April 13, 2007
The Old Lady and Shaking Bed
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Caroline Gilmore, Northern Ireland, August 12, 2006
I was sleeping one night beside my boyfriend in a house we'd recently moved
into. I had never had any problems sleeping there before, and it was just a
normal night to begin with. I was having a really nice dream, just a normal
dream about day-to-day things -- I was in the kind of sleep that you're
aware that you're dreaming.
I was lying right at the edge of my double bed, facing the window, and
avoiding my boyfriend's heat because I was so warm. All of a sudden I was
woken from the dream. My eyes opened and a couple of inches away from my
face there was an old woman on her hands and knees beside my bed speaking
into my face with an urgent tone of voice, saying something like "get out!"
(It was clear what she said at the time, but by the time I calmed down to
think about her message, I couldn't remember it exactly.) I can remember her
image vividly even now. Her hair was gray and black with tight curls, and
she was fattish, with big arms. I leapt backwards across the bed screaming,
landing on my sleeping boyfriend. He awoke with my screams and asked me what
was wrong. I started crying and told him there was a woman down the side of
the bed. He crawled over the bed immediately and looked down the side and
underneath, but there was nothing there. He told me I must have been
dreaming, and to go back to sleep. I started doubting myself, but I still
insisted on him taking that side of the bed and I cuddled into him like I've
never cuddled in before, still shaken from the vision of the old lady.
As time went on I began to drift off to sleep, now convinced that I was
being stupid and that my boyfriend was right. He was now lying in the
position I was in when the woman woke me, and I was cuddling his back when
he started shaking violently. The shaking felt like it was going through the
whole mattress so I sat up and tried to wake him. He wouldn't wake up so I
thought to myself he must just be shaking from a dream and that once again I
was just being paranoid. His shaking stopped so I lay back down on my side,
with my back touching his and my arms crossed over my chest because I felt
much colder than I had earlier on. When I was trying to get back to sleep,
the bed started shaking, and this time it was worse. It wasn't coming from
my boyfriend -- I tried to get up, but I realized I was paralyzed. I
couldn't move at all, my crossed arms felt like they were choking me, and I
could barely breathe. I tried to call out to my boyfriend -- my lips were
moving but no words were coming out. I was terrified, paralyzed for about 20
seconds, the shaking of the bed seemed now to be coming from me - like
currents of energy (for want of a word that could describe the feeling) were
pulsing downward through my body as if something had taken over me. The
shaking stopped and I could move again, but this time I knew I wasn't being
paranoid, or dreaming, I was wide awake when it happened. I used to be a
ghost skeptic but after that I have no doubt at all in the supernatural. We
moved out of the house shortly after this. I just hope that nothing like
this ever happens to me again.
