From: name withheld by request
To: The Official Shadow People Archives
Subject: Night Attacks
Date: Saturday, August 09, 2008 11:30:21 AM
*Please do not show my email address if this gets posted on the website.*
I have had experiences with shadow people for a long time--perhaps even lifelong. Ever since I was a small child I remember feeling as though I were being watched, usually at night. My family moved several times, and every house we occupied was haunted, as far as I was concerned--even the new ones that we were the first to inhabit.
Some people think kids just have an overactive imagination, but I don't think imagination is the cause of this. Why would a child imagine something like that? I can understand a child's imagination distorting the way a child interprets something that they see or hear, but when there is apparently nothing there to see or hear, why would a child project a presence onto that nothingness? No, I think this happened because I felt something that was actually there.
I didn't start seeing them until I was older--13 or 14, perhaps. Except for the specific occasions that I will soon describe, I don't recall ever getting a good, long, direct look at them, but I would often see them out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I would notice what seemed to be someone just standing in the room with me, but when I would turn my head to look, it would be gone. Other times, I might catch the very brief image of someone walking from one room into another--but there would be no sound. Sometimes I can "hear" their presence as well. This is hard to explain and some people will know what I am talking about while others will have no clue. When a television is turned on (one with a tube, not the newer LCD or plasma ones), there is a characteristic, very high-pitched noise associated with it. The noise can act as a "sonar", bouncing off things in the room, and when I'm watching TV with someone else, if they get up to go get some water or something, the noise changes in a way associated with their movement. It will be muffled as they walk between me and the TV, or the noise may be amplified for a split second as it bounces off of them at just the right angle or something like that. Again, hard to describe, as it seems some people just do not hear that sound, but those who can hear that TV sound know right away what I mean. Anyhow, there have been times when I hear a change in that sound that lets me know something in the room has moved. Sometimes I hear it at the same moment that I feel a presence behind me, but when I look, nobody is there.
When things like that happen, it's a bit spooky, but the following occasions were just plain terrifying. This has happened to me several times, in at least two different houses. I will be asleep in bed at night, but suddenly wake up with the strong feeling of a presence--not right in the room with me, but approaching. It's like a presence that is so absolutely evil, you can feel it from a distance. This feeling was worse the second, third and fourth times it happened, because I knew what was coming and it is very unpleasant. Anyhow, I feel the presence, and then try to roll over on my side to curl up, which seems to help when I feel a presence. On these occasions, however, I find I can't move a muscle. As the presence draws nearer, it gets increasingly harder to breathe, until it takes all the effort that I can muster to get a breath in.
Then I see them: Several robed figures, always three or four of them, file into the room through the door, in a slow, but deliberate gait, almost ritualistic in its appearance. Most of the time, one of them seems like the "leader", and that one approaches me while the others hang back. The "leader" will come right up next to my bed, and there is such an aura of evil around him, words can't describe it. Coldness radiates from him the same way warmth radiates from a fire. I attempt to scream for help but have no voice. It's like something is holding my vocal cords, keeping them from vibrating. I try and try to scream, the figure is right there next to my face, doing nothing but standing there menacingly. Then my body has a sudden spasm, and in that instant, everything stops--the beings are gone, I can move, I can breathe, and I have a voice.
The first two times it happened, I was helpless. Since I can always feel them coming and I have some time to prepare myself mentally, I decided that if it happened again, I would call out to the Light to help me. The next two times, that didn't help too much. However, the last time this happened, I woke up and could feel the presence coming, and as usual, I couldn't move. This time I very forcefully imagined a shield of light surrounding me, and the episode ended before the beings ever started walking into the room. This has not happened since.
I don't believe this could be passed off as "sleep paralysis". Sleep paralysis doesn't explain the presences I feel when I am wide awake, nor does the "kids have wild imaginations" argument work when this happens to a 25 year-old. If any one of these different phenomena that I've described happened all by themselves, I'd be more accepting of a "rational" explanation, but I can't just focus in on one and ignore the others.
