Hallucinations of spiders when you're woken up suddenly? anyone experience this?

I say spiders but after this morning it seemed different.. I thought it was just me but a google search lead me to medhelp.org and I saw a whole thread of people experiencing similar things.

This is a post from the person who started that thread on medhelp.

www.medhelp.org...

Hi my name is Robert. It is very common for me to wake up in the middle of the night, but this night was unusual. I had a normal day, went to bed at 11:00, woke up in the middle of the night and saw a Tarantula sized spider crawling in mid air, in the middle of my room, as if it were on a web but it wasn't. i stared at it for a while with the sheets close to my face, my heart pounding very fast...........as i stared at it it just disappeared. Now I'm wondering if i was hallucinating. can someone please give me an answer?

There are literally dozens of these experiences and the are all described somewhat similarly.. I don't think there's anything paranormal about it but it's certainly an odd experience.. it's been happening to me for a year or two.. it usually happens when I'm over fatigued and get woke up suddenly in the night.. I'll look and see at the center of my field of view, this black mass that looks like a spider or something moving and wriggling around quickly.. then as I stare at it, it just slowly fades away...

Now when I say "Spider" that's really just the most suitable description, it more looks like a ball of black scribbling that moves and gets smaller until it is gone..

The really strange thing is that this morning it was different.. I took today off to make it a four day weekend and I'd been staying up super late every day.. so I found it difficult to try to go to bed at a reasonable time last night.. finally around 3 or 4am I drifted off.. woke up an hour later and saw that thing... went back to sleep, had a really bizarre dream and then woke up with daylight.. With the light behind the "thing" it looked less like scribbling or a spider, but more like millions of changing and overlapping words that would eventually get down to a few and fade out.. unfortunately I can't remember what any of those words were but they were clearly words and/or sentences..

I googled for a picture just to illustrate what it was like.. and this is close, but this seems to have more words spread out and what I saw was them in a tighter space..



Anyone ever experience this?.. in the dark of night this image looks very much spider like .. and it seems a lot of people have experienced it ... I don't take any medications but I do have chronic fatigue syndrome so it's not uncommon for me to be without rest.

Hallucinating right before falling asleep or right after waking up is not uncommon or unusual. It just has to do with the way your brain works in relation to sleep.
Sometimes as I'm about to fall asleep I hear people saying my name. I'm not crazy, I'm just falling asleep.

Yes, this happens to me all of the time. Ever since childhood. They are called "hypnopompic" hallucinations. I also have hypnogogic hallucinations upon falling asleep as well as some form of sleep paralysis from time to time. I will see spiders or writing. Sometimes people at the end of my bed. Colors or illuminated walls. The feeling of a presence. Music or talking. Shadows. Sometimes I wake up and I don't know who I am or that I am dying and I will jump out of bed and start running. It usually takes a minute for the images to fade away and for me to recall where and who I am. The sleep Dr thinks I may have some form of narcolepsy, but I haven't done the sleep study yet. I also have fibromyalgia which is kind of like chronic fatigue. I hardly ever get restorative sleep for healing.

Originally posted by beyondthegarage
Yes, this happens to me all of the time. Ever since childhood. They are called "hypnopompic" hallucinations. I also have hypnogogic hallucinations upon falling asleep as well as some form of sleep paralysis from time to time. I will see spiders or writing. Sometimes people at the end of my bed. Colors or illuminated walls. The feeling of a presence. Music or talking. Shadows. Sometimes I wake up and I don't know who I am or that I am dying and I will jump out of bed and start running. It usually takes a minute for the images to fade away and for me to recall where and who I am. The sleep Dr thinks I may have some form of narcolepsy, but I haven't done the sleep study yet. I also have fibromyalgia which is kind of like chronic fatigue. I hardly ever get restorative sleep for healing.

That sounds considerably more extreme than anything I've experienced.. the idea of seeing someone at the end of the bed sounds terrifying.. The only thing "extreme" I think happened to me is one particularly hot summer I had a 3-4 wasps get in one week and one night I woke up imagining that wasps were flying in mass into my room through the air conditioning vent .. got up and started swinging my pillow until I realized it was just that same thing I always see .. I just assumed it to be wasps swarming this time instead.

I don't get restorative sleep very often either..

I recall a couple of instances where I was scared sh!tless by repelling spiders!

When I was a toddler; my mom tells me that I was complaining about the spiders while I had pneumonia.

The first time I saw the spiders, it was 1993 --- the year my son was born. My wife and I were asleep in bed, and for some reason, I woke up --- and being a back-sleeper, as my eyes opened, I just saw a thousand spiders headed towards my face!!!

I started swinging and swatting haphazardly until my haze went away and I realized I was dreaming of something... I scared the hell out of my wife too. When I came to, took me a while to realize I was hallucinating; it sure as hell took me a while to get back to sleep afterwards too. But I realized I was just hallucinating, so I thought no more if it.

The second time: fast forward to 2007 --- I had just moved (alone) to a new apartment --- and the same thing happened --- I woke up in the middle of the night swinging away at these eight-legged apparitions! The following day, I started researching *dreams* and/or *hallucinations* and why *SPIDERS* seemed to be a reoccurring theme for me throughout the years.

Well, my search came up empty; and now I'm curious to dive back into why I keep getting visits by these critters.

Good to know I'm not the only one now... this is gonna be an interesting revelation (if any) for me... I can't wait!

[edit] I forgot to note: I can't recall the very first time --- I have to take my moms word (maybe she planted the thought in my head?)

I have just signed up to say that this has happened to me one night. This is the second time that this sort of thing has happened, and both times I saw something different.

The first time, I was just going to sleep in my bed. I awoke with my door being swung open (Not really sure that happened), and I saw a white figure enter my room, then disappear into my closet.

The Second time I saw the Spider. While sleeping, I was abruptly awoken in the morning. I jumped awake instantly, after seeing a giant spider fall to my bed. Being very disorientated, I searched for the spider, and realized that the spider was not real.

I do not know if this was a subconscious effect from my mind, or not. I actually like spiders, and are not afraid of them. Maybe I saw the spider, because I use to find them all the time in my house, but I was not even thinking of spiders at the time of going to sleep.

If this happens to more than one person, the question is, why spiders? ..... thinking back now, Even though I am not enthralled by them, I did draw a picture of a giant spider once.

There was a thread on here I read when I first joined and it gave me nightmares...it was on Ethereal Spiders. I'm not on my computer otherwise I'd have the right links. If you go into search and type "ethereal spiders" a bunch of threads come up on them.

I would freak if I woke up to spiders on me. I'm terrified of spiders for some reason.

Hopefully that term helps you find more information. Maybe that is what you are seeing too.

reply to post by miniatus


Weird. I thought this was just outside the realm of "normal" so I never bothered looking it up but I totally know what you are talking about. This actually happened to my wife and I a few of years ago.

She woke me up with her screaming and I looked where she was and saw this black writhing mass (with tendrils like spider legs) in the upper corner of our room and then I started shouting. I don't even remember if I was shouting out of confusion or horror but, after it was over (it faded away), she just cried herself to sleep saying "thank you".

She never mentioned it again and, when I did, she said she didn't want to think about it.

In retrospect, I just assumed it was some sort of thought form or Tulpa created from our nightmares but I had no idea it was an actual phenomenon. The fact that her and I both saw it kept me from looking towards psychological explanations and was content with the spiritual one.

There are all kinds of critters moving about unseen, between realms. The horrific thing is to think that maybe these are always hanging around us while we sleep. Just be thankful we have filters so we don't normally see them.

This has happened to me many times throughout my life, im 25 now. I usually see spiders also, but when this happens to me I always instinctively jump out of bed to turn on the lights. The last time it happened, which was less than a week ago, I thought I saw a huge rat on the wall.

When I see the spiders, they are always tarantula like and big. I wonder why so many of us see spiders. I'm not even particularly afraid of them while awake.. unless it's a poisonous one. I've never heard of ethereal spiders. I will check it out. As a child, I used to hallucinate while I was awake. I just chalk it up to childhood imagination, but I remember it seeming very, very real. I saw the devil's face coming out of the 8-track player once. Then, the Hambuglar from McDonald's would stand at my bedroom door and watch me from time to time. That was scary!! I would also never put my feet in the floorboard of cars at nighttime because I could feel hands grabbing at my feet. I remember all of these things like they happened yesterday. I was a weird kid, I guess.

Originally posted by beyondthegarage
Then, the Hambuglar from McDonald's would stand at my bedroom door and watch me from time to time. That was scary!!

If McDonald characters are becoming part of the human collective consciousness, we have completely failed as a species...

This happens to me from time to time as well. For me its spiders usually,but also bee's or people.A few weeks ago I saw a spider and scrambled from the bed headfirst into the wall trying to get around it,but it was a dream spider. I've been known to swat at things, get up and look at stuff across the room that is not there,punch, kick, utter expletives at the things that I'm swatting or looking at. I can't count how many times I've awoke to these things.And if I don't wake up my girlfriend is woke up by them,and I have to hear about it later. I've smashed dream spiders that were on her.THAT certainly woke her up. One time She asked me why I kicked her and called her a fat ass in my sleep.I just shrugged and apologized. What else can ya do?

Hello,
I haven't had any hallucinations that I am aware of.
But, I do have an odd situation regarding spiders and dreams.

Every single dream I have (the ones I can remember anyway), end with me being eaten by giant spiders. It doesn't matter what kind of dream I'm having or how it starts out, including sex dreams. The giant spiders all ways show up and begin eating me.

I'm not afraid of spiders, and I don't dislike them. I think they're pretty interesting. When I come across one I usually watch it for a bit before I decide whether or not it needs to die.

Well I did wake up with dirty great Wolf spider sat staring at me perched on my hand that was resting atop my pregnant belly once. That was quite the surprise I can tell you.

Occasionally see spiders in me peripherin's when I'm over tired though, but I'm talking seriously knackered over tired.

Have to say your scribble word spider thing sounds awesome though.

I have experienced this "waking up to giant writhing spider mass descending onto your face" phenomenon twice now. It terrified me both times and I immediately jumped up screaming and ran to turn the light on, just as another person above has described. The account here from the husband who saw what his wife saw is incredibly interesting. It seems to discredit the theory that these are simply hallucinations created by the brain while it is trying to emerge from sleep state. Why would two people have the same hallucination at the same time if that were the case? I feel like the medical community has come up with a lot of ways to dismiss things that they can't really explain, and this may be one of them. I don't deny the reality that hallucinations can occur when transitioning from dreams to wakefulness and vice versa, but I don't think that it's true in every case. I feel that there is a whole world of creatures in our space that we can't normally see, and I'm not bothered by that. However, the spiders do bother me because I want to know what they are doing in my personal space while I sleep! It seems devious to me

reply to post by miniatus


Could be an optic migrane.
Expecially if you also saw colors.

reply to post by miniatus




Hi
Are you familiar with the books written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley about the Djinn and paranormal activity? In an interview I watched recently, though I don't think it was a recent interview, she was discussing with the interviewer a paranormal phenomenon called `The Scurriers' where many people have had their attention drawn to scurrying activity of spider-like or octopus-like creatures that flash in and out of our reality.

reply to post by miniatus

I have never hallucinated spiders, but it happens that i hallucinate for a second or two if i suddenly wake up which is something that is normal.

Yup. Happens to me 1-5 times a year.

Jump outta bed, run to turn lights on, find no spider.

Worst times its one giant one or many all over.

usually just one floating in my face or on blankets.

Always find out its just my brain playing tricks (or inter-dimensional spiders! ???).

Let me tell ya, if you are sleeping next to someone, they LOVE THIS!

Hugs!

MM

Originally posted by karen86
reply to post by miniatus

 

Hi
Are you familiar with the books written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley about the Djinn and paranormal activity? In an interview I watched recently, though I don't think it was a recent interview, she was discussing with the interviewer a paranormal phenomenon called `The Scurriers' where many people have had their attention drawn to scurrying activity of spider-like or octopus-like creatures that flash in and out of our reality.

Well I'm definitely checking that out.

I've never experienced the spider phenomenon upon waking. However, when I was around 6 years old I saw (hallucinated ?) roughly 50 large furry tarantulas suddenly dig up from a hole in the flower bed. They moved swiftly in my direction like an army. I dropped my bike in the driveway and ran inside to alert my family. When I looked back from the porch, they were swarming my bike. Completely terrified, I insisted my parents go back out there to kill the spiders invading my bike. Of course when they went out there all the spiders suddenly disappeared. The hole in the flower bed was still there. I never rode that bike again!