Quake!

[julesjones]

I was woken up by a nasty nightmare about 1 o'clock last night. As far as I could reconstruct it afterwards, there'd been a loud noise in the flat below or above, which my dreaming mind had construed as someone in the bedroom, complete with hypnopompic hallucination of someone sitting on the bed and shaking it. I assumed this was because I'd forgotten to lock the front door before going to bed. Add in being literally paralysed with fear when I woke up, courtesy of sleep paralysis, and I couldn't convince my hindbrain that it hadn't really happened and there was nobody in the flat, not even after getting up and checking every room. I couldn't sleep properly for the rest of the night.

It appears that my hindbrain was right. The noise was not one of my neighbours tripping over the mat, and something really did shake the bed:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7266136.stm

I would note that I lived in California for several years and only once felt a quake. Move back to the UK, and get one six months later. If I'd known what it was seven hours ago, maybe I wouldn't have woken up every hour on the hour for the rest of the night.

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

See, the consequence of having lived through the 2002 Manchester swarm is that my first thought is "Was that a tremor, or something else?" We did have a mini-swarm (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2358111.ece) after you arrived, but they were pretty small - the article quotes 2.4. I remember one night a few months ago thinking "Was that..." so it may have been then.

[julesjones]

If I'd been awake, or woken up normally, I think I'd have known what it was immediately. The problem was that I *didn't* wake up normally, but with one of my night terror/sleep paralysis episodes, which tend to involve convincing hallucinations of the bed moving. This time sufficiently convincing that when I remembered that I hadn't locked the flat door, I wasn't entirely convinced that there *wasn't* someone in the flat. And by the time I'd gone through the standard routine for calm down, wake up completely, listen carefully to make sure that I can't hear anything now I'm awake, I was so focused on the idea that if it was real it was someone moving around either my flat or elsewhere in the building that it never occurred to me that there was another explanation...

[cat63.livejournal.com]

If I'd known what it was seven hours ago, maybe I wouldn't have woken up every hour on the hour for the rest of the night.

I did that too. Tired now...

[julesjones]

Don't think I'm going to be doing much that requires actual thinking today...

[cat63.livejournal.com]

I try to avoid that anyway. Makes my brain hurt :-)

[lisabea.livejournal.com]

Would it be too much to hope that the shaking fixed the lfn?

[julesjones]

Alas...

In fact, one of my first reactions when I woke up this morning and noticed that it was audible over the traffic noise was "Bloody LFN giving me nightmares." :-) Then I read my LJ flist and ran into the first post about the quake that actually said "quake" rather than some cryptic reference, read the BBC news report and saw what time it hit and how far it was felt, and thought, "Oh, it *was* real..."

[growlycub.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Germany where earthquakes are a rarity - at least the ones you can feel.

One night, I was reading Whitley Strieber (one of his little grey aliens with big black eyes books). I finished around 2am, and did occasionally send worried glances through my window at the skies, because I'm an impressionable teenager and this book is just creepy, since it's told like a true story.

I finally went to sleep and awoke a few hours later to the tinkling of a metal mobile that hung over my bed. Now, you have to understand, the doors and windows were closed and there was no way a draft could have moved that mobile.

I was SURE the little grey people were coming for me... and I spent the rest of the night terrified. I felt very silly and relieved the next morning when I heard that there had been a 3.5 magnitude earthquake.

Nevertheless, I haven't read horror since that night. That was just a little too much for me. :)

[julesjones]

Yes, it's the sort of thing that can be very difficult to shake off in the middle of the night if you were asleep and didn't consciously feel the actual tremor.

[growlycub.livejournal.com]

I need to mention that I'm not a teenager any longer, though possibly still impressionable. ;) I started out writing my little story in the present tense for effect and then decided that was slightly pretentious and to change it, but naturally after many re-reads did manage to miss that one instance.

[julesjones]

Always the way. I didn't really notice since I know you're not a teenager, but I suppose a lot of the people reading the thread won't know that. :-)

[fiona-glass.livejournal.com]

We felt in here in Brum although it was pretty tame compared to (even British) ones that I've been through before. Oddly, I woke about 2 minutes before it struck and lay awake wondering what had woken me... and then the rumbling started. Sixth sense? LOL

[julesjones]

I have no idea how tame it was, since I can't disentangle it from the hypnopompic weirdness. Though I was pretty sure even last night that I really had heard some sort of reasonably loud thump and/or creak from the ceiling before waking (and wondered what on earth was going on upstairs).

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

Reading about the quake last night I came across the curious fact that 11 people in the UK have died from quakes in the last 500 years. And one of them was a suicide.

Being raised in California where my first thought would be earthquake - and only then realize that a plane had hit the house - I can only barely imagine that happening. With your reaction though, I have a better appreciation now of why it could.

[julesjones]

Yes, I think that if I'd had the same experience in Mountain View, even with the complication of the night terror and sleep paralysis I'd have worked it out soon enough and gone to check the USGS website to see whether it was quake or heavy lorry. But there's no nearby through road and a significant quake didn't even occur to me as a possibility here, in spite of the Manchester earthquake swarm that kalypso_v refers to above.

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

And my first reaction to a loud rumble and vibration would be - Damn but that helicopter's low! *g* There was a low loud helicopter last night actually about quarter to midnight. Probably a Merlin or a Sea King coming into the Westlands airfield which is right in the middle of the town, in the middle of the valley in surrounding hills that is Yeovil. It's a rumble that builds, much like a large lorry, and lasts for a several seconds. Not enough to shake the house though, that would send me running to teh internets!! *g*

But the sleep paralysis thing, sensation of someone on the bed, yes, first time that happened to me - very scary. Second time was more, oh bloody hell, not again! :)

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

And no, I felt nothing, though I notice some reports from Bridgwater and Taunton way so some people are obviously more alert ... or maybe it's just the peat shaking as it will do with a big enough vibration. :)

[julesjones]

Night terrors and sleep paralysis are a fairly routine thing for me, though fortunately a lot less often now than when I was a teenager. I think a lot of my problem with sleeping for the rest of the night was because of the conflict between my conscious mind, which over ten minutes or so went, "aieeee, fuckfuckfuck, oh, right, sleep paralysis, okay, we'll just make sure that there really isn't anyone here, there isn't, no, really there isn't, I've looked in every room and locked the front door, will you shut up now and close down the fight-or-flight please" and whichever bit of my mind knew that the shaking wasn't just hallucination this time.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I've had nightmares but not for ages and ages and they're not night terrors. It sounds miserable.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

This one was very much like being near a very, very heavy couple making vigorous love, so my first thought was actually sex, then the realization that ten tonne invisible giants are probably not having sex on our staircase.

Pol had to clue me in to it being an earthquake.