I don’t know if anyone here can help me, but I feel like I have nowhere else to turn. I’ve been able to do this thing for as long as I can remember. My nana called it dream walking but I think she just gave it a name to make me feel better. The best way I can describe it is somewhere between astral projection and time travel. I know that sounds crazy and if you don’t believe me I get it, but for my sake just stick with me.
Dream walking happens like this, every night when I go to sleep I picture a place in my mind. The place has to be either someplace I’ve been before or know enough about that I can build the experience in my mind. For example, I can picture a beautiful beach somewhere off the coast of Italy and I can imagine the warm sand on my toes, the squawk of sea birds, faint music floating in the air from someone’s speakers. But I can’t do the same with some far off alien galaxy.
After a few moments of imagining the place I want to go to, I am just there. I go to bed in my shitty Charlestown apartment and then I’m sunbathing in St. Lucia. I know it probably sounds like I’m just really good at lucid dreaming but my body physically goes there.
One of the first times I can clearly remember dream walking was when I was seven and home sick with the flu. I was watching the Disney Channel and as I started to fall asleep I imagined what it would be like to go to Disney World. I pictured the big castle, and the crowds and the rides. I could smell popcorn and sunscreen and heard a baby crying. The next thing I know my nana is shaking me awake and demanding to know how I got the ridiculously large Mickey Mouse balloon in my bedroom.
I’ve had fun with it, went to a lot of parties in high school I wasn’t supposed to be at, I spent a whole month going to Hawaii every night. Everything was fine up until a month ago. One night I went to sleep and was picturing myself in a London park. It was a nice mild day and the light was filtering in gray through the overcast clouds. There was a group of kids playing tag in the tall grass in front of me and I was perfectly content to do some people watching until I had to wake up for my 8:00 am alarm. That’s when I saw it for the first time. It was pretty far away and for a second I thought I was seeing things. Past the children on the grass and lurking in the thinning tree line stood something that almost resembled a man. I could tell even from the distance it was tall, its shoulders hunched forward like it was trying to disguise its actual size. It had some sort of hooded cloak pulled up over its head and I couldn’t see its face. But just as I started to really focus my attention on it and try and get closer it vanished.
When I woke up the next morning I convinced myself it was a weird prank. Some teenagers were trying to scare those kids and I just happened to be the one who noticed it. But the rest of the day I just had this horrible feeling, like something bad had happened. When I got home I googled London park accident. I was trying to reassure myself that nothing happened and that the search would yield nothing but I was wrong. I was so wrong. The first news result that showed up was a picture of the exact bench I had been sitting on, except in the photo it was destroyed. The related headline read, “Drunk Driver Plummets off Bridge and into Local Park: Several Injuries Reported, Deaths Feared Imminent”
I slammed my laptop shut and tried to assure myself it wasn’t the same park, that this was some sort of weird coincidence and I was misremembering my dream walk from the night before. Maybe I did and maybe this first time was a coincidence but it hasn’t stopped since then.The very next night I pictured myself on a tropical beach somewhere in the Bahamas. I felt the warm sun on my face, the tacky plastic straps of the lounge chair resting against my back. I was absentmindedly drawing shapes in the white sand when I saw that thing again. This time it was just a little closer. It stood further down the beach from me, it was hunched over the surf letting the salt water lap at its long arms. I shut my eyes tight and tried to will it away, I was hoping it was some kind of actual dream invading my walk. Like a nightmare was breaking through from my subconscious but when I opened my eyes again instead of being met with more sun and sand, I saw the stained ceiling of my bedroom.
Against my better judgment I immediately grabbed my phone and searched Bahamas and then added recent deaths and hit enter. My heart hit the bottom of my stomach and then promptly rocketed into my chest causing me to heave the tropical cocktail I had been sipping on before that thing had showed up out of my stomach and onto the floor. The first related article was only a few hours old and read “Honeymooners Killed in Tragic Accident: Scuba Gear Malfunction Kills Newlyweds.”
I decided at that moment I was never going to dream walk again. I had no idea if I was somehow causing this but I couldn’t risk it. The problem is I can’t stop.I don’t mean I can’t stop as in I’m addicted to it, I mean my body physically starts even if I don’t picture anything. I tried for a week straight. I would close my eyes and think of nothing, I would picture an endless white void, no sounds, no people, just blank emptiness, but the second I fell asleep I was at the Grand Canyon. The next morning the breaking news was of an elderly woman on her bucket-list trip whose electric scooter malfunctioned and she went head long over the side of the walls.
The next night was the same, even without actively trying to dream walk I found myself in a mall outside of St. Louis. There was a small fire in an electronics store which caused panic and in the resulting stampede someone was crushed.
It doesn’t matter what I think of or do, every night I find myself somewhere new and that thing is getting closer and closer.I think the thing is playing with me at this point, like it can sense I’m terrified of it. I think it knows I’m scared and it likes it that way. I think it enjoys my fear. It waits for me to almost relax into my surroundings before pouncing and sending me in flight or fight mode, it’s only been flight so far.
I’ve been able to make out more details now. It’s probably about seven feet tall give or take a foot. What I thought was a long black coat is actually thick matted fur. I still haven’t seen its face clearly but it’s pale, like it’s never seen the light of day. It has what look like the beginning of horns growing on its head and I swear they have gotten bigger the closer it gets. I’ve tried staying awake but it’s no use. No amount of energy drinks or adderall seem to work. My body just shut down after a while and I’m somewhere I don’t want to be and wondering what horrific headline will be there when I wake up.
The closer the thing gets to me, the closer the places are to. I’m hiding out in my mom’s place in Boston because I’m too afraid to be alone and last night I was at a diner in New Jersey. I have no idea what this thing is, I don’t know what it wants. All I know is that if I go to sleep tonight I have no idea if I’ll wake up. If you know what this thing is- if you’ve ever seen it please tell me. I’m trying to stay awake for as long as I can because I can’t shake the feeling that I am on borrowed time as is.
God, I hope I’m alive to see the sunrise.