It's Scary In There

Last night, I had another weird experience. Part of me wants to blame my lack of sleep and, of course, my vivid imagination for the unusual dream. If you’ve been keeping up with my blog you know these sort of things are nothing to which I am a stranger. See here and here.


I had dozed off around 2-ish and woke up to a light tapping at my bedroom door and no it wasn't the Raven. This isn’t an unusual occurrence as I have two children that from time to time come to my room during the night because they have had a bad dream or what not. I have my kids trained to not walk into my room…to always knock first. This is just a precaution. I’d hate for my kids to see a nip slip or something. Who knows what happens when you rigamaroo (wiggle around) in your sleep?

“What do you want?” I said. No answer. I sat up and looked at the faint light streaming under the door. Normally there is a shadow there if one of the kids is standing on the other side. There was nothing. I'm not sure exactly what would be scarier...a knock, no shadow, and no answer or a knock, a shadow, and no answer.  The verdict hasn't come back yet on that one.  A shadow would mean there's a chance of a demon clown. 

I managed to convinced myself that I dreamed the knock but just to be sure I got up to go check on the kids.

Now, I love to watch scary movies and the whole time I was walking to the bedroom it was like a scene from a movie…slow motion of a hand reaching to turn a doorknob.

Enter Friday the 13th soundtrack here.



Even the walk across the house to their rooms was a bit surreal. When I peeked into their rooms, both of them were soundly sleeping. Even the dog was snoring, loudly I might add, curled up next to my daughter. So, I went back to my room and cozied back into the bed under the comforter. After a while, I fell back asleep.

In my “dream”, I was sleeping on my side when I felt a presence. I tried to roll over to see what was behind me. The presence seemed to put me almost in a half nelson. I fought with it to a point that I toppled off the bed and hit my head on my dresser. During the time I was wrestling with whatever it was, I must have sensed it was all a dream. I tried to convince myself to wake up, trying to will my eyes open.

When I finally managed to force myself awake it was around 4 in the morning, my heart was racing and my head ached. When I reached up to the spot throbbing on my cranium, I found a knot the size of a quarter. I had that fuzzy “I just woke up” feeling. Of course, in my experience that feeling is the same as the “I’ve been knocked unconscious” one.  I guess it's possible that I was thrashing my sleep and may have hit my head some way on the head board.

I tried to settle back down in my bed. Then I heard the familiar sound that always seems to accompany dreams such as these…the hoot of an owl. I looked out of my window to see if I could see the culprit. It took me a few moments to locate it in the darkness outside. I saw it as it in the tree as it turned its head around to face me. It seemed as if we made eye contact just before it spread its wings and flew away.

As I’ve stated a lot lately, sleep and I just aren’t getting along well right now. So just imagine my disappointment (also known as utter terror) when this event transpired and I was left on the verge of a panic attack in my bed trying to settle myself back down to sleep. My body and mind were just beginning to relax enough to drift back to Land of Nod when there was a knock at the bedroom door again. It startled me to a point that I nearly jumped out of my skin. It’s probably good that I had used the restroom just before climbing back into bed or I would have been changing the sheets.

This time when I called out, “What do you want?” My daughter answered back. She said she had a bad dream and wanted to sleep in my bed. How sad is it that I was relieved she wanted to sleep in the bed with me? I mean, good thing my seven year old is here to protect her scaredy cat mommy.

While Visions Of Owls Danced In My Head?

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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.