this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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I went through a period of time in grad school where this feeling was so strong that it was absolutely affecting my ability to sleep. My bed was in the middle of the room. The headboard was facing the wall. One side of the bed had a view of a window and the other side a view of the door. The bed didn't really fit in a different orientation because the room was an incredibly strange shape.
No matter what, I could not figure out which side to face to stop the very strong sensation of something being there. I kept having to open my eyes to "check" that nothing was there. I would toss and turn and struggle to make the feeling of being watched go away. I would sometimes swear I heard something breathing. Sometimes I would sleep on the floor...dunno why that felt like it would sometimes do something. Maybe I was able to orient my back to a wall or something idk.
Glad that finally went away. I think I was under extreme stress or something. I also had relatively frequent bouts of sleep paralysis. But I cannot tell you how terrifyingly strong that feeling of demons coming to get me was, even though my rational mind knew there was nothing there.
I had a fear of the dark as a child though, even as an older child. Some nights I would go sleep on my younger brother's floor because I would get scared. So I had always had some issues with this. But this was dialed up to like 11. One time I couldn't sleep for multiple days during this grad school period.
Been fine since tho lol.
I would bet this is an oh overly active survival instinct. I feel like people describe this if I'm awoken by an unknown noise in the house. Often i don't even know what awoke me, but I usually feel a mixture of vivid paranoia coming on mixed with the calm feeling the game of archival is on. I call it the silent killer mode and i imagine that's how cats feel on a hunt. Usually goes away after listening for a few minutes and trying to chill. Sometimes I have to check the house to make it go away.
There is a variation since i have kids that feels like its too silent in the house and something is terribly wrong with one of the kids. I have to check all three are breathing normally before it goes away.
I used to be terrified of the dark into my teens. At one point I got fed up of being so scared, so when I was home alone and the feeling got overwhelming, I just screamed at it as hard as I could and walked directly down a dark staircase where the feeling was coming from. It felt like my nerves were on fire for a second, but I think it helped get something to click in my brain because the feeling has never been so intense since then, and I can usually ignore it or just go look and calm down.
Damn that's hardcore AF! Honestly, good for you! Takes some balls to do something like that when your caveman brain is going off with alarm bells.
You cannot sleep when there are enemies nearby