u/BananaRazberry

I’m just now getting around to sharing this story, and I genuinely wonder if anyone has had similar experiences or any explanation for this. Not sure if I flared this correctly, sorry if I didn’t.

This happened when I was 13 years old and going through an extremely dark time in my life (I’m 30 now). I came from a really bad family situation, abusive mother, absent father, just a lot of fucked up stuff. I was smoking a lot of weed at the time, mixed up with pills, severely depressed, wanted to unalive myself, and had attempted a couple times. Mentally, I was in a horrible place and honestly felt tormented constantly.

I also ended up at that messed up school from the ntflx documentary, The Program, if anyone here has heard of it. I mention all of this because part of me has always questioned whether I was just so mentally messed up at the time that I hallucinated these experiences.

One night, I woke up to my Jack Russell Terrier growling at the end of my bed. He was sitting stiff at the very edge of the bed, staring into my room and barking/growling.

The best way I can describe it is that a three dimensional shadow figure walked across the middle of my room. It was shaped like a normal man - average height and build, but completely black but more like a shadow, not transparent exactly, but not fully solid either. I had a night light in my room so I could see it clearly. It didn’t look at or acknowledge my presence. It just walked with purpose, arms swinging naturally, moving quickly across my room and straight through the wall. I could see past the wall through the doorway into the next area of the house, and whatever I saw did not continue walking. It literally just vanished.

The second it disappeared, my dog immediately stopped growling and went completely quiet. Oddly enough, I don’t remember being terrified in that exact moment. I think I was in such shock that I just mentally acknowledged what I saw and somehow went back to sleep. It wasn’t until the next morning that the fear hit me. Even typing this now gives me chills.

I had another experience around that same, maybe a week or two apart. I was in my room softly playing guitar through my amplifier. I fell asleep in bed with the guitar on my chest. I suddenly woke up to what sounded like this horrible low demonic chanting/growling sound coming through the amplifier. I know that sounds insane, and maybe I was half asleep, but I swear I heard it. I panicked so badly that I ran downstairs and hid in the bathtub for hours.

But the reason I believe the shadow experience really happened is because of my dog and some other weird things that happened in that house.

My nanny, the only lady who lived with me in the house at the time, who was a very religious older woman, said she would hear my dog growling and barking late at night, but I never woke up before this particular time. There was also another separate incident where my nanny told me she distinctly heard what sounded like me walking down the stairs and jiggling the doorknob downstairs. But when she checked on me, I was completely asleep in my room

I’ve replayed both of these experiences in my head so many times over the years wondering: was this sleep paralysis? Hallucinations? Was I psychotic from stress, weed, pills, depression, trauma, lack of sleep? Or was it something else entirely?

I didn’t tag this as “shadow man” because I’m not sure if it was that exact entity.. not sure what it was or what to think of it.