Among the creepy stories I have heard by word of mouth, this spooky account is quite unusual.
Creepy Stories: Horror in Silence
Horror lurks in silence, in pin-drop madness, when you are able to listen to your heartbeat, your the sound of your breathing, the ticking of the wall clock, and the distant howl of a dog in the dead of the night. When that silence breaks, the smallest sound can seem to echo inside your head. Even a faint noise in your room can make you watchful.
The noise could be a result of anything – a tiny vexed insect trying to find faint hints of light, a plastic bottle creaking, a lizard tucked away somewhere, a rodent that has found its way into your home. But your mind plays tricks on you, and you pass over those ordinary possibilities. You enter more frightening territory by thinking maybe there’s a lady in your room who has stepped on something. You wonder whether, if you get up to go to the refrigerator and turn around, someone will be standing there, thirsty too, but for your blood. You are afraid the moment you open your eyes, somebody will be looking down at your face, breathing at you heavily.
But there are some creepy stories that will forever baffle you, and leave you searching for an answer. Whatever the case might be, you could always find comfort in: “At least you are not dead!”
The Horror of Losing Control
There is stark horror in movement when you feel it is not controlled by you. Like the scene in The Conjuring 2 where Janet Hodgson levitates into the drawing room in a matter of seconds. When a horror film makes a character’s body seem beyond their control, the familiar becomes frightening. It is that loss of control, rather than any certainty about a supernatural cause, that connects the image to this account.
Creepy Stories: Uplifted in the Night
One of my friends described a similarly unsettling feeling while sleeping alone in his room. He was fast asleep when it felt to him that somebody lifted him and turned him over to the other side. If he had been facing east, he now seemed to be facing west. Just as it happened, his sleep was broken at once and he spoke up,
“Who’s there?”
But the ticking of the clock and his frightened breathing were the only things that seemed to be around for company. He switched on the lights to check for an intruder but found nothing. He was unable to sleep for the next few hours. Maybe it had been a dream. Perhaps he had turned over by himself, with the dream making the movement feel as though somebody else had caused it. That was a possibility I considered, not something I could confirm from his account.
The next few days were not easy for him. On another night, he felt as though somebody had sat on his chest. He described feeling awake, with his eyes open, while the pressure kept increasing. The weight of the thing was so huge, that he felt as though he were being crushed beneath it. His roommate slept in a bed next to him. So he tried calling him. With immense force, he shouted and shouted but nothing came out. He did not find his voice until the pressure seemed to leave him. Only then did he feel fully awake and able to look around. Same story. Nothing was there.
Looking Back at These Creepy Stories
These experiences make me think about the boundary between sleeping and waking. I have had frightening sleep-related experiences myself, so I do not automatically read the account as a ghost playing tricks. Still, my experience does not let me diagnose my friend, and the two incidents need not have had the same cause.
The NHS description of sleep paralysis explains that someone may feel awake but unable to move or speak, sense another presence, or feel pushed down while waking or falling asleep. Some features of the second account resemble that description. That makes it relevant context, not proof that it explains either night.
I have written about some of my own unsettling experiences around sleep in The Dream Book. In my fanciful head, they can feel like a portal into the netherworld rather than a ghost trying to deprive me of the living. That is how the experience feels in my imagination, not an explanation I can establish.
For another friend’s account of an unexplained presence around sleep, read A Hand in the Dark. The details differ, but the uncertainty after waking is familiar.