Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

I have a very unusual experience to tell that may or may not be paranormal in nature. Whether it was real or just a dream, it left me absolutely terrified. It happened when I was 15 years old and living at home with my parents and my older brother in a two story house.

We used to joke about our house being haunted because all of us at one time had heard footsteps on the stairs leading up from the den on the bottom floor. The steps would begin in the den, walk up the stairs, and then stop when they reached the top of the stairs. All of our bedrooms we on the top floor.

One night after everyone was asleep, I woke up for no apparent reason. I felt disconnected and confused, like I was still half asleep. For some reason, I felt the need to get up and go downstairs. When I went out into the hallway, I saw that my feet were not touching the ground, I was practically floating, and realized that I was dreaming. I “floated” down the first flight, then turned the corner and started down the second flight of stairs toward the den. It was dark, but for obvious reason I could not turn on the lights.

I went through the doorway of the den, and suddenly had a terrible feeling that I was not alone. As a matter of fact, I absolutely panicked, and knew I had to get out of there. I turned around and literally felt myself flying up the first flight, then the second, and into my bedroom. I then found myself hovering over my bed, actually looking down at my own body, still asleep on the bed. I looked over at my bedroom door, and I just knew that whatever was in the den was making it’s way up the stairs. I was frantic, and tried everything to wake myself up. I began screaming at myself to wake up, but my body didn’t stir, I tried to hit myself but couldn’t reach, and I got this sense that if I didn’t wake myself up before this “thing” got to my room, something really bad was going to happen.

I heard the footsteps of the horror reach the top of the upstairs landing, and it began to walk toward my room which was at the end of the hall. It was then that I suddenly “fell” into my body, and I woke up by sitting straight up in bed. My heart was racing and I was covered in sweat. I immediately looked over at the bedroom door, expecting something to come walking through, but it didn’t. The house was dark and terribly quiet. I turned on my bedside lamp, still watching my open bedroom door. Nothing appeared, moved, or made a noise. After a few minutes of this I finally chalked it up to the most vivid dream I’ve ever had and went back to sleep, with the lamp still on.

I’ve thought about this incident over the years since then, and even though my rational mind says it was just a dream, there’s a small part of me that wonders if that was an “out of body experience.” My husband believes that it was, and that the reason I was trying so hard to wake myself up was to keep the “bad thing” from reaching my body before I did and taking it over. I’m not convinced of this, however, I will say that this occurrence is the one and only time I’ve ever seen myself in a dream.

Written by Leslie Cooke, Copyright 2010