19 People Describe The Scariest Thing They’ve Ever Woken Up To
1. That was truly a tough year
My wife, standing over me with a knife, whispering to herself that she needed to kill me.
The wife and I had been married roughly two years at the time. About two months after we were married, she started having problems. Mood swings, anxiety, irritability, that sort of thing. But we were working opposite schedules at the time, so I was pretty irritable too.
Well, her anxiety got worse, and started a beautiful friendship with paranoia. Eventually, she wasn’t able to work anymore. She got to the point where she couldn’t even leave the house most days. She required more time and effort to care for. Things were pretty intense for a couple in their 20’s. We tried doctors, but weren’t getting much response from them. Mostly wait and see. She kept getting worse, and things got harder for us.
By this point, I’d been forced to quit my job so that I could keep an eye on her full time. I went to college, taking courses online so I could make sure she stayed safe. Student loans basically sustained us for a while.We moved in with her mom and sister, so that they could take turns watching over her.
So anyways, after a couple of major depressive spouts, some self-harm, and a suicide attempt or two to spice things up, the doctors decided they should be dosing her up. They tried putting her on a bunch of different medications. Some made her numb. Some made her heart race so badly we ended up in the er again. One of the medications ended up making her extremely violent.
She’d lash out at me, bite me, scream insults and such. A couple of times I had to physically restrain her to keep her from hurting me. And I was the only one in the house that she’d listen to even in the slightest when her brain was misfiring.
As you can imagine, I try to sleep when she sleeps. Usually I’m a really light sleeper, and I wake up whenever she makes an unusual noise or rolls over on the bed. But sometimes I have schoolwork due, and the only time to finish it is while she’s asleep. So eventually I get a decent amount of sleep lag, crawl into bed, and sleep heavily.
Then suddenly I’m awake. There’s something wrong. The wife isn’t in the bed next to me. I realize that there’s more light in the room than normal. The door is slightly ajar, and light is coming in from the hallway. She’s standing at the foot of the bed. She’s gotten a big kitchen knife from somewhere. We’d been locking up the sharp implements, so at the time I don’t know how she got it.
And she’s mumbling very quietly to herself. I strain my ears and she’s arguing with herself about the merits of killing me vs leaving me alive. They were nonsensical, but mostly ran along the lines of, “He stops me from doing what I want, hurting people, and killing myself.” Those were the cons. And, “There’s no one else I can talk to.”
And that was… pretty much the whole of her debate. So you can imagine how I’m feeling at this point. Scared, terrified, and exhausted. I’d been dealing with such a high stress level for so long that I’d started hallucinating that she’d called for me when she hadn’t. And I’m just at the point where I turn into a seventeen year old girl and I just. can’t. even.
So I look at her, and I tell her, “Take my life if you want. It’s yours already. I gave it to you when we got married.” And then I roll over and pretend to fall asleep. Of course, I’m straining my ears for any sound to warn me I might lose my spleen.
But after a moment, she crawls into bed, puts the knife under her pillow, and falls asleep.
Once she starts snoring, I carefully pull the knife from under her pillow and return it to one of the locked drawers in the kitchen. Then I take five minutes to shake like a leaf as the adrenaline wears off, and then another ten to cry silently on the couch. And then I crawled back into bed, and wrapped my arms around her, and fell asleep.
To this day, she still doesn’t remember it.
That was a rough year.
2. “What the hell is going on?”
I stepped out of my bathroom to find my entire house lit up, 2 Emt’s and a sheriff’s deputy in my living room.
They proceeded to try to tell me to come sit down, stay calm, relax and let them help me.
I was like “WTF is going on, why are you in my house?”
Apparently I had suffered a grand mal seizure in my sleep, never having this happen before, My wife called 911.
I must have come out of the seizure, got up walked into the bathroom to take a piss and had no idea it even happened. While I was in the bathroom, they arrived, came in and my wife had turned all the lights on and I was oblivious to everything.
Weirdest feeling ever…would not do again.
3. 0/10 would not try again
I woke up to this loud beeping and a not-so-quiet whooshing sound. Imagine waking up hard to your alarm and its painfully loud—like that, but all I heard was whoooooooosh and that loud beeping, like it was inside my head. Pretty sure I’m dead at this point, until I opened my eyes and saw light. But then the light got painfully bright and then was gone, and then bright and then gone, like five times. Now I’m definitely dead.
I had what felt, and still feels like, about five or ten minutes of introspection where I decided how I felt about being dead. It was vaguely dissociative, where for some time I would feel like it was me talking about myself, but I was actually other people talking about me. I had some very real and clear realizations that the world was actually just my experience, like a dream, and that everyone I had known was only imagined; and that now that I was awake they were gone forever. “I” told myself “yeah, that was you and your world, but it’s gone now” in a very nonchalant way, like finishing a three page article.
Turns out I’d had a seizure and woke up in an ambulance to an oxygen mask, cardiac monitor, and some EMT checking my pupils. The whole ten minute conversation with myself happened in the second or two it took me to get my eyes all the way open. I was totally conscious in a few seconds, but had no memory of the hour or two leading up to the seizure.
4. Wow, damn…
I was up at my dad’s cabin for the weekend and at around one we heard a huge crash on our porch (it’s a big wrap around porch that has 2 openings, we forgot to lock one and then we heard a voice yelling “FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!” really loud. This mysterious stranger was now trying to pick the lock on our door to get in.
my dad gets his .44 magnum and I get a baseball bat. My sister, little brother, and stepmother all locked themselves in the attic. Me and my dad went out and my dad yells at the person ” you have about 10 seconds to get the fuck off my property before I kill you.” Then that’s when we realize it’s a 17-year-old kid, and he just collapses and starts crying. We don’t know what to do and my dad trues to calm.him down while still holding the gun at him. I go and call the cops. They come and get him.
Apparently this kid was in a car crash about 6 miles down the road that killed his best friend and his girlfriend and he was just trying to find help…
I guess what happened is they were driving back down from their camping trip when they were driving down this really narrow road. They rounded a corner and a deer jumped out, so they swerved to avoid it but careened off of a cliff and I to a river. The driver and one of the passengers were unconscious and the kid on our porch was relatively ok. He was able to get out of the car as water was getting in. He thought the other two were right behind him. When they weren’t he tried to save they them but he couldn’t as and watched his friend and girlfriend drown right in front of him.
I don’t know where he is today, but if you’re somehow reading this buddy, I am really sorry we were about to shoot you, and I am so very sorry for what happened to you and I hope you are okay.
5. This is quite hilarious
I almost knocked myself out with my own arm.
I woke up and it was completely numb. I went up to brush my teeth and it still hadn’t gone back to normal. So I decided to try how much it would dangle if I just dropped it from straight up. I grabbed my wrist with my other, un-numb, hand and raised it above my head. It never occured to me that it would actually fall straight down, and not in an arc. My hand hit me straight in the face with a surprising amount of force. I was dizzy for a few minutes afterwards.
Turns out your limbs are quite heavy when your muscles aren’t helping out.
6. Good guy neighbors
When I was 18 I was in a house fire. Since then I’ve been terrified of fire. This story takes place roughly a year later when I was 19 and had just moved into my own apartment.
As an incomplete quadriplegic, this was a huge deal.
It was around 2 am and I’m dead asleep. I suddenly wake up to my dog howling and the fire alarm blaring. I am fucking terrified. I’m also only wearing underwear. I throw on a shirt, get into my chair as quickly as possible, and head to the exit. This is when I realize how fucked I am. I’m in the 8th floor with no way down.
I’d taken so long getting in to my chair there’s no one around. I just started sobbing uncontrollably. I feel a tap and see my two male neighbors standing over me. They ask if they can help and I stammer yes. Without hesitation one picks me up out of my chair and the other grabs my dogs collar (I forgot her least in my panic). They carried me down 8 flights of steps and held me outside in the ~50-60 degree cold until they somehow found a chair for me. They also got a blanket from somewhere to cover me up with. They consoled me and calmed my dog. After we were allowed back in one went upstairs and brought my chair back down. They walked me to my door and told me to come to them if I ever needed anything. They moved shortly after, but that experience is one that will always stick with me.
7. ALIENS???
I awoke once to a strange, high pitched trilling sound and bright lights beaming through my window. For a second I seriously thought I was about to be abducted by aliens. Then I realized it was a toad doing its mating call in the front yard and car parked on the street with the headlights on.
8. That was unexpected
I woke up at about 3am to the back door opening. I was in a panic and couldn’t hear properly over my boyfriend’s snoring. I thought I could hear quiet footsteps. Then I heard the lounge room door open and all this noise. I tried to wake my boyfriend up quietly, by nudging him and shaking him. But that fucker wouldn’t wake up.
I knew I had to get up myself and look. I dialled 000 in my phone, ready to hit dial as soon as I saw someone, and quietly opened the bedroom door. The lounge room door was only open a little bit. I turned my phone light on, ready to bust some chops, and kicked the door open.
There stood my dog. Totally stunned. He had a shortbread cookie in his mouth, and a ripped plastic bag with more cookies at his feet. He clearly did not expect to be caught on his snack run.
9. Dammit!
One time I was having a dream about giant green water snakes. One bit me in the fucking eye and I woke up screaming – to find my cat pawing at my face because he had no food.
10. That’s pretty fucking terrifying
A bear outside my tent.
11. This is some fucked up bullshit
At Lake Tahoe, I woke up to bears. I was in a tent with my girlfriend and her cousin. I will never forget that distinctive heavy exhale they make through their nose. When I heard that, reality set in and that whole surreal feeling you get in threatening situations as such set in. My girlfriend and her cousin got a kick out of me being so deathly afraid of the incident the next morning and realized I was terrified of wild animals, so they put cookies and food all around our tent the following night to attract the bears again. They stayed awake waiting for the bears to come and when they did the two of them woke me up and told me to look out our little tent window. All I could see was fur covering up the whole window of the tent and only right then did they tell me about the food they put around the tent. I was so afraid, just laying there shaking uncontrollably staring into an abyss while they are busting up laughing silently. I have never wanted to die so much in my life as I did then. Who the fuck does that.
12. He forgot about this one thing he bought
Well, it was about 8 months ago about 2:40 am.
I was sleeping in my bed when i heard a loud bang in my kitchen. Unaware of what it was I got up and wasn’t sure of anything. I get my gun from my safe and walk out. I than hear a huge rattle of pans and plates falling on the floor.
I was really freaking out.
My blood was pumping so hard and it was so bad I was starting to get a headache from it. I creep out of my hallway. Its pitch black, I look in the kitchen poking my head in. I see two strong glowing eyes staring at me. So fucking scary man it russled my jimmies so hard. I booked it back in my room and popped open the window and hopped the fuck out cause I don’t got time to deal with that bull shit. I was fucking scared. I was on my phone about to dial 911 when I remembered… that I bought a fucking cat like a month ago and it ran away and came back that night. Needless to say I saved a nice pair of undies from being slaughtered by my fatal bowel movement of terror. I knew I shouldn’t have bought a fucking cat.
13. Uh, oops?
Someone calling my name. I was 100% sure that I heard someone calling for me, in a casual manner, as if this person was asking me to pass the salt or something. I was alone in the house. It was certainly a dream, but scared me anyway.
I sat for roughly half an hour yelling “Yeah? What is it? Don’t fucking wake me up if you have nothing to say!” And stuff like that. Yes, I’m an idiot.
14. What a way to wake up
Had chipotle that morning. My cat jumped on me that night. Sharted myself awake.
15. Whoa!
Part of my ceiling collapsed on me.
We knew there were leaks from the roof and were in the process of fixing those ourselves without really looking into any of the structural damage. After that, we hired professionals.
16. That would terrify me
The panicked shrieks of my mother. My father was having a heart attack.
17. Some foreplay…
My husband jumping up in bed next to me, screaming that a cockroach just crawled over his legs…then he continued shrieking while doing a strange jig on top of the bad, furiously shaking his arms back and forth.
After the initial terror, shock, and confusion however, it was hilarious.
18. An intruder!
I was living alone at the time in a little studio flat in the city centre. It was about 3am and I was woken up by some crashing sounds in the hallway, and then somebody started kicking hard at my bedroom door. Fortunately my door at the time was a pretty hefty fire door with a good strong lock, so I had enough time to call the police before he did any damage to it. I was living pretty close to the police station so they turned up fast, with dogs, and caught him still inside the building.
As it turned out the guy was absolutely wasted and looking for somewhere to sleep, and from the outside my place still looked like the empty nightclub it used to be before it was converted into flats. So my guess is he thought it would be empty, rather than actually attempting to rob/attack anyone living there. I was still very shaken up by it at the time.
19. Oh shit
Last night’s rocket attack and siren. I live in Israel with my pregnant wife and 2-year-old.
