absorbentishe

Okay, first off, I'm not a real supernatural believer/disbeliever. I've read/heard stories, and I think things could happen, this happened to me Sunday morning at about 3 am. We (the whole family, all 6 of us) were staying in a hotel for the night, since we had to be somewhere at 8 in the morning, 3 hours from home. I woke up about 3 am, laying on my right side looking at the wall. I thought I saw something in the mirror, a figure of some sort. The problem was, there was no mirror on the wall. I turned over and looked at the door (where the figure was), and couldn't see anything, but looking back to my right (where the mirror was whatever), and it was there. I asked it to leave, since we were sleeping, and it left, but also other "shadows" left with it. It was really strange.

Sorry for the long rant, didn't know where else to go with it.

Seanland

alien abduction :P
so, there was a mirror, then it disappeared, and the "image" was where the mirror was.. I would have got up and picked a fight, no one interrupts me sleep hehe

but creepy...

Ace_O_Spades

I would have shat my pants and screamed like a little girl

But I also watch too much Japanese horror

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MSD

It sounds like a classic "night terror." What happens is that you're dreaming in Delta sleep, the deepest sleep you reach during the night, and something in that dream frightens you. The natural response to fear is a release of adrenaline, which wakes you very quickly. Unfortunately for the perosn experienceing it, 90% of these occurences result in two things. The first is a continuation of sleep paralysis into the waking phase. The second is the projection of whatever triggered teh fear response onto the surroundings for as much as several minutes after you're awake.

JaiYenJohn

Something similar happened to me in a hotel in Saigon. I awoke with a start in my bed from a nightmare to find that I couldn't move, scream anything. I was also sure I saw something dark sitting on the foot of the bed.

Now, I knew about sleep paralysis, but it still scares the bejeezus out of you.

Changed rooms the next night anyway though....

Charlatan

The Old Hag... very creepy.

My wife will not visit the house at the family farm near our cottage any more... the last time she was there she had one of these experiences and was convinced it was her dead aunt haunting the place (to be honest the place is kind of creepy).

It's really too bad, because it was a place to stay in winter. Our cottage isn't winterized yet.

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zen_tom

On night terrors, a friend of mine said this happened to her the other night - here's a link that provides more information:

http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html

guthmund

I'd like to say I would have handled the situation in a similiar manner, but in reality, I probably would've screamed like a little girl.

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alicat

I can't help but think of Dewey from "Malcolm in the Middle" when reading the "scream like a little girl" comments. I am a girl and therefore, I too, would have screamed like a little one.

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absorbentishe

Looking back on it, maybe the beer and redbull had something to do with it! Just so out of the norm for me, I can't even remember my dreams anymore.

Fohur2

I think it would be night terrors.Mind too fast for the body.

todd

Haha so you just politly asked it to leave? Sounds like you handled the situation a hell of a lot calmer than I would have.

"Hello Mr. Shadow. Could you by chance come back in the morning, please? My wife and kids and I are trying to get a little shut eye right now. I'd really appretiate it. Thanks!"

Zeraph

Mind explaining a bit more about the shadows? How did they "leave"? Just disapear or go out the door?

absorbentishe

All of the shadows just seemed to leave, I think they just faded away as they were moving from my right to left.

aarchaon

It sounds like sleep paralysis, and it can be quite frightening if you aren't used to it. Some things that I have seen during sleep paralysis are:

1. A tall dark figure standing at the end of my bed. I couldn't see very well, almost like my vision was like a bad VHS tape that had been recorded over too many times.
2. An alien-looking creature almost identical to Morbo from Futurama except he had scaly skin and yellow cat-like eyes. I wasn't actually paralyzed this time and he disappeared after I blinked my eyes.
3. Something compressing my throat and chest, while I could feel something walking around on my head and pillow. Also my pedestal fan sounded very strange, like it was spinning slowly and making a dull electrical buzz, but when I came out of my paralysis it returned to normal.

From my experiences, I figure that practically all alien abduction and ghost stories can be attributed to sleep paralysis and hypnogogic hallucination. There also seems to be a very strong link between poor sleep cycles and the occurance of these episodes.

Edit: When I saw the thread title I immediately thought: Dear Penthouse...

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Lead543

At the hotel I used to work at, a manager killed himself in one of the rooms. It was always creeepy, I'd never clean the room by myself.

Mephisto2

Many many thanks for this link.

This used to happen to me A LOT. For those interested in psychology and (perhaps!) drug induced pyschosis, it was far far more common when I was a drug user.

I used to think I was losing my mind (though I knew it was worse after spending a night out on a bender with my mates). I remember asking my GF (now wife) to wake me up if she heard me moaning. That's all I could do. Lie there, paralyzed, terrified and moan... moan or whimper loud enough for her to wake up and shake me. Even thinking about it now gives me the creeps.

Usually it was only last a few moments (less than a minute), but at the time it felt like a lifetime. To make things worse, it was sometimes accompanied with halucinations. One of my "favourites" was a vampire floating outside the window of my 14th floor hotel room and smiling at me (just like Salem's Lot which I had only seen once, years before).

It hardly ever happens to me anymore, but when it does, at least I know it's "natural".

Many thanks!!


Mr Mephisto

abaya

You know, I had my first experience with sleep paralysis/The Old Hag a few days ago. I was about to wake up, but I heard the sound of someone sniffing right next to my head (like someone clearing their nose, and it sounded like my grandma). I was half-awake, but I felt a huge compression on my chest, like a large weight was settling itself onto me... at first I thought, "My grandmother has died, I just know it" (since she is dying of cancer, and lives in my house right now). Then I remembered the sleep paralysis, and shushed it away... and it stopped. Natural occurance.

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Hektore

This explains a pretty huge chunk of my childhood I think. I would get terrible nightmares all night, every night from the time I was about 8 until I was 11. About 99% of the time I can remember waking but not being able to move which just made it that much worse. I remember one of dreams I had most frequently was me being strapped to a gurney and the being eaten alive by insects, and whenever I woke up it always felt like someone was just pulling down on my legs very hard(think someone hanging from your ankles off the end of the bed), I think the fact that I was on the top bunk just made it that much worse too. Still makes me nervous to sleep when I think about it.

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kurtisj

i dont really know what i would actually do in this situation. Actually i think i would have to agree with Ace O Spades and shit my pants

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Bauh4us

I don't know about the rest of you, but if something like this happend to me (and by something like this I mean any night terror type thing) I don't think that knowing it was "natural" would help. I would be too busy freaking the fuck out to think about anything.

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Johnny Pyro

You could have been in a state of awake and dreaming. In between. That would cause you to see a distorted reality. Creepy though.