Trippy Tales # 80..."Lurking In The Shadows"

Is the "Hat Man" (aka) the "Shadow Man" real?  Or just a mass delusion of our imagination?  Many people swear they've seen him lurking in the shadows, giving off an intense feeling of doom & dread. Such as the reader below...This story comes from Andrea Witon Paulo, who claims to have had more than one experience with this mysterious being...

"From what I remember, I was having a normal dream, until HE showed up. A man dressed from head to toe in black..." 

His outfit consisted of a long trench coat, gloves, dress pants, and a top hat that was pulled down over his eyes. As soon as I saw him, a feeling of intense fear came over me and I had the overwhelming urge to wake up. 

Normally, I'm able to wake up from my nightmares easily, but in this one, it took every bit of energy I had. It was as if every cell in my body was being pulled down by the force of gravity. As if something was trying to pull me back into the nightmare. 

I struggled up to what felt like the surface of the ocean, and when I broke that surface, I was awake. However, the fight wasn't over yet. As soon as I was back in the physical world, I knew something was wrong. I couldn't move. I started freaking out. Inside, I was screaming and crying out for help. I'm not religious, but believe me, I was praying my heart out. I couldn't even open my eyes.

Then, I felt something. It was like a tug. There isn't really any other way to describe it, other than it felt like something was trying to pull out my soul!

I resisted as best I could, but the effort from waking had drained all my strength. I was sucked back into the dream. Only this time, the dream was different...

 I found myself in a small room. The man was there, standing between a counter and a huge bookshelf, both cluttered with unidentifiable objects. He was holding something in his hands. It looked like a crystal ball with a mysterious fog trapped inside of it. 

The fog swirled and churned, as if it were trying to escape. The man looked up and placed the ball down. He took a few gliding steps forward so that he was in front of the right side of the counter, from my perspective. He took another step closer to me, then said, "Welcome back, Andrea," and grinned. That was probably the scariest moment of my life.

His voice is hard to describe. It was very silky and dark, but had an alluring quality to it as well. I felt like a deer in headlights; unable to move or think. All I could do was stand perplexed, frozen, as he drifted closer and closer. Then I heard something...

I'm not sure if it was my own mind, or some entity that wanted to save me, but it was screaming, "Get out of there, NOW!" The voice snapped me out of whatever trance I was in, and I was able to close my eyes and focus all my willpower to waking up and getting as far away from him as possible. Just before I left that little room, I opened my eyes and saw the man lunge for me. "No!" he yelled. It sounded like a command full of rage and hatred. He was too late. I already felt myself rising to my conscience body...

 I woke from the nightmare, but I was still unable to move. I panicked again and was afraid I would be sucked back in. However, this time, I was so freaked out that my adrenaline rush enabled me to move enough to open my eyes and barely roll over to turn the lamp next to my bed on. As soon as light flooded the room, the heaviness faded from my body as well as the tense atmosphere. I lay in my bed soaked in sweat, panting, shivering, and tingling all over. I was happy though. I knew I had beaten him. 

That was my first encounter with him. It was pretty freaky... I even told my mom about it the next morning, but she said it was just a dream. "

But was it "just a dream?"  Stay tuned as we delve further in to this strange, yet, extremely common phenomena.

Oh, and by the way...

you might wanna consider investing in a night light! ;)

~Queenie~