Narcolepsy Lyrics
And there's a demon in my brain that starts to
overwhelm, -whelm, -whelm, -whelm, -whelm.
And there it goes, my last chance for peace,
You let me down, but I get no release,
And I say, I,
I try to keep awake.
I try to swim beneath.
I try to keep awake, but I,
I can feel this narcolepsy slide into another nightmare.
And there's a demon in my head who starts to play,
A nightmare tape loop of what went wrong yesterday,
And I hold my breath 'till it's more than I can take,
And I close my eyes. I dream that I'm awake.
I try to keep awake,
I try to keep awake,
I try to keep awake, but I,
I can feel this narcolepsy slide into another nightmare.
I read dead Russian authors volumes at a time,
I write everything down except what's on my mind,
Cause my greatest fear is that sucking sound,
And then I know that I'll never get back out,
And there's a bone in my hand that connects to a drink,
In a crowded room where the glasses clink,
And I'll buy you a beer and we'll drink it deep,
Because that keeps me from falling asleep,
I said, how'd you like to be alone and drowning?
How'd you like to be alone and drowning?
How'd you like to be alone and drowning?
How'd you like to be alone and drowning?
Still I find this narcolepsy slide, slide,
Into another nightmare!
(Keep awake. Keep awake. Keep awake.)
And I can feel this narcolepsy slide...
What Pasketanki said. In fact, that was so eerily similiar to evrything I've experienced I found myself wondering in a fight club kind of way whether I'd actually written it! 4:01 am as well.
I have narcolepsy and as strange as it may seem to people who don't have it - this song is not a metaphor, it actually describes almost exactly the sleep paralysis, hypnogogic hallucinations components of narcolepsy. They get these throughout the day when they start to nod off. But can also see how easy the lyrics would be to confuse with drug use.
It focuses actually a lot on the crazy, vivid and "real" dreams you get during the 15-20 minute daytime naps, and the uselessness of trying to fight them. Also the term "dream" is misleading because they feel more like waking hallucinations, whilst being paralysed.
I too read Dostoevsky, Lermantov etc. but what else is there to do at 4 in the morning when the rest of the world is in a deep sleep.
I have narcolepsy. It's about narcolepsy. It's about automatic behavior, sleep attacks , fatigue and hallucinations, the mixed up thoughts of over-tiredness and how those things rip your life apart. It's about how all you want is relief and knowing you just won't get it.
'A demon in my head but there's no one at the helm' is about automatic behavior. Many narcoleptic people will do things - lucid things like have conversations or put things away or in my case program the computer - in their sleep, and it causes a lot of trouble in one's social life.
Funny thing I've learned is people don't realize how much a narcoleptic or insomniac might actually be suffering, or even more frightening how impossible it is for people to tell if I'm awake or not.
Yes... I have it too... I could not have said it better.
Yes... I have it too... I could not have said it better.
this is a real third eye blind experience that kevin went through, so they made a song about it, here is what kevin had to say about it:
"Narcolepsy' comes from some weird, bizarre sleep-crazed things that were happening to me a couple of years ago. It was actually kind of funny. I was waking up but not really waking up, and I was stuck in this paralyzed state, and I was sort of drowning, I felt like I was dying really. So this happened twice in a month's period. So I'm sitting there and I'm freaking out. I'm calling sleep disorder clinics. I didn't know whether I had a tumor on my brain, and I'm watching Dr. Dean Edell and some guy actually called up with the same thing. He was having post-sleep paralysis or something. It has to do with your mind, sometimes it wakes up before your body...He said, this could be a symptom of narcolepsy. You should get it checked out. I don't have narcolepsy, but I was just trying to describe this to Steve and playing this guitar lick that came to me after this nightmare, and this song just kind of came out of that experience." - Kevin Cadogan
Thank you for posting that quote!! Glad he doesn't actually have narcolepsy. That sleep paralysis experience is really really frightening tho.
Thank you for posting that quote!! Glad he doesn't actually have narcolepsy. That sleep paralysis experience is really really frightening tho.
I have narcolepsy, so I was surprised to hear people describe this song in terms of drug addictions or alcoholism. There is nothing symbolic about the imagery in this song, narcoleptic people really do have experiences like those described, though it's not really fair to call the song "narcolepsy" since it is actually describing only one symptom of the disease: sleep paralysis. While the paralysis is not an unusual experience, most adults will go through it once or twice in a lifetime, narcoleptic people will experience this sleeping death on a daily basis, complete with hallucinations, in addition to all the other things that come with narcolepsy- excessive sleepiness at night, severe insomnia at night, cataplexy, depression, as well as lucid dreams, nightmares and (as I experienced just last night) night terrors.
It's a little weird though... I also read a lot of Russian novelists. Dostoevsy had epilepsy, a disease similar to narcolespy. As a result, many of his characters suffer from (and are effected by) that disease.
See I have narcolepsy too... And like pasketanki said, us narcoleptics experience a thing called Hypnogogic Hallucinations... your Hypnogogic state is right before you fall asleep, as you're still dozing off, and narcoleptics go into REM sleep before they are even asleep, so we dream, but hallucinate our dreams as we try to stay awake, this happens to me alot when Im taking notes, I'll hallucinate that I'm perfectly awake and everything, and look like I'm awake and functioning, but once I black out for not even a half a second and wake up, there's nothing but lines and jibberish...
See I have narcolepsy too... And like pasketanki said, us narcoleptics experience a thing called Hypnogogic Hallucinations... your Hypnogogic state is right before you fall asleep, as you're still dozing off, and narcoleptics go into REM sleep before they are even asleep, so we dream, but hallucinate our dreams as we try to stay awake, this happens to me alot when Im taking notes, I'll hallucinate that I'm perfectly awake and everything, and look like I'm awake and functioning, but once I black out for not even a half a second and wake up, there's nothing but lines and jibberish all over my paper...
I can link to this song completely, considering the fact I actually have Narcolepsy.
Line1-�I�m on a train, but there�s no one at the helm�-The literal meaning of this line is the guy is on a train, but there�s no one steering or in control of it. In the song, the train represents life. He�s saying that he feels like he�s going crazy and he�s not in control of himself and he lacks direction. And theres a demon in my brain I try to swim beneath But I, I can feel this narcolepsy slide into another nightmare. (I've done a lot of research on REM sleep and Narcolepsy, Narcolepsy is a sleeping disorder where instead of getting restful sleep before you go into REM sleep, you just go immediately into REM sleep right when you fall asleep, and the whole reason you go into REM sleep and dream is becuase your brain is turning your experiences from that day into memories, and so for Narcoleptics, like me, you have an overactive imagination, and can feel everything in your dreams, and you sometimes dream about bad things that happened to you in the past, for instance, I almost drowned when I was 7 years old, and every now and then I'll have a dream where I am drowning in water, and I literally cant breath, and when I wake up I start breathing heavily cause my brain actually thought I was drowning. And like the guy above said, I have sleep paralysis like Kevin does, except I get it as I'm falling asleep, so I'll start dozing off and dreaming that I'm in my room and someone comes in trying to hurt me, and I cant move or scream or anything except blink my eyes... This is the scariest experience anyone could ever have cause of how realistic it is. Plus, I have a hard time some days keeping myself awake, and it pisses me off so much when I get tired, and doze off. I have had Narcolepsy for 4 years now, and I've learned to cope with it. Everything but a symptom I have called Cataplexy, which has an unknown cause but is linked to Narcolepsy, and what it is, is whenever I experience a strong emotion (laughing is the worst) my muscles will give out on me if I dont take my meds, and if im sitting down I am paralyzed for a minute or 2 until it dies down, I look like Im sleeping so people think I fell asleep, when in reality I'm perfectly concious and everything, I just cant move anything but a couple of my fingers and my tongue, but you can still see me smile cause I'm still laughing. So yes this song may mean something to all you guys, but I know for a fact this song definately represents Narcolepsy whole heartedly, coming from a Narcoleptic :) ) And theres a demon in my head who starts to play A nightmare tape loop of what went wrong yesterday.�I try to keep awake� x3-You know when you�re trying to remember something so you say it to yourself over and over again? That�s like what he�s saying here. �I read dead Russian authors volumes at a time�-He reads long books to try to keep awake. �I write everything down except what�s on my mind�-He knows that if he writes what�s on his mind, he will write about the nightmares. �Cause my greatest fear is that sucking sound And then I know that I�ll never get back out�-The sucking sound is like getting sucked into a whirlpool where he is trapped inside his nightmares. �And there�s a bone in my hand that connects to a drink In a crowded room where the glasses clink� His hand always seems to have a drink in it because drinking helps him to not fall asleep. And a crowded room always would keep me from falling asleep too.
I've had Narcolepsy for the past 8yrs. This song is about Sleep Paralysis. It's one of many symptoms of Narcolepsy that cause you to lose control of your body. When you get sleep paralysis your mind is between conciousness and sleep, but your body is completely paralyzed as it is when you are in deep sleep so that you don't act out your dreams. It's the feeling of being alone and drowning: mortal fear, complete lack of control, and the inability to escape. Sliding into a nightmare is what the anxiety of falling asleep during daily life is like, especially in the many public situations in which uncontrollable sleep is inappropriate. Walking around and getting cataplexy is another way that Narcolepsy causes you to lose control of your body, you lose muscle control in response to emotional stimulations, like a train with no one at the helm when a feeling starts to overwhelm.
um.. just like the title--narcolepsy.
whew this song must have been totally overlooked. it is not the best but it too is deep. i honestly have no idea if i have a clue what it is supposed to mean. but to me. this song is about a drug addiction. weed and drinking. using the references. of bone in my hand that connects to a drink. i hold my breath till its more than i can take. so its about his struggle with his addictions. then its also about his "nightmare" now this is a totally wacko way to view this but. in my opinion, he can't sleep so that is his everyday nightmare. the world is falling down around him daily so this is his narcolepsy. its so bad he wants it to just be a dream.. his real life when he's "awake" is when he is dreaming. it is when the world is in his terms and he can make sense of it all. so it's narcoplepsy in that he turns to everything to dream. but he can't. no matter what he does or smokes his problems are still there.. been there done that. and that's how it applies to me. so i think its a little deeper than previous thoughts.
the guitar parts in this song are awesome........3eb are my gods
this is an awesome song, i wouldnt say my favorite third eye blind song, but it still rocks. i have loved third eye blind since, forever. they are soo great!