Cover My Ears

Like any good, engrossing story, the events I'd like to unfold do not commence so easily. I do not know where to begin, but allow me to preface the following paragraphs with some generic background information. I do not command the wind, I do not talk to the deceased fluctuating from life and death on a thin, narrow line. I am also not particularly gifted at reading minds or moving inanimate objects with my mind, and if I did have a past life I was probably something boring like a troglodyte or middle class spinster. In fact, I am so ordinary and average it is almost painful. Without divulging too much personal information, I am a young professional in a branch of the Armed Forces, I do not use or abuse substances, I work out regularly, I eat nutritious foods, I have an active social life, and I am very close to my family. Yet, at my sister's bidding, I have decided to finally share my story with, hopefully, a willing audience.

When I was thirteen, my family moved across town. My father, a career Airman, was deployed abroad for a protracted period of time. Basically, my mother coralled all of us kids to relocate our household twenty miles west and onto base housing. That afternoon, exhausted from the move, I curled up in the far bedroom for a cat-nap. What transpired was the first of many terrifying "dreams," for lack of a better word, so terrifying and alien in fact that I never slept in that room again. Up until this point, my nightmares were labrynths filled with werewolves and monsters that disappeared whenever I woke. From this point forth, sometimes several times a week, I would feel a strong humming or vibrating sound resonating from deeper than my ear drums. My body would shake so intensely I swore I could feel the solid oak bunk bed move. Luckily, and as mysteriously as they began, these strange dreams suddenly stopped.

When I was eighteen, and just a few months after leaving the nest for Basic Training, I received my final orders to a small, unnamed base. I was assigned a cheery enough dorm room; very understated, nothing unusual. One night, while sleeping/dreaming, something growled in my ear. I sprang out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, and never slept in that room again. Yet, my problems continued when I was cleared to move from base into my first apartment. Feverish with a heavy-handed stomach virus, I had a ridiculously terrifying dream in what I originally designated the master bedroom. Trembling and shaking on my napa-crate style futon, I could open my eyes and look around the room, but I could neither physically move my body or scream, which I wanted to do very badly because, sitting in a crouched style just under the ledge of the rear window, was a twenty-something depraved looking man in 70's attire. All he said to me, and this may be vulgar to some viewers, was, "My name is Bob, and I like b*** j***." Once I came out of this debilitating sleep state, I mustered all my strength and moved the futon into the spare bedroom. I never slept in the original master bedroom again.

My episodes seemed to die down noticeably with only momentary lapses while I was stationed in Asia. I maybe had one episode every month, if that, and they were fairly mild. When I moved to Europe, however, the episodes picked up with rapidity and marked severity. At one point, a new facet of this state involved a feeling of floating and spinning above my bed. Also, shadows were moving out of the walls and coming towards my face, resting their weight on my upper torso. One evening, a shadow extended from the corner and said into my ear, "She's schizophrenic." The voice of the shadow is something I can only describe as macabre. I did not move my room this time, because I realized these occurences weren't tied to any one locale. I did, however, begin sleeping with my ears and sometimes my face swathed in heavy comforters and blankets.

Still, the episodes persisted with frightening severity. I felt if I covered my eyes, I would not be able to see the shadows, which seemed to work for a time. Granted, I could still hear them (those times that they talked), and I would still feel like I was levitating violently above my bed. I also came to realize I never succumbed to these episodes whenever somebody was sleeping next to me in bed, as was the case whenever I had a serious boyfriend. The occurences would stop as quickly as they began, yet they would resume with increased ferocity.

One evening, while still living in Europe, my parents drove up from their base to visit for the weekend. I relinquished my master bedroom, and opted for the spare bedroom across the hall. The first night of their visit, I slept better than I had ever slept in my adult life, but the next night brought the worst episode to date. I woke up in that strange, paralyzing dream state only to find a man menacing me from the end of my bed. He looked as real to me as the keyboard on which I am typing this story. The only strange thing was the bandana mask adorning the lower part of his face, almost like the wild west gunmen of old. No matter how much I cowered and blinked, this man was still at the foot of my bed. He seemed to be getting closer with each attempt to make him disappear. Finally, I freaked out so badly I must have fallen asleep or passed out, although it seemed like eons that this man stood in the spare bedroom.

The next evening, shortly after my parents headed home, I logged onto my email only to find out a mutual friend had been killed in a horrific automobile accident earlier that morning. I did not think too much about the incident from the night prior, but I recall thinking it was odd, considering I had not yet had an episode of that magnitude. At any rate, the episodes continued, but seemed to let up slightly when I transferred back to the States. Oddly enough, I had another boyfriend, and he spent a significant amount of time at my apartment.

Eventually, my boyfriend (at the time) was transferred to an island in the South Pacific, and I separated from Active Duty and began my segue into the Guard. After a couple months, I hopped a jet over the ocean to visit my boyfriend, and I had a really great time just hanging out on the beaches and sightseeing. Still, he had to work sometimes, and I was left to my own devices. One late morning, I decided to take a quick cat-nap before going to the beach. I knew my boyfriend would be back in an hour or so for lunch, so I just crashed on his bed. What happened next does not even classify as terrifying. It is unfathomable. I woke up in that strange dream state, and there was a demon sitting on my chest, at least I'm guessing it was a demon (or at least my manifestation of a demon), and he was pinning my arms down. The creature itself was not the size of a full-grown man; more like that of a dwarf or midget, with similar proportions. Also, there was a smaller, slighter demon dancing maniacally around my head, growling and inciting the larger entity with his erratic performance. I kept closing my eyes, but they would still be there when I opened my eyes. I finally came out of my dream state just moments before my boyfriend got home for lunch, but I was so troubled and shaken by what had just happened that I could not even begin to articulate what was going through my head.

After a month of fun in the sun, I made it back to present location. I began confiding in my older sister about some of my dreams, which initialized because of a rare pleasant occurence I'd had. In one of my levitating states, I ended up in a non-descript restaurant at a non-descript table surrounded by my three beautiful sisters on one lateral edge, with my Grandma, deceased since 2003, sitting at the head of the table. Though she had been a spry, sharp woman, she looked better than I'd ever remembered. She did not necessarily look younger or even less wrinkled. She looked alive, luminous. Glowy. I remember saying to her, "Grandma, I want to come stay with you." Always one to tease and joke, she smiled at me very cryptically and said, "It's too soon." And then I woke up.

I mentioned this episode, as well as the others, to my sister. She is the first person with whom I've discussed these weird dreams; the first person in over fifteen years. She can be kind of hysterical sometimes, so I tried not to freak out too much when she started talking demon talk and Sylvia Brown and astral projection and spirit guide. Things like that freak me out very badly. Still, it was nice having a reference point. I did some mild, very mild research on the aforementioned, and thought they reeked of nothing more than hoax. I was convinced, and maybe still am, that these episodes might be scientifically explained.

That was until I transferred to the South for training. Without warning, my episodes picked up right where they left off with frightening new developments. Instead of levitating above my bed, I felt like I was being catapulted into the air at mach speed. And not just the air or space around my bed and between floor and ceiling. I felt like I was being rocketed to the stars. There was no warning for these episodes; they just happened. By this point in my life, and especially after the episode where the guy stood at the foot of my bed, I was in the habit of repeating, at least in my head, a prayer or mandate, if you will: "In the name of the Father, I demand you to leave!" If nothing else, this mantra helped me feel safer and connected to God. Sometimes, my episodes would abate entirely. Not so much anymore...

So, I was taking an afternoon nap in my bed when I was catapulted to God know's where. During one episode, I remember being privy to a newly setting sun. The view was so stunning, I was sure this was Heaven. And then I suddenly climbed higher and higher at inconceivable speeds... When I opened my eyes, which I never ever under any circumstances do for fear of what I might see, there was some demonic angel (for lack of a better description) and it screamed at me. The scream was like nothing I'd ever heard before -- the entity itself had a face, but the features were so horrific they defy logic, and mostly I felt rather than saw its ugliness. When this entity screamed at me... I don't know how to describe it. I still get chills thinking about the sound.

Another afternoon, shortly thereafter, I was once again cat-napping. I felt like I was napping in my sister's spare bedroom 1100 miles to the east. Only I wasn't; I was in my bed. Yet, the way the light streamed into the room was oriented differently from the light streaming into my actual room. Also, I could hear my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew with perfect clarity. My nephew was throwing a massive fit, stomping on the stairs, the whole bit. My sister and brother-in-law, completely exasperated, were downstairs in the living room. Again, I felt like I was in their spare bedroom hearing all this noise. In fact, my nephew's banging woke me up. Even outside, I could hear the summer sounds of their neighborhood. Eventually, I woke up in my own bed. Later that afternoon, I called my sister to say chat (we talk on the phone at least daily when I'm on orders). She could not talk because my nephew was, of all things, having a massive fit at the top of the stairs, with my sister and brother-in-law downstairs telling him to take a nap. Even through the phone, I could hear him carrying on to the nth degree.

I still have these episodes. Luckily, I have not had any severe episodes since my stint in the Deep South. I don't know what to make of them. It would be nice to meet other people who aren't just open-minded, but have also experienced this. I feel like a latent, post-teen freak-show sometimes. It is comical explaining to people why I sleep with my face covered, but it's also kind of pathetic to be my age and have fear of the dark things lingering and loitering in the corners of my room.