The following AskReddit users were asked about some of the strangest things they’ve woken up to in the middle of the night. From creepy, crawly bugs to hearing random noises, we recommend that you don’t read these stories before going to bed.
Source list available at the end.
As a 7-year-old, terrified of an alien abduction, I woke up one night to this frantic scratching sound somewhere in my room. I was paralyzed with fear. It continued for a few minutes, stopped, started again, and then stopped for good. I laid awake for a while after that, but then I finally fell asleep again. When I woke up in the morning, I found out my hamster had escaped from his home, and the scratching was his claws on the vinyl cover of a 3-ring binder.
stylinchilibeans
I once woke up to someone looking in my bedroom with a small red light. I was petrified. I didn’t leave my bed until the next morning. I asked my family about it and they all said, “You were probably dreaming.” I’m pretty sure it was my big brother, but it still terrified me for so long.
nargles18
In college, I lived in a three bedroom apartment with six guys. In the middle of the night, I was asleep on my back when I felt the bed shift slightly. I opened my eyes. In the dark, I saw the shadow of a person standing over me with one knee on the bed as if they were trying to get on it.
I screamed and the figure ran out the door. The scream woke my roommate up and I asked him, “Did you see that?” He said he saw someone run out of the room.
We went into the living room, and the front door was open. We went and checked the other two bedrooms, and our roommates were all accounted for. In the coming days, I questioned everyone I knew to figure out if it was a prank.
Eventually, we heard this happened to other guys on campus as well. It happened so frequently that they gave him a nickname. He was just a guy who would sneak into other guy’s apartments and try to get into bed with them while they slept. It was never sexual just some snuggling. I called the police, but there wasn’t much they could do.
That was my encounter with the Midnight Mounter.
sanfran_dan
My sister once left a half eaten ‘Now N Later’ near my pillow. We slept with the window open, and I was woken up by this gentle pitter-patter of dozens of ants crawling on my face.
I was like nine at the time. Almost 22 years later, I still can’t handle ants being on me. If one gets on me, I feel like there are thousands of them.
wrongsidestogether
I was at work one evening (as a firefighter asleep in the station). We had run a call that day where a gentlemen in his late 60’s was in his living room performing a ritual, and his neighbors were worried that he was suicidal. Anyway, he told us that we would have visitors later that night. We took him in for a psychological evaluation at the hospital. At 3 AM, we heard a knock on our door. No one was there, so we went back to bed. Around 4:30 AM, we heard another louder knock. We woke up again and no one was there. Come morning time, there was a note on our bay door that read: “You were visited and watched.” Pretty chilling stuff. I took the note back to the station to keep it as proof.
EatinBeav
The TV turned on in the living room of our old one bedroom apartment at 4 AM. It was at full volume, blasting Missy Elliot’s “Work It.” It was bizarre because we never listened to that music channel, or ever have the volume that high.
love475
I just rented a home and decided to spend the night in it before all my things arrived early the next day. So, I made a simple bed out of a camping matt on the floor of the bedroom and went to sleep.
I was woken at 2 AM because someone was tapping me on the shoulder. I snapped awake to find no one there and decided that it must have been in my head, or I must have dreamt it. So, I went back to sleep.
About an hour later, I was woken up again by someone tapping me on the thigh. This time, I flipped on a flashlight, and again, I found no one in the room. However, this time I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and discovered my “intruder.”
There were at least three or four rats trying to find cover from the light of my flashlight. I grew up on a farm. So, I was very comfortable with rodents, but that incident still freaked me out for a couple of nights.
GreenSalsa96
I spent the summer working on a farm. The farm was run by an old lady and her husband. Myself and five other male workers lived in a cottage annexe set apart from the main farm. It was fairly remote, and the nearest neighbour was around a mile away.
I woke up in the middle of the night with an uneasy feeling. I shared the room with one other guy, and I could hear him snoring away. It was warm in the room, so I went to open the window. As I opened it, I heard a child’s laughter outside.
The old couple, who ran the farm, were childless and had no family. The other workers were all single foreign men. There were no children on this farm. It freaked me the hell out. I closed the window with a slam, drew the curtains, made sure the door was locked, and jumped back into bed.
In the morning, I asked the old farmer if the neighbours had kids. He said the neighbouring farm was run by one old guy and his hired workers, and one of them brought families.
Socialist7
I heard a bears breathing outside as I was laying in my tent. I saw the tracks in the morning, but I had also smelled it as I had laid there awake.
datsmn
My worst episode was realizing I was full sp mode with my face stuck in the wedge of cushions on my couch. Couldn’t breathe and couldn’t move. Figured I’d snap out of it once I started dying. To make matters worse my family was in the room- I could hear them talking but couldn’t get their attention.
braneworld
I woke up from a pretty dead sleep to hear my dog growling at the corner of my room. I lifted my head and saw what looked like an alien with these ridges down its spine, sharp teeth, and large eyes. It hissed and rushed towards the bed. Next thing I know, I was blacked out. Who knows how much later it was, but I suddenly came to. My dog was now outside of my room and whining to be let in. Once she was, she licked my face and whimpered. When I went back to sleep, I had a dream about my spine being pushed forward to my stomach.
NeedAMoon
I woke up randomly once, in the middle of the night, on the couch. There was a night light turned on in the bathroom down the hall. I had terrible eyesight, but I sat up for a second and looked around for the remote. I saw behind me that there was this guy just sitting in my computer chair, not moving. I freaked out and just booked it into my room. I had no way to contact my parents without screaming. I was younger back then and didn’t have a cell phone at the time, so I grab my airsoft gun and a baseball bat and slowly made my way back out. I flipped the light, ready to shoot or charge. Turns out, it was just my clothes laid out on the chair.
Mystyrion
When I was younger, I used to sneak into my sister’s room while she was sleeping and surround her bed with autobiographies and biographies. Basically, any books with faces on the cover. I’d turn on the light, and she would wake up and to twenty-odd celebrities staring at her in her sleep. She would scream like a jackal!
anto475
It wasn’t exactly at night, but early morning during a storm, I heard/felt the loudest thunder blast ever. It sounded like it was right next to me. My friend was spending the night, and we both went from out cold to our adrenaline pumping and sat up at the same time. The whole house was shook like a bomb went off, and every car in the neighborhood had their alarms set off by it. I’ve never gone from sleeping to alert so quickly.
Cosmic_Quasar
I bought an old armoire dresser from a Facebook garage sale group. The doors on it would bang and vibrate in the night. One night, my husband woke me up saying, “The dresser is doing it again.” So, I sat up and yelled, “Knock it off, it’s one in the morning!” It banged so loud that it sounded like someone had punched it. We got rid of it shortly after.
PookyBearTrady
The love of my life (at the time, I was a senior in high school so take that with a grain of salt), the girl I thought I was going to one day marry, broke up with me just before we graduated. Prior to that, she gave me one of those picture frames that you can record your voice on for my birthday with a picture of us. Normally, you had to press a button to make the recording play. Late one night, I was sleeping and woke up to a loud voice in my room. It was coming from my closet. I shot up in a panic and realized it was the damn picture frame, playing the recording my ex made for me over and over in a loop. I ran to the closet, grabbed it, and ripped the batteries out. I totally freaked out just because of how random it was. It also didn’t help that it was in the middle of the night, and I was still heartbroken over everything. It was like I was being taunted.
KreepyKeelay
I got a phone call in the middle of the night from a number I didn’t recognize. On the static-y line was a woman yelling frantically in a language I couldn’t identify because I was practically asleep. I was shook. The next morning, I called back, but the number was disconnected.
alxzck
I have this horrible fear of windows because of two people. My brother’s friend was obsessed with me. At least twice a week, I would wake up to my bedroom window being opened (the lock was broken) and find him staring at me from outside. It was terrifying because my bed used to be right beside my window, and he could have easily reached in and grabbed me. I made my brother switch rooms with me.
Then, there was this kid I went to school with that was very odd. He had a habit of staring at girls from outside their window and sometimes climbing in to watch them sleep. I never thought that he would do it to me because we lived pretty far out of town, and a good ways into the woods. One night, I was getting ready for bed and usually would open the window to let some fresh air in. As soon as I pulled the blinks, I was looking right into his eyes. I screamed and my dad chased him away with a gun. Now, I am absolutely terrified of windows and make sure everything is locked up tight before bed.
alphawolf131313
I was asleep in bed in my room by myself with the door locked when I heard a sharp, “Hey!” in my ear. Then, it happened again for a second time. “Hey!” It was a male voice. There were two other women at home that night and no men in the house.
For a second, I was too afraid to sit up like I was too afraid to move. But then I scrambled for my light switch, terrified.
The room was empty.
I thought that maybe they weren’t IN my room, but maybe they were in the hall. I got the nerve to go and take a look, but the house was empty and the alarm was still set. There was, however, a smell in the hall. Something weird.
I followed it into the kitchen and discovered that the gas on the stove had been left on. I didn’t have any neighbors nearby. We had a seven acre plot, and our house wasn’t by any roads or anything either.
NotAnotherWhatever
I was living in an on-campus house one summer. One night, I suddenly woke up to this scream that sounded like it had come from nearby. I laid there for a moment trying to figure out if I’d actually heard it or just dreamed it and where it had come from. I debated whether or not I should do anything about it. I was listening to see if I heard anything else, any other kind of disturbance, but there was nothing.
I had myself half-convinced that I had dreamed it when I heard a door open and heavy footsteps enter the house. The guy immediately identified himself by calling out “CAMPUS SAFETY,” which was a relief, but now I’m also thinking that I definitely must have heard a scream, and either security also heard it or someone called them in. I was trying to decide if I should get out of bed and talk to the security person. I was curious about what was going on, but it wasn’t like I could really tell him anything.
After another minute or so, he called out again, “This is campus security! I’ve removed the bat!” and then leaves.
I’m glad I didn’t embarrassed myself by going out and trying to “helpfully” inform him that I’d heard someone screaming about… a bat in the house.
copacet
An earthquake isn’t really chilling maybe, but it sure feels like it when you’re coming out of a dead sleep and don’t know what the hell is going on.
notme2017
My husband and I once lived in a house that was almost 100-years-old as newlyweds. We were woken up at 3 AM by the TV in the living room, and the clock radio beside our bed turning on with the volume all the way up. This happened TWO times. This was the first of many strange moments in that house. My brother did some research on it and discovered that it was built by some infamous family who were rumored to be cruel, viscous people. We ended up having the house blessed, and at least the activity in the bedroom stopped. I’ve had to seriously blocked out so many things that have happened to us that, right now, my husband, brother, and sister remember more than I do. It’s extremely disturbing and difficult to be afraid of your own home.
GoogleDr
I slept during the day because I worked at nights. I lived in my house for a few years at this point. I was suddenly woken up by the sound of my front door being opened and then slammed shut. I’m usually really heavy sleeper, and I heard it loud and clear. Even my dogs heard it and started freaking out, barking, etc. I didn’t think my husband would be home early so I got up, got my pistol, and go take a look. Everything was locked up like it should have been. No one is in my house, except for me. I went out the front door and all of my neighbors are gone to work (I live in the ‘burbs). The whole thing completely freaked me out. I text my husband about it, and he kind of blowed me off.
About a year later, I’m at work. It’s 1 AM. I get a text from my husband (who never texts me) in the middle of the night unless something is wrong. He said that he was asleep and heard the front door open and then slam shut. It woke the dogs up too, but they tried to hide under the blankets (which is not like them at all). Needless to say, my husband believes me now.
LaVieLaMort
Post are edited for clarity.