There's a strange man in my room

When I woke Margaret with her cup of tea this morning, she was quite disturbed. A nightmare that she has experienced occasionally for maybe 20 years took a new, and sinister, development.

Let me say at this stage that I am sure that this is exactly what I said it was in the previous paragraph - a nightmare - however, Margaret finds it extremely upsetting and wakes up having had an experience which is as close to reality as reality itself.

Of couse, I've had nightmares where, upon waking, it takes a few minutes to realise that you were "just having a dream" but that fact that your heart is pounding and you've been yelling your head off is evidence of just how real your dream was in the realm of sleep. Once I dreamed that I was fighting with a burglar who had a knife and was trying to stab me. I can remember that dream vividly even today (many years later) it was so real.

Margaret's nightmare is that there is a man in her room. He's a tall shadowy figure and she can't see his face properly (I have the idea that he is hooded, but I'm not sure if that's the case or that what's what I have inferred from the description). This is a nightmare that she has inherited from Sam who used to be frightened of a man in his room. He used to be standing in the shadow by the door or behind the dressing gown hanging on the door. Childhood night fear, but Sam's shadowy man has now been passed on to Margaret, who has the dream a few times a year.

Sometimes she yells and, if you go to her (which I don't any more – mainly because I never hear anything) she if half asleep and in the process of waking up. She used to have the dream when we shared a bed and she would always wake me up (of course) as I was lying next to her. She would swear that it was real, but I used to say that Jack was lying on the floor at the foot of the bed and hadn't stirred. If this was a "presence" of any kind, Jack (a black collie cross with an exceptional nose and a very good house-minder) would have been barking and biting straight away. Alternatively, if the thing had been other-worldly, he might have been whimpering in the corner with his fur standing on end. In the event, he just sat there wondering what all the fuss was about.

Of our current dogs, Gravel might be expected to sleep through the visit of a ghostly spirit, but not Holly. Funnily enough Holly did bark for a minute of two at about 4.45am, half an hour before I took up Margaret's tea. I'd be tempted to subscribe to the dogs-can-see-ghosts theory, apart from the fact that Holly often barks in the night and does rearrange the furniture (in the shape of dragging her basket around the kitchen floor) in the early hours.

Margaret and I have slept in separate rooms for quite some years. She has suffered from poor sleep patterns and the sound of someone sleeping soundly (which I always have done) was annoying her. She also said my snoring kept her awake. Anyway, she wasn't a happy or a comfortable sleeping partner, so I was not unhappy to see her decamp to another bedroom when the children moved away to university. The nightmare has, however, followed her. At first, the shadowy man used to stand in the corner of the room, then it moved to the bottom of the bed and then the side of the bed. More recently, she's woken when he leans over and stares at her.

I’ve asked if he ever touches her - he didn't. I’ve asked if she has ever tried engaging him in conversation - she hasn't. I’ve asked her if she thinks he is bad - she thinks he is evil.

So this morning, as she was woken, she was keen to tell me that she'd had another visit and this time it was more scary than before because he had leaned over the bed and had pressed down on her chest (with his head I think), so this was the first time she’d felt physical contact, albeit in the form of pressure on her chest. She had tried to shout me, but hadn't been able to speak or get any sound louder than a whisper from her lips. 

Well, it's surprising how restorative the light and a cup of tea can be and the morning chores soon take over from the peaceful sleep or terrors of the night.