It’s close to 4 in the morning and I’m shaking while I write this. Maybe resurfacing old memories to create my earlier post prompted what I’m about to tell you, or maybe not.

I was sleeping, not the frozen in fear and hallucinating type of sleep I’m used to, but actually sleeping and dreaming too. Let me start this by alerting you all that I sleep walk. It doesn’t happen often and it hasn’t happened recently, but it happened tonight.

I was waiting outside of a door. I’m not sure why, after all it was a dream. But there I was, waiting outside of a door. I’m not sure who or what I was waiting for but it felt like my job was important. I heard something on the other side of the door. It sounded like an animal, a scared animal. It was scuffling around and whimpering, but that didn’t faze me. I continued to wait, like I was a predator hunting prey – waiting for the right time to strike.

Whatever was on the other side of the door must have realized not to come any closer to where I was waiting on the other side. I heard its cries grow fainter and the scuffling, unsure steps grow further away. I waited for a bit.

You know how in a dream motives or actions can be unclear, but certain feelings may be overwhelming? I felt powerful. I had this overwhelming sense of empowerment as I opened the door.

The animal was motionless in the corner of the dark room with its back turned to me. I couldn’t make out the type of animal, but I knew it was facing away from me. It was too afraid to look at me. It had tried to escape but there was nowhere for it to escape to. I was walking towards it that feeling of power growing stronger with every step I took. The animal was trembling. It was too scared to move, too scared to fight, too scared to make a sound. I was taking my time, enjoying the fear and closing in slowly.

I stood over its silhouette in the dark room. I found myself saying, “I can watch you but you can’t watch me.”

I woke up sitting on my floor in front of a floor length mirror. What scared me the most was seeing my reflection when I woke up. Not that there was anything particularly strange about the way I looked, but waking up from a nightmare in front of a mirror is absolutely horrific. I thought it was someone else for a moment, like I was still dreaming.

I’m laying in bed now and I can’t sleep. I figured I’d document this because it kind of relates to what I posted earlier. I’m guessing just putting all of that out there was enough for me to have an insane nightmare that resulted in sleepwalking too. Sleep is strange. What’s crazy is that after hearing myself say, “I can watch you but you can’t watch me” I think back to hearing that dark figure say it to me. I realize that I don’t remember at all what its voice sounded like. So now I’m overcompensating and filling my memory of that encounter with my own voice. It’s disturbing.