u/inHen81

**Account of an Unexplained Experience During Lockdown, 2020**
This experience occurred on a Monday evening during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. I was at home with my then wife and our children. Earlier that evening my son had developed a temperature, and my wife and I had decided that this was sufficient reason for the household to self-isolate. I had contacted work and arranged to remain at home for the following couple of weeks.

The main incident occurred at approximately 10:30 p.m.
My wife and I had decided to go to bed. She went inside while I remained briefly in the conservatory to finish a cigarette. As I was about to follow her, I realised that I was still holding a disposable cigarette lighter.

I turned and tossed the lighter towards the table behind me. It landed in an ashtray containing a smouldering cigarette end. I walked back to retrieve it and picked it up between my thumb and forefinger. As I attempted to place it beside the ashtray, it slipped from my fingers in an unusually awkward manner, turned over in the air and landed back in the ashtray almost exactly where I had picked it up from.

I retrieved it again. A second time, while attempting to put it down beside the ashtray, I somehow fumbled it and it again flipped back into the ashtray.

I found this odd but assumed it was simply clumsiness. Rather than picking it up again, I tipped the ashtray so that the lighter fell onto the table, and then went upstairs.
I prepared for bed in the en-suite bathroom attached to our bedroom. When I had finished, I sat on my side of the bed and shook the duvet firmly from its corners in order to straighten it.

As the duvet settled over the lower part of the bed, I noticed that it appeared to have fallen over a small rounded object beneath it. My immediate impression was that our small dog, Hannibal, might somehow have been on the bed.
I placed my hand on the shape through the duvet.
It felt solid and warm.

However, the object seemed too small even to be our toy terrier.

I lifted the duvet to see what was underneath it.
There was nothing there.

I assumed that I had somehow misinterpreted the folds or tension in the bedding. Feeling slightly foolish, I threw the duvet back down towards the foot of the bed.

It settled over what felt like the same solid object again.
This was the point at which I became seriously confused.
Almost immediately afterwards, the door of the en-suite bathroom, which was diagonally across the bedroom to my left, slowly creaked open by several inches.

Through the opening I could see the window frame and towel rail inside the bathroom. The bedroom itself was well lit, while the en-suite was comparatively dark.

Near floor level, behind the partly opened door, I became aware of something that I still find extremely difficult to describe.

I would not describe it as a figure, shadow or recognisable object.

It appeared more like a localised absence or failure of visual perception.

I was looking directly at it and could see the surrounding environment clearly, yet I could not resolve whatever occupied that particular area into a coherent image. It was as though visual information was reaching my eyes but my brain was unable to construct an identifiable object from it.
The boundary of the area appeared to shimmer slightly and had what I remember as a faint olive-green quality.

It did not behave like an ordinary after-image. It remained fixed in the same physical location when I moved my eyes, and I could continue to see the bathroom and door around it.

I also had difficulty interpreting its spatial relationship with the door. Although I perceived it as being behind the door, parts of the visual disturbance seemed simultaneously to interfere with my perception of the door itself.
At approximately the same time, I became aware of an extremely rapid sensation of cold.

I remember seeing what appeared to be condensation in my exhaled breath and feeling moisture forming on my moustache. The temperature of the air against my skin seemed to have dropped dramatically, and I had the impression that the air in the bedroom had become completely still.

I then experienced something that was distinct from the visual phenomenon.

I became overwhelmingly aware of what felt like the presence of another intelligence.

This was not simply the feeling of being frightened or of thinking that somebody might be nearby. It felt more like the certainty one might have if another person had been sitting directly in front of them and a screen were suddenly placed between them: although the person could no longer be seen, there would be no doubt that they remained present.

I had the very strong impression that whatever I was perceiving was aware of me.

I also experienced an immediate and powerful impression that the presence was extremely old and malevolent.
I cannot explain how I arrived at either of those impressions. They did not result from seeing a face, hearing a voice or observing any recognisable behaviour. They seemed to occur simultaneously with my awareness of the presence itself.

I remained sitting on the bed looking directly at the area behind the bathroom door.
My muscles were extremely tense and I was frightened, but I remained conscious of my surroundings and was able to think about what I was experiencing.

My perception of time during this part of the incident is unreliable. It may have lasted approximately twenty seconds or several minutes.

Eventually I concentrated on controlling my breathing and decided to speak aloud.

I said words to the effect that this was my house and that whoever or whatever was present no longer had any claim there.

As I finished speaking, the visual disturbance appeared to withdraw backwards away from the gap between the door and its frame until I could no longer see it.

At almost exactly the same moment, the sensation of cold disappeared.

I distinctly remember suddenly feeling warm air against my skin and particularly noticing the warmth in the back of my throat as I breathed in.
Immediately afterwards, an object fell from somewhere above me onto the bed and landed directly in my lap.
It was a clear yellow disposable cigarette lighter.
It appeared identical to the lighter I believed I had left on the conservatory table downstairs only a few minutes earlier.

This caused considerable confusion because I could not remember bringing the lighter upstairs.
My immediate attempt to rationalise the event was that I must have absent-mindedly carried it upstairs and somehow caused it to become lodged above the bed, possibly around the ceiling lampshade, while shaking the duvet.

What troubled me was the apparent timing: it fell at almost exactly the moment that the visual disturbance disappeared and the sensation of cold ended.
I went downstairs shortly afterwards and checked the conservatory table.

The lighter I believed I had left there was not present.
To the best of my knowledge I possessed only one disposable lighter of that particular clear-yellow appearance.

I have no independent witness to the main incident. My then wife was elsewhere in the house during it.
I was not asleep and did not experience paralysis. I was able to move freely, speak, control my breathing and inspect my surroundings throughout the episode.

I subsequently spent a considerable amount of time trying to identify conventional explanations for the experience.
I have previously experienced sleep paralysis on two occasions and recognise the characteristics of those episodes. They were substantially different from this event.

I have also experienced what I believe was an episode of Exploding Head Syndrome on another occasion and have previously experienced unusual visual perceptions during severe sleep deprivation. Because of those experiences I have tried to remain cautious about attributing this incident to an external or paranormal cause.

At the time of the 2020 incident, however, I experienced myself as fully awake and lucid.

The event affected me considerably afterwards. I became preoccupied with attempting to understand it and spent many months researching neurological, psychological and paranormal explanations.

I later discussed the experience with my GP and was referred for therapy because of the degree of distress and rumination it had caused.

I am autistic, although I did not fully understand the extent of my sensory differences at the time. I have unusually acute hearing, smell and visual attention compared with many people I know, and I therefore recognise that individual sensory processing may be relevant when considering possible explanations.

I am submitting this account because, despite repeatedly considering misperception, memory error, illness, sleep-related phenomena and other conventional possibilities, I have never arrived at an explanation that satisfactorily accounts for the entire sequence as I experienced it.
I do not claim that the event was paranormal.

What I can say with confidence is that the experience itself was extraordinarily vivid and that, subjectively, I experienced a localised visual anomaly, an abrupt sensation of environmental cold, a powerful perception of another intelligent presence, and the unexpected appearance of a physical object in close temporal succession.

I would be particularly interested to know whether anyone else has other accounts involving the specific visual phenomenon I experienced: not an apparition or shadow, but an apparently occupied region of space that the observer can look directly at while being unable to resolve it into a coherent visual image.

**Account of an Unexplained Experience During Lockdown, 2020**
This experience occurred on a Monday evening during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. I was at home with my then wife and our children. Earlier that evening my son had developed a temperature, and my wife and I had decided that this was sufficient reason for the household to self-isolate. I had contacted work and arranged to remain at home for the following couple of weeks.

The main incident occurred at approximately 10:30 p.m.
My wife and I had decided to go to bed. She went inside while I remained briefly in the conservatory to finish a cigarette. As I was about to follow her, I realised that I was still holding a disposable cigarette lighter.

I turned and tossed the lighter towards the table behind me. It landed in an ashtray containing a smouldering cigarette end. I walked back to retrieve it and picked it up between my thumb and forefinger. As I attempted to place it beside the ashtray, it slipped from my fingers in an unusually awkward manner, turned over in the air and landed back in the ashtray almost exactly where I had picked it up from.

I retrieved it again. A second time, while attempting to put it down beside the ashtray, I somehow fumbled it and it again flipped back into the ashtray.

I found this odd but assumed it was simply clumsiness. Rather than picking it up again, I tipped the ashtray so that the lighter fell onto the table, and then went upstairs.
I prepared for bed in the en-suite bathroom attached to our bedroom. When I had finished, I sat on my side of the bed and shook the duvet firmly from its corners in order to straighten it.

As the duvet settled over the lower part of the bed, I noticed that it appeared to have fallen over a small rounded object beneath it. My immediate impression was that our small dog, Hannibal, might somehow have been on the bed.
I placed my hand on the shape through the duvet.
It felt solid and warm.

However, the object seemed too small even to be our toy terrier.

I lifted the duvet to see what was underneath it.
There was nothing there.

I assumed that I had somehow misinterpreted the folds or tension in the bedding. Feeling slightly foolish, I threw the duvet back down towards the foot of the bed.

It settled over what felt like the same solid object again.
This was the point at which I became seriously confused.
Almost immediately afterwards, the door of the en-suite bathroom, which was diagonally across the bedroom to my left, slowly creaked open by several inches.

Through the opening I could see the window frame and towel rail inside the bathroom. The bedroom itself was well lit, while the en-suite was comparatively dark.

Near floor level, behind the partly opened door, I became aware of something that I still find extremely difficult to describe.

I would not describe it as a figure, shadow or recognisable object.

It appeared more like a localised absence or failure of visual perception.

I was looking directly at it and could see the surrounding environment clearly, yet I could not resolve whatever occupied that particular area into a coherent image. It was as though visual information was reaching my eyes but my brain was unable to construct an identifiable object from it.
The boundary of the area appeared to shimmer slightly and had what I remember as a faint olive-green quality.

It did not behave like an ordinary after-image. It remained fixed in the same physical location when I moved my eyes, and I could continue to see the bathroom and door around it.

I also had difficulty interpreting its spatial relationship with the door. Although I perceived it as being behind the door, parts of the visual disturbance seemed simultaneously to interfere with my perception of the door itself.
At approximately the same time, I became aware of an extremely rapid sensation of cold.

I remember seeing what appeared to be condensation in my exhaled breath and feeling moisture forming on my moustache. The temperature of the air against my skin seemed to have dropped dramatically, and I had the impression that the air in the bedroom had become completely still.

I then experienced something that was distinct from the visual phenomenon.

I became overwhelmingly aware of what felt like the presence of another intelligence.

This was not simply the feeling of being frightened or of thinking that somebody might be nearby. It felt more like the certainty one might have if another person had been sitting directly in front of them and a screen were suddenly placed between them: although the person could no longer be seen, there would be no doubt that they remained present.

I had the very strong impression that whatever I was perceiving was aware of me.

I also experienced an immediate and powerful impression that the presence was extremely old and malevolent.
I cannot explain how I arrived at either of those impressions. They did not result from seeing a face, hearing a voice or observing any recognisable behaviour. They seemed to occur simultaneously with my awareness of the presence itself.

I remained sitting on the bed looking directly at the area behind the bathroom door.
My muscles were extremely tense and I was frightened, but I remained conscious of my surroundings and was able to think about what I was experiencing.

My perception of time during this part of the incident is unreliable. It may have lasted approximately twenty seconds or several minutes.

Eventually I concentrated on controlling my breathing and decided to speak aloud.

I said words to the effect that this was my house and that whoever or whatever was present no longer had any claim there.

As I finished speaking, the visual disturbance appeared to withdraw backwards away from the gap between the door and its frame until I could no longer see it.

At almost exactly the same moment, the sensation of cold disappeared.

I distinctly remember suddenly feeling warm air against my skin and particularly noticing the warmth in the back of my throat as I breathed in.
Immediately afterwards, an object fell from somewhere above me onto the bed and landed directly in my lap.
It was a clear yellow disposable cigarette lighter.
It appeared identical to the lighter I believed I had left on the conservatory table downstairs only a few minutes earlier.

This caused considerable confusion because I could not remember bringing the lighter upstairs.
My immediate attempt to rationalise the event was that I must have absent-mindedly carried it upstairs and somehow caused it to become lodged above the bed, possibly around the ceiling lampshade, while shaking the duvet.

What troubled me was the apparent timing: it fell at almost exactly the moment that the visual disturbance disappeared and the sensation of cold ended.
I went downstairs shortly afterwards and checked the conservatory table.

The lighter I believed I had left there was not present.
To the best of my knowledge I possessed only one disposable lighter of that particular clear-yellow appearance.

I have no independent witness to the main incident. My then wife was elsewhere in the house during it.
I was not asleep and did not experience paralysis. I was able to move freely, speak, control my breathing and inspect my surroundings throughout the episode.

I subsequently spent a considerable amount of time trying to identify conventional explanations for the experience.
I have previously experienced sleep paralysis on two occasions and recognise the characteristics of those episodes. They were substantially different from this event.

I have also experienced what I believe was an episode of Exploding Head Syndrome on another occasion and have previously experienced unusual visual perceptions during severe sleep deprivation. Because of those experiences I have tried to remain cautious about attributing this incident to an external or paranormal cause.

At the time of the 2020 incident, however, I experienced myself as fully awake and lucid.

The event affected me considerably afterwards. I became preoccupied with attempting to understand it and spent many months researching neurological, psychological and paranormal explanations.

I later discussed the experience with my GP and was referred for therapy because of the degree of distress and rumination it had caused.

I am autistic, although I did not fully understand the extent of my sensory differences at the time. I have unusually acute hearing, smell and visual attention compared with many people I know, and I therefore recognise that individual sensory processing may be relevant when considering possible explanations.

I am submitting this account because, despite repeatedly considering misperception, memory error, illness, sleep-related phenomena and other conventional possibilities, I have never arrived at an explanation that satisfactorily accounts for the entire sequence as I experienced it.
I do not claim that the event was paranormal.

What I can say with confidence is that the experience itself was extraordinarily vivid and that, subjectively, I experienced a localised visual anomaly, an abrupt sensation of environmental cold, a powerful perception of another intelligent presence, and the unexpected appearance of a physical object in close temporal succession.

I would be particularly interested to know whether anyone else has other accounts involving the specific visual phenomenon I experienced: not an apparition or shadow, but an apparently occupied region of space that the observer can look directly at while being unable to resolve it into a coherent visual image.