Insomnia

Igrew up in a small town called Maraetai situated on the east side of Auckland New Zealand. It was one of those 'way out in god knows where' area's with the beach at its front and miles of forest and farms to the back of it. In fact the name in maori means A Meeting Place by the Sea (just in case that has some spiritual significance to my story.

To break with tradition, this is a story I have never been inclined to keep to myself, from the time it happened I have been eager for opinions on possible explanations so by all means feel free to send me your thoughts.

I was twelve years old and suddenly woken when I heard my baby sister crying in the room down the hallway; so I was wide awake when it happened. As her infantile screeching lessened I found I could not sleep and lay there frustrated for about half an hour when the atmosphere diabolically changed.

Basically one minute everything felt 'normal' and then suddenly I felt total and utter terror literally envelope me. I knew then that there was something else in the room. The problem here was my door was closed and hadn't opened and I felt the presence 'watching' me from a specific corner of the room. I wanted to scream but was too scared. Next thing I knew the 'thing' was on top of me and shaking me violently and pushing me into my bed. I know it wasn't a person because when I reached out to push it away there was nothing physically there...

My family was a particularly Pentecostal/ protestant type so I tried 'calling out to Jesus' but when I tried to speak all that came out from me was a gurgling like my tongue was being held. So I did the next best thing and grabbed my childrens bible which I kept by my bed for bed time reading and began to wave it around in the air as if to hit the attacker. Eventually it went away. I remained awake for a while longer too scared to move from under my covers until simply by the sheer exhaustion of the fear I felt I fell asleep.

Next day I wrote it off as a very bad dream and went through the day in denial until that night I had that 'what if' chill go down my spine. I decided to be a man about it and just went to sleep. I was woken at roughly the same time that night and again the same thing. One minute everything felt fine and then the terror came over me. I have only ever been able to describe it as Evil personified, like all that was bad suddenly became a tangible entity and was waiting in the corner of my bedroom. Then it attacked me again, but this time with more violence, more force than the previous night. Again I couldn't even pray anything that made sense and this time not even swinging my bible through it deterred it from harassing me, it only seemed to agitate the thing - it would leave me for a few moments and then come at me. This went on for about two hours. I honestly thought I was going to die.

Over a period of weeks similar occurrences took place. I remember several times being almost lifted from my mattress and something pulling me from my bed. I told my parents about it who thankfully believed me and decided that it was a Demonic force and had people from the local church over to pray over the room and for me.

Eventually however I moved out and into the spare room downstairs and nothing ever happened again, accept I had nightmares about it for years afterward and still do at the age of 22. But...

Several other incidents occured of a different nature. My brother would hear deep breathing in his room whenever the light was turned out for years. It became so regular that the initial fright of it subsided and it became an accepted and expected experience. Also...

On another night my Step Dad was downstairs at about 2a.m. in the living room when something moving in the hallway caught his attention. He called my name thinking it was me but saw a man in a denim jacket walking up the hall, up the stairs and then through the wall! Apart from the walking through solid matter the other strange thing was the man was transparent.

So I leave the floor open to anyone with criticism. I know that my experience is not an uncommon one. Some would even put it down to a phenomena called Sleep Paralysis. The problem I have with this theory is that first of all I was wide awake before it happened, and secondly I was more than able to move around to the point of picking up a book and using it as a weapon - to the best of my knowlege victims of SP can't even move their hands or arms.