Braid Puller

In 2019 my boyfriend and I were living in this historic old house that was around 150 years old in downtown Dayton. One night we were sleeping when I woke up out of a nightmare and was instantly stuck in sleep paralysis. I’ve been having SP since middle school and I’m 28 now, so it’s something I’m very used to. So, I just tried to relax until it wore off or until I fell back asleep. 

Across from our bed we had a huge, floor standing mirror leaning against our wall, and the way it sat, you could see us, our bed and the whole back side of our bedroom. As I’m laying there totally unable to move, I started to hear shuffling in our room. I began to panic and was trying to move my hand to touch my boyfriend to wake him up, but that didn’t work. Then, I saw a blurry figure walking back and forth INSIDE the reflection of the mirror. It would only go as far as the full width of the mirror would allow….if that makes any sense. Back and forth…back and forth. Then this figure, who I then realize is a total copy of me, shuffled out of the mirror and was now standing inside our room. 

I was laying there stuck, following this thing with my eyes, as this thing that looked like me, crawled around the floor of our room, circling our bed. I was PETRIFIED, beyond comprehension. 

All of a sudden my viewpoint changed and I was able to see myself from up above, almost like I was in an OBE, viewing the experience from the ceiling. I saw this thing, which was wearing the same thing I went to bed in, and even had its hair braided with a single braid down the back like I had. It was smiling from ear to ear like a creepy maniac, crouched behind the bed. 

It took its hands with long fingers and wrapped them around my braid, and started to pull back. I could see myself lift up and see my neck being strained, and could even feel it from up above. This thing was trying to pull me off my bed with my braided hair and it was just smiling and looking up at me the whole time. I saw my mouth open as if I was trying to scream, but it was like the sound was sucked out of the room. 

Suddenly, I burst out of SP, and my viewpoint was back to normal. I looked around the room and didn’t see anything, but I still felt as if I was being watched. It just didn’t feel right in that room, so I snuggled in close to my boyfriend until sunrise. 

The next day, I didn’t tell him what happened because I just needed to let it go and not bring it up. As I’m standing in our kitchen cutting up veggies for lunch, still with my hair in a long braid down my back, my boyfriend walks in and comes behind me, and out of nowhere, grabs my braid and pulls it back with his hands. I screamed and he kinda jumped back, shocked that I reacted that way. It felt SO similar to what I had just experienced hours before. I kept asking him why he did that, what made him pull it like that? He said he didn’t know, he said he just wanted too. I started to get emotional, and ended up explaining what happened the night before. He then precedes to tell me that I was WHISPERING weird muffled words under my breath as I slept. He was obviously freaked out and said he didn’t wanna talk about it anymore.