I’ve always been an active sleeper. When I was a kid (I am told, anyway) I would sleep walk all over the house, stop at various points and speak full sentences of (ostensible) word salad. I have no recollection of this. However, on nights I didn’t do that, I would wake up terrified of the shadowy figures I saw moving toward me. They were faceless bodies, that weren’t entirely opaque. The best way I can describe them is that they seemed to be made of static. They wouldn’t ever do anything to me; I was not sure if they were even there at all. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me. Or, it could have been that they visited once or twice, but that was enough to have my mind implant them in my room in perpetuity. Either way, their presence freaked me out enough to compel me to sprint to sleep in bed with my mom and dad just about every night until I was at least nine or ten.
The episodes slowed as I reached adolescence. However there were two unique happenings that have stuck with me since. The first was when I was in college. I had just moved out of the dorm, one month prior to summer break. My roommate, Kevin, was an absolute slob. He was covered in cystic acne and had an aversion to doing laundry, regularly bathing, cleaning dishes, or even attending his classes. He claimed the professors posted the slides online so he didn’t need to go. He also stayed up all night watching shitty network television shows while I tried to sleep. This was a problem as I was an ROTC cadet at the time, and had to get up around 530AM 3-5 mornings a week. So, a month before scheduled, I tapped out of dorm life and moved into a studio apartment across the street from campus. It was an old studio, smelled a little musty, but had a great location and the land lord was a sweet old lady. Ruth.
One of the first nights I was there, I awoke in the middle of the night. I got that same feeling of terror that I had as a child. Only this time, I didn’t have my mom and dad’s room to run to. I was on my own. As I woke up I felt a quick, heavy, and repeated pounding underneath my mattress. It was as if someone was up-kicking under my bed. Like they were trying to get me out of there. No idea what it was, but I couldn’t get back to sleep until the sun came out.
The next few years were generally uneventful, as far as these strange occurrences go…. Until they weren’t. I had just moved to Germany for the Army. For the first week or so I was living in a hotel room while I hunted for a permanent flat. Anyway, one morning I woke up. I opened up my eyes but I couldn’t move. Everything around me was hazy, static. It was like I was inside a dirty TV channel from the 90s that wasn’t a part of the family cable plan. Then, from the corer of my eye I see a figure. A staticky shadow, not unlike the figures that I saw when I was a boy. But, this time I could see the figure much clearer (probably because it was morning.) The best way I can describe this thing is, if you have ever seen the Toy Machines skateboard brand mascot, this was like a live version of that, but instead of being cartoonish this thing was horrifying. It was around seven feet tall with horns. It was pacing around the room but didn’t seem to notice me…. Until it did. That’s when it started moving closer to me, which terrified the everliving shit out of me because I still could not move, despite my best effort. So, I started chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō and the Mahā-mantra. I figured this might make me snap out of it since I thought I remembered hearing Duncan Trussell say that this is what he chanted whenever he had a bad trip on acid. This really just made things worse, more vivid. The horned figure was now on top of me pressing my chest to the point where it was hard to breath. That’s when I went for a literal Hail Mary. I literally prayed what words I remembered of the Hail Mary and then just literally started begging Jesus, dear God make whatever the fuck this thing is go away. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, please.
That’s when I heard a loud crack. The pressure released. I could move, and everything was back to normal. Shortly after I got up and went out to explore my new city, Mainz if anyone is curious. Nice place. It’s basically been smooth sailing ever since. Other than the time my girlfriend from Thailand tried to stab me; perhaps that’s a story for another day.