Have you ever been woken up in the middle of the night by a terrifying sound or sight? What did you do? Did you investigate? Cower under your covers? Pretend like you heard nothing and quickly fall back asleep? When something goes bump in the night, it can be hard to determine if what you think you heard is real or if it was all in your head. These people share what scary things have woken them up in the middle of the night and what they did in the moments after.
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#1 What's That in My Bed?
I woke up in the middle of the night to what I thought was my blanket all crammed up between me and the wall. It was uncomfortable so I went to move it but instead of a blanket, I touched human skin. Of course, I immediately freak and am now wide awake wondering what to do as I lay in the dark with this...thing laying next to me.
So I gather up my courage, reach over and grab it and yank it up so I can see what it is. It was storming and lightning flashed very dramatically at the same moment while I realize I'm holding my own arm. I guess I'd been sleeping on my arm and it went so numb that I couldn't even tell I was touching it. Haven't laughed that hard in a while.
#2 Monsters
My almost-four-year-old standing at my bedside staring right at me. Once my eyes were open she said “I brought the monsters in here” then went back to bed. Thanks, kid, I had you so they’d go in your room.
#3 Scratching at the Window
At uni, my bedroom was on the ground floor of the house. I was woken up around 4 a.m. by scratching and heavy breathing at my window which I tried to ignore for 20 mins hoping that whoever it was would leave. After 20 minutes, they didn't leave, so I decided to go out the front door to kindly ask them to cease their scratching and heavy breathing. Turns out it was one of my housemates who was so tipsy, lost his keys, wallet and phone on a night out. He thought scratching on my window would be better than knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell.
#4 Strobe Light Room
I was a teenager living in a pitch-black basement room. I had a strobe light because... I don't know, teenagers are weird. Apparently the on/off switch was loose and moved to on. You don't know fear until you wake up in the middle of the night in a pitch-black room with a strobe light flashing.
#5 Laughing Kids
I woke up to the sound of kids laughing outside my bedroom window (it was 3 a.m.). I opened the window (living on the first story of an apartment) and came face to face with a coyote.
#6 Midnight Visitor
I was up blasting music at about 3 a.m. drinking by myself. I live in the country so it's all rich snobs, cottages and empty forests so nobody around. I go to watch a movie and turn off my stereo and as I did I heard footsteps somewhere in my house. Not light but like a work boot, I grab the sharpest thing I had and go running out. For some ungodly reason, there was a deer in my kitchen. just standing there. it had somehow gotten in somewhere but the thing is that everything was locked.
#7 Gurgling Sound
A gurgling sound and the smell of a warm shart. I thought I pooed the bed, but it turns out the city sewer system backed up and flooded into my house. In hindsight pooping the bed would have been much easier to clean up.
#8 Missing Arm
Woke up groggy, out of sleep paralysis. I went to push off the bed and realized my left arm is gone! There's no way right, maybe my arm had just fallen asleep. I reach over with my right arm to feel for my left arm and freak out because all I feel is my torso! Genuinely freak out for a minute checking and rechecking, my arm is literally gone! And then I felt human skin above my head. My arm had fallen asleep over my head and behind the pillow. Apparently my armpit had played a little joke on my brain and reported back as being a shoulder stump.
#9 Fridge Intruder
My brother's friend broke into the house once while I was sleeping on the couch, and I woke up to him in the fridge. I didn’t know who he was so I stayed silent. I was nine I think.
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#10 End of the World
I'm a professional firefighter. When we are on shift at night we are allowed to sleep. It's pretty routine to get woken up for any kind of emergency that we respond to from shootings, to car wrecks, to house fires with people trapped. When we catch a run, the bunk room lights come on, and there's a very gentle beeping sound that is meant to wake us gently (instead of jolting us awake and spiking our blood pressure) before the dispatcher goes on the air to tell us where we are going and why.
A few weeks ago at around 3 a.m., the lights came on and there was a different sound. It was an alarm that sounded like the world was ending. We all sprang out of our bunks, wide-eyed, ready for battle. Then the dispatcher came on the air to tell us that the National Weather Service had issued a WINTER STORM WARNING, effective two DAYS in the future, in a city that's no stranger to winter weather.
#11 Lightning
Lightning hit the tree outside my house. The bang was so loud I saw myself in the third person and honestly thought I died. I can't even explain how that happened.
#12 The Smell of Smoke
The smell of smoke. We couldn't find the smoke so our first thought was that our girls were burning in their rooms. Woke us up in an instant. Thankfully everything in our apartment was okay. Our downstairs neighbors were the ones who had a fire, and it was out by the time we got down there to check.
I reported them to our landlords because it wasn't smoke detectors that woke us up, it was the smell of smoke. I'm 99 percent sure they unplugged theirs or pulled out the batteries. If the fire had been any bigger I'm worried we wouldn't have been told and could have either caught fire ourselves or had dangerous levels of smoke inhalation.
#13 Cats in Love
Two cats mating under my window. My god, it sounded like a convention of demons!
#14 Guard Dog
A loud BANG downstairs and then my dog zooming to the front door and snarling. By the time I had got downstairs whoever it was was already peeling out of the driveway. I guess they assumed the house we had just moved into was still unoccupied and got the scare of their lives. Looks like they were trying to kick the door down to gain access. My good boy got some steak the next day as a reward.
#15 Feline Intruder
Cat knocked a glass of water off my windowsill and it landed on my head. Thought someone had broke in and tried to beat me. My cat is rude.
#16 Metal Music
I like to listen to YouTube on autoplay while I sleep sometimes. One time I woke up in the middle of the night to some of the most ear grating, terrifying sounds I’ve ever heard. After spending a bit of time freaking out, I realized it was from my phone. Apparently, YouTube decided to play songs by some random artist I’ve never heard of called “PASSENGER OF SH*T” (look that up at your own risk) which is some sort of demonic scraping black metal breakcore band. Scared me.
#17 Scraping Noises
Weird metallic scraping noises coming from my bedroom window for nights on end. It freaked me out so much that eventually, I stopped sleeping in my room. Long story short, I discovered a few years afterwards that someone had tried to pry open my window so much that they had scraped the paint off the outside of the window frame.
#18 A Sister's Laugh
My sister laughing. She had been dead for about a week. I was staying at my parents house and was just sleeping on the couch. My dad had passed out in his armchair on the other side of the house and my mom was upstairs in the bedroom. My sisters laughter came from the kitchen which was sort of between where we all were and sure enough we all converged on the kitchen because we all heard it. Needless to say we were freaking out a bit.
Her phone, which had died, was plugged into a charger in the kitchen. It had turned itself on and begun playing a video of her laughing and playing with her new puppy. We all just stood there and listened to it, then turned it off and went to bed without really talking about it. None of us believe in paranormal stuff and I’m a real atheist/skeptic, but it was really jarring tech based oddity to wake up to.
#19 A Baby's Cry
A baby crying when we didn't have a baby at the time.
#20 Chupacabra
There was this one time... So I live in Southwest Colorado and during the summer months it gets pretty warm. One night, I was sleeping with my window open (mind you its one of those upscale terrible rental apartments where the windows don't even have screens).
So there I am, dead ass asleep when all of a sudden I just am JOLTED awake... By what? I had no idea. I lay there a few seconds trying to gain my bearings when I feel this heavy thing step on to my chest and walk up towards my face. It was like having a huge cat on me. It's making this sound that kinda sounds like your cute ex-girlfriend when she snores, but much faster. As I feel what I could only imagine were whiskers tickling my chin, I'm screaming in my head "DON'T MOVE!!! STAY STILL!! YOU'LL GET YOUR FACE RIPPED OFF!! WTF IS HAPPENING!! IT'S CHUPACABRA!!!"
Once the whiskers were satisfied that I didn't smell like food, it wandered toward the edge of my bed. I didn't waste any time. I threw the blankets off myself forcing basically the whole mattress, all my bedding and chupacabra onto the floor. I stand on the edge of my bed and do a catwalk from bed to bedside table to computer desk until I can finally find the light switch. When I turned the switch, I wasn't prepared for what I saw on the floor... It was the biggest raccoon I'd ever seen in my life. Getting him out of the house was a whole other story entirely.
#21 A Huge Crash
I heard a gigantic crash, which I presumed to mean my cat just found a way to knock my TV or my entire gaming shelf over, but when I went out to see, nothing was wrong. Not even the slightest hint that something had fallen.
#22 Someone Climbing in Through the Window
I woke up in the middle of the night to a rustling sound at my bedroom window. I wasn't sure if I had dreamed the noise or not and stared sleepily at the window for a few seconds. Very slowly my window began to slide open, long thin fingers gripping the glass.
My eyes widened. My heart pounded. My breathing froze. For a moment I was paralyzed with pure fear. Something was silently sliding my window open in the dead of night and coming into my room. My fear soon turned into some kind of primal aggression. As quietly as I could I rose out of my bed and reached for the baseball bat underneath it.
The dark shape was now climbing through my curtains, it's lanky arms reaching down to my floor, crawling, almost slithering in. I turned on the light and took a few fast steps toward the creature with the baseball bat raised ready to deal a crushing blow when I suddenly stopped.... It was my little sister. She had forgotten her keys, was locked out and didn't want to wake my parents in the middle of the night.
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#23 Screaming Boyfriend
My boyfriend screaming at me to wake up. There was a car on fire pretty much right outside our bedroom window. How I managed to sleep through the exploding tires is beyond me, that was loud.
#24 Small Intruder
I was lying there, in some hella deep sleep on a Saturday morning when suddenly there's a bang on my door. My eyes tear open, but I don't move. The bang hits again, and I don't move. I live alone, so I figured someone was breaking in. I lay there, accepting my fate. I was definitely being robbed and probably being killed. It didn't matter. It was too early to fight.
One final bang and the door opens a few inches. It lingers for half a moment before the person on the other side pushes it wide open. And I see the silhouette of my five-year-old waddle in and whisper, "Daddy, can I have some Cocoa Pebbles, please?" I'd forgotten I had the kids for the weekend.
#25 Cat Hairball
My cat, who was sleeping at my feet, starting to hack up a hairball. Nothing has ever woken me up quicker than hearing my cat about to puke all over my bed in the middle of the night.
#26 Who's There?
I just moved into a new house, not really unpacked other than a mattress on the floor. I startle awake in the middle of the night. I'm wide awake and I don't know why.... then I hear... this faint noise on the hardwood floor followed by a small thunk. I wait. Same furtive noise followed by another thunk.
This sporadically goes on for a couple of minutes and I decide to investigate it. I go across the hall fully expecting to find someone trying to stealthily rob us or something. Nope. One of the darn cats had taken a round makeup container out of one of the boxes and was bating it slowly across the empty hardwood floor.
#27 Feeling Electrocuted
Sleep Paralysis. I woke up feeling electrocuted, hearing "voices" and "pounding on the walls."
#28 Sleep Paralysis
I suffer from sleep paralysis. One night I was having an episode where I was "stuck" on my bed and I heard a loud noise in the dream. When I woke up, I looked out into my room and saw what looked like a man sprawled over my chair and the bang I heard I figured was him landing there from crawling in my window. Turns out the clothes arranged on my chair made the silhouette look like a guy. It took a while to fall back asleep.
#29 War Sirens
#30 Waving Wall
This happened like when I was eight or nine. Sometimes when I went to bed, I would make hand shadows on the wall next to me. Well, one time I did this: I raised my hand up and started waving it like you do when saying “hello” to someone, but after I put my hand down a different shadow appeared and started waving back. This really scared me and I always slept facing away from that wall until we moved out of the house (old habits die hard).
#31 A Burst Pipe
A few years ago, we had a pipe freeze and burst in the middle of the night. The smoke detectors went off (though there was no smoke), and I came downstairs to find that it was raining in our kitchen. Ultimately it wasn't a huge deal (though it caused about $50k in damage), but those two minutes that it took to understand what happened with all of the water and the noise, and crying kids was terrifying.
#32 Human-Sized Shadow
I always get a little jumpy the first night I am alone when my spouse travels for work, which is pretty frequent. One night, I turned off the light and started falling asleep. About 10 minutes after I turned off the light, I thought I was still awake, I opened my eyes for some reason and saw a large shadow, human-sized, dart from the door of my room across to the window on the other side.
I sat bolt upright and screamed out loud, turned on the light and nothing was there. I did not think I was asleep, but it is possible. The orientation of the windows would not have allowed for a shadow moving in that direction. No idea what happened. Could have been dreaming. Never happened again.
#33 Snowed In While Camping
Woke up feeling oxygen-starved, 'fluish', and 'fuzzy-headed' in pitch black. I turned on my headlamp only to discover that I couldn't see through my tent. It had snowed so heavily overnight that my tent was covered thickly enough to blot out the moon and stars that were now shining. Likewise, so much snow had accumulated around my tent that it effectively sealed the rain fly. I was by myself in a one-person tent and slowly suffocating. I opened the zipper, stuck my arm outside to move some snow around and flapped some air into the tent and instantly felt better.
#34 Air Raid Siren
I woke up to the air raid siren blaring from outside my window. It was like 5 a.m., it couldn't be any drill or test at this time in the morning. In my half-awake state, I sort of freaked out wondering if this was it and could this be how I was going to die. Turns out some kid next door of my not-very-soundproof apartment was just playing with some sort of toy that came with the air raid siren as one of the sounds... figured that out because a few minutes later while I was panicking the sound turned into a loud police siren instead, then an ambulance siren, then some other siren.
#35 DVD Thief
I woke up to a strange guy going through my DVDs. I think he was robbing me and thought the place was empty. My dog woke me up growling at the bedroom door.
#36 Burglar
I had a burglar break into my apartment through one of the windows in the front while I was sleeping in the back bedroom. I could hear them working the window open and trying to be quiet as they eased past the mini blinds. I got up and the guy breaking in jumped back out the window and ran off. I remember putting on my bathrobe and going outside and the police were already out there. One of my neighbors had called them. Standing there in their spotlight in my bathrobe the cops asked, "Did you get him?" It was pretty surreal.
#37 An "Earthquake"
An earthquake, my whole bed was shaking. Oh, wait.. that was just me. A teenager later to be diagnosed with severe anxiety experiencing body tremors for the first time.
#38 Giant Spider
Not that scary in retrospect but that weird period of transition between sleep and awake can be disorienting. One night about 2 a.m., I don’t know why I woke up, but I did, and immediately saw a giant spider on the wall. Like, the kind of dinner-plate-sized monster they have in Australia. I freaked out and scrambled out of bed screaming which woke up my husband and made him freak out.
And then I woke up fully and realized I’m an idiot. He hadn’t woken up fully though so it was kind of hard explaining to him that I thought saw a giant spider but it’s okay, it’s gone now. A few months later, the same thing happened where he woke me up because a giant spider was on the wall. It was just his imagination.
#39 Where Am I?
I was in the hospital a few years ago and needed anesthesia. I woke up later during the night and legit had no clue where I was or why I was there. I got paranoid and ripped out my IV and left my room intending to escape the hospital. I made it all the way to an exit when security guards stopped me. I freaked out, thinking I was being held prisoner, and nurses had to come down and give me sedatives. When I woke up the next morning there was someone in my room who explained everything that happened.
#40 House Fire
Banging on the front door of our family home at 2 a.m. when I was six years old. My dad had a cricket bat at the ready, only to come face to face with a dog walker who kindly informed us that our back yard was completely engulfed in flames. Our neighbour had chickens and had been burning waste, thought the fire was out, only for a spark to catch and for a huge fire to steadily spread across both of our yards.
I also witnessed the bravest action I’ve ever seen a human being carry out that night. One of the firefighters asked my dad if there was anything flammable in our shed, which was completely encased in fire. There was—a small gas canister for barbecues. Without hesitation, the firefighter runs into the shed, disappears for a few seconds, then returns carrying the canister. One of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen.
#41 Screaming
Screaming from the street, sounding like a woman being hurt. It was actually foxes mating.
#42 Raccoon Burglar
When I was about 10, I went with my parents to stay in this cabin in the mountains in North Carolina. The cabin was beautiful - however, it was two-story and the staircase was outside. Also, the owner asked us to feed his cat, for which the food was kept in a plastic, hard-to-open barrel.
Anyways, because I was so old then, I wanted to sleep on the top floor by myself. My parents said it was fine and that I should just stomp on the floor if anything was wrong during the night. Well, one of the nights, I heard something that sounded like someone breaking in and totally freaked out, especially because I was by myself. Started stomping on the floor that my parents thought there was a herd of elephants above them.
They came up, didn’t see anything but because I was so freaked out, I went to sleep in the bed with my mom downstairs and my dad took the bed upstairs. Well, I guess in the middle of the night, he too heard something. He went to investigate and the “burglar” was actually a raccoon that had broken into the cabin (it took off a screen on the door) and was now rolling the barrel of cat food around the floor, trying to open it.
#43 Huge Insect
Massive centipede crawled onto my hand.
#44 Sleepwalker
I am still a sleepwalker to this day but when I was 17, I sleepwalked down two floors of my house into our concrete basement. It was all wet because it had recently flooded and we had rolled all the carpet up onto on side of the room. I tripped over the carpet while walking around down there and I woke up alone, in be dark, suddenly falling down onto the wet floor not sure where I was. I was terrified because I had been in my bed what felt like minutes before. I did it to myself but it the scariest way I’ve ever woken up.
#45 CLAMS!
Female, lived alone in a basement suite in a slightly run-down neighbourhood. Woke up with a jolt to the sound of a man, very loudly and VERY clearly declaring, "CLAMS!" from my living room while I was next door in my bedroom. I froze in terror, trying to think of what weapon I could improvise from my nightstand. I could've thrown my novel or a tin of muscle rub or tried to joust him with a floor lamp.
I resigned myself to trying to use my blankets like some sort of gladiator net when he eventually came to kill me. Except he didn't move or say anything else. For ages. So I slowly crept to the door, then through the hall, then bolted to the kitchen. Then to the living room. There was nobody. Doors and windows were all completely locked and sealed. It was just the weirdest dream I've ever had. The end.
