A Shape in the Shadows
A Shape in the Shadows
When I was a boy—maybe around fourth or fifth grade—I used to have dreams. Vivid, memorable dreams that some people might call “out-of-body experiences.” They were simple, but amazing. They always started the same way: I’d dream that I was standing in the corner of my room, watching myself fall asleep. The room was dark, almost black-and-white, but somehow I could still see. Then I’d watch a ghostly version of myself rise from the bed. It was transparent, just an outline, and it would float upward. And then, suddenly, it would shoot straight up, through the ceiling, with my perspective following it like a movie camera sliding through a wall. Once it left the roof, it emerged into a world of neon color. Every shape was a glowing, hollow outline. My ghost-self would zip around the city like a superhero, flying above the sleeping world, darting from place to place. I don’t remember seeing anything meaningful; no big revelations, no messages. These trips weren’t about learning anything, but they were a chance for my mind to roam, to soak in the color and speed and beauty of it all.
And they always ended the same way: my ghost-self would run out of energy. It would start to fall, arms flailing, legs kicking, and I would follow it down, faster and faster. My perspective would shift back to the corner of my dark black and white room until suddenly the ghost version of myself would slam back into my sleeping body.
As I got older, the dreams changed. By high school, sleep didn’t come easy. Every night I’d build a little den of pillows and blankets and try to drift off, but it got harder. Some nights I’d lie there for hours, staring at the ceiling fan, watching it turn. My brain would loop endlessly, things I should or shouldn’t have said, a million little anxious thoughts.
When I did sleep, I’d sometimes feel the weight of my blanket pinning me down. I’d open my eyes, and they would drift around the room. And every time it happened, I’d see one of them. A shape in the shadows. A suggestion of a person. Dark, shadowy, formless. Sometimes in the doorway. Sometimes on the ceiling. Sometimes sitting at the edge of my bed near my feet. I was never afraid. This was just something that happened to me sometimes. In the morning, I’d wake up. The sun would be shining. Everything would be fine.
I’d read about sleep paralysis. I knew the explanations. But it doesn’t change the fact that those of us who’ve experienced it have seen variations of the same thing. The same visitors. The same shadow people. Some cryptids leave tracks, have territories, physical evidence, sightings, photographs. But what if some things don’t? What if some things only exist in our minds? Call them shadow people, if you like. A kind of presence we only half-understand. They don’t leave tracks. They don’t make sounds in the woods late at night. They linger just in your vision.
Recently, I started getting the feeling again. The feeling like there was a presence in my room with me late at night, that same lingering doubt that makes you double check the lock on your door. The little prickle that makes the hairs on your neck stand up. I'm an adult now, I haven't had the neon color dreams or the sleep paralysis in years, but something change recently. Something implacable. I decided that it would be best to write an article about it, to document my experiences and try to give some organization to my thoughts and catalogue them in an effort to make sense of them.
So, of course, I decided I needed some photos. I don't think I found anything in any of my photos. I've looked and couldn't see any shadow-y figures, any specters or spirits, orbs or dust particles. I look at these photos and I see the same dark shapes that make up my home. But at night, when I'm taking the photos, I feel terror. I stand in the dark, my camera shutter and exposure set as best I can for the pitch black conditions, and I click the shutter button. There's a click-clack of the shutter opening, a distinct pause for the long exposure, and then the click of the shutter closing. Easy, no sweat.
But then, the worst part, the part the makes my stomach twist every time. The little screen on the back of the camera lights up and displays the photo. The brightly lit screen overpowers my eyes, blacking out the rest of my home, meaning the only thing that I can see is this small 2-inch screen. And every time I look down at that screen, surrounded by impenetrable blackness all around, I am convinced that I will see a shape in the shadow, a silhouette of something terrible and twisted, caught in the camera's memory and displayed to me on a screen, while it lurks around me in the pitch and utter blackness that the bright screen has left me in. But I have to look, I have to see if the camera caught anything.
Some say they’re just static—misfiring neurons, visual hallucinations. Maybe that’s true. But if that’s the case, why do so many people describe them the same way? Always watching. They say the shadows shows up during stress, sleep paralysis, illness. That sounds like an excuse, a search for a reason. People need reasons to feel better about what they've seen. It doesn't mean the reasons are right.
I’ve wondered if they’re ghosts, or some kind negative space left behind by someone long since moved on. The way an old painting might leave a faint shape on the wall even after it’s taken down. A shadow that doesn't belong to anyone anymore. Something about that seems too simple; ghosts of the past, ripples and echoes. I've always wondered about that, if the space and time we inhabit are like a pond, then surely our very existence leaves a ripple. It’s strange, the human impulse to give a shape to things we fear. A blanket on the chair becomes a man. A shadow across the nightstand becomes a face. It’s easy to assume that’s all it is: anthropomorphism. Pattern-seeking. But even that doesn’t fully explain the sensation — that prickling stillness, that quiet certainty that something else is in the room with you, not moving, not speaking, just there.
It could be they’re watchers. Witnesses. Outsiders from somewhere else. Standing just out of reach. Maybe always have been. Maybe what we call "seeing something" is just the moment we stop pretending we didn't feel it.
No one really talks about the patience of them. The way they don’t seem to do anything. Not violent, not reactive. We expect monsters to leap or snarl. We don’t know what to make of something that just watches. Something that’s always been here and doesn’t care if we see it or not.
You don’t have to believe in them. You don’t have to disbelieve, either. It’s not that kind of thing. This isn’t about proof. It’s not about hunting for the right frame, or catching them in a reflection. Some things are just part of the human experience. You don't have to believe or not believe, because every night, they show themselves to hundreds of us.
