My entire childhood
OK this is no shit, I don't post here that often because I lack the imagination to make things up in answer to qotw.

I used to share a bedroom with my sister up until the age of about 12. Every since as far back as I can remember, I was terrified every single night whilst waiting to fall asleep. Usual childhood night terrors, perhaps.
I would lie in bed rigid with fear, hearing all the usual creaks and groans (not the olds) as the house settled. And as I lay there eyes shut tight, waiting to fall asleep, I would be able to hear SOMETHING dragging round the bedroom floor, approaching the bed and slowly, slowly peeling the bedsheets down to GET me.
No, this is not going to turn into some incestuous wank fantasy, sickos, I was too young to even know about sex and can honestly say have never been abused.

I was terrified of ghosts, and I remember a sliver of light, which has nothing remotely terrifying in words, entering my room, particularly one time I remember (when the eyelids were not squeezed tight shut).
The walls would consistently shift too close and then far away and sometimes disappear, I would be some massive existence in a really tiny place, and then really really tiny in a massive space. At the same time.

This sounds like absolute nuts writing out and I don't often think of it, but my neck is prickling as I remember.
I was always told I had an over-active imagination, and that I was dreaming it, but I can still remember the feelings of utter fear, and sometimes when I am ill, have flu or whatever, I can access that sense of shifting space and size.
I never saw anything other than slivers of light and pretty much what I have described here, and I'm not good enough a writer to convey the sense of fear in that moment.

The only thing that chills me now is that much later, when I had no fear of that room, both my dad and my sister told me they apparently saw a little grey old woman in that room, well before I was born. They wouldn't bullshit about this either. She apparently was the lady who owned the house before us, and apparently died in that bedroom.

Thank fuck no-one told me this till about 15 years later.
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Sun 10 Apr 2011, 11:33, 10 replies)

I know of the
Shifting space and size thing and it always occurred when I was getting over an illness as a kid. I did once find the proper term for it, but I can't remember it.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Sun 10 Apr 2011, 12:06, closed)

oh I'm glad someone else has experienced it
I always thought that sounded a little bit mental
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Sun 10 Apr 2011, 12:21, closed)

It does
But I had it to, usually in similar circumstances to SLVA
( SteamedCleaner, Sun 10 Apr 2011, 12:51, closed)

Ditto
I've had the small, cramped brain thing followed by the vast, cavernous, empty space thing - you'd be surprised how many people have when you actually talk about it. I also had troubles sleeping in my room as a kid (ahem, and as an adult when I go back to visit) because of the horrible dragging noise around the bed.
(Smaldini www.fuggler.com, Sun 10 Apr 2011, 17:38, closed)

wow, so I'm reading
I'm common
You're common

we are all common
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 10:06, closed)

Not nuts at all...
...I've never been able to describe that shifting space and size sensation as well as you did, but I recall it well. As a child, mine seemed to be linked to night terrors rather than episodes of illness.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Sun 10 Apr 2011, 17:41, closed)

thank fuck I'm not alone
I still do it. Sometimes I can't sleep without it.
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Sun 10 Apr 2011, 18:53, closed)

did I lose you at wank fantasy?

(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 10:07, closed)

I also had that sense of shifting space, but only once that I can remember.
I was trying to get to sleep, and was incredibly nervous about a play I was in the next day. I remember the sound of the washing machine downstairs becoming more prominent, then fainter. I was focusing on my bedroom wall and can remember it seemingly getting further away.

Then I was sick on the floor :(.
(TheColonel, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 10:34, closed)

I had that too, I remember it clearly, also my mind coming up with strange concepts. I later discovered that I was regularly given Actifed for my very bad hayfever, which they later linked to hallucinations in children.
(resurrection_mary cannibal_ferox, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 12:11, closed)

I read that the "Pavor Nocturnus" night terrors,
which can manifest as a terrifying sense that something malevolent is in the room with you (including visions, typically of grey figures) can be triggered or exacerbated by certain electromagnetic fields.

This is a possible explanation of how certain places can seem to have a ghostly "presence".

Doesn't make it any less bowel-clenchingly terrifying, of course...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 12:32, closed)

I dunno, isn't that a bit chicken and egg?
Are the electromagnetic fields responsible for the ghost vision, or is the ghost vision responsible for the electromagnetic fields?

No. No it doesn't. I don't think my 6 year old brain would have swallowed that
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 10:05, closed)