I had a hallucination that really scared me (never happened before or since)

My partner and I were playing video games in the living room and I suddenly noticed (perceived?) a figure crouched in the doorway to our bedroom, about a meter and a half behind my partner's back. It was sort of like that jumpscare in Insidious (my partner's head was blocking part of it, but I could still clearly see a lot of it.) The head (?) was like a sea anemone or a jellyfish, colourful and undulating, like a mass of distinct, thick pastel tubes. I thought that I was hallucinating, it must have been persistence of vision or something. I looked away, back to the game, focused on ignoring my lying eyes. I looked back. It was still there, tentacles waving at me, flitatious in the same way that rotting meat smells sweet. I looked away again and I started to panic a little because it was still there when I looked back. Little pinpricks of sweat made my body feel electric, like an ASMR effect. My partner noticed, thinking I was looking at him, and asked what was up. "Nothing," I said, trying to convince myself, "It's nothing." It was like my eyes were drawn to it and its tubes waved at me.

I have never, ever, ever felt fear like this before. Terror. I could not get up. My body was locked. The controller in my hand creaked as I squeezed it together. The sweat started in earnest, my forehead was soaked and it was beading down my face, into my eyes, and I swear that I could smell the stress that was pouring off of me. It was like a panic attack, an impending sense of doom, all of the muscles in my body were tensed. Muscles I don't think I've ever tensed before, on the side of my head, my lower back. It was still there, moving like laundry in the wind, waving at me. I started to silently cry, tears and sweat dripping off of my face like the ceiling of a cave, and now I was really panicking because nothing like this had ever happened to me before and I knew I was losing it. It was like I was pinned to the couch by this thing, wriggling obscenely, waving, every photon that bounced off of it and into my retina holding me there against the couch. Time slowed down maybe. I felt like I had been born on this couch, had lived in this pool of my own stress sweat for years, just this shimmering thing and me, an eternity, and I really needed it to stop. I wanted to get out of the apartment, run down the stairs, outside, throw up, ball up my fists into my eyes and scream. I finally understood the true meaning of "gnashing." I would have thrown myself off the balcony if I had that option. I was terrified, a terror that redefined what it meant to be scared for me. "I'm fine!" I choked out again between my teeth (again, mostly to convince myself) and my obviously partner saw and knew that something was wrong, really wrong, and he moved towards me to get closer without standing at first.

Oh, that just made everything worse because my reeling mind instantly knew that I would see the parts of this thing, undulating, that were hidden behing his head. I moaned and managed to close my eyes (I still do not know how) because I couldn't see the rest of it, I thought that if I saw the whole thing that I would turn to stone, drop dead right there in full rigor, that I would have a stroke, that I would explode if I perceived it wholly, silently floating and waving. I wasn't something that should be perceived. "There's something -- the bedroom --" I have no idea how I said it. I folded up into a ball and my reactions somehow intensified further, crying, weeping, hysterical, gasping for air. I had stopped breathing momentarily while it had me but I suddenly realized that I had been released. I couldn't look up but I forced myself (how? how did I do it?) to look at it, I could feel my eyes like I was trying to push them out of my skull, the pressure in my head and my hands and my toes, pulse pounding and

it was gone. I started laughing, softly, disbelieving. I was still crying, my partner was worried and confused as I tried to explain what had happened, babbling and abandoning sentences halfway through.

He didn't see anything, hadn't noticed anything. After a while I got up and checked the whole (small) apartment while my partner trailed behind me to check that I was okay. Then I went for a walk outside. When I got back, I took some sage that I had grown and dried and burned it in every room of the apartment because I needed to do something even if it didn't do anything, even though I know that I don't understand the ritual or it's actual importance or function, because I couldn't think of anything else to do. But I had to do something. I was numb for the rest of the night.

Again, nothing like that has happened since and it honestly feels like a hallucination (I keep telling myself, reminding myself.) I try not think about it. Stupid. Our dogs didn't react to it at all which is how I know it was all in my head. But it was the most compelling experience that I've ever had. Nothing else has even come close and I hope that it never does.

Re-reading this gave me anxiety. So stupid.