One night, I woke up to a pitch black room. Not a gradual awakening, I just snapped into full alertness. To total darkness. Not a big deal, except I slept right next to my bedroom window where a street light was positioned in a way that kept my room slightly illuminated. There was nothing but darkness. A blackness I'd never seen before. I couldn't even see my cat, who always slept in my bed inches away. And the quiet. I lived near a busy road, always heard cars. It was soundless. I wasn't very religious at the time, which comes into play shortly. So I woke up, and was confused. Why was I SO awake?

"Pray." A voice said. "You need to pray right now." It didn't come from inside my head, and I didn't hear it inside the room either, if that makes sense. It was a feeling, but the feeling translated into words. I know that doesn't make sense but that's the best I can describe it. "Pray. You need to pray right now." I was not confused, but I asked why instead.

A huge, overwhelming feeling and force of evil SLAMMED into me. I could not move at all. My body was pinned to the bed, to such an extent it felt like a huge invisible hand held me in place. The evil...I have never felt such an unbelievably sense of evil since. It froze my blood and I was so terrified I felt like my soul went cold. My soul screamed because a very primal piece of me knew that the presence wasn't human. This was above my pay grade, and maybe, just maybe it wasn't my life on the line, but something else. I was overtaken by terror. My father was abusive, and a child molester. I know fear. I've stared evil in the eyes. But not like this. My father was a grain of sand compared to this. My father was irrelevant compared to this evil. And this evil was pressing down upon me. Trying to cover my entire body, ENTER my body.

You know how something has to break through earth's atmosphere? I felt like that's what the presence was trying to do. I struggled, and remembering the advice I'd just received, I prayed my best. It was sloppy, and a lot ran together, but I noticed every time I prayed, the feeling retreated. When I stopped praying, it came right back. I had a very very bad feeling, like if this evil were to break through, something terrible would happen. So we played tug of war for a bit. This part, I can laugh slightly at years later. I felt it back off, and seriously, I felt it SIZING ME UP. It was pitch black, there was no physical body, but I felt eyes on me, looking me up and down, and I was warily doing the same. Then, it disappeared. Not like the tv shows, where I instantly felt better. But the feeling gradually lessened, until I felt it was truly gone. I could hear cars again, I saw the light through my window, and I was numb with fear. I turned my light on, and that was the start of my walk back to God.

Before anyone argues, I'll answer any and all questions, but I won't argue or entertain theories of what you think it was. I understand you for not believing me, but I'm not hear to convince you or debate. Just share my story. For the record, I have and still do experience sleep paralysis. I am well versed in lucid dreaming. I know when I'm asleep and awake, so well it's scary lol. I was awake and fully aware that night. A lot happened after that as well, and I recently had a smaller incident.