People Describe The Scariest Thing They've Ever Woken Up To In The Middle Of The Night

Keeping an extra close eye...hopefully?

"My grandmother just standing there in the dark by my bed, quietly wringing her hands and staring at me."- fryinpaskettimobster

Terrifying no matter when

"My mom saying I needed to get up and go with the cop."- abletable342

An experience no one deserves

"My mom screaming up the stairs 'get out of the house now!!!' and my brother swinging my door open to get us out."

"The house was on fire."- stoneytopaz

One hundred little fingers...

"Centipede crawling on my face."

"I still shiver thinking about when that happened."- Slight_Librarian_399

A lesson well learned?

"A cop walking into my Airbnb at 4am in Tennessee."

"Somehow he had the code and just.. walked in."

"I was sleeping on the couch right near the front door."

"He yelled at me and asked my name and what I was doing there."

"I was dazed and said 'ugh, I’m sleeping here man' and he’s like 'we were called about a B n E at this address'." - Reddit

"And I said 'I dunno man' and he was like 'well, sorry to disturb you'."

"And he walked out."

"Found out later that the call came In from a different address and the cop still had the door code from a previous call that was put in at this building before."

"This is where I learned if someone breaks in to where I’m sleeping In the middle of the night, I ain’t gonna do sh*t."

"My reaction time is about 5 minutes."- ReferHvacGuy

Sharing a midnight snack?

"Cat dropping a giant a** spider on my chest, then giant spider disappearing in my panic."- lady_of_the_lac

One can only imagine...

"My wife sitting straight up out of bed and screaming while pointing down the hallway."

"She talks in her sleep, usually it’s hilarious."

"That time it was not."- BrotherOfTheOrder

Nature's alarm clock

"8.8 Richter scale earthquake at 3am."- sparkdaniel

There's a first time for literally everything.

"Lived in an old building in NYC."

"Had a neighbor across the hall that would seldom have night terrors."

"1st time it happened, it was about 4am and I was pretty sure she was getting murdered from the piercing screaming and loud thumps from her flailing around and the sound of glass breaking."

"I grabbed a meat cleaver and went into the hallway in my underwear to see that everyone else in the building was also awake and poking their heads out into the hallway wondering what to do."

"Me and 2 other neighbors eventually knocked on her door and when she answered she looked pale like a ghost and was dripping in sweat."

"She didn't remember any of it, apologized and explained to us her condition."

"That was some blood curdling sh*t."

"She was very apologetic about it and bought us all six packs of beer for freaking us out."

"Me and the two neighbors that decided to take action were all 100% sure that she was getting murdered at that moment."

"I lived there for 2 years and I think she only had 2 episodes during that time."- azninvasion2000

Always a relief to wake up.

"Had sleep paralysis one time in my life."

"I woke up to a very clear figure slowly moving towards my bed."

"I tried to scream or move but I couldn’t."

"Eventually it made it onto my bed and pressed against my chest with its knees and I could physically feel the pressure."

"It started to choke me and just as I felt like I was about to pass out I woke up."

"Apparently I was positioned like a mummy in a Sarcophagus with my arms crossed with my OWN hands around my neck."

"The more afraid I got the more I squeezed and the more I squeezed the more afraid I got."

"Scared the death out of me and I still remember it vividly."- PriorAgreeable8103

A most unwanted visitor

​"This didn't happen directly to me but I was very close when it happened."

"When kids turn 11-12 years old in our youth movement, they get to sleep in big military like tents during summer camp."

"Usually in the back of a large grass field, away from the main buildings."

"This particular year, we slept on a part military and public terrain where there was a walking path separating the sleeping field and the main building."

"So we saw many hikers, bikers and even a military training passing by during the day."

"One evening our group was sitting outside our tent singing and talking, when we heard a loud bark."

"At first we didn't think much of it because we heard a lot of dogs during the day, but what really spiked our concern was how close and scary it sounded."

"Some doubted whether it really was a dog by the sheer loudness, deepest growl it had."

"We decided tot call it a night, and we all went to bed."

"We were fairly large size group so we slept on either side of the tent, dividing the tent lengthwise with a big walkway in the middle."

"The entrance was at the two ends of the walkway, so 4 kids slept beside it."

"At night we closed up all the gaps with a large tarp."

"The morning after we heard the loud bark, one kid was very quiet at breakfast."

"When we tried to ask what was wrong, they broke down in tears and ran inside the shower facility."

"Later when two camp leaders came back from consoling them, they had a shocked expression and where white as a sheet."

"At night, somebody had pulled off the tarp, undone all the buttons, it was hard to undo them from the outside because you fasten them from the inside, and walked through our tent."

"The kid that was quiet at breakfast, they woke up from the rustling, it was on their side, and watched how somebody walked through the tent, looking at every kid while they were asleep and even stopping and standing in the middle of the walkway for five minutes."

"The kid said they thought it was a camp leader at first but when a dog came in after the person, they knew it wasn't."

"While laying absolutely dead still, they watched as the dog sniffed around and even taking food out of backpacks that were laying at the head of beds."

"After about 10 min, the man and his dog walked out, leaving and not even closing the tarp."

"The kid lay frozen in bed, terrified of moving."

"That morning, when our camp leaders, came to wake us up they saw the removed tarp and open tent."

"They didn't think much of it and thought a kid went to go pee."

"After breakfast our camp leaders sat us down and told us what happened the night before."

"We were all too scared to sleep outside and asked to sleep in the buildings."

"The days after the event, the camp leaders slept with their groups."

"Each night after the event, we heard rustling, howling, low barking and talking."

"Not close by but we heard it."

"Until three days after when a group of little kids came running out of the forest that surrounded the ground, screaming at the top of their lungs."

"They were playing hide and seek and while hiding in an abandoned concrete pipe, they heard a low growl followed by loud barking coming at them."

"We sent all the kids home and came back the next day to clean up."

'After reporting the incidents, the police searched the whole area and found a homeless person that apparently was on the run from police."

'He had multiple sex crime conviction and was know for using his dog as a weapon."

"We were all very shocked when we heard the news."

"The little kid who saw it all didn't join the summer camps anymore, while the camp leaders decided to cancel the three following summer camps."- GroundbreakingTax302

Things are always clearer after having your morning coffee

"Got woken up on a Saturday morning by what looked like Samara from The Ring standing next to my bed."

"Let out a loud scream before the figure went "Yo chill, it's just me'."

"It was my sister telling me breakfast was ready."- Emil_Scalibia

Little brothers...

"When me and my younger brother were really little, he had a night terror and was standing in his crib screaming and crying bloody murder."

"He kept screaming about an urchin in the corner of our room, and he seemed mortified."

"I had never seen someone act like that, so I was a bit freaked out."

"Took like an hour to calm him down."- Upset_Toe

Things Aren't Always What They Seem

"When I was little like 8 I was scared of the dark like most kids ."

"But one night I woke up and I saw what I thought was little girl standing next to my bed."

"I recall fainting and in the morning there was a vacuum cleaner next to my bed."

"But I still think it was a girl till this day."- barbiejeepboy

Could have been their stomach?

"Growling at the end of the bed."

"There were no animals or other people in the room."- Loserskwad

Most people prefer teddy bears...

"Okay so I was sleeping and I woke up and rolled over looking for the remote in the blankets."

"I felt what I thought was the remote in the blanket, but when I unfurled the blanket it was actually a flattened opossum carcass."

"I guess it got hit by a car outside and my cat brought it in and put it in bed with me."

"I screamed so loud that my next door neighbor came over."- randcoon

Be it over nothing, or something incredibly serious, being woken up at all hours of the morning is never a pleasant experience.

As the place everyone should always feel safest of all, is in the comfort of their own bed.