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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/myrasam79 on 2024-10-24 05:36:43+00:00.

It started as a simple visit to the doctor. I had been struggling with insomnia for the better part of six months, and it was wearing me down. Late nights turned into groggy mornings, and I was walking around in a fog for most of the day. My performance at work had dipped, and I found myself making simple mistakes that I normally wouldn’t. Something had to give.

My doctor, Dr. Patel, was patient with me as I described the symptoms. We had tried some basic over-the-counter options, and I’d even tried adjusting my routine—cutting back on caffeine, dimming the lights, turning off electronics—but nothing seemed to stick. He listened as I explained how, when I finally did manage to sleep, it was fitful and broken, like my brain couldn’t quite let go of the day.

“I think it’s time we tried something a little stronger,” he said, typing something into his computer. “I’m going to prescribe you a medication to help regulate your sleep cycle.”

It sounded like a reasonable next step. I was hesitant about taking prescription meds for sleep, but Dr. Patel assured me that it was a low-dose and designed to help without any significant side effects.

“This should help reset things for you,” he explained as he handed me the prescription. “Take it about an hour before you plan on going to bed, and make sure you give yourself a full eight hours of sleep. If it’s not working, or if you feel off in any way, let me know.”

I left his office feeling hopeful for the first time in a while. That night, I followed his instructions to the letter. I took the pill, brushed my teeth, and climbed into bed with my usual doubts that it would work.

To my surprise, the first few nights went smoothly. The medication helped me fall asleep quickly, and though I would wake up once or twice during the night, I fell back asleep almost instantly. It was the kind of restful sleep I hadn’t had in months.

But after about a week, things started to change.

It began with small, almost unnoticeable things—at least, things I tried to ignore. I’d wake up feeling a bit disoriented, not entirely sure how long I’d been asleep. Sometimes, I’d have vague, unsettling dreams I couldn’t quite remember. Dreams where I wasn’t sure if I was awake or still dreaming. In these dreams, I’d find myself doing normal things—walking through my apartment, getting a drink of water, or checking my phone—but something always felt slightly off. Like I was observing myself from a distance, instead of really being there.

At first, I brushed it off. I figured it was just my body adjusting to the new medication. After all, Dr. Patel had mentioned that it might take a little while to fully settle in. I went about my days as usual, and for the most part, I was just grateful to finally be getting some sleep.

Then, one night, I had an experience that left me feeling more than a little unsettled. I woke up around 3:00 a.m., needing to use the bathroom. The apartment was completely dark, and as I shuffled down the hallway, I felt like I wasn’t alone.

It’s difficult to explain, but the sensation was strong enough that I found myself looking over my shoulder several times. My heart rate quickened, but I tried to reason with myself that it was just the grogginess from waking up in the middle of the night. I returned to bed and eventually fell back asleep, though I had a lingering feeling that something was off.

The next morning, I laughed at myself for overreacting. After all, it was just a sensation. I’d lived in my apartment for two years without incident. There was no reason to think anything had changed. Besides, it was an old building, and I’d always heard the occasional creak or draft. It wasn’t unusual.

But that night, something similar happened again. I woke up suddenly, no specific reason why. The room was silent, but there was a heaviness in the air, like the atmosphere had thickened somehow. I lay still for a few moments, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. My mind was racing, trying to identify what had pulled me out of sleep so abruptly.

And then I saw it—just a flicker of movement at the edge of my vision. I turned my head quickly, but there was nothing there. Just my room, the same as always.

It had to be a trick of the mind. My rational brain knew that. I had just woken up, I was half-asleep, and the darkness was playing tricks on me. But it happened again the next night. And the night after that. Every time, it was the same. A flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, and then nothing.

At this point, I started wondering if it was the medication. Maybe it was messing with my perception, causing me to see things that weren’t really there. I decided to skip a dose, just to see if that made any difference.

That night, I struggled to fall asleep without the pill. It was almost as if my body had become reliant on it. I tossed and turned for hours, and when I finally did drift off, it wasn’t restful sleep. When I woke up, I felt worse than before, and I hadn’t escaped the strange sensations either. Even without the medication, I saw that same fleeting movement in the corner of my vision.

It was starting to get to me.

I couldn’t bring myself to call Dr. Patel yet. Maybe I didn’t want to admit that something was wrong, or maybe I thought I could figure it out on my own. Either way, I kept taking the pills, hoping things would smooth out again.

But they didn’t. Instead, they escalated.

The fleeting glimpses out of the corner of my eye became more frequent, and I started hearing faint sounds in the apartment at night. It wasn’t anything specific—just subtle noises like the soft creak of a floorboard or the quiet rustle of fabric. Things that could easily be explained away if I tried hard enough.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.

I had initially dismissed it, but it’s now gnawing at me. It was that strange kind of paranoia where you know something’s wrong, but you keep trying to convince yourself it’s nothing. I kept thinking, It’s just the medication. But as the days passed, it became harder to ignore what I was experiencing.

The visions—those flashes of movement in the corner of my eye—became more distinct. Before, I could tell myself they were just shadows, tricks of the mind. But now, I could swear I was seeing shapes, like figures standing just out of sight. I never got a clear look, and every time I turned my head to focus, they were gone. But that didn’t make them feel any less real. In fact, it made them worse.

I started turning on lights whenever I woke up in the middle of the night. The logic was simple: if I could see my surroundings clearly, I wouldn’t feel so unsettled. But even with the lights on, the sensation didn’t go away. If anything, it intensified. The figures might have disappeared when I switched on the lights, but the feeling of not being alone remained. It was almost as if the light itself couldn’t reach every corner of the room.

After a particularly rough night, I made up my mind to call Dr. Patel. I needed to know if the medication could be causing these side effects. Sleep disturbances, paranoia, hallucinations—anything to explain what was happening. I was anxious, but maybe I was also hoping he would reassure me that this was normal. That my mind was just playing tricks on me.

When I finally got through to him, I laid it all out—the dreams, the sensations, the glimpses of movement. I tried to sound as rational as possible, though I wasn’t sure how much of that came through in my voice.

To his credit, Dr. Patel didn’t dismiss my concerns outright. He asked about the specific brand of medication I was taking, double-checked the dosage, and even went over the side effects again. But none of what I described sounded typical to him. He suggested that I stop taking the pills immediately to see if the symptoms went away and scheduled a follow-up appointment for later that week.

I hungup feeling somewhat relieved, but a part of me was skeptical. What if it wasn’t the medication? What if something else was happening? Still, I followed his advice. That night, I didn’t take the pill.

It didn’t help.

In fact, it made things worse. Without the medication, I was back to struggling with insomnia. I spent hours tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep but never quite managing it. And yet, even in the dark, even without the disorienting haze of sleep pulling me under, I kept seeing them.

The shadows.

They weren’t just fleeting glimpses now. It felt like they were there, in the room with me, watching. I’d sit up in bed and stare at the doorway or the far corner of the room, where I swore I could see something, a figure standing silently, barely perceptible. I would blink, and it would disappear, but the tension it left behind was unbearable.

One night, after lying awake for what felt like hours, I got up and started pacing the apartment. It wasn’t a conscious decision; it was more like I couldn’t stay still any longer. The silence was oppressive. I needed to move, to do something to shake the feeling that was creeping over me.

I walked to the kitchen, half-thinking that a glass of water would help calm me down. As I reached for a glass in the cupboard, I caught sight of my reflection in the window. It startled me for a moment, seeing movement when I wasn’t expecting it. But what really unnerved me was that, in the reflection, it looked like someone else was standing behind me.

I spun aro…

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