Paralysis and pressure
Being unable to move, a weight on the chest or bed, or a feeling of choking.
Wife reports unseen hands holding her under bathwater
A caller tells Art Bell that their wife phoned them at work asking them to come home and that the caller found her in bed trembling. According to the caller, she said unseen hands had grabbed her shoulders and held her under bathwater. The caller reports that she has had similar episodes and claims she was sexually assaulted by “something.” The host links it to other callers’ reports. The story ends unresolved.
Reported red-eyed funnel-shaped figure at the foot of a bed
[name withheld] from Florence, Alabama, tells Art Bell that when they were about 15 or 16 they woke around 3 a.m., felt watched, and saw a pair of red eyes attached to a black, spinning, funnel-like form at the foot of their bed. They report being unable to scream or move. When the form moved around the bed, they fled to their mother’s room. With the light on, nothing was there. Their mother called it a nightmare. [name withheld] says they still believe it was real and are still scared by the memory.
Lifelong bedroom attacks and a black figure with red eyes
A caller who gives their name as Mary, in Hickson, Tennessee, tells Art Bell that they and their family have been attacked “all my life,” mostly in the bed or bedroom. The caller reports a night when something grabbed their hand as if to pull them out of bed. On other nights they woke unable to breathe, scream, or move, while seeing two red eyes and a black figure. They say it also happened to their husband and brothers. The call ends with the caller saying they sense things about people, believe their father was possessed, and know when people are going to die.
Bull-headed figure over a bed, a voice from a sleeping husband, and a trailer fire
The caller, [name withheld], from Cooley, Arizona, relays a story they say a friend told them about seven years earlier. The friend woke in bed beside their Native American husband and saw a bull's-head or demon-like form hanging over the bed. The friend heard a voice they could not understand coming from their husband's mouth. The story ends with the friend's trailer burning to the ground the next day. [name withheld] mentions a newspaper report of an electrical fire, a replacement trailer, and a witch doctor being brought to the property.
Paralysis and a presence lying on the caller in a former mortician’s house
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], in Atlanta, tells Art Bell that they live in what they call a haunted house, previously owned by someone they describe as a mortician. They report moving objects, noises, and mocking voices. They describe going to bed and feeling something creep up the bed and lie on them while they were unable to move or scream. Later they describe a sensation they call an attempt at sexual contact. They say the experience changed their life and that they now stay up at night until sunrise.
Hands pressing him down in bed; uncle later recalls a murder in the flat
A caller, reached by the host while sitting out on his porch, tells a story he says goes back to 1983. That year he moved with his wife and baby to Long Beach, California, and took a free one-bedroom apartment in his uncle's building. He reports that his baby woke screaming nightly for about a month. Some weeks after the couple switched rooms, he woke from a frightening dream to something pressing him face down into his waterbed. He could not breathe or speak until his wife woke and turned on the light. The next day, he says, his uncle told him a previous tenant, a drug dealer, had been shot to death in that same room. The caller says the experience converted him to belief in ghosts.
A bull-shaped figure at the bedroom door and a sensation of being smothered
A caller describes an event they say happened when they were about seven years old. The caller says they woke at night to see a bull, which they call a demon, standing at their open bedroom door, and then struggled in bed, unable to scream or breathe. The caller reports praying for it to be taken away, after which they say it let go and never returned. The caller says their father, who came in after they screamed, did not believe them.
A floating female figure, immobility, and being carried out a bedroom window
[name withheld], calling from Medford, Oregon, tells Art Bell about events they say happened in the mid-1950s, when they were about ten or eleven, in a house on Garden Grove Avenue in California. [name withheld] reports a fear of the bedroom and a curtain moving. One night, [name withheld] says, a female, ghost-like being floated through the open window and tied something around the caller's finger, leaving them immobile. It then floated the caller out of the window toward a light, where they were poked and prodded, with a buzzing sound, before they found themself back in bed. Art Bell suggests a hypnotic regression and calls it possibly an abduction story rather than a ghost story.
Waking paralysis, chest pressure, and moving curtains in upstate New York
A letter read on air by Art Bell describes a listener's experience of waking in an old upstate New York home, unable to move or speak. The writer felt as though a person were kneeling on their chest while their husky-Shepherd dog barked and growled. They say the pressure eased when they concentrated on the dog. The room's curtains were then shoved aside although the window was closed. They stayed with friends for several nights afterward.
Bedroom attack by a creature “astride” the caller, later called a succubus
A live caller who identifies themself as [name withheld] from Santa Rosa tells Art Bell they were attacked in bed by a creature they describe as a mixture of animals sitting astride them. The caller says it briefly paralyzed them and came back once in the same night. The caller says they fought it off and drove it away by covering their navel and genitals, something they say they had learned from friends. Asked what they encountered, the caller says it was a “succubus”/“incubi” that feeds on sexual energy. The host calls such stories “pretty common” and says such things [quote withheld]
Laughing woman on the bed and a head that comes off in the caller’s hand
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Juneau, Alaska, describes a bedroom experience the caller says happened about twenty years earlier during a difficult divorce, when the caller had been given sleep medication. The caller reports a heavy weight settling on the bed, an inability to turn over, a raspy female laugh, and something that flung itself on top of them. The caller says they grabbed its hair and the head came off in their hand. The caller reports fainting, waking to their dog whimpering, and finding a few strands of hair that were gone the next morning. The caller was left frightened.
Sounds, a voice, and a horned face in a school dormitory room at night
[name withheld], calling from Brighton, Colorado, says that as a 16- or 17-year-old student at a School for the Visually Impaired in Louisiana, they heard kicking and scratching outside their dormitory window. Then they heard a voice telling them to sleep. Then they woke to their bed shaking and an orange-red, horned face at their closet door. They say they felt frozen, prayed, and were carried out of the room, their feet not touching the floor, to their best friend’s room, where they stayed the rest of the night. Asked for their present view, they say they never figured out what it was. They agreed with the host’s suggestion that they may have a guardian angel.
26 more stories
- Vancouver house with reported voodoo history and a priest who would not enter6 min
- Labored breathing, darkness, and pressure in a master bedroom in McKeesport4 min
- Daytime sleep paralysis, a woman speaking in a man's voice, and nails in the head5 min
- Tugging during naps and a waterbed that seemed to leak in a San Rafael apartment3 min