Hypnagogic hallucination or "Shadow person"?

Ive posted weird experiences I have had in the past on ATS. I have had non hypnogogic experiences in the past with what I later discovered was called "Shadow People". In fact I think one of my first posts on ATS dealt with the phenomena.

Recently in the past couple of weeks I have had some very weird events occur. A couple of bizarre phone calls in the middle of the night from Voice over Internet Protocol to my house phone, cell phone and my bank informed me that my bank card had been compromised. Sunday I had travelled to part of the Kisatchie National Forest south of Winnfield, LA on Hwy 167 looking for supposed FEMA camp on the site of a WW2 era internment camp. I did not manage to find the WW2 site.

Early Monday morning, I was awakened by a sound that sounded like a weapon, specifically a handgun's hammer being cocked. Almost instantaneously I had grabbed a handgun I keep close, let the slide go forward chambering a round and aimed at the direction the sound came from.

If I had seen a person I would of pulled the trigger. What I saw was like an opaque apparition, like a shadow but it was not on the wall but standing before my bed. I can remember taking my gun and trying to touch it with the barrel. There didn't seem to be anything solid and I turned on a light. At this point it was gone. I checked the time, which was 04:40 AM.

Since then I have not slept well and have been especially tense and alert around 4 AM.

Personally I have been trying to force myself to believe it was a hypnogogic hallucination. I have also been trying to force myself to believe that none of the recent weirdness is connected other than the bank card/weird calls thing. I have been experiencing some very weird dreams and nightmares as well, but I dont think they are connected. One particular recent dream that stands out involved extremely loud sounds in the dreams where it felt like my eardrums almost burst. I woke up from it when the pain became too excruciating. After awakening my ears were loudly ringing, worse than any ringing I've had from being at a firing range. The ringing eventually stopped.

I don't know what to make of any of it. On one hand I worry I am losing my mind. On another I have had non hypnogogic experiences in the past involving other people that happened and the phone and bank card stuff are real.

I would like to know if anyone else has had comparable experiences, plus advice, ideas or opinions on the matter.

i'm not sure about the phone calls or the bank card. But there are two possibilities.

1. The apparition is real
2. The apparition is in your head

Either way, the next time you see it, try commanding it to leave your home.

If it's real, it will probably leave
If it's in your head, you'll psychologically trick yourself into thinking it will.



Based on my own experience, commanding it to leave your home works. Although, i'm more than certain that what i was dealing with wasn't my imagination because i witnessed "it" move an object in my house.

[edit on 3/12/2009 by JPhish]

Well... dunno about the bank card et. al. Physically - sounds much like sleep paralysis... which is very common and can be as a result of stress, strange events/experiences or a history of sleep problems (vivid dreams, insomnia)...

Q

reply to post by JPhish


I have had quite abit of experience with weirdness since I was a child. A number of times other people were involved who witnessed weird things, especially the so called "shadow people" phenomena.

I havn't ever tried to command anything to go away that I remember. If I can remember to try that and maintain composure I'll do that. I am familiar with banishing but reluctant to employ any occult methods, due to past experiences (long story).

[edit on 12/3/09 by MikeboydUS]

Originally posted by Qoelet
Well... dunno about the bank card et. al. Physically - sounds much like sleep paralysis... which is very common and can be as a result of stress, strange events/experiences or a history of sleep problems (vivid dreams, insomnia)...

Q

I have experienced sleep paralysis numerous times, but during this experience I was not paralyzed. I heard a mechanical click, grabbed my gun and aimed at some opaque figure that was gone when I turned the lights on. I was up for awhile after that and left the light on.

I would still like to think it was hypnogogic though. I have had past experiences with hypnogogic sensory input, primarily with taste and smell.

[edit on 12/3/09 by MikeboydUS]

It sounds like you are experiencing extreme paranoia.

You sleep with a loaded handgun and brandish it at phantoms.

I hope you live alone with no one in effective range.

I would suggest psychological help.

Originally posted by CallMeMaury
It sounds like you are experiencing extreme paranoia.

You sleep with a loaded handgun and brandish it at phantoms.

I hope you live alone with no one in effective range.

I would suggest psychological help.

I should clarify why I sleep close to a gun. Less than one mile from my home a preacher and his wife were brutally murdered in their home a few years ago. In the neighborhood I live in, a few months ago, across the street someone entered a home during the day while a mother was home alone in a bedroom, the person thankfully only took her purse that was in the living room and fled the house.

We have quite abit of crime. Growing up my home was robbed twice and I had an aunt who was brutally raped and murdered by a home invader.

Stack on to that seven years in the Army with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

edit

I should also mention I just bought this gun. I have only had it about a month. With the way crime has been going I figured it would be best to get one. The only time before the past month that I kept a gun close by was in 2006 in Afghanistan.





[edit on 12/3/09 by MikeboydUS]

You may not think much of your experience with the occult in the past, but depending on what happened that could explain the presence of an entity in your life.

Maybe you could give the short version of that long story?

Next time you see it, fire off a couple of rounds. If the bad man is still in there, he ain't happy.

"Major Payne terminated the bad man with extreme prejudice"!

Originally posted by HaTaX
You may not think much of your experience with the occult in the past, but depending on what happened that could explain the presence of an entity in your life.

Maybe you could give the short version of that long story?

When I was around 7 or 8 my father began to heavily invest into the occult. He travelled around the country buying expensive books from private collections. As far as I can remember it was an eclectic mix of Hermetic, Goetia and Cabalist stuff. I can remember looking through the books as a child and having no idea what the stuff was other than "magic" books. I want to say much of it dealt with invocations, evocations and such due to conversations I had with my father when I was older.

I can remember around that age my best friend and his family had experienced some weird stuff at their home. We did a mock ritual in his backyard and some pretty weird stuff happened.

My father also seemed to have managed to get our home haunted with his occult work. A number of wierd things happened there.

In high school I took an extreme interest in the occult, especially Enochian. My mother remaried. My stepfather's mother was a medium and used to conduct seances in her home which her son inherited. After she died, shortly after the marriage, that house had high weirdness, almost like a bad horror film.

I maintained an interest in the occult and even corresponded with Col. Aquino who founded the Temple of Set.

The occult played a huge role in the art I had done over the years. It was not until a number of destructive coincidences occured my first year in the Army that I decided to get away from it.

I still kept most of the books I had collected over the years though and only threw many of them away in 2008.

Due to the nature of the post could the mods please move this to the Psychology forum?

I think that may be a more appropriate area for this thread.

it sounds like what you saw is (if not hallucination) definitely a shadow person. what led you to this description? did you hear of them before seeing one or vice versa?

Originally posted by iNTERPLANETARyR.O.M.E.O.
it sounds like what you saw is (if not hallucination) definitely a shadow person. what led you to this description? did you hear of them before seeing one or vice versa?

I have had a number of experiences with opaque humanoid apparitions when I was a child 1988-1990. It was not until 2004 that I ran across the term "Shadow People".

reply to post by MikeboydUS


My hypnagogic experiences are mostly visual, but I had one in which a guy started to talk. And when very tired and in bed I sometimes have people talk in my head. Dayly talk, whole conversations.

Maybe you are simply on the brink of a break down and the best way to cure it is by eating well, avoiding stressy situations (I get very stressed by watching horrible things on tv) and yes indeed sleeping well. I can imagine that being difficult after seein the shadow man, you could try valerian and/or melatonin.

The thing is, the more stressed out you are the easier it is to be afraid. The more relaxed you are the less strange things seem to happen.

If when relaxed and feeling ok, you again see the shadow man than that might be a good indication of it being a reality apart from you.

As to the strange call and so on, it could all be a coincidence. Or if you don't believe in coincidences then something that is not important for you. Then again maybe there was a hidden message of sorts, something that would only make sense to you.

By the by, these sightings of shadowy figures seem to be on the rise judging from the threats here.

[edit on 13-3-2009 by QueenofWeird]

[edit on 13-3-2009 by QueenofWeird]