The first thing I want to acknowledge is that in no way, shape or form do I find this something to joke about and I rarely (if ever) talk about things like this - using a throwaway because it’s just too strange of a story and I’m having a lot of uneasiness about last night.
The dream started off fairly normal from what I can remember, nothing extraordinary something about being at my grandparent’s house in the late 90’s - something to that extent. I’ve had this variation of dream a hundred times.
However, this time I woke up from the dream and was lying there awake but felt very strange. I shut my eyes to try and go back to sleep and was almost immediately transported back into the dream - only this time it was different. I was lucid, coherent and could feel the room. I have never in my life actually physical touched something or myself in a dream and could feel it, the pushing back sensation of an actual “something” being there.
I really couldn’t believe I was so lucid. I touched my grandparent’s couch and was immediately embraced with a bright light from behind me and began to feel an overwhelming sense of warmth and calm - like when you see a beautiful sunrise/sunset - this overwhelming sense of energy and light. It was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced in a dream before. It was so real. I could feel the blood running through my body and my heart pumping.
I grabbed hold of something in the room again and could feel myself almost float or levitate. I think I was lying down but face down looking towards the floor and couch cushions. My body felt like it was being lifted up but I was looking down and flat.
I could feel each breath and my heart was beating faster and faster and I began to have a sense of panic. It felt like I was having a panic attack. Breathing heavier and heavier - looking frantically around but all I could see was the floor and bright light.
At this point, I was telling myself wake up! wake up! wake up! this isn’t real this isn’t real but nothing was changing or happening. I began to realize I was restrained by something or someone. I’ve never felt myself have such a moment of panic in my life and it felt as real as my running on a treadmill and getting short of breath and heart racing. What was holding me?
The strangest part happened next and is what is making me feel the most uncomfortable. I am still getting waves of shivers each time I think what happened. The shivers you get when you feel an uneasiness like someone is watching you.
I began to shout for my husband - his name over and over again but as I shouted my voice was distorted and sounded like a robotic reverb. It sounded so mechanical and artificial. I shouted his name again still in a panic facing down, restrained. Then I felt something grab my hand - not in an agressive way but a gentle touch grasping my arm and hand from below. It was an arm - not a very big arm. At first, I thought it felt like a child’s arm for how short the forearm was and how skinny it was. It didn’t feel like an adult arm. I grasped onto it back because it felt like it was trying to help calm me down because I was so frantic. I moved my hand along its forearm and wrist noticing the absurd length of the hand. Like I mentioned earlier - I could feel the resistance that this was an actual thing with weight behind it. This was the first time I had ever felt something so real in a dream. The hand was really grasping onto mine. But “how could this be real?” I thought.
I once learned that if you count your fingers in a dream you’ll wake up as it signals your body to become aware and reconnects the two. As I’m grasping this hand, I feel my breathing slow and I start to feel calm. I start to count the fingers of this hand holding mine - using my thumb touching each finger “1,2,3,4,5,6” I think no that’s not right and count again “1,2,3,4,5,6” Mind you this is happening at light speed and my heart is pounding only seconds are going by and I’m going from panic to calm all in this short period of time.
The light becomes unbearably bright and I look down again and felt a second, short and thin arm graze the top of mine. Perhaps maybe it was two hands that were holding onto mine - 3 fingers on each hand and I felt 6? As the light grows immensely brighter I am lifted up and flipped over - not by anything or anyone it was as if I was floating. I abruptly open my eyes and I’m back in my bed wide awake with my husband fast asleep next to me.
I was wide-eyed looking into every corner of the room. I heard a noise in the corner but it was the air vent kicking on. I couldn’t go back to sleep because what I had just experienced seemed so real.
Now, I’ve been up since 3am because I can’t shake the feeling of what just happened.