Before this week, I had only experienced sleep paralysis a couple brief times, but as of a few nights ago, after I went to sleep with a fever of 103.5 F, I experienced it again. That night, I was frozen looking forward at the nightstand and beyond it at the deep green wallpaper with golden pinstripes running from the ceiling to the baseboard. Just below (or to the right if you were standing) is a large painting of a barn. Farther on is a little table with a small lamp with a dangling chain just beside the white door leading to the rest of the house. About a foot further is the corner of the room. I couldn’t move my eyes but as my vision rocked up and down with each breath I could see the edge of the closet that’s across from the foot of the bed. Overall, I’m sure this seems extremely mundane and it would have been except that my wall is painted light gray, my painting is a still life of sunflowers, the door to my room is to the diagonal right of my bed, and this is not my room.
Despite it not being my room I could describe it to you in excruciating detail far easier than I could my own. I could tell you where the outlets are, how many golden stripes there are, where every little scuff and cut in the wallpaper is. I could even point out the exact seam where the different sheets of wallpaper meet. It’s actually in the middle of a section of green. One is almost imperceptibly longer than the others. This is because while past experiences of sleep paralysis felt like they lasted a few long minutes, that night I was trapped in there, painfully conscious for hours. Every second seemed to tick by excruciatingly slow. I would have thought time wasn’t moving if it wasn’t for the constant swaying of my vision and the sound of my own breathing and the eventual creep of dawn light before I finally woke up.
I shot up grasping at my bed. My eyes darted around my room, making sure I was in my own room or rather my own mind. My heart rate was racing as I jumped out of bed, eager to experience moving freely again, but my body was even weaker than the day before. I nearly collapsed as soon as my weight came down on my legs. But I couldn’t sit in bed any longer. I went to the kitchen to drink some water to calm myself and recuperate the sweat that soaked my shirt. As minutes went by my heart rate slowed and I calmed down, I started convincing myself it was just a fever dream and definitely the weirdest one I’ve ever had. Those “hours” I felt, in reality probably only lasted the last few seconds before I woke up. This helped until I realized, thinking back on it, I remembered every detail of that painting, the placement of the seam in the wallpaper, and the exact shape of that table. Never in my life could I recall a dream so vividly, let alone a fever dream.
I tried to not fall asleep for the rest of the day but around lunch my body gave in and I collapsed into sleep. Thankfully, my dreams were much more typical fever dreams about the book I’ve been reading. When I woke up it was about dinner time and tried to feed myself but all I couldn’t eat as I dreaded falling asleep that night.
I took some day-time cough medicine then sat on the couch in the living room watching TV in my fight to resist sleep but the fever was still raging in my body and I began to get so cold. I took another sip of cough syrup but a few minutes later I was absolutely freezing. I couldn’t resist wrapping myself tightly with blankets and comforters while I sat on the couch. Despite being propped up my head began to bob and before long I had lost my fight. I was asleep.
Fever dreams involving characters of the book began briefly but quickly disappeared and I found myself facing that green and gold wallpaper. In my own mind I could feel the panic at the sight, but I had no ability to do anything. I focused hard to calm myself and remember that it would only get worse if I panicked. After a few moments my mind had settled enough that I began taking in the sight again, one detail after another reminding myself of what I had remembered from the night before. I went through the barn painting examining the farm animals one by one, even for a moment joyfully realizing I had missed a little piglet in the corner of the frame half hidden by corn stalks. Eventually after taking as long as I possibly could basking in the painting, I moved my attention across the wall to the table then the door, then, in between breaths the closet-
-terror flooded over me. At the very edge of my vision when I could see the widest, I could make out the edge of a humanlike figure standing in the closet. I could only see the first few inches of it, just the edge of its leg and right arm hanging at its side. I couldn’t see anything else, not even its face. I watched carefully for hours. It stood there eerily still. Seemingly just standing and watching. Even until the earliest of dawn light began to stream in.
Then suddenly as if cued it turned and moved to the door. The floor creaked with each of its steps. Briefly it was fully in my vision but it had already made the turn outside my view so its face was still hidden. The even stranger part was I could hardly make out any details at all, just the overall outline of the dark shadowy figure. It calmly but swiftly moved to the door, opened it and left, gently closing it behind it. Barely a second after the door closed I could hear the buzz of an alarm behind me. My vision rocked as the bed shifted. The floor creaked as a woman walked into my view from around the foot of the bed. She quietly opened and left out the same door, closing it behind her. I didn’t know what was happening but I willed in vain for my body or perhaps my host’s body to wake up-get up or at least yell something to warn her. But I could do nothing, so I waited, my focus locked on the door until it opened again and she returned to grab clothes out of the closet.
The rest of the time was uneventful until my vision faded out and I woke up in my bedroom. Again, I shot up and panting as my hands subconsciously squeezed tightly at my sheets until my knuckles turned white. It took me a while before I felt like I was in my own skin again. As soon as I could I got up and walked around on my sickly weak legs. I went to my computer and started researching. It was clear soon that even with the help of cough syrup I was struggling to read through paragraphs of text, especially the stiff long blocks on sites aimed toward medical students and workers.
What I found was not concise nor reassuring. The best that my untrained and feverish eye could gather was that in the world of dreams nearly anything was possible and if you tossed in sickness then it was that much more unbounded. There was plenty of information on sleep paralysis and fever dreams separately. Sleep paralysis seems to often be either an invention of the mind where what you see is just your brain’s best guess as to what you might be looking at if your eyes were open. Or (and this is a monumental “or”) your eyes are actually slightly open, your mind for the most part has woken up but your body is lagging. Apparently your mind has to send signals to your nervous system to basically disconnect your mind from your body for a little while. That way if you’re fighting for your life in your dream you don’t surprise a partner with a smack to the back of the head. But hypothetically if your conscious mind sort of woke up first but your body hadn’t remade that connection then it’s possible that you could effectively be paralyzed while your mind works nearly normal. This of course is horrific. But it doesn’t go to explain anything as to why I stared at a wall for conscious hours of a room, effectively a world, that was not my own.
At this time, I was still refusing to acknowledge any possibility that this was somehow actually happening in the real world; that I was seeing through someone else’s eyes. The route that makes less leaps of logic is that I was having some truly bizarre horrific dreams, however convincing they were…but I’m not so sure anymore.
Despite my research, dreading, and preventative measures I would fall asleep that night, and would spend it in that other bedroom for the third night in a row.
When I entered the dream again I was staring in a different direction. As if I was sleeping on my right side. This meant I was facing the back of the head of a woman with long dark brown hair. She was the same woman I saw last night.
Behind her I could see most of the rest of the room which pretty much mirrored my side. She had a nightstand with a lamp on it. The wallpaper was the same, and there was a little ornate desk in the corner. From this angle I could even see the closet and I saw nothing concerning. Gradually, I started to relax hoping that what I saw must have been some bizarre sleep paralysis demon from my imagination.
As I stared at her hair I listened for the sound of the door opening or creaking of the floor boards but I heard nothing but our breathing. As hours began to go by, I began to get sort of entranced by watching her torso rise and fall in time with the sound of each of her breaths. I observed mine too as my vision tilted up, holding for a moment, then coming back down in time with the sound of my own breath. She was breathing slightly faster than me so every, what I would roughly guess, 3.5 minutes our breaths would sync up perfectly. Similar to watching the blinking tail lights of multiple cars. That’s when I had a realization. I could only notice it once I had become acutely aware of the rhythms of our breaths, but I realized that there were some breaths that weren’t following the patterns. I listened intently until the next time she and I would sync up.
1…2…3… in unison we breathed in…then out… then a third breath. Panic began to seize me. Now that I had found it, I could hear it oh so clearly. A third harsher, raspier breath, behind me. What worsened it was the realization that I had been listening for the creak of the floor so I knew that it hadn’t walked in, it had been here the entire time.
A renewed effort to will myself awake came as panic flooded my mind. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even leave this mind. Whoever’s mind it may be. I wanted them to wake up so they could deal with it and I could be free, back in my own body.
I don’t know if it was a coincidence but I doubt it was somehow a result of my mental willpower because I certainly had not wished for this, but my host began to move, seemingly without consciously waking, and started to turn over.
I braced myself as best as I could, but I was utterly helpless. I couldn’t even close my own eyes. I was forced to watch as I flipped over. To face it.
Everything in front of me now was the same: the same nightstand with the same lamp, the same green wallpaper with pinstripes, the same painting with the barn. Except directly across from me, against that wall, a figure leered down at me. Despite finally being able to see it directly I still couldn’t clearly identify it. Had it not been for the distinct colors and pattern of the wallpaper it would have been almost impossible to see at all, because its entire form was as dark as a shadow and its edges were hazy. I don’t know what I saw even as I stared at it and it looked down at me. My rational mind is sure it was some sort of trick of a fevered semi-conscious brain. Or maybe it was just a projection of my imagination or my host’s. Or maybe it was an actual stranger in their home but as it passed through both our subconscious imaginations it turned into this thing. But regardless of what it was, it was standing against the wall with its hands behind its back staring at me. I now watched the pattern of its breathing as its chest expanded then contracted in time with a painful raw sounding hoarse exhale.
This went on for several minutes until something changed. It was mid breath when it sort of… froze. It moved its head just slightly before it started to lean in, like it had just noticed something.
It moved off of the wall and slowly creeped toward me, the floor creaked as it took a step.
I wanted so badly to tear myself away from it, as it began to kneel down next to the bed, its face aimed at my own. Once kneeling it leaned in more, like it was inspecting me.
As it reached my eye level I saw its only two distinct features. In its shapeless darkness I could see its defined eyes. They were shockingly bright blue, distinctly crisp in contrast to its otherwise amorphousness. The second was its teeth, they slowly peaked out from under a shapeless lip as it seemed to smile. Similarly a contrastingly hard bright white. Those piercingly blue eyes were honed in on my host’s own eyes. Its face moved in closer. Through our connected eyes I could sense its intrigue. Once its face was barely a foot away it lingered, staring. It didn’t blink, it never blinked. It still moved organically as it breathed in and out, a sound up close that makes my stomach turn if I try to recall it. As we faced each other, a strange thought started to overcome me. I kept pushing it back but I felt that it wasn’t just looking at my host it was looking at me. Like it could see me, while none of it makes any sense somehow I became sure that it was seeing me through these eyes that were not mine.
I hadn’t realized that during this whole exchange it had kept its hands behind its back until suddenly, for no particular reason, it brought them up front. Shining in its hand was a kitchen knife. It held it up between us just off center of our eye contact. It turned it slowly like it wanted me to see it exactly. To know exactly what it was going to use. My heart plummeted and I pulled against the mental tethers desperate to get out. I was so scared that a thought crossed my mind wondering what if my own heart in my own body just stopped from fear. No one would know what had happened to me. The timing felt impossible, but as if it recognized my terror it’s smile widened slightly.
It began leaning in with the knife bared in hand. Suddenly, behind me, I heard a rustling and the movement of my vision confirmed that the woman was moving in the bed. The blue eyes darted behind me. Then in terrifying quickness, it dropped to the floor and crawled backward under the bed. Moments later the woman walked into my vision. I thought initially she was moving in response to the figure but as she casually walked through the door and into the hall I realized she was unaware. I heard a switch flip and then some dim light came down into the open doorway. There were vague noises until the flip switched off and darkness returned. She walked back into the room and closed the door behind her.
Then she came around behind my vision again and seemed to climb back into bed. She must have bumped into my host because my vision jolted and she apologized reflexively. I think it was enough to wake my host because my vision faded out completely and I left them. I don’t know what happened when they woke but when I did I jumped out of my bed, sweating and crying. It took hours to pull myself together.
That was at about 3am. Less than 12 hours later my fever subsided. I stayed awake for about 75 hours successfully after that but my barely recovered body was still exhausted and I fell asleep the next night- last night. I’m happy to report I slept normally, normal dreams, and woke up to my own bedroom this morning. I think that those nightmares are over. I considered keeping this to myself because most people will say that this was just a series of terrible terrible nightmares that were conjured up by a sick mind and existed only ephemerally in my subconscious. But I decided that I would share this on the off chance that maybe someone would recognize this room and maybe I could warn them. Before I finished writing this all down I did some image searching of green walls to try to find the room hoping that it might be in some post on an interior design social media channel or something.
I did find it. Except it was in a news article written this morning. I saw pictures of green wallpaper with golden pinstripes soaked through with blood. A painting of a barn slashed across and hanging in ribbons, a lamp with a dangling chain smashed into pieces on the floor, the white doors of the closet now polka dotted red. It was a double homicide, no fingerprints, no suspects, and no trace of the killer. There was one clue, however, in one of the crime scene pictures. I’m not sure if they just missed it or if they couldn’t see it, but in a picture, you could see, at the back of the dark closet a pair of light blue dots looking back at you.