body and mind were disjoint. I slept and then I woke up—but I was still sleeping, at least my body anyway. I feel like most people have experienced sleep paralysis at least once. This time, though, there was an old lady making me mop her mansion. My mind is still awake, right, but I'm stuck. I try to think myself awake, but all I could think about was linear algebra bases.

Later that day, my roommate asks me why the hell I gurgle sometimes in my sleep. DUDE. I'm fighting for my life. It was interesting to realize that my motions and my attempts to wake up, while sleep paralyzed, are actually happening in the real world. I remember raising my hand over my face, but not being able to see the hand (because I was sleeping). I also remember scraping my teeth on my index finger, feeling the pinch of slight pain from the contact. I couldn't wake though. I eventually started trying to pop my lips, like blowing bubbles. I made it out.

I understand now what Professor French, my Calculus II professor, said how getting a PhD ended his nightmares. He said he would sometimes have a crippling nightmare about being late to an exam and sitting down and not knowing *anything* on the test, but then he realized "Wait. I have a PhD, I don't have to *do* this anymore." and then just wake up. Well I don't. I remember not being able to conceptualize those nightmares last semester, but that was because I wasn't as traumatized enough by schoolwork and exams yet. Oh well. Maybe that’s changing.