Stolen
from Sleep, A True Story
That spring
night in Las Vegas had only a slight chill and require a light cover to sleep.
As my husband, Joseph, crawled into bed and woke me up in the middle of the
night, I felt unusually hot. I shoved the covers off and pushed them into the
middle of the bed so he could use them. It left me sleeping with no protection
other than my slip of a nightgown.
I woke just
enough to notice a thin layer of sweat misting my body and wondered if I was
getting sick. My husband mumbled something I couldn’t understand, which would
usually wake me completely because I am a light sleeper, but this nigh was
different. My head felt heavy and groggy—like I had been drugged.
I felt the bed move.
Instead of
opening my eyes, I indolently rolled to my stomach, falling immediately back to
sleep.
Later, the bed
moved again.
My head shifted,
but this time the movement was so jarring that I easily woke. My pillow slid
out from under my cheek. I assumed Joseph must have taken my pillow by mistake,
so I reached to grab it back. I raised my head to see Joseph on his stomach
sound asleep, his head facing the wall away from me.
Interesting.
I was just about
to fall back to sleep when I realized it wasn’t the pillow moving at all. It
was me! I was sliding towards the end of the bed. Someone had a hold of my left
ankle and was pulling me!
Oh, this has to
be a prank, I thought. Maybe one of my teenagers or their friends were trying
to pull some kind of prank. I jerked my foot up to see who had a hold of me. It
wasn’t a who at all. It was a what!
Gripping my
ankle was an oversized hand. The fingers were twice as long as the fingers on a
human hand. The very thin finger bones were joined together by enlarged,
bulbous joints. In the dim light of night, the entire hand was covered with
tightly pulled dark, green and black, charred skin. I struggled to get a better
look at my attacker, but it jerked me, making it impossible to look over my
shoulder. My legs rose off the bed, into the air.
My throat
suddenly seized. I gasped for air, but it was impossible to inhale even a
single breath.
Desperate, I
panicked and fought against the strength of the creature, my attempts to call
out for help reminding me of the useless calls I made in my most tragic, blood
curdling dreams—the kind when I would scream with all my might, yet no sound
would come out.
The creature
continued to pull as I was being moved against my will. I reached for my
sleeping husband, clawing at the sheets and frantic to wake him. When my hands
passed over his legs, I couldn’t find my grasp. It was as if my fingers were
forbidden to close around his form. I flailed my arms and kicked my legs, still
attempting to scream or even take a breath. If I could just break free, I could
wake Joseph, and he could help me. He was the brave one. He was the protector.
My panic had
reached a state of being manic as my attacker held me by one ankle in the air
over my bed. Its super human strength seemed impossible and added to my terror.
Knowing I was being abducted, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, made
me feel so frightened, I wondered if my heart might explode.
The creature
suddenly lifted me through the roof of my house.
Yep, right out
the roof.
I saw the attic
as I passed through the insulation and the air ducts, and then the roofing
tiles passed before I could comprehend I was out in the open air.
Wait, if I
passed through the roof without feeling it . . . then I am okay. This is just
an out of body experience. Aw, heck!
I had been out
of my body many times before, so this realization put an immediate halt to my
terror. There I was, dangling, arms flailing, my ankle in the grasp of this
being, rising over the roof of my house and into the air.
Now able to
relax and no longer afraid, I could actually enjoy the view. I was pleased to
be gliding through the sky on a grand adventure.
The event took a
sudden anti climactic turn when the being put me down on the ground. I was down
the street about 15 houses from mine. I had to squint as the brightness of the
morning sun proved to be too much of a sudden assault on my eyes.
The clarity I
had experienced while first gliding in the air was gone and the heavy drugged
feeling was back again. It seemed as time had passed, but I didn’t know
how—pieces of my memory were missing. On top of that, I had no idea how to get
back to my house. Eventually, I passed out and woke to my alarm which signaled
it was time to get the kids ready for school.
Under some sort
of fascination, I animatedly recounted the entire event for Joseph when he
awoke. It was amazing to me that he was completely unaware of my entire
experience having happened right next to him. The experience was so extreme and
true to life, I checked his legs to make sure there weren’t any claw marks on
them.
“Surprisingly,
this was one of the better night’s sleeps I have had in a long time. How do you
feel?” Joseph asked. “Any feelings of drugs left in your system?” Fortunately
for me, it was never an issue whether he would believe me or not, thank God. He
went on to share his own information about sleep paralysis and other paranormal
things he had watched on television. He often stayed up after I went to sleep,
and late night shows about the paranormal and the unusual were in abundance.
I was relieved
that my entire tale had made sense to him.
That would have
been the end of my story if I had felt safe. However, even though my experience
had ended peacefully enough, it took me two days to shake my extreme fears of
being kidnapped.
I found myself
afraid to have the curtains open, certain that someone was watching me. I
stayed in without running any errands. When out of the house, a feeling of
unmanageable vulnerability overcame me, and drove me back indoors. My ability to
concentrate was gone and I feared someone could, at any moment, take me against
my will.
Loud sounds gave
me flashbacks to unclear memories, which led to feelings of unexplainable
fears. I had to consider that I had actually been abducted, held against my
will.
I hadn’t had any
reference to indicate how long I had been gone other than the rising sun that
illuminated the sky when I had been released blocks from my home. That meant I
hadn’t been set back down immediately. It had to have been hours later. The
only way I was able to cope with these uneasy feelings was to ‘switched off’
emotionally. Every seeming predatory behavior by anyone around me evoked deep
sensations of anger and injustice.
Just when I was
finally starting to feel okay, I got an odd call from a friend named Alita.
(Her name has been changed to protect her identity.)
She seemed
excited and confused when she said, “Christine, I just heard you were taken
from your bed the other night to face the ancestral council. They didn’t even
return you to your bed!” She paused, “That’s not like them. Are you okay?”
Alita was not
any ordinary friend; she claimed to be from a “special” and ancient bloodline.
When she started speaking about her people, her ancestors, I had always left
the conversation, not out of disinterest, but I intuitively felt the need to
safeguard her privacy, and I didn’t want to go snooping around in something
that wasn’t my business.
This time was
different. I wanted to know everything, but couldn’t bring myself to ask a
single question.
I stood with my
mouth open, not knowing what to say. The only other person who knew about the
incident and the trauma I experienced was Joseph, and he hadn’t shared my story
with a single soul! How could Alita know all of this unless . . .
Alita spoke to
fill the silence. “Look, I know it’s scary. I told them not to take you because
you are intuitive and would know, but they didn’t listen. They just wanted to
make sure you were genuine. They’re just trying to protect my brother and me
from other humans. I am so sorry. I made them promise it would never happen
again.”
I was frozen in
disbelief. How could all of this be real?
But then again,
how was she able to describe the creature’s hands to me as if she had seen them
with her own eyes? She even knew that the grasp felt like dry ice on my body,
something I hadn’t even told Joseph.
I had to make
myself forget. I had to push this from my mind or I might never feel safe
again. After all, I had been kidnapped, taken right out of my bed in the middle
of the night.
