The Shadow On My Sofa

The following events took place when I was around 15 years old and lived at home with my parents and younger sister. We had moved into a new house that was only around 20 years old but still needed a fair bit of renovating. The house was situated on an acre and a half of land, with a creek running along the rear boundary. There was only one previous owner who had built the home with her late husband. Prior to that it was simply vacant bushland.

My parents had bought homes to renovate and flip, so to my sister and I this was just another adventure. I can't tell you exactly when I first started to feel uneasy about the house, but I do know that there were many little events that I simply didn't notice until I finally grouped them together. There are too many things to mention, but I will focus on a few that have particularly affected me.

We had settled in and were there for maybe a few months before I started experiencing whispers before I slept. It would always happen during that time when you are a few seconds from sleep, but the slightest noise can startle you. The voice would mimic either my sister or my mum in such a convincing way that I would always reply and not realise until afterwards that it was not them. It would only whisper my name - nothing more, nothing less. I would answer and wait for a reply, but nothing. My mum and sister were always sound asleep.

Soon after this, I started to experience Sleep Paralysis. I had never had this before and it absolutely terrified me. It felt like as soon as I would fall asleep, I would drift only partly back into the real world. My eyes would still be closed, but my brain more awake than ever. I will always remember the overwhelming feeling of someone in the room, made all the worse by me not being able to see what was happening. I couldn't move, couldn't scream for help and I would get this pressure on my chest that got so bad I would stop breathing. It was only then that I would wake up, gasping for air. Once awake, the room was exactly how it should be but the feeling of someone watching would always linger. Gradually over time, these experiences became more and more frequent, until I would dread falling asleep because I knew what was to come.

Perhaps the most startling incident happened to both my sister and me. I was asleep when she suddenly tapped me on the shoulder and woke me up. As soon as I opened my eyes and looked at her, I knew that something had happened. She was terrified. She told me that she had gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water and saw dad sitting on the sofa upright. She had called out to him, but he didn't answer or even move. She began to feel uneasy and ran to get me.

I was not happy about going back into the kitchen, but a part of me thought that dad might have just been asleep. We slowly walked back into the kitchen and over towards the sofa. Don't ask me why we didn't just turn a light on, I know for a fact that I wasn't thinking straight having just woken up to this. The moon was bright that night, so as we got closer I saw what I can only describe as a dark male shadow, siting perfectly upright with no distinguishable features.

I instantly knew that it wasn't dad, but I called out anyway. We stood there watching for what felt like a lifetime when a sudden wave of emotion came over me. I felt like whatever was siting on that sofa was evil and in that split second its head began to turn. We ran for our lives back into my room, locked the door and turned every light on. We didn't sleep at all that night.

We told our parents in the morning, still hoping that somehow it was just dad who assured us that he had not left his room all night.

To this day I still regret not turning the light on and knowing for sure what I was looking at, but at the same time I think that it is maybe for the best. My sleep paralysis and various other things continued in the home until we moved out 2 years later, but nothing like the shadow man on the sofa.

Now I am 24 and have experienced sleep paralysis maybe 5 times since the day we left. Since leaving mum has also opened-up about her experiences in this house, none of which she wanted to tell us at the time for fear of scaring us even more. All I know is, I am glad to be out of that house.