Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what this was?!

37 replies

BrokenPogoStick · 15/01/2018 07:47

I know I’m going to sound really silly but I’ve never been more scared in my life. Woke up at about 4 last night and I remember very clearly a woman standing over my bed, I could describe her now. She was getting closer and closer to me before I shat it and ran downstairs and slept on the sofa with all the lights on.

The only thing is I’ve been trying to convince myself it’s a dream but it felt so real. Running down the stairs (which obviously happened when I was awake) feels just as real as seeing the woman. I can’t remember much before but I knkw I was sitting up and looking back now I can’t remember waking up so must’ve been sat up for ages. I thought it could’ve been a lucid dream but I was perfectly able to scream/move.

I know how stupid it is but I can’t ask DH cos he will either scare me more or laugh at me so I thought I’d turn to the wise women of mumsnet.

Please help! I think I will be sleeping on the sofa for the next month.

OP posts:
kimlo · 15/01/2018 07:54

I've had that before, it's something to do wirh dreaming and thinking you are awake or something, it's conected to sleep paralysis which I also get.

Scary though.

Original poster
BrokenPogoStick · 15/01/2018 07:55

Oh thank god! I’m not a very woof person but last night had me believing.

OP posts:
Original poster
BrokenPogoStick · 15/01/2018 07:55

Woo not woofHmm

OP posts:
Flightywoman · 15/01/2018 07:55

If it was within the first hour or so going to sleep it could've been a night terror possibly? I get them and don't always remember them, but the ones I do remember are mostly figures looming over me!

You'll be fine though, it's unusual/rare to get them consecutively.

GooodMythicalMorning · 15/01/2018 07:58

Lucid dreaming. Can be very scary.

SparklyMagpie · 15/01/2018 07:58

Could you move when you saw her?

I'd say it was sleep paralysis

I suffer from this a lot and have been having it nightly for the last 2 weeks and it is horrific !!

I love my horror an all things scary but one I had last week is one of the most terrifying I've ever had

I woke up to a girl like creature , think like the girl from the ring with the long black hair and mangled body, she was crawling all over my bedroom wall and ceiling until she crawled across the floor and onto my bed, this repeated over an over with me being unable to move or scream, at one point in my dream I managed to run to my son's room where he was shouting "mummy"
By the time I got to him and picked him up to cuddle and comfort him, her face screamed out the highest pitched scream I've ever heard an I woke up when I tried to run away and tripped on the landing

As I say, I suffer from sleep paralysis but this was the first time I encountered someone like that, there has been programmes an stories online where it seems quite common for a figure or a person to be in the room when you are deep in sleep paralysis

I feel for you though, it's absolutely terrifying

curlii103 · 15/01/2018 07:58

I had one years ago. I then read something about dreaming, sleep paralysis etc. Can't remember the ins and out but definitely felt better with a nice medical description....nit that i believe in ghosts but was definitely weird!

Original poster
BrokenPogoStick · 15/01/2018 08:01

I don’t think I could move when I actually saw her but then must’ve snapped out of it and ran. Looking back now it lasted a minute at most but whilst in it it seemed to go on forever. Glad to know I’m not the only one, still can’t walk around my room without thinking I will see the poor sod

OP posts:
Pengggwn · 15/01/2018 08:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SparklyMagpie · 15/01/2018 08:02

Sorry I just reread your post and noticed you said you could move and scream

I'd say maybe a night terror, possibly lucid dreaming , I can often lucid dream also, so could be ( sorry still tired and can't seem to wake up haha )

gunsandbanjos · 15/01/2018 08:02

I get these regularly, terrifying.

Ginmakesitallok · 15/01/2018 08:03

Google hypnopompic hallucinations. I get them regularly, used to be scary but I'm used to it now (mostly!)

SparklyMagpie · 15/01/2018 08:05

Ok since You're update I'd stick with sleep paralysis :) sometimes it can last a couple of minutes, I'm usually able to tell myself to wake up or I tell myself to wiggle my big toe haha in the hopes it wakes my body up

I'm under a lot of stress atm so I think it's made a difference to when I can't wake myself out of these ones lately, and they just repeat over and over

You should hopefully be fine tonight, it doesn't tend to happen often and is quite unusual for it to happen so regularly like my case Sad

Ginmakesitallok · 15/01/2018 08:05

My most memorable one was when I was at my mums, sharing a bed with dd2. I ended up going to mums room half naked to get her to come and tell the man who was behind the curtains to go away...

LML83 · 15/01/2018 08:06

I have had a vivid dream about a spider hanging over my face, was so real I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. Has happen a couple of times, years apart though.

So dreams can feel very real! Not likely to happen again though.

CiderwithBuda · 15/01/2018 08:07

Dreams are weird. I was asleep the other night and saw something small about to fall on me. No idea what it was but it was as if someone had thrown something across the room. I jumped out of bed with my hand up trying to catch it. Turned the light on. Nothing there. Obviously! Weird.

SparklyMagpie · 15/01/2018 08:10

Ginmakesitallok its horrible isn't it?

I love at home with my DS and my mum, I'm 27 and after that terrifying one last week when I finally realised I was awake I nearly ran to her room

I'd told myself it was all real until she told me I'd never ran into her room screaming my head off during the night

Not only terrifying but bloody exhausting too

Alleycat1 · 15/01/2018 08:14

I've had several of these experiences. The worst was when I 'woke up' to see the grim reaper, complete with scythe, standing by my bed. I think it was what is called a lucid dream as I seemed to realise that I was asleep and tried to shout to bring myself round. I must have made some kind of noise as my partner shook me awake, thank goodness.

Bubblysqueak · 15/01/2018 08:19

I've woken during a very real dream before, so real that I carried on doing what I was in the dream. I was searching around and under the bed for a spider. Dh even joined in as I was convinced it was not a dream. After what seemed like forever I rlhad a slow realisation that it was a dream as you couldn't get 20ft spiders and if you could I would have found it in our bedroom by now.
It was so real.

AtrociousCircumstance · 15/01/2018 08:19

Sparkly Shock That sounds TERRIFYING.

SparklyMagpie · 15/01/2018 08:24

AtrociousCircumstance it is by FAR the worst one I've had, it happened 5 times that night, the same thing over and over every time I nodded off again, I also suffer with insomnia, so throw all these into this mix and I'll end up looking like her 😂

Shakirasma · 15/01/2018 08:32

My adult DD suffers with sleep paralysis and also gets stuck in dream loops. For her it is anxiety related. She has done a lot of research on it and that has helped her cope, understanding exactly what the brain is doing on a medical level has taken some of the fear out of it for her.

k2p2k2tog · 15/01/2018 08:35

I comforted my daughter through an episode like that last night - something about having to put her hands in poisoned water. She's 12 and was absolutely terrified, it was all very, very real for her. Took a good 5 minutes to calm her down and convince her it was just a dream and wasn't real.

midlifemeltdown · 15/01/2018 08:46

Sleep Paralysis. I see a naked woman hung on the back on the bedroom door. Terrifying, even when you know its not real.

whiskyowl · 15/01/2018 08:47

It sounds like sleep paralysis. I've had it myself, just the once. I was in bed, and I became aware of a black figure at the bottom of my bed. It was like I could feel it as well as seeing it, because it was radiating what I can only descrive as absolute evil. It was the single most terrifying experience of my life, and I've had a number of really awful things happen to me in real life that ought to be more terrifying but somehow weren't when they happened. The feeling of terror was absolute and incredibly vivid, and it took me about 2 days to feel better afterwards.