Hey there,

This experience happened when I was 21, five years ago. It’s something that has played on my mind since but I’ve never talked about it.

I went to dinner with a friend from university (let’s call her Amy), we had one glass of red wine each with dinner. I was staying at her house that night, and by the time we got back, I was totally sober (it was one glass of wine with dinner anyway - I never felt tipsy).

Amy was in her en-suite brushing her teeth, and I was laying in her double bed on my side, facing the bathroom that Amy was in. All of a sudden I felt the very distinct feeling of a hand with long nails go down my back, from my neck to the bottom. It felt like a real hand - I could feel the long nails of all the fingers, and it tickled in the same way a person’s hand would.

I spun around in shock and faced the other side of the bedroom, and for a SPLIT second, I saw a tall, middle aged man facing me with his eyes boring into mine - it was the most uncomfortable, unnatural thing I’ve ever felt. He was perfectly aligned with the far wall of the bedroom. I saw him about 5 metres away, so no explanation for the human hand scratching down my back.

I was crying and shouted for Amy even though she was just next door. I told her what happened (I was super emotional at this point), and then SHE started crying.

I asked why, and she told me that she felt like someone had been watching her from the corner of her room for months. She even showed me texts to her boyfriend where she’d told him she was struggling to sleep because she felt like she was being watched.

A well known male serial killer (in London at least) that preyed on young men used to lived 2 doors down from Amy’s house. I didn’t know this until I looked it up after.

It’s taken me years to process this because of how real it was. I felt the hand scratch me, I saw the man.

This stuff is real.