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Classic Archive Merged: Bedroom Animals

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Anonymous

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I live in Dublin, Ireland, and the following events happened roughly 1981 - 1985

When I was very young I had a nasty habit of getting out of bed in the middle of the night and crawling in between my parents. I was doing this constantly up until around the age of four, by which stage my Dad had obviously had enough. He told me that he'd let me keep the light on all night so long as I promised to stay in my own bedroom. I agreed, but lay awake most of the first night just staring at the curtains. I kept drifting in and out of sleep, my Mother coming in a couple of times to make sure that I was okay. During the times when I was awake, I kept staring at the design on the curtains, my eyes following it as I attempted to see how many times it repeated itself.

It was then that it happened.

Quite without warning a large creature suddenly appeared from behind the curtains. It was perhaps seven feet high and covered in sandy coloured fur, a lion's head and face atop two impossibly long legs. In fact, it seemed as if the legs came directly out of the head. I can't remember the thing having any kind of torso whatsoever. It stood there staring at me for a few seconds before suddenly striding towards the bed. I recoiled, but before I could react further it simply vanished. I'm fully certain that I wasn't asleep, the memory is far too distinct and clear for it to have been a dream. Strangely enough though, once it had vanished I felt no fear whatsoever. I didn't even get out of bed.

A couple of years later I was lying in bed once again, this time with the light off. Once again I was staring at the curtains, the streetlights outside illuminating the lace patterns in a dim outline of white. As I lay there I suddenly became aware of some movement by the wardrobe, my eyes focusing in on the door. And then, quite without warning, the wood suddenly seemed to split open. A large white head appeared, much like that of a hippo. It was glowing white, and when it opened it's mouth a strange squeaking sound emerged. It swung it's head back and forth for a few moments, and I could have sworn that I heard the sound of laughter from the other side of the room. Then, in a reverse action, the head disappeared back inside the wardrobe, the wood instantly fixing itself. Once again, I felt no fear.

I remember checking the wardrobe the next day but couldn't find any evidence of anything unusual. I told my parents but they insisted that I must have been dreaming. I know I wasn't though. I remember my dreams, and there's a big difference between the atmosphere of a dream and reality.

Over the next couple of years I experienced similar such visitations, the outline of an elephant appearing on the wall at one point and another occasion when some kind of ape was looking in through my bedroom door.

The final incident was somewhat different and far more frightening. It was when I was about 7, once again lying in bed alone. I was wide awake and scared, why I don't know. I just kept thinking that there was something in the room watching me. I turned over so that I was now facing the wall, and as I did so a deep growling sound came from behind me. This time I WAS scared, but remained hiding under the covers as I was far too terrified to get up and run for the door. This was the last time such an incident took place.

For years these memories have haunted me, and I can't help but wonder if anyone else has ever experienced similar bedroom visitations. Perhaps they were mere hallucinations... but why would I be hallucinating up until the age of 7 and then suddenly stop? And why was it always animals that I saw? If there was some problem with my brain then surely it would have continued on into adulthood?

One further thing. I don't know whether it's a coincidence or not, but the cessation of these incidents seemed to coincide with the removal of the old wardrobe from my room.
 
This is probably totally irrelevant but... What the hey?
All the animals you mention seem to be ones that live in the same general area.
Do you know what kind of wood your wardrobe was made of?
 
Hmm, I had similar things when I was the same age, similarly with the curtains in summer drifting around and animal heads appearing at the window and coming towards me. Odd.

However, I put it down to the following:

- kids like animals
- young children pay attention more to heads and legs (as is shown by looking at any young child's drawing of a person - big head, big hands and legs)
- children have better imaginations
- drifting in and out of sleep, it's hard to tell if you're dreaming or awake.

I can firmly say that none of these apparitions were anything outside of my head, because one of them was Flash Gordon ("ebbls" anyone? hopefully not) and another was a very scary goat.
 
It's not unknown for things to 'attach' themselves to pieces of furniture. As the focus of the apparitions wasn't percieved by you to be the wardrobe, but was rather more generally the bedroom itself, it doesn't support the theory of a child's overactive imagination being cured by the removal of the trigger Wardrobe.

I agree with Taras about the child's imagination focusing more on the head and legs in drawings but I don't think children would imagine them the way they draw them - my son has difficulty coordinating his fingers and pencils in order to draw a representation of something that he has a mental image of despite his eye for detail. (he can tell the difference between spiders and beetles but cannot draw the differences) So rather than this being your imagination I believe that it may be another child's version of such a creature represented for you to see. Perhaps a child died hiding inside the wardrobe and just wanted to play with you? The giggling as the hippo appeared 'in another room' made me wonder... It's very tragic as it sounds as if something playful was attempting to make contact whatever it was.
 
self-hynosis?

my first thought was that perhaps watching the movement of the curtains, with light playing off them, etc. might have induced a sort of self-hypnosis...

i had something similar happen when i was a child. ive been an insomniac since about age 8, and would leave lights on in my closet to not have to lay awake in the dark for hours. the shadows would play off my hand-painted ceiling would cause tricks of the eyes/mind, and id see faces, etc. moving on my ceiling.

at the time, i was convinced there were people living in my ceiling, (i was 8!) but since then have deduced that (probably) the lack of sleep combined with the intent 'watching' of a ceiling could have had a hynotic effect ... and anything i was imagining would therefore seem completely 'real' and quite unlike a dream, even a lucid one.

anyhow. its only a thought, but something to consider.
 
Hi, Sean here

Do you know what kind of wood your wardrobe was made of?

I have no idea. The wardobe was already in the house when we moved there back in 1980 and it was old then. The way it was built into the wall, I reckon it had been there since the house was built in the late 40s. I hadn't even considered the possibility of the wood having something to do with it. Interesting idea...

Perhaps a child died hiding inside the wardrobe and just wanted to play with you?

Another interesting idea. I'm not aware of any such incident in the house during the past, and it's not the kind of thing that the estate agent would like to mention :)

Hmm, I had similar things when I was the same age, similarly with the curtains in summer drifting around and animal heads appearing at the window and coming towards me. Odd.

A few years back I developed an interesting theroy of my own as regards these visions. All the animals I saw were African in origin - as is humanity as a species. Could it be possible that visions of these creatures in childhood serve as a 'warning' to stay away from such animals in real life? Perhaps for the children of a million years ago, such visions were widespread? As humanity developed civilisation and crept to the top of the food chain, there was no longer a need for such warning visions and we 'grew out' of them.

Well,here's what I really have to say.Child's minds are a warped thing

Indeed - I don't think we'll ever figure out everything that goes on in the human mind :) I just wish it'd happen again someday so I could experience it through adult eyes.
Many thanks for the comments guys, a few interesting theories there.
 
Do you know what kind of wood your wardrobe was made of?
This quote seems very funny to me, as i have just re-read (the first time was at the age of about 7) the Narnia books... :D

Maybe it was made from a tree from another dimension, and is thus a portal to that dimension... Tried going inside it? ;)
 
Me too!!

How bizarre!

I can't believe what I've just read! I have heard before though of children having these experiences, but none of them as detailed as this, or as what happened to me.

Mine is a similar story, except instead of "normal" animals, I had an "octopus" that sat on the end of my bed as child in the early morning and talked to me.
In addition to him, there were some nasty little skinny gnome type entities that kept appearing on top of my wardrobe (diagonally opposite the end of my bed) who would taunt me and threaten me. This octopus sometimes served as a kind of guardian against these, reassuring me and warding them away.
I too would have considered this a dream, were it not for the fact that it happened morning after morning between the ages of about 2 and 4.
Jesus H Corbett, I don't believe that as a grown man, I'm sat telling people about this!
 
I had an "octopus" that sat on the end of my bed as child in the early morning and talked to me.

Did it look realistic or was it an anthrophomorphic octopus ( like a cartoon character ) ? All the experiences I described only happened once, so I can only wonder what it must have been like to see the same thing on a regular basis. Did he just go away one day and can you remember the last time you ever saw him?

Wasn't there a similar story about a talking penguin printed in the letters pages of FT once?
 
This is all fascinating stuff!

I had a very vivid imagination as a kid and adults used to marvel at me sometimes but i never saw anything at all. I was aware of the difference between reality and daydreams so this is just bizarre. If you're all mentally sound now, as i assume you are, what can possibly have affected your senses as a child, and i personally refuse to believe that it was imagination at work here, to such an extent that you were having psychotic dellusions and hallucinations? SOMETHING must have been happening!

Very very strange but keep going with the stories, I always prefer stories from people about their childhood as it's obviously less affected by convention and fear of censure.
 
Octopus

You know Sean - that's the funny thing.

It wasn't a "real" octopus but, as you speculate it was like a cartoon one. But a real cartoon one if you understand what I mean.
I can even remember feeling the weight on the bottom of the bed as though he had a real physical presence.

I can't remember him actually going - I guess as I got older the visitations got less and less and it gradually ended. I do recall being quite sad at some stage, maybe because he'd gone and the gnomes hadn't...and they were still giving me a hard time!

I suppose as children we had brains that are very susceptible to allsorts of forces, so in retrospect I view these events as some kind of hallucination.

The house I lived in had a ghost though - are you aware of any other paranormal activity in the house where your experiences occurred, Sean?
 
Re: *shrugs*

Undead234 said:
Well,here's what I really have to say.Child's minds are a warped thing.As a child,I myself use to see the most frightening manifestions of Kermit the Frog

Spooky- Had an experience when I was about 5 or 6 where I saw my toy Kermit move as I was lying in bed. Only a slight movement of the head but looked deliberate. Also heard a voice call my name the same night! Scared the hell out of me then! Real head under the covers stuff!

Lee
 
The house I lived in had a ghost though - are you aware of any other paranormal activity in the house where your experiences occurred, Sean?

There was an incident in the early 90s when my Mother saw 'something' at the top of the stairs, but aside from that I can't think of any ghostly activity ( my Mother later convinced herself that what she had seen was just a trick of the light - she never went into further details ).

Spooky- Had an experience when I was about 5 or 6 where I saw my toy Kermit move as I was lying in bed. Only a slight movement of the head but looked deliberate. Also heard a voice call my name the same night! Scared the hell out of me then! Real head under the covers stuff!

My heart would have just stopped! I never liked the Muppets as a child - always found them slightly sinister ( although I came to appreciate them in later life ). Muppets coming into the bedroom at 3am... the stuff of nightmares!
 
Here is the original Muppet Dream story -- its a classic!

Ok... now I'm officially terrified.
Thank God I don't have a tv in my bedroom.
 
Re: Me too!!

Originally posted by Filthy le Dog
How bizarre!

I can't believe what I've just read! ....
In addition to him, there were some nasty little skinny gnome type entities that kept appearing on top of my wardrobe (diagonally opposite the end of my bed) who would taunt me and threaten me. This octopus sometimes served as a kind of guardian against these, reassuring me and warding them away....

I"m glad to read you experienced this Filthy le Dog, it makes me feel more normal about what I saw.
Wow! I had a wardrobe experience of these same hideous goblin like critters and unbeknownst to me so did my youngest sister. We were terrified when our mother put the light out and though our wardrobe was shut, in the morning it would always be open. Also these evil goblin like things would be taunting us and sneering malevolently at us. I never told her I saw them too. And I only mentioned it about 10 years ago and she went as white as a sheet and finished the description off for me. She used to see them all the time even much later than me.
Cheers,
Jemma
 
Spoooooky...

I've got two sisters and a brother as well, but only my brother and my youngest sister have slept in this room. They are both quite a lot younger than me and my brother who still lives at home still sleeps in that bedroom. He's 19 now, so I think any mention on my part of goblins and an octopus on the bottom of the bed would lead to derision!! And my sister's 11 and she'd only get scared!
The room is different now though - the offending wardrobe is at the back of the garage holding tins of paint, etc. Although I seem to recall it was actually on top of the wardrobe that the goblins/gnomes appeared.
Did your visitations stop when you got to a certain age as well Jemma?
And Si - in my case the creaures appeared in the early morning when I'd woken up.
Interestingly enough, I remember a letter at the back of The Unexplained (huge Orbis published early 80s part-work) from a woman who, when a small girl, was haunted by these creatures -but they emerged from under her bed. I seem to recall she said she shared a room with her sister who saw them as well and they were even more malevolent, trying to drag them (the children) under the bed. Apparently the family dog was aware of the presence of these creatures too and used to bark at them.
 
Seems like these underworld critters, demonic little b...s like to scare kids. Yes ours were also on top of the wardrobe. I thought that was queer at the time way back then. I remember they would laugh (Silently) at me and nod to each other sneering. I have tried to draw them and almost "Got it right" It is very hard to capture something so creepy though on paper. Did I mention it was just their heads? No body, just nodding smirking heads. Same as my sister saw. I don't remember them having hair on their heads.
I saw another very queer thing in broad daylight when I was 3 1/2 but I might post that separately as it's a different thing. Same as the UFO's I've seen. Ooh now I sound like a kook.
I stopped seeing the goblins or demons, when I was about 10 when I was moved to a new small bedroom. I think that's why my sister kept seeing them for several more years till we shifted to the country. Then not long after she started seeing them again. I always believe young children when they say they see monsters and such because these things hide themselves from adults usually.
Cheers :D
Jemma
 
I can't remember what the creatures looked like to the extent that I could draw a picture of them. I can't remember what they said either, or whether, like yours, they were silent. But it was nearly 30 years ago.
Interesting that they followed you when you moved house though.
Also rather telling that you've had other paranormal experiences - kinda goes to show that these things usually happen to certain people again and again...

...except me!
I've never really had anything else odd happen to me since - maybe a couple of ghost sightings and a possible time-slip and a couple of other bits and pieces - but nothing majorly paranormal. I have, however, had a fascination with UFOs from being quite young.

Who knows - maybe these goblins mask abduction experiences?!?!?!
 
Well that experience was around 50 years ago for me. I'm turning 60 in a couple of weeks. Those things didn't follow me, they followed my sister in a move from the city to the country. She saw them every night. I only saw them infrequently which I was mighty glad of. As for masking abduction experiences you could be right as ever since I first saw an UFO I've had horrible nightmares and seen 4 different types now. My son also saw the last one which was only a year ago. I no longer have the nightmares. I used to dream "they" were coming to get me. I'd see the ships coming and I would be running trying to hide but they would always find me. Funny thing was after menopause, I never had those nightmares. I used to wonder about that. I wouldn't want to have hypnosis or anything because I don't really want to know.
I'm very interested in things of a Fortean nature. Specially things to do with time. So I'm very interested in your time slip/s. I find Time fascinating. I'm going to post something a bit different now that happened.
:eek!!!!: Jemma
 
When I was 3 or 4, I remember waking up in my bed one morning having to use the bathroom. It must have been after 7:00, because there was enough daylight shining through my window that I could see my whole room clearly. My Grandmother was lying beside me still sleeping.

As I got up to go, I saw something that looked like this doing a sort of hoola dance in front of my grandmother's face. Its hair and skin were luminescent white and it was about three to four feet tall.

My reaction was to say to myself "o.k., I'm just going to pretend I don't see that and do what I was going to do." When I came back to my room from the bathroom it was gone, or at least I no longer saw it. Since my grandmother was asleep at the time I figured I had somehow seen into her dream or something. After all, I was still half asleep myself, and so maybe I was still connected to the dreamworld. I don't recall if I ever asked her about it but I'm sure she would have attributed it to my imagination.
 
I'd dismiss this as Twilight-Zone fantasy but in Vallee's Passport to Magonia there seem to be a lot of kidnapping demon/fairies that speak in this gutteral language that doesn't have the sound of a language. It's mentioned in a lot of Timothy Good's contactee stories also so its very interesting that it pops up here. If Vallee is right then these things change their form to suit the changing eras so why not move onto television? I'd like to believe this is a true story, and if so, then very interesting.:eek:

Apparrently you are no longer required once past reproductive usefulness by the 'ufo phenomenon'. All contactees stop having intrusive visits after menopause with a few having 'social' visits, as if to keep an eye on some of them for curiosity's sake, presumably. Personally I don't think its worth delving into abduction memories unless you're prepared to convince yourself that its a positive experience being probed and impregnated and tagged, etc.

Further reading only scares you more. You're more likely to be an abductee if you've experienced things mentioned on this thread, plus ghosts, orbs, etc.

IF...IF you believe it all in the first place.
 
Chant said:
I'd like to believe this is a true story,

I'm not lying if that's what you mean.

...and if so, then very interesting.:eek:


Glad you like it, if it even is my story your referring to.
:confused:
 
Perhaps people are reading a little much into this.

In childhood the distinction between what's going on the head and what is objectively real is quite often irrelevant to a child. Hence, children often have imaginary friends, a being that is pure imagination but is placed in the real world, as the line between these is not clear cut.

As the child grows older and develops, the line between subjective and objective reality are more firmly drawn, in that things conceived of and imagined in one's head are no longer projected on the world around you.

Of course, there is no distinction for the child, as the distinction has not yet come to exist. While I can sit here and picture an 8 foot tall purple bigfoot sitting on my bed, a small child would actually see that 8 foot tall purple big foot on their bed. The distinction between objective and subjective has not appeared yet.

In much the same way your brain learns to filter things out, or interpret certain things in a certain way (reading, for instance), so too does the child's mind eventually learn the distinction.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, I could of course be wrong. But it seems a bit of a stretch to assume that such things are objectively occuring, rather then subjectively. It's been explored by many people, and it is not alien at all. My brother had two imaginary friends, a talking wash cloth and scooby doo, but my parents never for once assumed they were anything other then imaginary: it wasn't a playful ghost, or a dimensional slip, just a child's developing mind going through its hurdles.

Children do not see things the same way as us, the human brain needs to learn and develop, perception and thought are not innate, but are picked up in later ages. While, of course, it could be argued that the difference in brain function allow children to see what adults cannot, I think this would be a bit of a stretch. Distinguishing between subjective and objective is no more innate to children then reading, and both are learned things rather then innate.
 
You have to experience it yourself.

O dear Ath,
I started to reply to this and all of a sudden it all disappeared so here goes again. My sister and I shared this experience but unknowingly. It wasn't until our early 40's that we discovered we'd each seen the same things and felt the same fear. I happened to mention it to her and she reacted with shock and finished the descriptions for me. Obviously you have never seen or felt a demon around you. They are real. Not always visible. My most recent experience was only 6 years ago. I had done a "forbidden" thing for a Christian and read my astrological stars for the day in the paper. I hadn't done that for years and thought nothing of it because it was from "yesterday's" paper. So I wasn't looking to see the future only seeing if it came true. It hadn't and I just thought "humph, lot of rubbish, that."
That night I went to bed as normal and read a while then reached over to switch off the lamp. As I started to roll over, a horrible prickly 'blanket' fell on me from above. It pinned me to the bed and I was immediately paralysed. I couldn't even scream or anything. It was full length on my body and the prickles stuck into me all along my body. I tried to whisper and managed to get my lips apart enough to say "Jesus!" Instantly, the thing lifted off and I sat up and switched on the lamp. I was breathless and said "Lord, what was that? And why did it happen?" His reply was instant. He said "You read your stars this morning, and as you were knowingly in the devil's playground you opened up a gateway for them." It is forbidden to play with the occult. (For Christians) Non-Christians are no threat to the devil so he doesn't often attack them in this way. I've had many other experiences and you wouldn't want to willingly go through them unless you knew you were learning something important for your life.
I know 2 younger Christian kids who unknowingly shared an experience of a bedroom Lion who scared them. A fullgrown lion but wearing a crown. Their father was a Pastor and he soon exorcised this demonic feline.
 
Ath said:
Perhaps people are reading a little much into this.

Many who have experienced strange phenomena when they were very young have expressed agreement that bizarre experiences like mine (whether or not they were 'real') forever colored their outlook on life.

I'll conveniently use myself as an example. Five years ago I would have agreed with you completely, on an intellectual level, on what you say below - that it is the result of our imaginations - but still on very a core, primal...almost physical (perhaps intuitive is the word) level would have completely disagreed (although I would not have said so). My outlook had already been shaped and I couldn't choose to discard that outlook anymore than I could "choose" to stop breathing.

Our "reading too much into this" is the result of an inquenchable fascination with mysterious.

In childhood the distinction between what's going on the head and what is objectively real is quite often irrelevant to a child. Hence, children often have imaginary friends, a being that is pure imagination but is placed in the real world, as the line between these is not clear cut.


I should mention that when I 'saw' the dancing thing mentioned above, my immediate response was to convince myself it was my imagination. I wanted that to be the case. It wasn't until after (probably later that day) that I reluctantly began to consider that it might not have been "just in my head." I wasn't older than six at this time (Sorry I don't remember my exact age).
 
Bleh other one was a late night post.

Of course, I'm not making universal blanket statements, as you, not I, were the witnesses.

Yet what has so far been described is not out of keeping with the phenomenon of imaginary friends and the like.

First, it WOULD appear real. Perhaps I erred in my description, but imaginary friends are not the product of conscious brain functioning. Rather, they're a product of the imagination and developing brain mechanics. Rather like reading. At some point, this post would have been just a jumble of letters. Yet after you learn to read, it suddenly has (some) meaning. Objectively there would be no difference in this post when you looked at it before or after you had learned to read. But what you'd see would be quite different.

Much like a hallucination, the "imaginary" friend phenomenon would APPEAR real to you, and all your senses. What I was saying about a child not being able to tell the difference between subjective/objective, was not that it's at all a conscious function. But it lies within the function of the brain itself. To all your senses it would be real, tactile, aural etc.

And two children "seeing" an imaginary friend is not unheard of at all. It is quite common, in fact. And they both will actually "see it". The answer lies in the power of suggestion, and a few other factors. I don't remember the exact explanation, but I have heard of the like being studied, etc., and explained.

Note: I'm not saying definately that X is the reason for Y, but that the parameters of X easily meet the parameters for Y, and whether that is a viable explanation is up to you. But nothing I've seen described, in MY mind, is unexplainable. Mysterious? Perhaps, in the same way the developing mind is.

Whether the explanation contemporary child psychology gives for such phenomenon holds water for you, is of course, up to you.
 
Ath said:
Of course, I'm not making universal blanket statements, as you, not I, were the witnesses.
Nor did I mean to suggest that you were. I just thought you might find it an interesting response on my part.

Note: I'm not saying definately that X is the reason for Y, but that the parameters of X easily meet the parameters for Y,
I realized that.

...and whether that is a viable explanation is up to you.
Agreed.
 
Imaginary friends?

The word "Friends" would denote something that was desired or invited wouldn't it? These were neither, but rather dreaded and totally uninvited. I didn't mention that our middle sister was also sleeping in the same room and she saw and heard none of what we saw. Yet, she is the most sensitive of us. Once I was shifted to a new bedroom to make more room for them, I no longer saw the demons. But my younger sister did, even when we moved from that house. She continued to see them till she was an adult. Two of her children have also seen them. I found out later that she was the target, not I. I was just a witness.
I don't believe they were imaginary at all. In my experience, imagination is within your own mind. I know the difference between imagination and a vision. Imagination can be controlled. A vision is given by an outer source for whatever purpose. Our world is only 3 dimensional because we are limited. There are other dimensions outside of time and space.
:eek!!!!:
 
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