Tuesday, September 30, 2008

There's a monster in my closet....really.

I slept terribly last night with David in Kentucky. I swear there is either a monster in my closet, or ghosts have suddenly decided to haunt my house. It doesn't help that I live in the middle of the boonies, and at night, the dark feels like a stifling blanket. It also doesn't help that this is the longest David and I have been apart....EVER.

I was jarred awake at 1am by a rustling and scraping in my closet. It sounded like something was hitting the cat door in and out, in and out, at timed intervals. I convinced myself it was my cat, and got the nerve to jump out of bed and turn the closet light on. I was shocked when I saw nothing. No cat. I ran back to my bed and found her hiding underneath. Completely unnerved, I took the phone into the downstairs living room, turned on several lights, and shut the french doors. I called poor David, who had just fallen asleep and had to wake up in two hours. He convinced me nothing was there, but I still wouldn't go back upstairs, and fell asleep on the couch.

Nooo, the nightmares didn't stop there. I had a series of shockingly realistic dreams, where my senses were impacted. I felt like someone was pulling my feet to the end of the couch. I felt parts of my body go alternately hot and cold. I heard an excruciating buzzing sound and thought it was coming from the house, until I opened my eyes. At one time, I thought someone cut the power, and that I was in complete darkness. I got so freaked out that I woke up at 4am and read blogs and wrote emails. Finally, I went back upstairs to sleep, but felt so rattled I kept LISTENING for noises. The heater was a monster, my cat creeping across the floor a burglar.

Have you ever had trouble sleeping like this? Have you ever had sensory dreams that feel like they're REAL?

Tonight I'm sleeping at my friend Abby's house, although I should probably learn to sleep alone in my own house. Ghosts and monsters begone!

4 comments:

Dan-Eric Slocum said...

I'm so excited to respond to this post because I TOTALLY, TOTALLY relate to this.

I lived for MANY YEARS in a secure apartment high-rise with a doorman and a locked security door-- with only one entrance to my unit.

Since Andy and I have lived together we've never been apart, until recently-- he and Watson (my great protector) went to the coast. I was a NERVOUS WRECK. I was afraid to go downstairs. I kept thinking I could hear someone coming into the back gate. I was petrified.

It was all in my mind Kristin. I'm a BAD scaredey cat. I one time had to turn off Poltergeist in the middle of the day, playing on one of the movie channels, because it was scaring me.

And yet I love horror movies-- as long as I'm with a group. WIERD!!!

Anonymous said...

You know......how about sleeping with the lights on? (I fall asleep unintentionally reading with lights on so know it is possible!) And put a light in your closet. If there are critters like rats or something trying to escape the cold via passageways in the wall this might deter them. Sometimes light is a good deterrent to creepy feelings. Maybe duct tape the cat door! (Paula)

Contact Travis said...

when Curtis is away, I am convinced I'm going to be the victim of a home-invasion-robbery.

I also have to sleep on my side of the bed, not stretch out, and pretend he's there.

Unknown said...

You should check out this week's podcast of This American Life. There's a great story about a family who thinks its house is haunted, with extended symptoms that could not be explained until they realized that their furnace was filling the house with carbon monoxide poisoning. They fixed the problem and the "haunting" was over, just the effects of poisoning.

I'm sure in today's modern world you've got a sensor to assure you that it's not carbon monoxide, but it's interesting to know how something that seems like it could not be explained any way other than "haunting" has a logical explanation that you didn't know of.

I was recently "haunted" by a rat. I was relieved to discover that it was a rat, that is until I found it dead in a pile of hats which I now have to discard. So it goes.

Good luck.