Now I Cannot Sleep In The Dark

Warning: This is a very lengthy story which contains a lot of my different experiences. If you are short on time I don't recommend you read any further.

I have had so many different experiences over a period of about 8 years, I'm not sure where to start. I apologise for the length of this, if you don't want to read the whole thing I've tried to break it up into sections.

First of all, I would like to let the readers know that I have never meddled with ouija boards or attempted to contact spirits. Whenever I do tell someone my experiences that is always a question I'm asked. Secondly, I do not like these experiences. It is not something I seek out. My mother watches a lot of horror novels and when I told her some of these events, she said that she wished she could experience it.

I remember seeing odd things that scared me when I was a young child but as I cannot be certain whether these were true events, or just my overactive imagination, I won't bother going into detail.

The first real experiences I had occurred when I was 17 years old. I was living with my boyfriend at the time, and as he worked late at night, I would come home from work to an empty house at night. I would often see shadows moving inside the house as I would unlock the front door, which was a sliding glass door. Everytime, I would walk through the house and turn on every light, checking all doors and windows but found nothing. No intruders, no signs of forced entry or open windows.

Once when laying in bed, I was drifting off to sleep when there was a loud bang next to my head on the wall. I turned on the light, and the strings which control the window blinds (they have a weight on the bottom) were still swinging from side to side. The windows and doors were closed, there was no breeze and I could not find a reason as to why the weight would have made a loud bang on the wall next to my head.

Another day, my boyfriends mother was moving out of this particular unit and I was packing up her closet for her and placing her shirts on a chair. I remember seeing a particularly bright coloured shirt and thought "wow, that's ugly." I continued piling shirts onto the chair and then walked out to get a drink from the kitchen. When I returned to the room, the "ugly" shirt I paid attention to was spread out flat on the ground a good metre from the chair. The shirts which I had placed ontop of it had not not moved, so it had not simply slipped off the chair.

Another time, I woke up not being able to move and felt a weight ontop of me. It felt as though someone was laying beside me and had wrapped their leg and arm over me protectively. I did not feel scared during this experience but remember feeling comforted and calm. After five minutes the feeling lifted and I was able to sit up.

The last experience in this particular house I will mention is when I had an argument with my boyfriend at the time, and he threw my mobile phone into the roof through a man-hole in the ceiling. The next day, armed with a flashlight, I used the inbuilt cupboard which was almost directly below the manhole and made my way up, positioning myself with my back resting against the side of the manhole as I used my torch to try and locate my phone. Suddenly, a cold wind engulfed me and I particuarly remember my fringe flying around in front of my face. I used my torch to try and see if there were any holes in the roof where a breeze would be coming through, but found nothing. It was at that point that my flashlight died. I jumped down, tapped the torch and it started working again. I went back up, same thing happened with the breeze and the torch failed almost instantly. I tried tapping it but it wouldn't work. I refused to go back into the man-hole. I then ended up moving to another house.

Following the experiences in that house, I had not had any experiences for a good year. It was when I moved in with my cousin when I was 18 that strange occurances started to happen again.

My cousin worked night shift and his wife and children were staying at her mother's house while they were having a break, so I was left alone by myself at nights. I think perhaps it may be relevant that his house was part of a new buiding estate.

I had been sleeping in the livingroom with the TV on as I felt an unexplainable fear with sleeping in my room. It was right at the back of the house down the end of a long hallway and I just found it creepy. I would often hear creaking noises and would tell myself it was the house settling. There was a door in the kitchen which led to the garage and I saw an open manhole in the roof of the garage which scared me, after my experiences with man-holes at the previous house.

One night I was sitting in the loungeroom and I heard the door to the garage open. I got up and sure enough, it was wide open. I checked the door handle, and it was still in the locked position. I shut the door, checked the lock, and rattled the door a bit to make sure it wouldn't come open again. I walked back into the livingroom. As soon as I sat on the couch, I heard the door open again. This frightened me as I knew I had just thoroughly checked the lock, so I refused to leave the livingroom and left the door open for the rest of the night.

After two weeks, I decided that I could not live in fear and that I would go and sleep in my room with the lights off "like a normal human being". (This is what I told myself, trying to laugh at my fear.) I remember the hairs on my arms and back on my neck being on end as I turned all the lights off and got into bed. I was trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible. After five minutes, I heard footsteps in the kitchen, on the tiles. I then heard the footsteps come down the hallway on the carpet and into my room. The footsteps sounded different on the different surfaces. I then heard the footsteps pacing back and forth next to my bed. I jumped out of bed and turned all the lights on in the house but found nothing.

I remember someone once told me to talk to spirits if you are afraid, so as I stood in the kitchen, I said out loud "You're scaring me, so you stay in your area (I believed it originated from the man-hole in the roof) and I will stay in the livingroom, OK?" after this, I heard a definite knock from the ceiling. I then asked "Is there more than one of you?" I waited for a minute but heard nothing, after which I asked "Is there only one of you?" Straight away I heard a knock in the ceiling. Overcome by fear, I said "OK you're freaking me out, I'm going to the livingroom." And I stayed in there until my cousin returned home. Looking back, I should have asked different questions, but at the time I so scared I just wanted to be left alone.

When my cousin returned home I told him what happened. He then told me that he had often heard footsteps in the roof which would go in the direction of his daughters room, who was 4 years old. He also explained that he would smell something like burning oil. I had also experienced this.

When his wife and daughter came back, there was a problem with lights working in his daughter's room. Batteries would fail for no reason and then work in the morning. On three occasions I was woken in the middle of the night by my cousins daughter crawling into bed with me, as her bedroom was across the hall from mine. One day after lunch, she told me "there are shadow people in my room." Wanting to clarify what she was trying to tell me, I asked "Do you mean your mum or your dad?" and she replied "No, shadow people." This was why she was scared of the dark and insisted on using a night light of some form. I told her if she was ever scared, to come to my room or her parent's room, and she did so on many occasions.

At this stage of my life I moved to work on a sheep station in the middle of the desert. I worked on 2 stations, for a year and a half each. I once heard a knocking on my window when I was home alone and found no-one nearby. With the nearest town being 500 kilometres away, it was doubtful anyone would be in the vicinity. Also I had a lot of door slamming occur but thought nothing of it as it may have just been a windy night and there were a few open windows.

From there I decided to come to university and a lot of activity has been occuring since I have been here.

Twice I have woken up gasping for breath as though I was being choked.

While laying with my hands above my head, I felt someone run their finger down my armpit.

I've had books and pens get pushed off my table.

Clothes falling off hangers.

Imprints on my bedding of someone sitting down.

I have seen black shadows, that resembled a torch light getting flicked around my room, as well as the outline of a figure standing in my doorway when all my lights were on.

I have smelt burning hair and not found a source, and about an hour afterwards, I could smell something that resembled candle wax and pot pourri.

I have woken up on numerous occasions with bruises on my arms which resemble fingerprints, in a position as though someone was holding me down.

I have felt something laying directly ontop of me, and constant cold spots.

The most frightening experience was one night as I was drifting off to sleep. I felt the air get freezing cold, and a hand pat my right foot, then just below my knee and then just above it, and sharply tug my blankets down. In fear, I froze and pretended to ignore it, telling myself I imagined it. After a couple of minutes, I felt the exact same patting down and sharp tug of the blanket. It pulled the blanket a good 10cm down. It would have been more, had my arm not been ontop of the blankets. I turned the lights on and called my mother (it was 2:30am). I was crying and telling her "there is something here, something is here I'm not alone." I felt I needed to ring her so that in the morning I would not think it was merely a dream.

Ever since that night, (it was 8 months ago now) I have not been able to sleep in the dark. I have had a TV or lamp, sometimes even the ceiling light on, all night. I can only sleep easily once I see the sun starting to come up through the blinds.

I went to a doctor as I was studying all day and working part time, and not able to sleep at night, so I was running on empty. The doctor diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder and prescribed me anti-depressants and sleeping tablets. I don't take the anti-depressants (as I'm not depressed!) but sometimes take the sleeping tablets out of necessity.

I want to be able to sleep normally, but I feel as though whenever I let my guard down, that is when strange things occur.

I lost my job because I couldn't function properly due to sleep deprivation, but my uni work has been fine as I just study at night time now (I'm writing this at 3am) and sleep in the afternoon.

I'm not sure if I'm simply sensitive to these things, or if I attract it. I don't watch horror movies, and I don't want these things to happen, I just want it to all stop.