AIBU to think this is bloody freaky

[chelle792]

Sleeping happily last night, hear someone whisper my name. Opened my eyes, DH fast asleep and not stirring. I was too scared to check if anyone was there and it was pitch black so I just screwed my eyes shut and didn't move!! Luckily I'm still alive and it wasn't a mass murderer or anything!

Anyone else ever been woken by someone whispering their name?

[beelover]

I think you were dreaming or your DH had been talking in his sleep.

[Chinks123]

Weirdly I was talking about this with DP the other day. I get the whispering and also like someone has just shouted really loudly right into my ear. He says he's never had either of those and thought I was a weirdo but I asked my mum and she gets it too

I thought it was ghosts when I was younger, now I'm not sure what it is.

[Tartsamazeballs]

It sounds like a hypnagogic hallucination. Nowt to worry about! Don't panic!

[pearlylum]

Not whispering, but years ago I saw something.

My DD was just a few days old- at the time we lived in an old cottage near a river, part of the building was an old mill, built in 1628, so the cottage must have seen a lot of families living in it.
It was the middle of the night, I had my baby beside me in bed, breastfeeding. The curtains of the bedroom were open ( no neighbours) and the moon was bright so could see quite clearly.
I looked up and saw a women standing at the bottom of the bed watching me and baby. She was dressed in dark colours, wearing a shawl and some kind of head covering. Her head was tilted and she had a peaceful look on her face.
I wasn't even afraid, she gave off such a calm peaceful radiance, I felt she was just paying a kind interest at my newborn and my act of mothering.
I looked down at my baby then up to her again, but she had gone.

[beelover]

Oops forgot to say definitely ynbu in thinking it was freaky. I am scared witless by all such things and would have reacted as you did and probably put my head under the covers too

[PissOffJournalists]

There was a thread about this sort of thing a while ago, I think. Can't find it though. You probably had a hypnagogic hallucination. I get them sometimes. Mine are usually in the form of a loud bang. Quite disconcerting.

[PissOffJournalists]

X post with Tartsamazeballs

[FiveCharactersOrLess]

I get hypnagogic hallucinations quite a lot too, often when I've not long gone to sleep or near waking up time for some reason. I've often woken up asking DH 'what was that?' as I've just heard a massive bang like someone dropping something heavy downstairs and he'll still be awake reading, having not gone to sleep yet, and be really puzzled. I'll realise then it was a hallucination but before that it sounds incredibly real.

[PalaceResident]

Yes I've had this it's so strange. I've always figured I was half asleep but it really freaks me out. I've never heard of hypnagogic hallucinations. Interesting

[VashtaNerada]

I get the opposite sometimes, someone shouting my name so loud it 'wakes' me. But it's usually my sister's voice from when we were children and we no longer live together so unless she's playing a really cruel joke I doubt it's actually happening!

[ParanoidGynodroid]

Sounds scary, but hypnogogic hallucinations (DD was sufferer of terrible.threatening ones) are only if you're still awake and just on the point of falling asleep.

If you were actually already properly asleep, then it was something else. Could it have been a dream?

[chelle792]

I have no idea how awake or asleep I was, I kind of remember being asleep so suggests that perhaps I was ay least slightly conscious. Might explain the time I freaked and sent dh downstairs to chase off the 'intruder' last year and when I heard a massive bang outside the other month

[ShebaShimmyShake]

Yes. I get this all the time, hypnogogic hallucinations. I also get sleep paralysis a lot, complete with the feeling that someone is sitting on the bed or lying on me, and related hallucinations (often a fire, apparently that's common). It's eerie as hell if you don't know what it but it's not anything to worry about. When it happens now I just groan inwardly. It's just annoying now.

[NameChangeMum456]

Worst hypnopompic hallucination I ever had was a repeated waking where I was trying exceptionally hard to wake up completely and kept falling back asleep.

This meant I was aware I was in bed, and paralysed, whilst something in the room was stalking towards the bed.

At first I thought it was a cat, but then I realised it was what had me pinned to the bed. This was because I kept trying to move my hands to push the duvet off my face and it felt like long stretchy strings were holding them pinned down.

So I begged the thing to let me at least have my hands free, which of course I promptly regretted because when I flipped the duvet down there was this massive black thing sitting on my chest with hundreds of legs. Body the size of a car tyre, big spidery thing, pretty much right in my face, and me unable to move or wake up fully to get away from it.

Kept almost waking and then slipping back into that exact position of horror, thing heavy on my chest and making my breathing difficult, me completely paralysed and in pain for some reason (poison bite or webs holding me down).

[JapanNextYear]

Yep, get this occasionally, usually a loud noise sometimes it's thinking someone has come into the room.

[NameChangeMum456]

Hypnagogic is falling asleep, hypnopompic is waking up btw. I have issues with both states, and then when I get to sleep I have wonderfully vivid nightmares also.

Poor DS seems to be the same, had his first sleep paralysis episode when he was about seven. We discuss it a lot now, so he knows what it is and isn't so frightened. First time I remember it happening, I ended up on tranquilisers I was so terrified of sleep.

[chelle792]

Does anyone know if this is related to something called 'alice in wonderland' syndrome? Or whatever it's called. I used to get this as a kid but only found a name for it a couple of years ago. Everything would feel really far, I'd have giant hands and feet that were too big. Used to take me ages to build up courage to go downstairs to my dad. Apparently associated with childhood migraines

[Lemonade1]

Happens to me all the time, it's just a half-dream.

[NameChangeMum456]

Is that where when you are in the inbetween state and limbs or parts of your body start to feel giant or tiny? That's something I definitely seem to experience as I fall asleep, along with the sensation of falling and then a hypnic jerk, or sometimes the whole bed shaking, or really cool visions of light patterns on walls.

My current bedroom has a wavy flower pattern that looks like a woman's hourglass body, which as I fall asleep sort of waves in wind and is very soothing.

[DontOpenDeadInside]

Google "exploding head syndrome". I used to get it but not as much now.

[abbsismyhero]

well i was sneaking out of my own bed and was disturbed by a sinister giggling it was my three year old giggling in his sleep my seven year old laughs too he also whistled the other night gave me the creeps

[ManonCrempog]

Ooooh I get this. It happens to me when I've just drifted off to sleep, it wakes me right up! Usually a huge explosion, but sometimes I "hear" my kids calling for me.
Don't get Alice in Wonderland syndrome but I do get this weird sensation when I'm trying to sleep that my hands are made of clay :/

[UnderTheGreenwoodTree]

I've heard the whisper in my ear - it was my (dead) dad's voice. It didn't scare me, and although it was almost certainly my imagination - I put it down to dad visiting me at the time.

My dh has had sleep paralysis - and from his account, and other's, it is easily the scariest thing ever. DH was dropping off to sleep, and heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom - then saw the bedroom door opening. He couldn't move, but 'felt' awake. It was sleep paralysis, and he says the most frightening thing he's ever experienced.

[DontOpenDeadInside]

I used to get AIW syndrome, think I still do to a lesser extent. I also used to get sleep paralysis, but nothing scary ever happened, I just couldn't move although I was awake and I'd have to wait for my body to wake up. I think it'd be cool now. I'm weird and love scary nightmares. (not sad ones though)