Scared Of The Toy Room

I want to share something that happened a few years ago that has, to this day, baffled me.

My ex-husband and I dropped off our three children at his sister's house to spend the night. We were going to a party and were going to be late coming back so decided it would be best for us to pick them up early the next day. According to my sister-in-law, these were the events.

The children (my two girls and boy and her daughter and son) were playing in toy room when all three of my kids came out and told her they wanted to go home. They said they didn't want to be there anymore and they wanted to go home right away. My sister-in-law thought it was strange since our kids have always gotten along, so she asked them why. They said they were scared to be there and couldn't really get much more out of them. She was able to get my four year old to sleep with her daughter but couldn't get my other two to stay in the bedroom, so she laid them down in the living room on the two sofas.

She sat next to them reading a book while they slept. She said that suddenly my son started talking in his sleep. She tried to pay attention but couldn't understand anything he was saying. Then my daughter started talking in the same gibberish my son was. She freaked out because she realized it sounded like they were having a conversation with each other. She said it sounded like they would respond to each other and the conversation was getting a little 'heated'.

Suddenly, my daughter started tossing and it looked like she wanted to get up but was being held down. She started calling their names and telling them to wake up. She yelled out when she felt someone touch her from behind. She turned around with her fist up ready to sock someone and there was my four year old, saying she's ready to go. My sister-in-law asked her, "Go where?" and my daughter answered, "Mommy and daddy are coming to get us now." She pulled my daughter over to her and sat her in her lap, and turned around to look at my other two. They were sound asleep, not making any noise or movement.

At that moment the door bell rang. It was my ex-husband and I who had returned early because neither one of us was comfortable at the party. We were not enjoying ourselves and felt very uneasy, so we decided to go back to my sister-in-law's. If the kids were up we would take them home, and if not we were going to spend the night there, at his sister's house.

We came in not knowing anything of what had gone on a few minutes earlier. We moved the kids to the spare bedroom and all went to sleep. My sister-in-law said nothing to me until the following morning when she asked me if that had happened before. Of course I said, "NO!" I didn't know what she was talking about. She told me that she had been terrified while all this was going on and that she swears it sounded like my kids were speaking in 'tongues'. I didn't know what she meant and she tried to explain what that meant. She saw she was scaring me so she said, "Well, maybe it was nothing and I was just over-reacting." We left it at that, but both of us could tell the other was still thinking about it.

I sat down with my children and asked a million questions, but they had no idea what I was talking about. All I got out of them was that they were not comfortable in the toy room because "the people there don't like them."

It's been two years since this happened and I've never experienced anything like this with them, but I've always wondered what it was. Any ideas? Anybody know what my sister-in-law meant with 'speaking in tongues'? Her explanation didn't make any sense to me. My children are fluent in English and Spanish only. I tried to research this and other experiences on the internet but can't come up with anything.