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Seeing Something When You Wake Up In The Night

I've only ever had one episode of classic sleep paralysis - and I am certain it was "just a dream". Will have posted it before so won't go into detail but basically - a sort of figure I could only describe as like a goblin appeared. I couldn't move. It told me it was going to come back to me when I die, or words to that effect. I had read about sleep paralysis - Man Myth and Magic - in fact, think there's an illustration like what I saw, so no doubt it was my subconscious mind.

Although I remembered afterwards - house was a housing association new build put on top of a site where some garages had stood til the 1980s. Which had been knocked down when a family annilator killed himself there, after wiping out his entire family but one member. That one survivor had been a kid in my class at Infants school - we'd have been maybe in our early 20s when this happened - who was at work when his dad wiped out the family. I barely knew this lad, as later on I had got switched to a different year group so never know him well and the family was murdered when I was away at uni - saw it on the national news and knew who it was. I'd totally forgotten I was living on a house where those garages once stood. So maybe a bad vibe place.

Pretty sure it wasn't an actual supernatual experience though. Was at a time in my life when everything was in upheaval and not a happy time and I had young kids and was beyond knackered. Never happened before or since.

ETA: My aunty - who lived opposite this newbuild house I moved into, and had been on that estate since the 1940s, tried to persuade me not to take that particular house, because "It would be damp" - I just remembered! I ignored her at the time as I needed to get away, the house was new, and seemed OK.

I only lived in that house for about a year so maybe not long enough to have loads of weird experiences. But, despite knowing what once stood on the site and why it had been knocked down, didn't bother me to live there - although maybe was in my subconscious mind, hence the "waking dream". It was a tiny cul de sac - and nobody I knew who lived in the newbuilds was even originally from the village (apart from me), so they wouldn't have known what used to be there and why it had gone. I remembered it cos my uncle used to keep his mo-ped in one of the garages.
 
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I have awoken to see things about three of four times in my life, that I can remember. They have always been people and I was only slightly scared by them on one occasion. I have never read all that much into these experiences for the reasons that the O.P outlined in the first sentences of his post.

The most memorable of such events, which I also may have related before, is as follows:

I was in my late thirties, living in a modern flat in Leicester. Anyway, I woke up to notice that a man was sitting on a chair which happened to be next to my bed. He was glowing in the dark - in fact he sort of resembled a three dimensional black and white TV picture. He was dressed in a way that looked sort of futuristic (not the olde worlde garb you might associate with a classic `ghost`). Here's the odd thing: he looked very like myself! He was regarding me with a benevolent expression on his face and I was not at all disturbed.

Then in a matter of a second or two he began to disappear. He did so by degrees - a black band opened up in his stomach and rose both upwards and downwards so that he kind of phased out (if you see what I mean - it's difficult to describe). This looked technological, almost as though he had been a holographic projection of some kind.

There was no corresponding sleep paralysis and I never encountered the same figure again, or anything as striking. There was no history - that I knew of - regarding the property I was living in either.

As a teacher I have sometines told this to students as a `ghost story` - but not because I believe it to be one, but just because I have had precious few `Fortean` experiences and, not being bothered to make something up., needed a story to tell in order to encourage them to open up about their own experiences (sometime to good effect - see my post ion this in the `Ghost Stories from Everyday Peopkle` thread).
 
Zeke Newbold said:
As a teacher I have sometines told this to students as a `ghost story` - but not because I believe it to be one, but just because I have had precious few `Fortean` experiences and, not being bothered to make something up., needed a story to tell in order to encourage them to open up about their own experiences (sometime to good effect - see my post ion this in the `Ghost Stories from Everyday Peopkle` thread).
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When I've been in charge of kids I've sometimes warned them to behave or I'll tell them the most frightening story in the world. :omg:
This is no bluff: there is indeed such a tale.

Not sharing here. Not after last time. :(
 
I don't remember 'seeing anything' when I wake in the night, but I've had a fair few occasions where I've woken with a 'feeling'. Usually terror, sometimes it's sadness or a sense of anxiety. I have to make myself get up and go downstairs in order to wake up properly, to avoid dropping back to sleep and having the feeling continue.

I presume it's a hang over from a dream that I don't remember (even immediately on waking), because I've had it a few times when I HAVE remembered the dream - that was usually fear. I can only assume that we are in a very vulnerable mental state when sleeping.
 
We have an entertaining thread on night terrors somewhere. :)

Here's a post of mine that mentions them.
In this case there was a definite cause, although whether it was all in the bloke's head or not - who knows?
His Mum saw it though.

When Techy and his equally irreverent mates dabbled in the occult as young men they seemed to summon some kind of entity.

It was small, about 3' tall, grey, like a person with a bald head shaped from a transparent balloon filled with moving grey mist.
(I'm asking him now what it was like and he's describing it.)

Over a few days it faded away but came back three times, which visits coincided with minor poltergeist activity in the house. Techy would see it appearing to look at him.

It eventually followed one of Techy's friends home and upset the bloke's mother to the extent that she shouted 'You've brought SOMETHING back with you!' and threw a frozen chicken into the open fire!

The mate had night terrors and attacks of vomiting for a while until everything calmed down.
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I thought we had a major thread on Night Terrors but can only find three short ones.
Could have sworn I'd posted about my own experience. :thought:
Perhaps it was in a thread about hypnagogic hallucinations?

For what it's worth -
If I awake in the night with a feeling of dread and a shadowy visitor in sight, I try to move my limbs and if I can't, it's all in my head and I am free to drift off again. Maybe break wind first.
 
I think I may have written about the time years ago when I saw something odd on waking at night.
I would get up to go to the loo and above my head there would be a red glowing thing a bit like an octopus.
It lasted for a few days then I never saw it again.
Maybe I was overtired and not quite awake.
 
Fuseli's The Nightmare sums it all up. :)

When Techy and I got married, we had a little honeymoon in London especially to see that painting in an exhibition about the Gothic in art. :cool:
 
A few nights ago, I was convinced there was a spider scuttling across the next pillow to get me. I scrambled out of bed to get as far away as possible. Even before I got to the light switch near the door, I realised it was a dream (because the dream showed the spider with the light on but the room was actually still dark when I got out of bed) but I carried on going because it was a really scary spider and I had to switch the light on to make absolutely sure it wasn't there....
 
Zeke Newbold said:
I have awoken to see things about three of four times in my life, that I can remember. They have always been people and I was only slightly scared by them on one occasion. I have never read all that much into these experiences for the reasons that the O.P outlined in the first sentences of his post.

The most memorable of such events, which I also may have related before, is as follows:

I was in my late thirties, living in a modern flat in Leicester. Anyway, I woke up to notice that a man was sitting on a chair which happened to be next to my bed. He was glowing in the dark - in fact he sort of resembled a three dimensional black and white TV picture. He was dressed in a way that looked sort of futuristic (not the olde worlde garb you might associate with a classic `ghost`). Here's the odd thing: he looked very like myself! He was regarding me with a benevolent expression on his face and I was not at all disturbed.

Then in a matter of a second or two he began to disappear. He did so by degrees - a black band opened up in his stomach and rose both upwards and downwards so that he kind of phased out (if you see what I mean - it's difficult to describe). This looked technological, almost as though he had been a holographic projection of some kind.

There was no corresponding sleep paralysis and I never encountered the same figure again, or anything as striking. There was no history - that I knew of - regarding the property I was living in either.

As a teacher I have sometines told this to students as a `ghost story` - but not because I believe it to be one, but just because I have had precious few `Fortean` experiences and, not being bothered to make something up., needed a story to tell in order to encourage them to open up about their own experiences (sometime to good effect - see my post ion this in the `Ghost Stories from Everyday Peopkle` thread).
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That is a fascinating experience, was the 'ghost of yourself' manifestation older or the same age as you...?
 
escargot said:
When I've been in charge of kids I've sometimes warned them to behave or I'll tell them the most frightening story in the world. :omg:
This is no bluff: there is indeed such a tale.

Not sharing here. Not after last time. :(
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TBH that would have the opposite effect on any kids I ever taught...
 
staticgirl said:
A few nights ago, I was convinced there was a spider scuttling across the next pillow to get me. I scrambled out of bed to get as far away as possible. Even before I got to the light switch near the door, I realised it was a dream (because the dream showed the spider with the light on but the room was actually still dark when I got out of bed) but I carried on going because it was a really scary spider and I had to switch the light on to make absolutely sure it wasn't there....
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Camping, somewhere around 2000 in Cornwall - we had a few weird experiences on that holiday. Camping with 5 kids and a staffy, so it was a big tent and we were all rammed in there. After coping with camping and all them kids all day I will have gone to sleep pretty easily so am certain I was fully asleep when it happened. And I dreamed a toad was on my face. Not a frog or some other amphibian - specifically, a toad. It woke me up and I just picked the imaginary dream toad off my face, in absolute darkness so nothing to see and in any case, I thought (and maybe I was) I was dreaming... I fell "back" asleep assuming it was just a nightmare. Not even sure if I was awake when I thought I woke up. Or if the whole thing was just me dreaming.

Next day we found a big old toad in the tent. Genuinely just thought it was a nightmare, and I was fast asleep when it happened.

ETA: One of my kids was a sleepwalker so I slept across the door of the tent, when we camped, so if he wandered out in the night he'd have to walk over me. Should add, we'd not seen any toads on the camp site, and they were the last thing on my mind (although apparently on my head).
 
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Paul_Exeter said:
That is a fascinating experience, was the 'ghost of yourself' manifestation older or the same age as you...?
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Older than me. Maybe the sort of age I am now (although I'm fairly certain that I'm not haunting myself at the moment!). But I must stress that this - together with his attire - was a fleeting impression, possibly constructed after the event. It might be more accurate to say that the guy bore a sort of `family resemblance` to me. He was somehow leaner about the face - more handsome (Hard to believe - I know).

Thanks for the interest, but I'm not making any great claims for this experience. I suspect that it was some kind of hypnopompic hallucination, plain and simple. As siad, I have woken up to see unknown people a few times before and since - it's just that this one was more elaborate, in the way that dreams can be too.
 
Being an old man, when I wake up at night, I just want to get to the bathroom quickly so I never see anything.

But once in the past my wife claimed for an instant she she a hooded figure in the bedroom when she woke up.

This only happened once to my wife.
 
staticgirl said:
A few nights ago, I was convinced there was a spider scuttling across the next pillow to get me. I scrambled out of bed to get as far away as possible. Even before I got to the light switch near the door, I realised it was a dream (because the dream showed the spider with the light on but the room was actually still dark when I got out of bed) but I carried on going because it was a really scary spider and I had to switch the light on to make absolutely sure it wasn't there....
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Our old friend the liminal spider. ;)
 
When I had room and board while in college, I had a small bedroom that had a twin bed with a desk against the wall at the foot end of the bed. There was a desk chair there and a window with a bamboo roll shade, so some light, though I do think the shade was half open. I had a spider plant hanging in the window.

One night, I had just gotten into bed and was lying with my eyes closed, but not asleep. I opened my eyes and saw a dark haired kid apparently standing on the chair staring out of the window. My landlady had a young son, and I thought it was him and was confused as to why he'd be there.

Then, just as quickly as I noticed him, all I saw was the plant hanging and no figure. I could have sworn that it was a full figure of a kid and saw his face in profile. I have always believed that somehow my mind mistook the plant and combined it with the dim light to make me think there was someone there. It was fairly clear, though it never happened again and I thought it odd that I would see this as it was my room and plant, so nothing had recently been changed in the room.
 
staticgirl said:
A few nights ago, I was convinced there was a spider scuttling across the next pillow to get me. I scrambled out of bed to get as far away as possible. Even before I got to the light switch near the door, I realised it was a dream (because the dream showed the spider with the light on but the room was actually still dark when I got out of bed) but I carried on going because it was a really scary spider and I had to switch the light on to make absolutely sure it wasn't there....
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As I read your post, I was simultaneously feeling your terror empathetically, and, at a remove, feeling utterly aware of how hilariously funny it was. Thanks for both the heebie-jeebies and the laugh!
 
brownmane said:
...I could have sworn that it was a full figure of a kid and saw his face in profile. I have always believed that somehow my mind mistook the plant and combined it with the dim light to make me think there was someone there. It was fairly clear, though it never happened again and I thought it odd that I would see this as it was my room and plant, so nothing had recently been changed in the room.
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That's just reminded me of a horrible experience I had when I to was a student. I woke to see someone hanging by their neck between me and the window, swaying slowly on the end of their rope. After a couple of seconds of utter horror the vision shifted back into the combined shapes of a tall lamp and the hideous patterns on the fabric of the curtain, which was wafting very gently in the breeze of a partly open window.

Gave me quite a turn that did.
 
I've never had anything like this happen to me, but I'm curious if anyone that has experienced something had a pet at the time? And if so, was the pet there and did it react?
 
I've had this happen to me a couple of times first one was a man with long black hair wearing a denim jacket standing in the doorway of my bedroom I shot out of my bed fists flying he stepped back and disappeared. 2nd time the same man sat up beside me in bed which was heart attack inducing I remember saying what do you want he was answering but I couldn't hear a thing. Last one I turned over in bed and there was a little girl about 2 inches from my face I sat up she's chatting away but again I can't hear anything. So I'm thinking none of these are sleep paralysis as I have been able to move. I think I'm attracting the buggers
 
Wombat68 said:
I've had this happen to me a couple of times first one was a man with long black hair wearing a denim jacket standing in the doorway of my bedroom I shot out of my bed fists flying he stepped back and disappeared. 2nd time the same man sat up beside me in bed which was heart attack inducing I remember saying what do you want he was answering but I couldn't hear a thing. Last one I turned over in bed and there was a little girl about 2 inches from my face I sat up she's chatting away but again I can't hear anything. So I'm thinking none of these are sleep paralysis as I have been able to move. I think I'm attracting the buggers
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All in the same house? Any info about the property that may shed any light on the events?
 
On the occasions I've woken in the half-light to a shadowy (and initially sinister) hooded silhouette type figure...in my half-sleep/half-awake state I try to remain logical and relaxed in order to process it.

It invariably turns out to be something innocent like my dark jackets or hoodies on the corner hat/coat stand or open wardrobe forming the dark, hooded shape. I'm never quite aware if I detect movement. When I was younger this would be really unnerving, but with age I've learnt it has a logical, scientific basis so is less perturbing;

'Hypnopompic hallucinations occur while a person is waking up, and hypnagogic hallucinations occur while falling asleep. In 86% of cases, hypnopompic hallucinations are visual. They often involve seeing moving shapes and colors, or images of animals or people. Between 8% and 34% of these hallucinations involve sound'

It's almost like a waking form of pareidolia - although the shapes and patterns tend to initially have a sinister aspect to them.

As most of my experiences involve dark jackets/clothing with hoods - I wonder if this is a common explanation of the description of a hooded figure which is regularly sighted? (and are others experiencing moving shapes/forms/figures for a sustained period of time?)
 
I’ve only ever ‘seen’ a hooded figure in my first sleep paralysis episode which was many years ago. Then there were three. Three hooded figures in red robes were pulling me out of bed and I knew if they pulled me downstairs and out the door I would be ‘gone’. I was struggling like mad as I felt myself being pulled and deliberately banged my ankle against the wall which allowed me to wake up, heart thundering and all panicked.
The hooded monk seems to be so ubiquitous in ‘waking up’ scenarios and also ghostly sightings. It was written about in the Dyfed Enigma but must have been explored since then.
 
Wombat68 said:
I've had this happen to me a couple of times first one was a man with long black hair wearing a denim jacket standing in the doorway of my bedroom I shot out of my bed fists flying he stepped back and disappeared. 2nd time the same man sat up beside me in bed which was heart attack inducing I remember saying what do you want he was answering but I couldn't hear a thing. Last one I turned over in bed and there was a little girl about 2 inches from my face I sat up she's chatting away but again I can't hear anything. So I'm thinking none of these are sleep paralysis as I have been able to move. I think I'm attracting the buggers
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You don't need actual sleep paralysis to see things. Perfectly normal hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations will cover that.

Used to happen to me until I started wearing sturdy sleep masks. It's always pitch dark until I take the mask off.
No chance any more of mistaking my hoody for the Grim Reaper. ;)

Not that it would bother me as I knew what was going on.
 
Fanari_Lloyd said:
I’ve only ever ‘seen’ a hooded figure in my first sleep paralysis episode which was many years ago. Then there were three. Three hooded figures in red robes were pulling me out of bed and I knew if they pulled me downstairs and out the door I would be ‘gone’. I was struggling like mad as I felt myself being pulled and deliberately banged my ankle against the wall which allowed me to wake up, heart thundering and all panicked.
The hooded monk seems to be so ubiquitous in ‘waking up’ scenarios and also ghostly sightings. It was written about in the Dyfed Enigma but must have been explored since then.
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Red cloaks? :eek: Noooooo... That's far too close to my dream a little while ago...
 
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