The Visitation
A hypnopompic experience?
The Apparition
I was aged 13. It was Tuesday morning, a school day.
I was lying on my right side, in bed, looking straight ahead of me, when I became aware of a strange phenomenon apparent in the room. My eyes panned over the curve of the duvet, along the length of the bed, and stopped upon witnessing a strange visual manifestation.
Towards the end of the bed there was a metre-wide pillar of soft white mist that reached to the ceiling. Inside me there arose a swell of excitement and curiosity, as my attention was drawn to the whirling eddies of vapour contained within the luminescent column. Unthinking, unblinking, I gazed, entranced, unperturbed by the incorporeal presence apparent before my eyes.
The moment continued, my attention arrested, eyes captivated by the patterns forming and dissolving in the silently swirling glow.
Until suddenly a figure began to glide gently from the column. My eyes instinctively switched their fixated gaze towards the head of the apparition, its distinct form garbed in a dark brown cowl, gathered at the waist with a crude length of rope.
My mood swiftly began to turn from its state of enchanted tranquillity. An air of apprehension descended upon me, growing ever more intense as the robed figure proceeded to drift forward towards the head of the bed.
After an indeterminable measure of time, the ghostly presence halted directly beside my head. I stared upwards towards the profiled hood of the figure, unable to see inside, feeling my composure ebb as a shroud of fear began to envelop me.
My eyes transfixed, the figure began pivoting to face me — somehow, I knew this was inevitable — and as it did so, any remaining threads of self-assurance I bravely grasped were abruptly severed, and I was gripped by an intense panic.
I tried to move, but couldn’t. My body was petrified. I was unable, with all my will, to move a single muscle. As the apparition turned, my eyes beheld the first sliver of shadow inside its hood and immediately I tried to shut them, but they were held wide open, my will unable to control them.
By now I was in a state of immense terror, and, though I knew not why, felt it was imperative that I not see inside the hood that which was about to be revealed to me. Every nerve fibre inside my being was brimming with a super-fear, the kind of emergency state one imagines embodying when about to witness ones own utter annihilation.
And then it was all over.
The Aftermath
I was actually laying on my back in the middle of the bed, not on my right side near the edge of the bed. My heart was beating intensely, my violent breathing flexing a sweat-drenched torso, chest heaving like bellows in a deep rapid rhythm.
Swiftly I turned my head to the right, shifting my weight onto my elbows, my alarmed eyes scanning the space at the side of the bed, but there was nothing unusual to be seen.
The sun had risen, and its glow filtered through the curtains into the room, illuminating the space with a gentle warmth. The atmosphere was serene.
I was alone. A sense of relief imbued my being and a deep feeling of gratitude flooded through me; I was alive and seemingly unharmed.
Explanations and Beliefs
A popular response to reading my account will be that it was simply an intensely vivid dream. There will also be those who believe I experienced a visitation from a spirit realm, or an encounter with an alien being.
Though I don’t discount the potential validity of these propositions as parallel realities, my belief is that I had what is known as a hypnopompic experience; whereby as we awaken from sleep, our brain functionality is not synchronised, giving us the impression that we are fully awake, whilst experiencing a dream-state reality, with the body still in its natural sleep state of muscle atonia, or paralysis.
A Personal Note
The above account is the only time I have had what I consider to have been a hypnopompic experience, and this significant event remains vivid in my memory, 38 years on.
One aspect of the ‘encounter’ intrigues me still: what would I have seen inside the hood of that cowled figure, the prospect of which instinctively instilled within me so much fear?
The conclusion I reached, in the aftermath of the visitation, was that it would have been a visage of myself.
I wish I’d have had the courage to accept that fate, and know now that which I might never again have the opportunity to experience.
