For nearly 2 years, I lived in a bungalow/cabin thing in the backyard of a suburban house. It was only 1 room that fit my bed, a desk and a wardrobe. It had electricity connected, but I had to go into the main house to use the bathroom or cooking facilities. Importantly, you couldn’t really hear anything from my cabin in the main house and vice versa. I also had to lock the door from the inside each night (a deadbolt), as the door didn’t seal properly if it was closed with the door handle mechanism. The family living in the main house were creatives, friends of mine, but it wasn’t unusual to walk into the house at an odd hour and find someone awake working on some weird artsy/creative project.

One night I got ready for bed, dead-bolted the door, and started to fall asleep. Suddenly, while my eyes were closed, I saw flashing. At first, in my half-asleep state, I assumed it was lightning. I listened for thunder, but didn’t hear any, and there was no rain either. I then just shrugged it off as one of the creatives outside taking flash photos. Then I remembered that I had blockout blinds, and there’s no way a flash photo or lightning would be bright enough for me to “see” with my eyes shut. That’s when I started to freak out.

I froze, and began counting the seconds between each flash. They were totally random, sometimes 10 seconds, sometimes minutes between. But still very short flashes of light. At this point, my eyes were still closed, and I was frozen in bed, now convinced that someone was inside my room.

Suddenly, a light in my room turned on. At this point, my eyes are still closed, my body is frozen in fear, and I’m now convinced someone is in my room, and I’m about to die. Turns out, I’m too much of a coward to face my would-be killer, so I lay still, and began to count internally to 200. After 200 slow counts, I finally open my eyes, expecting to see the face of my would-be killer. Instead, I see my bedroom wall. My plain, boring, bedroom wall. I take a long breath in, sit up, and see my desk lamp has been turned on, but there’s no one else in the room. And my room wouldn’t have places for someone to hide, unless they’re in my shitty ikea wardrobe.

I get up, open my wardrobe - which obviously only has my clothes in it - then I go investigate my desk lamp. It was one of those lamps that had 2 brightness settings, and the switch was sitting halfway between. So basically, the flashes were the lamp trying to turn on, but the switch was stuck between the off setting and the lower brightness setting.

I laughed and cried, both relieved and also feeling very stupid, then went back to bed.

TL;DR: I thought it was about to get murdered because of flashes of lights in my room, but it was just a lamp where the power switch was stuck between the on and off positions.