I saw a 8 foot tall Shadow Thing spying on me in bed. "Top Hat Man"

Originally posted by Son of Will

Originally posted by MrsBlonde
I saw one years ago I was wide awake but my husband was sleeping having a nightmare he was talking in his sleep screaming' he's coming.he's here ' and then this creepy shadow man in a broad brimmed hat showed up in the bedroom doorway and leaned in and looked at us
I pretended I didn't see him and he left

scared me s*%$less

Weird! - Once when I was 17, I had an experience that was so bizarre, I've never seen another paranormal story that is even remotely similar. So I usually just keep it tucked away because it doesn't apply to pretty much all the stories I hear. But you and your husband's experience actually made something go "bing!" in my head.

So I was 17, visiting colleges in Arizona. And visiting some cousins, with a slight detour to check out the Grand Canyon. In one of the hotels I was staying at, which didn't seem very old, I had an experience so strange that I still struggle just explaining on a basic level what happened.

It's late at night, I'm totally asleep. But at one point I became half-conscious - I vividly recall imagery of going around the outside of the hotel I was in, moving *very* fast. It didn't feel like it was me, but I was definitely seeing this. Then I somehow become aware of my body laying in bed. At this point I've started to give an unpleasant moan, as if very afraid. Two awarenesses going on simultaneously - one is me lying in bed, and the other is skirting the perimeter of the hotel (this was a very large place) - I can feel that I am the destination. The closer "I" get to me, the more intense the moaning becomes. I'm in bed, still half-asleep but quite aware that something is coming after me, getting closer and closer. Meanwhile I'm not "seeing" this something, but I am experiencing it. Seeing what it sees, feeling what it feels. At first it felt like emptiness. But as it got closer it felt primal, beastial. The feeling grew in intensity as it got closer, and its speed seemed to increase. It felt as light as the wind. Soon me/it zipped in through the window, and I burst out of sleep right at that point, just as this thing would have came upon me.

I'm near certain that there was some kind of entity out there and I had tapped into it somehow. Perhaps this is what angered it, or perhaps I picked up on its intentions and "spectated" it as a defense mechanism or something. Maybe I should start a thread on it, I know there's some people on ATS who could provide some interesting answers...

I never saw anything when I woke up, but it definitely seems like dreams - or the state of being unconscious - has something very important to certain types of entities. I don't think what I experienced was a "Top Hat Man", it felt far too sinister and beastial for that - plus I never actually saw it. But there must be something we have that they want - or something they find irresistible.

edit on 4-10-2010 by Son of Will because: (no reason given)

wow something was spying on you or feeding of your energy somehow and that made you it feel like you and you it??? sleep is a stae in wich we need protection apparently,not just from burglars and Psychopaths but mysterious(and very rude) unknown entities
I would love to know if some shamans or voodoo men know what to do about this ,I better ask my voodoo priestess friend about this

muzzle flash, it was a hallucination. somtimes you get them when you just wake up.

for me it is ususally spiders on the wall/flies. i jump up in exactly the same way and go wtf,realising what happend i go back to sleep.

Originally posted by MR BOB
muzzle flash, it was a hallucination. somtimes you get them when you just wake up.

for me it is ususally spiders on the wall/flies. i jump up in exactly the same way and go wtf,realising what happend i go back to sleep.

Mr Bob I've had disorienting perceptions like what you are referring to

these are not them

what about me being wide awake and seeing what my sleeping husband was dreaming about?? and many of the other posters have declared that they were awake when they saw Hat Man , why is he a Hat Man??

It was me.

No, probably not but it might have been. In all seriousness, my theory is that you were in a state that was overlapping with the dream-state.

I suppose I should explain my broader theory that makes more and more sense to me lately. That dreams aren't always a completely 'internal' experience. That some of them exist in 'channels' that our consciousnesses 'visit', which may involve 'traveling out of body' and/or mingling in some capacity with other real people/entities in a similar state.

I think you may have seen a fellow dreamer's 'astral body'. He probably was in a dreamworld of his own, that included your house. He probably wasn't totally in control - think of it as 'sleepwalking'. He probably wasn't aware of his appearance either. When he noticed that you could see him, he became more aware of his surroundings and his first instinct was to hide or get away. Then he vanished. And woke up.

The main reason I post this is because I have had a few dreams that are just - different from others - where I'm sort of gliding around in people's houses. I don't have total control, it's kind of 'swimmy', and I don't feel awake or lucid - I feel "half asleep" for lack of a better term. but I'm usually just sort of floating up and down hallways. I have been "seen" before, but until I read your post I just thought they were seeing "me". Their initial reaction is usually anger/fear - but I never thought I might look really strange to them. Or that they were real people! The dreams usually end abruptly.

Addendum:

I think "sleep paralysis" is real, but I think that it's related to my theory. That when we dream, our consciousnesses leave the body. The body isn't supposed to wake up before the pilot is strapped securely into the cockpit, but sometimes it does, and our minds spend a moment or two in more than one realm. Do we hallucinate in this state? Sure, why not? Is EVERYTHING we see during these times "just a dream"? I don't think so.

Recently I've noticed interaction with 'characters' in my dreams - cats, people, etc that seem to just want to 'observe' my actions - when I become conscious of them, they scurry away. I'm always 'half-asleep' in these ones too.

I understand being "spooked" by a pararnormal experience. If your not accustomed to it- it can be rather frightening. What you must consider however, is that this being in all likely hood is 99% not bad. Shadow people are partial manifestations. They are ghosts, and are stuck in the earthbound realm, and wander all over the place- and are not confined to places such as houses. This spirit may have just been passing through. Its not necessary to jump to the conclusion that your house is haunted just because of one paranormal experience.

Originally posted by MR BOB
muzzle flash, it was a hallucination. somtimes you get them when you just wake up.

for me it is ususally spiders on the wall/flies. i jump up in exactly the same way and go wtf,realising what happend i go back to sleep.

I have never had a hallucination of any substance before.

And to think all of those crazy college days where I should have seen something, considering all of the "help" I had doing "crazy" college kid stuff.

Also how would it be possible for people to hallucinate the same exact shapes and stuff? Doesn't seem very likely or reasonable to me.

If it were hallucinations, I would expect a vast differentiation in various people's visual apperations.

For instance, if it were hallucinations, I would see something unique to my own brain. Whereas another person, would see something totally different such as an Elephant, when I was seeing something like a walking tree, while you were seeing spiders. This is the type of vast differentiation I would expect from hallucinations.

Also, how is it possible that I can hallucinate the shapes and 8foot tall size of a entity, it's mannerisms and it's perculiarities and M.O.; without knowing anything about it at all; meanwhile worldwide hundreds if not thousands of people with no relation or prior contact were seeing the exact same entity?

This does not fit with hallucination very well. Too many coincidences, so I will have to dig deeper for a more suitable resolution. Thanks for assisting in trying to unravel the mystery though. And don't stop there, let us know if you come up with any other ideas.

Originally posted by Teratoma
I think you may have seen a fellow dreamer's 'astral body'.

Hmmm. Interesting suggestion.

This leads to many new questions and a lot of new confusion however.

Like, Why is the visible entity over 8 foot tall and why are it's sides straight lined? Why is it's eye shaped in that funny way?

How could it be a person when the visual appearance is so utterly different than that of anything human?

This is why I have been led down the two routes of Aliens and Demons so swiftly, due to the bizarre and inexplicible appearance of this strange thing. It simply looks nothing like a human in any respect, and the straight lines really screamed alien tech cloaking space suit to me.

Almost as if it were wearing a space suit that enabled it to perform "magical" feats of physics such as disappearing without making any sounds almost instantaniously.

And additionally, the "Demon" aspects are quite obvious as well. For instance it's odd behavior at stopping exactly at the doorway, even though there was no doorway there and it was an empty doorseal frame. It almost seemed as if the doorway was some sort of "barrier". This could be mere coincidence but at the same time it reeks of "demonic rules and regulations" that are so commonly spoke about in various internet circles.

While I do leave room in my mind for a human source to exist, at the same time I am overwhelmingly being pushed mentally to classify this "thing" in a more abstract manner, and put it somewhere along the lines between "aliens from another world/dimension" and "demonic spirit things". As it shares many traits with these two well known phenomena, although there are some crossover possibilities and other obscurities.

I honestly feel like it is similar to just putting my hand in a grab bag to pull out something random.

But I have a theory. If I keep pulling answers out of the grab bag, eventually I will come across something really good and juicy. So, my hand cannot help but return to the bag in search for more clues.

Thanks for the interesting theory though, I won't discard it right away because despite it's seemingly lower chances of fruition, it still may hold the keys to resolving this matter and aid us in retrieving a accurate explanation.

But there are many many unanswered questions that remain.

Seeing shadow people is most common when you rouse yourself from a half sleep. The toilet imagery the OP described is know as hypnogogic imagery. Rousing yourself from this state is when you are most likely to see shadow people from the accounts I've read and from personal experience. I keep an active dream journal, so when I have interesting hypnogogic imagery, I rouse my self to record it, otherwise H.I. can be notoriously difficult to remember.

It's got to be a case of altered perception that allows one to see these things, somehow related to the half asleep state. I've found meditation a good way to stay aware during the hypnogogic stage, so you could use that to check for them.

I don't understand why some people see them with glowing eyes though. Mine never have distinguishable eye, or even hats. And I've gotten pretty close to them. Close enough to try and tackle them, and I even took a swing at one that was at the foot of my bed.

Originally posted by xynephadyn
I understand being "spooked" by a pararnormal experience. If your not accustomed to it- it can be rather frightening. What you must consider however, is that this being in all likely hood is 99% not bad. Shadow people are partial manifestations. They are ghosts, and are stuck in the earthbound realm, and wander all over the place- and are not confined to places such as houses. This spirit may have just been passing through. Its not necessary to jump to the conclusion that your house is haunted just because of one paranormal experience.

Sadly I have personally had Other totally frightening close calls with some very unexplainable entities here. This isn't my first event. However, it was a new type of sighting that was totally out of the ordinary "ghosts" events that tend to populate this area.

Ghosts of humans tend to resemble the human they used to be, but this thing was purely a dark shadow color, not glowing, nor was there any Ectoplasm event.

It's sides were straight edged, it had no neck, it's eyes were an upside down triangle, it was over 8 foot tall.

If it is a ghost of a dead human, than it has morphed drastically into a new form, and that doesn't seem like a good thing per se.

That is why I am so attracted to the alien cloaking spacesuit hypothesis, because it does actually explain all of these irregularities and bizarre facets of it's physical appearance.

Also consider the fact that this thing seems to only observe people, typically during sleep. This could be easily explained in the alien hypothesis as some sort of obvserver who takes logs of all of the physical world that we each live in.

Perhaps it was performing medical checks on my wife and I, scanning our minds and memory, and taking logs of minor things like temperatures, weather patterns, humidity, and other various specifics.

This would also explain my intense feeling that I caught this thing by accident and off-guard, because it was merely performing it's job as an observer-scientist. And this could easily explain the aura of embarassment that permeated the whole ordeal.

Perhaps that odd shaped eye was actually a telescopic lense that has tons of sensor technologies that allow it to not only read the temperature on a heads up display, but also tap into the dream states of sleeping people and retrieve their memories and other things like this into a computer database.

I am just throwing this out there because these alienesque hypothesis are actually capable of making sense of what I saw in English terminology without resorting to hocus pocus mumbo jumbo.

I am not saying it was an alien technology I saw, but I do have strong reservations that this is a clear and distinct possibility we should consider in depth before we toss it out and automatically accept other explanations that may leave us far more confused and bewildered.

I still leave room for "ghost" explanations and or some form of "demon" , among other things that it could have been.

Without any real data other than a mere brief sighting, we are really left with very little to go with here, and speculation takes reign quickly. We are left with countless possibilities and questions, meanwhile we are left very short on answers.

That is why I am determined to find something exactly like this in ancient sources, as their older knowledge could be of some assistance in pegging this entity more accurately.

Right now I really cannot say what it was in reality. It truly blows the mind, and leaves us with just questions.

Originally posted by The Cusp
Seeing shadow people is most common when you rouse yourself from a half sleep. The toilet imagery the OP described is know as hypnogogic imagery. Rousing yourself from this state is when you are most likely to see shadow people from the accounts I've read and from personal experience. I keep an active dream journal, so when I have interesting hypnogogic imagery, I rouse my self to record it, otherwise H.I. can be notoriously difficult to remember.

Very interesting post.

I do agree that the brain functions of focusing on the toilet was exactly what abruptly brought me back out of my sleep state and that is what led to this event. That is also why I termed it accidental and a mistake on the part of the shadow thing, as it seemingly did not anticipate my reawakening.

And to reply to two specifics you were curious about.

The eye may not have been glowing, this is unknown and merely a matter of perception.

The background lighting in the hallway was an orange-gold-yellow color also, and the area where the eye socket was could have been just a see-through hole and I could have been seeing just the light from the hallway passing through.

And about the "Top Hat" thing, it was clearly not a hat at all. There was no brim to the hat. The eye was located in the middle of the hat itself. It was most obviously it's head. Like a neck-head mix almost because there was just a straight line of shadow there.

So yes, there was no actual hat, and the eye may not have been glowing but merely a hole allowing background light to pass through, and possibly amplified to some extent although I do not know either way the specifics on this.

All good things to point out. Good post.

I should have pointed this out much more clearly in the OP, but today has been extremely hectic and I've had to do a lot of work, and lost a lot of sleep.

"Top Hat Man" is a clear "Misnomer". A misnomer is a "incorrectly applied name" that does not sufficiently describe what we are actually talking about here.

I only put the name up there because that is the common terminology that society has pegged this phenomena with throughout the internet. You can google "top hat man" and find tons of stuff just like this.

But I want to make it clear that this thing was not wearing a top hat at all. See my above post for details about that.

Two reasons why I applied the Misnomer of "Top Hat Man" to this thread.
1) It's the common name used for it already.
2) It must have been a subconcious act of search engine optimization, so that anyone looking for a discussion or information on this term "Top Hat Man" would invariably be led to this ATS thread on Google Page 1.

I have been doing a ton of SEO work for many companies over the past few years, so I suppose that this mental behavior has been ingrained into my skull so deeply that I end up subconciously doing it. For example mentioning multiple varied terms in order to increase the types of searches that could lead towards it, etc.

It was partially a honest mistake coupled with habit and the application of misnomer terminology. I honestly apoligize if the misuse of this term has misled anyone on realizing exactly what we are talking about here.

Top Hat Man doesn't wear a top hat. That is why I cheerfully termed it the "shadow thing" because that seems much more apt. However there are many types of shadows reported, and the specific one I witnesses was lovingly called "Top Hat Man" by the majority of the net.

So as you can see with misnomers mix-ups can easily happen especially due to our lack of ability to communicate effectively over this internet medium. No eye conact, body language, etc.


www.thefreedictionary.com...

On another somewhat comical note, one of my friends had quickly pointed out to me, that entites like TopHat Man have been depicted in older cartoons before. After he brought this tidbit up, I do remember similar things in some cartoons, however rare it may be.

What connections do some of these old cartoons hold? Did the artists actually know of the existence of these things? And subtly placed it into their childrens cartoons for some strange purpose? Maybe a silent disclosure of their personal lives and a way to communicate with others that they had seen it too, but didn't know any effective way to share it with anyone??

Or perhaps these cartoons played some sort of influence? It's hard to tell.

I haven't seen any cartoon depictions of top hat shadow men peeking around corners in many many years, but I do seem to recall this has been depicted in cartoons before, and more than once. If anyone finds a toon that shows something a lot like this, please post it for us to review so that we may discern additional perculiarities from it and possibly find a lead to something valuable.

reply to post by muzzleflash


whoa whoa - dont jump to the conclusion about aliens just because you dont understand a shadow person. Trust me- I am an abductee and it is no joke!

Secondly- you should rename your thread because its not the Top Hat shadow man you are seeing, which alot of people have seen, which I believe is actually demonic in character. Which is a GOOD thing. Ghosts can manifest themselves in whatever form is easiest for them. They travel as orbs the majority of the time. Manifesting a human shape rather than an intricate human form is easier and requires much less energy.

Dont freak yourself out about it. Your moving soon anyways. But dont over complicate it. I have seen HUNDREDS of shadow people, literally. I am a medium I see ghosts and shadow people every day. They come in all shapes and sizes. You'll be ok

reply to post by muzzleflash

I see some common patterns to these things... These things appear to know if they are seen it will produce some fear or anger or other emotion, and the one case of the dreamer seeing it in a dream knowing it was approaching with increasing fear.. or,

Maybe they try to instill bad dreams or just dreams to produce strong emotions in the victim and they leech that energy somehow...

The one you spotted may have wanted to "produce" dreams in you, but you awoke early and spotted it, surprising it to leave suddenly.. ruined it's plans..

As illogical as this might be to the human modern system, it seems a logical possibility to me...

If this happened to me, I would wait when no one was in the house and declare outloud to it that it is tresspassing and not welcome there and to stay the hell out... maybe even write it a note telling the same hehe,, a stickit note on that door frame saying "8 foot shadowman stay out and leave and don't ever come back"...

What else one could do, I have no clue...

I hope you don't see it ever again..

You know what? I see that too. .........................................When I lay a flashlight on me belly.

Rajaten
What the hell is she looking at? Top hat man?

The description of the "unknown" you are talking about is very erie to me, my grandmother used to tell me about a ghost she says "looks over our family" i asked her description she said he is a tall man with a black hat and a long black coat, so as you can see VERY similar now that messes with me a little, my mother has said she has seen him, she even claimed to have felt him or it sit on her legs while sleeping, me being a skeptic obviously tried recording my home during night, now seeing as there is no video obviously i could not find anything in my research. But this is still a very good topic, S&F.
I believe there is definelty more to this top hat man than we know.

Peace and love
Ginger

Originally posted by alienreality

The one you spotted may have wanted to "produce" dreams in you, but you awoke early and spotted it, surprising it to leave suddenly.. ruined it's plans..

As illogical as this might be to the human modern system, it seems a logical possibility to me...

Thank you for actually considering that it might be real "maybe".

Also for showing how funny it is that the shadow exhibits a comical stupidity.

And it is totally illogical at least to me it was. The whole idea seemed impossible. I never suspected anything like that personally.

Perhaps there is a way to ambush these things, and like another poster suggested, set up cameras etc.

From the amount of varied stories on the net with similar events, it probably is far more common and widespread than we realize.

Tricking the thing would require you to actually go to sleep alone at night but with equipment set up around a door area or the foot of the bed like other stories etc.

Maybe a ghost hunter type show would like to set up some traps or other paranormal societies etc around the world sometime. It would seem like a fine idea by me.

But would the gov't cover that up (or try to) if people actually eventually found evidence? I guess they might because it could wreck our "way of life", as people would be heavily distracted by it until it's resolved.

People would want to stop them and prevent them from doing it. And we would all want to know what the heck it is exactly, and what exactly are it's intentions, and find out how to counteract it.

I wouldn't be surprised if everyone had one or multiples any given quiet night of sleep anywhere globally; preying on their dreams or whatever it is these things are doing in our houses.

I was going to say maybe take the suggestion above and try to wake yourself up during a toilet-related part of your dream, but rather pick your own imagry if you wanted to try to catch it yourself. Just whatever works I guess.

Try to change things up some, don't become predictable.

At times like this I'd like to see some old obscure Vatican or ancient Chinese or Indian manuscripts.

Originally posted by muzzleflash
Also what I have found on the Internet has surprised me greatly as it is very similar to my encounter, and many people call it "Top Hat Man". The 8ft tall + shadow thing.

Ever search here?
I've mentioned my experiences with this on more than one occasion.

I spoke about that particular thing in 2008, only to have very little member involvement, and end up accused of being on drugs.

My encounter was a lot more involved too.

My drawing from 2008:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2ed40ca832b4.jpg[/atsimg]
"Meat and potatoes" - 2008

There is a reason why my threads like that get little attention, and I now realize it is probably for the best that I don't go into details any more, even if my experiences became much clearer and I have learned a lot from them. I just dropped the subject publicly all together. There are certain things in play that purposely get people to focus more on an apple, rather than an orange, even if they think it is their choice to do so.

"Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen."
Till then, you can't really get the truth out and have it be heard.

If people are following some sort of "truth" en masse then it is usually a very clever lie.
Quite a few grand lies are coming soon. It will be nearly impossible for the average person not to believe them.

I will say this to you though:

You have no privacy.
No one here does.
It is an illusion.
Everyone is being watched and monitored.
You just caught someone doing it.
You can either drop it, be dropped by it, or pursue it.
That last part will ultimately change you.

Peace,

- Lee

I'm not trying to be off topic here. But this character from the Harry Potter series has a lot in common with these shadow figures.
Dementor

A Dementor was a Dark creature, considered one of the foulest that inhabit the world. Dementors fed off human happiness, and thus caused depression and despair to any who were near them. They could also consume a person's soul, leaving their victims in a permanent vegetative state, and thus were often referred to as soul-sucking fiends.