I had this nightmare about 17 years ago, and to this day I’m not sure what actually happened to me.
Back then, I was still living with my parents. I was a teenager. One afternoon after school, I lay down on the sofa in our living room, turned on some music, and decided to get a bit of rest. Whenever I had a table tennis or soccer match in the evening, I used to take a short nap beforehand.
That’s what I did that day.
I remember listening to a specific album — I can still recall it clearly — when my eyes started to feel heavy. Eventually, I drifted off.
In my dream, I was falling into nothingness.
Everything around me was pitch black. Then, suddenly, there was a blinding white flash right in front of me — and I slammed into something hard, like concrete.
At that exact moment, I realized I was actually falling off the sofa.
That’s when I woke up.
I was in a panic, kicking and punching around me, completely disoriented. I was lying right at the edge of the sofa, drenched in sweat, my heart racing. I felt the impact — but I hadn’t actually fallen. I was still on the sofa.
Confused and shaken, I sat up and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Then I checked my phone.
Only 35 minutes had passed.
After a while, I decided to try to fall asleep again.
I stopped the music, restarted the album from the beginning, pulled a blanket over myself, turned to face the back of the sofa, and closed my eyes.
It didn’t take long.
I was dreaming again.
But this time… it was worse.
Much worse.
Before I continue, I need to say this:
It’s hard to describe what happened next. It felt like I was experiencing multiple perspectives at the same time.
Still, I’ll try.
I found myself back in the room — exactly where I had fallen asleep.
I could see myself lying on the sofa, curled up under the blanket.
And at the same time… I could feel myself lying there.
Then I realized something else.
I wasn’t alone.
There was something standing next to the sofa.
A black silhouette. Humanoid, but wrong somehow. It was bent over slightly, watching me sleep.
And then my perspective shifted.
Suddenly, I was standing behind that thing — looking over its shoulder.
I could see myself on the sofa.
Sleeping.
Completely unaware.
The figure didn’t react to me. It didn’t move. It just stood there, like a statue.
Then everything changed again.
I was no longer standing. I was hovering near the ceiling, in the corner of the room.
From there, I could see everything:
My body on the sofa.
The black figure beside it.
And something else.
Another shape.
This one was on the ceiling.
It looked like a black mass, stretched out like a spider — its limbs pressed against the ceiling. But its “head”… wasn’t upside down. It was facing downward.
Watching me.
Just like the other one, it didn’t move.
It didn’t acknowledge me.
It just… observed.
Again, my position shifted.
Now I was in another corner of the room, still near the ceiling, with a full view of everything.
And that’s when I saw the door.
It was slowly opening.
I drifted across the room without moving my body, pulled toward the opposite corner.
In the doorway… there was another one.
Another black silhouette.
No face. No features. Just a presence.
Looking at me.
Or at my body.
I don’t know.
I felt pure fear at that point — but I still couldn’t wake up.
Then it happened again.
A blinding white flash.
For a split second, everything disappeared.
When I could see again, all of them had moved.
They were closer now.
One stood near the table.
One was on the sofa — above me, its legs spread over my body.
The one from the ceiling had shifted position and was now directly above where I was lying.
They had surrounded me.
I was completely overwhelmed.
I tried to wake up.
I begged myself to wake up.
But I couldn’t.
I started crying inside the dream.
And then I began to move again.
I was drifting toward the window… rising higher and higher, as if something was pulling me upward.
That was the moment I was truly terrified.
But the strangest part came next.
I suddenly had the feeling that I was all of them at once.
The figures.
All of them.
At the same time.
And I could see myself — my body — from multiple angles simultaneously.
Then my body on the sofa turned onto its back.
Facing them.
Facing… me.
My eyes opened.
And in that instant—
everything disappeared.
I woke up.
I was lying on my back, my arms tense, breathing heavily.
My shirt was completely soaked with sweat. I could feel drops running down my face.
I looked around the room, still panicking.
Nothing.
No one there.
Just me.
But my body felt like it was burning from the inside.
It took me a long time to calm down.
Even now, like 17 or 18 years later, I still don’t understand what that was.