Visitation Rights

Since this year has been stressful and mind-numbingly bizarre, I am surprised that things such as what I'm about to describe haven't happened more often.

Last week, as I sat on the couch watching tv, I suddenly heard the sound of water running. I immediately looked around for the cats to see if perhaps one of them decided to stray from their housebroken status. They were fast asleep next to each other locked in a feline embrace which makes you want to snuggle up next to them and drift off. But I digress. I went into the kitchen and saw that the faucet was running. It just turned on by itself. I closed it and crept out of the kitchen backwards on my tiptoes like Shaggy and Scooby-Doo trying to get back to the Mystery Machine inconspicuously.

The next night I seem to remember some kind of strange dream. I can't remember the details of the dream, but I did physically wind up on the floor. I woke up on the floor! Hasn't happened to me since I was a kid. And, at the time, I wasn't freaked out by it. It was like the end result of the dream I was having. I got up and flopped back into bed and tried to get back to sleep.

Last night I went to bed a little early and tried to get to sleep. Let me give you some background before I begin. All my life--especially at the end of summer--I've had strange terrifying dreams which I've always considered something supernatural. Articles that I've read about what they call "sleep paralysis" say that the dreamer is in a hypnogogic state (in between sleep and waking) in which they feel intense fear and experience images, sounds and sensations. All this is wrapped up in a physical paralysis where you can only move certain parts of your body: your tongue, your eyelids, a finger, a foot. It's nothing short of a maddening experience and I can't imagine what people of earlier centuries must've thought of all this.

So there I was, asleep in bed (alone of course). The cats, for some reason, were not in bed with me. At some point during my slumber I became aware of heavy footsteps in the hallway leading toward my bedroom. The "entity" (for lack of a better word) entered the bedroom and walked around my bed. I felt "him" put his hands on the bed making the mattress sag under his weight. He leaned in and said "I'm going to kill you". It was a vaguely familiar man's voice, but I couldn't place it. I felt this wave of fear wash over me and I couldn't move--couldn't fight back. He then put his whole body on the bed and put his lips near my ear and whispered "You know she loves you, don't you?" I could feel his breath on my ear and hair. He just stood there for a moment and then walked slowly out of the room back down the hallway. I still couldn't move, but the footsteps faded away and I knew he was gone.

All I wanted to do, in my disoriented state, was run to the backroom where my parents would be sleeping. The problem is that I don't live with my parents and haven't since 1991. But in my mind they were there sleeping in my backroom (in which there is currently no bed). It's like my mind melded my house and the house in which I grew up. I finally woke up and expected to see the cats on the bed. I figured maybe they jumped on the bed and my subconscious created this whole scenario. They weren't there.

I couldn't sleep in the bed after all that. I grabbed my pillow and went downstairs to the couch. The cats were again fast asleep on the floor. I felt this intense sensation of being watched. I said a quick prayer and put the tv on. My sleep, while uninterrupted by sleep paralysis or ghostly visitation, was not the best.

There's really no way to combat this sort of thing. I always thought it happened during stressful times, but then again it, without fail, happens in late summer/early fall--when the veil between the living and dead is at its thinnest.

I guess it's just another thing to have to deal with. And no I've never been diagnosed with mental illness which would cause these sleep disturbances.