I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

Some people are believers.  Some people are not.  For once, I’m not referring to religion.  I am referring to the supernatural and the paranormal.  Always I have held a deep interest in the occult.  Something about the unseen and unknown gives me butterflies in my stomach.  It is a hunger that cannot be satisfied.

Today something unsettling happened that made me think maybe just maybe everything else is not a figment of my imagination.  I let my dog inside and told him to go lay down in his spot in the living room in front of the fireplace.  He seemed to be distracted by something off in my bedroom.  He lay down as he was told but in this almost Sphinx-like pose, head up straight, rigid posture.  His ears twitched a little but other than that he was very still.  He then began to growl very low as he continued to stare into the darkness of my bedroom.  You must know, for the most part, Deuce is a very silent dog.  Other than the snorting and slobbering sounds, he very seldom barks or howls much less growls.  So you can imagine my concern when he began to make his deep guttural complaints.

Moments later, I managed to build the nerve to walk in that direction.  He stood up but he did not come forward.  I stood in the doorway and called him over.  He refused to come.  He just stood there staring.  Outside, I could hear an owl hooting.  It sounded like it was in the tree outside my window.  (More about owls in a later post.)

That experience would have been weird all on its own but it got me thinking about other strange things that have happened, one thing in particular that happened early this morning.  Around 4ish this morning, I awoke fast and startled.  I had that feeling like someone was standing over me.  My heart was racing.  To say that I was shaken would be a total understatement.  I tried to rationalize things as I often do by telling myself that I must have been dreaming and since I woke up so quickly I wasn’t able to remember the dream.  I began to calm down.

Around thirty minutes passed and I began to settle back down.  Then there was a little knock at my bedroom door.  I was almost afraid to answer.  From my bed I called out, “Yes?”  To my relief I was answered by my seven year old daughter who said, “Mommy?  I’m scared.  Can I sleep in your bed?”

In hindsight, after the dog incident of course, I am wondering if any of these things mean anything at all or am I just making mountains out of mole hills.

When we first moved here to Oklahoma, on a few occasions I had that same feeling of being watched.  It happened very similar to how it took place this morning.  Only this particular time, it seemed as if I were in a half asleep/half-awake state.  I remember I felt paralyzed in my bed and unable to talk.  There were two male figures I saw with my peripheral vision.  Each figure stood on either side of the bed.  One appeared to by heavy set while the other appeared to be thin.  Both seemed tall.

On numerous occasions, I felt the fat man and the skinny man’s vacant stares.  One time I could swear that the skinny man actually punched me in my side and pinched my shoulder.  I woke up the next morning sore in those two spots.  Other times when I’ve seen them they were standing in front of my closet but always staring.   You know, I say “staring” but the truth of the matter is they are silhouettes so I can’t really make out facial features.

I’d like to say that these sorts of things are limited to Oklahoma but the truth is experiences like these happen every so often.  Most often they take place when I’m not sure if I am awake or asleep.  Of course, the logical person in me wants to brush it off as simply a case of having a vivid imagination.  However, the creative and imaginative side of me takes solace in the “what ifs” of life and embraces the unseen.

As I’ve said, I’m no stranger to weird happenings.  Luckily for me, being that I’m a scaredy cat and all, I do not “see dead people” like in the movie The Sixth Sense.  I’m not ashamed to admit I do not like the dark…at all.  There is something about not being able to see into the shadows that eats at me.  I can send myself into a panic attack just by thinking about what a shadow could be or what a noise may be.  The scary part is always “what if” I’m right.

So, yes, I can be a baby but as I said strange things have taken place…

In Texas a few years back, we were living in post housing.  I was lying in my bed reading.  I looked over the top of my book at the metal closet doors that were pretty common in the housing community that I lived in.  There were faces pressing against the metal as if they were on the inside trying to push their way out.  The best way to give you a visual is imagine places a plastic bag over a doorway so that it is pulled tight.  Then the person on the other side presses their face and hands against it almost like they are push through plastic.  That is what it looked like.  As I said, my closet doors were metal.

As if the faces in the closet weren’t freaky enough, on another occasion in the same house I woke up to people in my room around my bed.  They weren’t flesh and blood people.  They were completely transparent almost like a bubble but I could make out features on them.

At the time, I was seeing a therapist, who had put me on Ambien.  The next session I described the bubble people and the closet faces to my therapist.  I requested to be taken off of the Ambien.  Even if those things are there, I don’t think I want to see them although I think the Ambien caused mild hallucinations.

Think I’m weird yet?  Well, so do I sometimes.

Most times, I’m half asleep when things happen but every so often things have happened when I am fully lucid and there are people around me.  It’s those times I am thankful.

Years ago, I rented my grandfather’s house while he lived with his second wife in her home.  The house I rented was the house he lived at with my grandmother who had passed away many years ago.  I chose the master bedroom for myself and put my son in the bedroom next door to mine.

The very first night I stayed there my younger sister who was about 11 or 12 at the time stayed with me.  My son had stayed by his grandparents for the night.  As we laid there in the dark trying to sleep, the bedroom door swung open.  It opened with such force; the door hit the wall and bounced halfway back.  My sister and I looked at each other almost to reassure ourselves that the other saw the same thing.  I got up and closed the door, making sure it had closed all the way this time.

My sister and I were a little shaken and as we talked about it I tried to calm her by saying the air conditioner must have kicked on and caused that.  I honestly wanted to believe it myself.  Eventually she went to sleep.

I laid there in silence and my logical side was slowly losing the battle.  The more I thought about it the more my mind tried to piece it all together.  Normally, when the a/c clicked on if the door was partially open it would suck close.  I tried to remember if one of us actually closed the door.  I could not remember either of us closing it all the way.  Then I thought of my grandmother.

After my grandmother died, my mother referred to her as my guardian angel.  So I always pictured her as such, except my guardian angel grandmother had a More Menthol in one hand and Dixie Beer in the other.  Prior to her death, my grandmother gave me a holographic picture that showed two children walking across a bridge, hovering over them was a beautiful angel.  I still have the picture.  It is now above my daughters bedroom door.

There’s one of those “what ifs”.  What if she came into her bedroom trying to see who was there?  After that I thought maybe she didn’t know who I was since she passed when I was 3.  So I began to have little conversations with myself out loud on and off.  I would walk around saying things like, “Maw Maw it’s me, Ashley Denice.”  Sometimes, I would be rocking my son to sleep and I tell her out loud who he was.

A few weeks later, my sister slept over again.  This time through the baby monitor, we heard a woman singing.  We could also hear my son awake, not crying just awake and at ease.

I never felt afraid in the house.  I just felt like I wasn’t alone.  One night, although I did not feel threatened my husband did.  At the time, we were separated.  He was there even though my grandfather had declared he was not welcome.

While I was sleeping, I awoke with the familiar feeling of someone standing over me.  I felt paralyzed.  I was unable to open my eyes or speak.  The next morning before I could tell my husband about my weird “dream”, he began to tell me about someone standing over him during the night.  He said that someone had pushed down on his chest almost like someone was sitting on him.  He said it was almost as if he was pushed right through the bed and box spring onto the floor.  He said he felt a suffocating feeling and he felt paralyzed and unable to fight back.  I stared at him for a few minutes without speaking because I was blindsided by his story.  Eventually, I did and for once my uber logical spouse actually seemed to genuinely believe me.

I’m not about to sit here and write about each and every time anything strange or unusual has happened to me or around me.  I tried to focus on the most recent or most significant.  I hope you enjoyed my “sharing” session.