Second Time

So, fast forward about 7 years. I'm lying in bed with a future ex-girlfriend. We had got onto the subject of my strange sleeping habits. Sometimes I sleep with my eyes open, or talk, I even sleepwalked out onto the roof of my house once. We were talking about this stuff and sharing recent weird or vivid dreams we'd had. I trusted this girl to not think I was entirely deranged, so I told her about the first time. We talked about it for a while,mainly because she had some interesting things to say on the subject, but let's leave that aside for now.

That night, as I lay next to her, it happened for the second time. It was quite different, but I have no doubt that it was another instance of the same kind of thing. It didn't happen at the start of my sleep cycle, instead I was already dreaming when the dream changed. I was being led by the arm down a dark passageway. I became aware of a slight sense of danger and of being trapped, that was the first thing that identified the Second Time with the First Time. Instead of the out and out horror of the first instance, this was a more subdued experience. I felt calmer, the realisation of what was happening to me was more gradual. My better understanding of what was happening helped me to keep calm.

The thing that was leading me, gripping my arm, turned to me as if it had noticed that I was beginning to understand what was happening. I can still see its face in my mind. Angry, burning eyes, I felt its hate. It appeared to be male, like a tall strong old man, again giving the impression of being something like a vampire. Don't get me wrong, when I said I was calmer... I was still very scared. The first time was one of the most frightening things that has ever happened to me. The second time was a bit better. There was still nothing nice about the way I felt. I want you to understand that these dreams feel very very real to me. I react to them while they are happening as if they are real, happening to me, I'm lucid and aware that I am not awake, but that doesn't make me feel any safer. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking over my shoulder when I am awake, and I'm never worried about going to sleep (maybe because I ALWAYS win, lolz) but I feel very strongly when this is going on that I am in real danger....

If you haven't already please take a moment and try to imagine how you would react if this shit happened to you. Dreams are not just "dreams". By that I mean they have a functional reality, they can be extremely intense experiences and affect your waking life. That is certainly the case here.

It led me to a small cramped room that appeared to have walls of earth and left me there for a while. When the demon came back and opened the door to lead me out it I was scared. It was an evil looking thing. It led me out into a bright space surrounded by darkness. In the shadows I could sense a massed audience looking at me. That was the worst feeling of the experience. I felt a kind of desperate loneliness, I knew none of the things that were watching would help me, that instead they were there to watch me suffer. The demon stood beside me and held me still as I looked into the darkness. I felt it bite my neck. I can remember that feeling. Despite my fear and revulsion, I was still ok. Part of the demon's purpose seemed to be to make me....this is hard to describe....degenerate into panic or abject terror, to lose myself. I just tried to accept my situation, my powerlessness, and the next thing I remember is watching the demon attacking me from a different point of view. I was seeing myself standing a few metres away, with this man-thing stood beside me with its teeth at my neck. It was staring straight ahead over the back of my neck, looking right at me with these incredibly angry, burning-with-hate, eyes. It realised that whatever it was attacking, feeding off, whatever, i was not there anymore. I was watching it and it was watching me, I had disassociated myself from the part of me that it was attacking. The demon stopped and its anger increased to the point where it was a palpable thing. I was scared then, by that, but I could feel that the demon had been frustrated, it had failed. I woke up. Demons 0 tiger cub 2

"Are you all right?" - my future ex girlfriend. It was still dark.

"I'm ok"

"You were shaking" - I'd woken her up.

I told her what had happened. She'd told me earlier that day that her father, a devout muslim, suffered from what he and his Imam described as attacks by demons in the night. Her father had described his experiences in very similar terms to my own. The Qu'ran has a fairly well evolved explanation for this phenomenon. Sometimes at home in Saudi she woke up to the sound of her father screaming at the top of his voice, she told me that he sounded more scared than anything else she had ever heard. She found it a little surreal when when I described my experiences. I shit ye not at all.