#react to and potentially figure out and adapt to the distortion phenomenon?

[liquidchocolatecake]

currently captive audience to a knock down drag out fight in my brain between desire to respect the wishes of the creator and not look for anyone redistributing the comic and god i fucking miss wonderlab i miss wonderlab so much you have no idea i want wonderlab back so bad

[omg-chronoscontracter]

When Shadows Attack: A True Experience

A good few years ago, I experienced something totally unexpected and frightening. Whilst this may seem like a fictitious story, it also happened.

There is a global phenomenon which has existed for many many years. It involves the experience of witnessing a terrifying sight, a vision of pure terror for anybody who has seen it. Throughout history there has been many stories and names for this experience, but the experience I will explore has been known historically and experienced in many similar ways. I still remember this experience like it was yesterday, when in reality, it was around ten years ago.

From an anthropological perspective, people have called this phenomenon as ‘hagging’ where it is believed the hag has taken over a persons body and the person feels the forceful presence on them. Others have believed in a spirit (refer to picture) who sits on the body causing a crushing feeling, some painful and some experience issues such as shortness of breath. Religiously, we see many names for this. Christianity may call them spirits and those who practice clairvoyance will describe them as demons or evil spirits. One person even told me it was an angel. The Quran calls them Djinn.

From a scientific and physiological point of view, a more sceptical side, this phenomenon has been linked to sleep paralysis. The simple way to understand this is when the brain tells the body it is asleep but the person is alert to their surroundings and awake, but the lucidity of the over active mind distorts reality creating visions. Sleep paralysis involves a person being awake but unable to move or even speak, in turn potentially causing terffifying emotions including feelings of doom, fear, distress and utter trauma once the experience is over. Often, people can remember these things. Furthermore, a scientific paradigm would argue that such experiences, such as ghosts, demons and spirits do not exits.

This story may seem like a ghost story but to me it happened. Perhaps my mind was messed up, inbetween a dream and reality. Perhaps my conscious was bordering the realm of sleep and lucid imagination. But then, I ask you, how can you explain this story in its entirety from the beginning, exploring the immature and fearful experiences that was experienced by me and a friend.

 When the Magic Kicks In

So, how does this story begin? A friend and myself started playing with quartz crystals on chains. We were fascinated by the way in which the crystals reacted, they say they can be programmed. You ask them yes and no questions and yes will allow the pendulum to spin one way and no the other. It was an interesting time with a good majority of questions being answered correctly. A more less sceptical viewpoint would argue that this is psychic energy, the more ‘rational’ side would say it is a subconscious control that you would not see or be aware of, a hidden flick of the hand spinning in a desired direction. The arguments for and against are definitely two polemics of an argument.

In times far back, historically, it was believed that people could use dousing rods to locate water, minerals and valuable gems, but when science came in these were all thrown out the window. I guess this would all fall into the same kind of scepticism of what I experienced.

Anyway, when living in Deptford, South East London, a friend and me were in doors. Now, for those who know, this part of London has a strong history of death with even the famous play write Christopher Marlow dying down the road from where I lived at the time. Now, we were not going to go home but I said something does not feel right, and when we got to my place the fuse switch was down and the back door was open (usually locked). We both thought it would be funny to explore this in a more of a supernatural quality. So, by the front door, near the storage cupboard before going up the stairs we took both of out pendants out. We asked a few questions then we asked the one that would begin my experiences. We asked if there was anything else in the house with us. Both pendants, in two separate hands, said yes. We asked again and both came up with he same answer. My friend asked if there was more than one and at this point one pendant spun one way and the other spun the other. I took the other pendant and asked again and at this point we heard static going through the house (there was small additional lights in the ceiling).

At this point I suggested closing windows to ensure that the wind does not knock something or slam a door in case we scare ourselves stupid. So we both go upstairs. I head to the toilet directly in front of us above the stairs and close the window whilst my friend goes into my room (just too the right from the top of the stairs). I go in and she goes out. I jump on my bed to close the window by the bed, in the right most corner of my room where I slept. Once the window was closed, I turned around, looked directly at my open cupboard (yeah I was messy and it was half messily filled). I saw a shadow that sank into the floor within the cupboard. It looked human like and had blurry like eyes as though viewing through water (I cannot remember the eye colour). When the shadow disappeared, it was like it sunk towards the floor, following the shape of the draws beneath and just faded into the ground until disappeared.

As I left my friend asked if I saw that, and she had seen the same thing before I did. We both went downstairs. Again, the static of the electrics could be heard louder. As a joke I said let’s go upstairs at which point we heard a thud in the bedroom. As I went to approach the stairs my bedroom door slammed shut. We both left the house and for the duration of the contract I refused to be alone in the room. We told another friend who bought incense to purify the house. Luckily, nothing happened after this, but I was never alone and never used the pendants again.

 When Shadows Attack

Around a year later I had the most terrifying experience. I will never forget this. It still burns my mind. I woke up one night unable to move in my bedroom in Greenwich. I was aware of everything but could not speak nor do anything to protect myself if something had happened. This is potentially what is called sleep paralysis, a good example.

On the left side of my room, where the wall tends to stick out and in the corner next to the space where the television was, I saw the shadow. It had red eyes and looked like a human figure. At first it did not do anything, but it was terrifying. It was so similar to that time in the house. I can still remember the fear and the sense of peril I was experiencing at the time. It should also be noted that the room was dark, no television or mobile phone was running. The shadow came closer, closer and closer. I did not notice if it had legs but it just moved towards me, the eyes staring at me. At this point I was petrified.

The next thing I know, a shadowy like hand came closer to me. It was a mass of darkness and filled the space of the dark room that it was silhouetted as at the time. The dark of the room and the dark of the shadow could be identified. I normally sleep weird anyway, I like a duvet but cannot sleep fully under a duvet. My left leg was out the bed. The next thing I know the shadow is at the foot of the bed and within a few seconds it had grabbed my left ankle. It burned. I woke up screaming. My ankle/bottom leg had a red mark where I was touched. At this point, this was still dark in the night. I slept with the lights on for the rest of the night, worried about sleeping again.

This experience is shared across the world. People describe such events and there have been popular culturally adaptations of this story, from a mass collection of experiences from different groups and languages.

 The Present/Future Now

I spoke to a friend about this afterwards, probably a good year after the experience. I explained what had happened and he used tarot cards in my current University Library at the time. He said that I have a guardian angel, something I am still sceptical off to this day as supposedly angels don’t cause such distress. The number of stories of negative spirits feeding on negative energies may seem like a much more acceptable answer.

Since then I sometimes see a shadow that is not there, I hear my name being whispered, the odd tap and the feeling of being watched. I have gotten used to it. I do not know if it is the same thing, but I have had pull backs on the shoulders when I would most certainly been killed by a truck coming at me too fast to stop.

I do not know what happened that day, but I was not the only one to share this experience. If anyone has any idea of what has happened, then please let me know. I think this something that will leave me wanting answers until I die.