I fell asleep around 11:30-12 midnight 7/8/2024-7/9/2024 on the sofa in my living room. My memory starts around 12:50 AM and gets progressively more intense until I wake myself up around 1:00 AM. My camera caught this incident.
I had a dream that felt as real as me sitting here typing this. I was in a home and there was a beautiful woman that was extremely peaceful and inviting. She spoke in a way that put me at ease. I remember the interior of the home down to the color of the sheets on the bed and the cabinets / dishes in the kitchen. I remember sitting around with her and another gentleman, just talking about life and enjoying a drink.
After what seemed like hours, the other gentleman went to lay down in the bed and the woman followed him. She laid with him until he fell asleep, then turned her attention towards me. She was insistent on me laying down on the other side of her and the man to cuddle. Its hard to process, but this did not feel like a weird interaction or sexual; it was very comforting and inviting. She was dressed in Pj’s and spoke in the softest tone saying it was time for bed. It was time to rest…
Something in this dream told me not to, but it was not a panic or fear sensation; it was a bide-my-time feeling. Something told me if you lay down in that bed, you are not getting out of it, so I went to pour myself a drink in the kitchen.
I remember looking up before I started to pour and noticed what looked like a camera that I have in my house. It seemed so out of place, but It did not register in that moment what I was looking at. I got an immediate sense of fight or flight (panic but not dread or fear). in that very moment something inside me screamed, “help.”
In this dream when I screamed for help, I was immediately thrown towards the ceiling of this kitchen. The more I screamed "help," the stronger the pull away from this house became. As I was pinned against the ceiling above the sink, I grabbed dishes with both hands and threw them screaming, “HELP ME.” I felt like I was fighting for my life.
That other gentleman never woke up. I “snapped” back to where I was sleeping. My lower jaw was tight, and my chest was sore. I sat there trying to grab onto reality, I felt in between that dream and where I was sitting in my living room. I stood up and tried to recollect myself; my legs were shaky, and I felt off.
I went to lay back down and something in me said, “watch your camera; WATCH YOUR CAMERA.” As I replayed the footage, you can see me stop breathing. You can count the minuets and see me looking like I am dead lying there. You start to hear gasping and moans after about 5 minutes. You hear me scream, “HELP ME” around the 6-and-a-half-minute mark, and that is when I woke up. That is the same “HELP ME” at the end of that dream that snapped me back to reality. My mouth never moves in the video, but you hear it loud and clear. You see my left eye open ever so slightly after this.
Immediately after watching that video, I drove to the ER and was diagnosed with a case of obstructive sleep apnea. The bloodwork came back normal as well as the EKG’s, etc. I shared the video with the hospital staff and doctor, and they said the gasps were my body trying to breathe again.
I am writing this after I got home from the hospital because I feel I must. If I could draw any conclusions from this experience, that kind loving woman was death. It was welcoming and warm. That place felt like home. Watching that video shook me to my core. I saved that footage and would be willing to share it in combination with this story. I had experienced sleep paralysis once in 2019 after a spinal surgery and this was very different.