To start off, this is my first reddit post, and my first experience with reddit. These are real experiences that I’ve had, and I’m human. I’m not a role model, and if you experience anything similar to this, then maybe you can understand what it is I experienced. I’m not religious or spiritual in any way. And I no this isn’t exactly the scary story that most of you are used to.
I am a 27(M) who has struggled to sleep for years. I don’t mean the occasional interruption that inconveniences most of us, I mean, I usually get 2 hours of very interrupted sleep every night, but there are some days I will go without sleeping at all. I know this is extremely unhealthy, and is damaging my body and my brain, but I’m just an idiot who can’t sleep, but am now taking steps to improve my life, and my sleep.
To get on the topic of my sleep. I probably have insomnia, but have obviously never had it truly diagnosed. I’ve seen a doctor recently, but he referred me to a neurologist who plans to run many tests to find out what exactly is going on in my brain when I’m awake, and when I’m actually asleep. I’ve taken unisom for the past 2 years. Unisom is not meant to be a long-term sleep aid, it’s meant to be one of those things you take on a rough night here and there. I take roughly 4-5 50mg caps every night, and I think at this point it’s more of wishful thinking one of these nights it’ll actually work.
In July, I started experiencing auditory hallucinations while at work. Lack of sleep I’m sure. Really thought nothing much of it because it was quiet, but over the days that passed, these hallucinations became clearer, and where I could understand what was being said. At first, it just seemed like high frequencies, just a buzzing in my ears, nothing to make out. But then words were being said, nothing that made sense at first. Late July, on my last day at work before vacation, I was taking a walk on my lunch break, just to try and clear my head, especially because I was extremely stressed, a factor as well I’m sure.
As I’m taking this walk, I heard someone talking, quietly at first, I couldn’t make anything out. I started to breathe slowly, trying to shake the insanity growing in my head, and then I hear a crisp, clear voice, say: “bud, you need to listen to me sometimes.” I was thrown off more than anything. It was a voice i recognized but couldnt quite make out who, or what. I turned around, and clear as day, I see my Grandfather, who had passed away eons ago, 22 years to be exact. He smiles at me, I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, he was gone. I didn’t know how to react, I simply thought that I was going crazy, so I acted as though if I had seen and heard nothing.
I went home that night, and for the first time in a long time, I was tired. I was exhausted. I felt like if I laid down, I was going to sleep good. Not just good, GREAT. I didn’t eat anything, I laid down in my bed, closed my eyes, and I fucking fell asleep within maybe minutes. I had a dream, and it was of me at work, what I had experienced that same day, taking a walk, I mean, it was the craziest deju vu. And I heard those words, and I saw my Grandfather. He smiled, and this time I spoke. I asked him how he was, he responded with “Doing pretty good, kid”. All I wanted to do was talk with him, and try to make up for conversations we never had.
We sat down on a curb covered by an awning, and it started to rain. But it wasn’t any rain I had ever experienced before, it was translucent, you could see different colors in it. It was beautiful. I asked my Grandfather where we were, and he said “Well, we’re at your work but we’re not quite at your work”. I didn’t understand, so I asked what he meant by that. He stood up, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took a puff and then says “Look around, what do you see?”. The parking lot was empty. The stores across the street were empty. There were no cars on the roadways, no people I could see, no birds in the sky, there were no sounds other than us speaking. Something beautiful had turned into something truly terrifying. An empty world other than me, and my dead Grandfather. So I tell him, I see nothing but you and I, no cars, no people, what happened here?
He throws his cigarette to the ground, and it just disappears. As if it were never truly in existence to begin with. He looks at me, his smile had faded, and he says “This is what your world will end up being if you don’t listen to me.” I was scared. I didn’t know what to say or what to think. The obvious, ask what the fuck he meant, but it was almost as if I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t open my mouth. And he starts to scream at me, telling me how I wasn’t listening, I never listened to him. I tried so badly to wake up, and I couldn’t. Relentlessly he repeats to listen, louder and louder. I was terrified. I thought I would be trapped in this dream forever.
His demeanor instantly changes. He says “Please, just listen. Remember what I said when you were little? No tears for fear, just ears for cheers.” It was something I didn’t remember him saying specifically, but my dad often repeats it. It means really what the words do, don’t cry when you fear something, find a way to happiness. Like cheers. I started crying, because I didn’t understand how to achieve this. But I tried to relax nonetheless, wiped the tears from my face, and listened. I could hear everything, everyone. My dog Winston barking. My parents talking, my siblings laughing. Friends and other family members. I could hear their voices.
He looks at me, and I say “I hear them”. He responds with “Good, like I said, just listen. Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s in front of you, but if you can hear it, then surely you can see it, even if not with your eyes.” These were the most words he had spoken, a complete sentence with information I’m trying to grasp. He smirks and says, “I love you, kid. I keep on loving you. I need you to love yourself, too.”
I ask him how I could find him again, and his words were fading now, but I could make out “Don’t worry kid, you won’t need to find me anymore.” And like that, I’m awake. Still trying to grasp at what it was I just went through. I couldn’t explain it to myself. Was I visited? Did I visit him? How did this happen? Was this all manufactured in my head for some reason, due to the lack of sleep? I looked at my phone, and it was 6am the following morning. I had slept for 10 full hours. The most in years. I felt amazing.
The message was clear. I have a beautiful life, loving friends and family, people that need me. It’s time to start caring for my health. Especially my sleep. Something so simple but so very important was literally ruining my mental and physical life because I stopped caring for it. Maybe it was something spiritual, maybe it was just something my mind manufactured. My conscious. I don’t know. But I will never forget it.