text: I had the same dream every night, of looking at myself in bed, from the corner of the room. The dream would end when I tried to touch my sleeping body. The first time it happened, I was 15. I hadn't thought much of it the first night, but when it had repeated itself a few times, I started doing some research about what was happening to me. I came across tons of articles on "dreamwalking" and "astral projection". Most of it sounded made up, but after my dreams, I was way more open to entertaining those ideas. The concept I kept coming across was that a non-physical version of you could theoretically separate from your physical self, and would then be free to roam the cosmos, unbound by your physical limitations. Once I'd read about it, in my next dream, I turned away from my sleeping body and tried to leave the room. I couldn't. It was like there was an elastic band tying me to my body, and if I moved too far away, something would pull me back. Disappointed, I went to tap myself on the shoulder, to wake up. And so the dreams went for months. It got boring pretty soon. Try as I could, I was unable to travel far from my body, let alone fly around the world like some articles online had suggested. I started waking myself up earlier and earlier, cause atleast awake, I could move around the house, rather than spend hours stuck in one room, unable to interact with anything. Pretty soon, I was heavily sleep deprived and depressed. To prove to myself it wasn't just completely imagined, I'd left a book open at a random page before I went to sleep one night. In the dream, I found the book lying open on a table, and memorised a sentence. When I woke up, I checked the open pages for the sentence, and confirmed that whatever was happening to me wasn't just simple dreaming. With the novelty of my "astral" dreams wearing off, and the depression starting to affect my performance in school, and my social life, I turned to my mom. She'd been a single mom since Dad died many years back. She worked incredibly hard to provide a life for me, but we'd never had the kind of relationship where you share deep stuff about yourself. But with nothing concrete on the internet, and no close friends anymore to reach out to, I figured it was worth a shot. She'd noticed something had been wrong for a while, but just chalked it up to a teenage phase. While we were sat at the dinner table one night, I started, "Mom, do you ever have weird dreams?". She looked up from her plate. "What kind of weird are we talking here?" "Like, seeing yourself sleeping, like you're outside your own body" I'd expected her to just chuckle or be dismissive or something, but she dropped her fork and looked me dead in the eye, her tone dropping to a much more serious one. "How long have you been having these dreams?" I explained how they'd been going for a few months now, how I came to learn how the ability worked, how I'd touch my body to wake up, and how boring it had started getting. She listened carefully to every word I said, and when I was done talking, she asked, "And do you ever see anyone else there, when you're having these dreams?" I tried to think back through the past few months, confessing that I'd never had. She looked relieved. Confused, I asked "What's been happening to me Mom? Who else did you think I would see?" "Don't worry about all that. The only thing I need you to do is this. Every night, before you go to sleep, I need you to trace your index finger down from the centre of your forehead to the centre of your chest, all the while humming, like this". She demonstrated. "You should feel the vibration from your humming in your finger at the end, when you're touching your chest. Do that, and you should be able to sleep without dreaming. Can you remember that? Promise me you'll do it every night" "Yeah, I'll remember, and I promise" That night, before I went to sleep, I did as Mom instructed. As I finished up, I felt all the tiredness I'd accumulated over the past few months wash over me, and I passed out. The next thing I remember was waking up to a ray of sunlight breaking through the closed curtain, falling directly on my face. The moment I woke up, I realised that for the first time in months, I'd had a real night's sleep. I got out of bed and ran straight downstairs to find my Mom making breakfast. I told her how much better I felt and asked her why that weird humming thing had worked. She told me not to worry about it, but repeated that I should never forget to do it. I promised again that I never would, and I really meant it at the time. Over the next few months, I consistently did the little ritual every night, and woke up fresh every morning. I picked up new hobbies, reconnected with my friends and life in general seemed to be a lot brighter. It was a few weeks after my 16th birthday, for which I'd had a small party at home with friends and family, when my dumbest, but most fun friend called me. He told me that he wanted to throw me a real party, which left me confused. He then sent me a picture of him holding two six packs of beer that he'd obviously stolen from his dad, and told me to meet him at our local park in the evening. Rolling my eyes, I texted back that I'd be there and sent an invite to another one our buddies that lived nearby. The park was usually empty after 7pm, and today was no exception. We messed around on the slides and the monkey bars, like we'd done before we'd gotten too old for it, before settling down to open our first cans. It was a fun evening. We repeated all the stories we'd told each other a thousand times and laughed just as hard as when they actually happened. A few drinks in, we started messing around on the swings, pushing each other and seeing who would throw up. Funnily enough, it was the friend who'd brought the beers in the first place who lost that little game. Not wanting to be caught for throwing up in the local park, and realizing that the sun was setting and we'd run out of drinks, we all hugged and headed back home. It wasn't a long walk, and I'd only had 3 beers, so I made it back in one piece. It was almost 10pm. I tried to get in without making much noise, but I shut the door a little too hard. My Mom called out from upstairs "Where were you?". "Just with some friends", I responded. "I'm gonna sleep soon. Long day. There's some food in the fridge if you want. And don't forget to do the thing before you go to sleep" "Yeah, yeah, thanks" I stumbled up the stairs, suddenly aware of how tired I was. Or maybe it was the booze. I made it into my room, took off my shirt and my jeans, and fell onto the mattress. My eyes were starting drift shut, when I remember the ritual. I raised my hand and touched my forehead, slowly tracing a line down to my heart. With that taken care of, I drifted off to sleep. I realised I was standing in the corner of my room, looking at my bed. I could see my body lying on it, my chest swelling and rising, my mouth slightly open. "The humming!" I thought to myself. I forgot the damn humming. "Do you ever see anyone else there, when you're having these dreams?". My Mom's question from months ago, the night she taught me the ritual, echoed in my head. I didn't want to wait to find out what she thought I might have seen, and so I began to move towards my body, reaching out my hand. That was when I felt a violent pull back, similar to the pull I experienced when I tried to move away from my body in these dreams, only this time, the same force threw me back into the wall. I tried to fight away from the wall, towards my body, but it felt like I was trying to walk through water. I looked to the opposite corner of the room, on the other side of the bed, when I saw it. A dark figure a few inches taller than me moved towards my body. As my eyes adjusted, I saw, what it was. Or rather, who it was. I'd only ever seen him in pictures, or if I'd seen him in person, I'd been too young to remember. But now, seeing that cruel smile on his face, there was no doubt in my mind. I was looking at my dad. I'd asked Mom about him for years as a kid, and always heard the same kind of answer. "He passed away when you were young. It was just his time, don't worry about it. You have me, and I'll look after you". If I bothered her enough, she'd show me a picture or two, and one time, she broke down crying, and I'd hesitated to ask ever since. But now was staring right at him, as he moved towards my sleeping body. I tried to scream out, but the sound was caught in my mouth. He reached out towards my shoulder, as I struggled against the forced pulling my back. He looked up, directly at me, and just said "Thanks kid", before tapping my shoulder and fading away. I watched it horror, as my own body began to stir without my control. The eyes opened, and the body shuffled to the side, climbing down off the bed. The force holding me back began to ease up, and I rushed as fast as I could towards the body. I tried to tackle it, hoping to somehow regain control, but I simply fell through my own body. The body, still just in my underwear, opened the door and walked out into the corridor. I was lying on the floor, after my failed tackle, when I felt a familiar pull, drawing me back towards my hijacked physical form. Fighting the indifferent pulling force, I managed to stand and walk a few steps behind my own body. I followed it as it walked downstairs, and towards the kitchen. It opened up the fridge and grabbed a handful of sliced ham and shoved it into it's face. It turned as it chewed, opening up a few drawers and rifling through. I was panicking already, unsure of what to do, when it drew out the largest knife in the kitchen and looked back towards the stairs. I felt myself being pulled again as I saw myself walking back up the stairs. I kept trying to touch my shoulder or grab my leg, but my hands simply passed through. I started crying, screaming "Dad! Please! Don't do this!". I wasn't sure he could even hear me, but it was all I could do. I watched in horror as the door to my mom's room slowly creaked open, and my body stepped inside. It crept slowly towards the bed, and lowered the knife over my sleeping mother's face. I screamed "Nooo!", as I watched myself drive the point of the blade into her forehead. She woke up immediately, and tried to fight back, but I was stronger, managing to hold her down as the knife traced a line down towards her heart. I saw my face contort into the twisted smile I had seen on my father's face, as I wept at the sound of my mother screaming. I kept trying to grab my arm, despite knowing it was futile, clawing more desperately each time my hands passed through. As the blade touched the centre of her chest, I watched in horror as my arms tightened their grip and drove the blade deep into my mother's heart. Her screaming stopped, as the blood poured from her, soaking the white sheets she was lying on. I broke down weeping, when I noticed her turning her head towards me, gasping for her final breaths. I wasn't sure how, but it felt like she was looking directly at me. She whispered, "I'm sorry", and her eyes glazed over with death. I was so occupied with my mother that I hadn't even realized that my own body was now sitting on the ground, on the other side of the room. I noticed a deep red line running down from my forehead, down to where I held the knife pointed at the middle of my chest. I heard a crunch, as the blade dug its way into my heart. I watched my own body collapse forward, as I bled out into the rug. I was so shocked at this point that I wasn't any more taken aba when I saw my father appear again, standing beside my body, looking down. He then tilted his head up to look at me, and with a wild cackle, he simply said "Good luck kid", and walked past where I stood frozen, out of the room. I stood there for hours, alternating between frozen shock and weeping. A few hours later, I tried to leave the room, but still found myself unable to move away from my own body. ............................. It took a few days, until the smell alerted the neighbors, and the authorities came by. The officers took one look and all seemed to agree it was some sort of psychotic breakdown leading to a murder-suicide. I watched my body being transported to the morgue, and the coroner determining that I'd been drinking the night before. I hoped my friends wouldn't get in trouble, or feel too guilty for drinking with me, but there wasn't really anything I could do for them anymore. Before long, I was packed away and given a silent burial as befits a murderer. It's been months now, and I just sit around in the graveyard all day, watching the trees, the grass and the occasional mourner, still unable to move more than a few feet from my own headstone. All I want to do is sleep, or even better, die.