Who’s afraid of the Black Man?
“Dad, I always have this sand in my eyes in the morning. How is that possible?”
“That was the Sandmann.”
“The Sandmann? Is that the one from the television, which can dissapear somewhere and then again appear somewhere else?”
“Right, my son! He does not look like he does on TV, because no one has ever seen him, but that’s him.”
“And why does he do that?”
“No one knows. He comes at night, when the children sleep, strews sand into their eyes and then he disappears again. He has a bag full of sand, so it is said. But as I said before, you can not say anything about him because he has never been seen in his work.”
Then Father turned off the light and left me alone in the darkness. Only a little moonlight fell through the window and lit only slightly the space. While I was thinking about the Sandman, one thing was clear to me: I will be the first one who ever will see him! Tonight I’ll just pretend I’m sleeping and watching him closely, what he’s doing and what he looks like… And so I waited and waited in the night, but the Sandman did not come… but the black shadow came!
Despite the darkness I could sometimes see him. It was a three-dimensional black shadow that suddenly came through the wall and crept through my room. He always came when my body was already asleep and I could not move anymore. It seemed as if he’d know when I was completely helpless, or it just seemed to be the moment when I could see him. Slowly and in absolute silence he came to my bed sneaking and climbed on it! He then sat on my chest and became heavier and heavier.
I could barely breathe, and I felt as if I had been stiffled under his pressure. With all my might, I tried to move to push him off, but I could not. I lay rigid and motionless in my bed and could only watch as this shadow sat on me and took my breath away. I squealed, I was dizzy and finally I could move my right arm … Not a second hesitated, I pushed him down from me and straightened up!
The black man had disappeared. Only the silence was a witness that he had been there before. I could feel it! I could really feel him, when I had tried to hit him. The Sandman was not a small man with a bag full of sand on his back, but he was a black shadow that stole children’s breath!
“Dad, I think I’ve seen the Sandman! He does not look at all like on TV, but he is like a shadow, completely black and looks like a human being, I believe.”
“I can not believe that! No one has ever seen the Sandman. He only comes when you are sleeping. You can not have seen him. Probably you had a nightmare. In a nightmare, there can be something, that comes on the chest and then you think, you can’t breathe anymore.”
“Dad, I’ve really seen him! It was a… a human or something like that and he crawled right on my bed and sat down on me. This was the most terrible thing I’ve ever experienced! I do not want to experience that again. Please, let the light on and the door open a crack, right? Then I feel safer. The light from the outside is not enough.”
“Well, my son, I will leave a gap open.”And again my father left me in the dark and left my room.
At such moments, I thought I would be blamed on Sandmann, but really no one could help me in this matter. It was a matter between me and him. Perhaps the Sandman comes only when I lie on my back! So it would be the smartest, if I put my body on the side. Then he can not sit on my chest and steal my breath. So I was prepared for this night! The outer leg pulled upwards to have more stability, if he would come quietly. That night I would no longer be his victim …
I was afraid to fall asleep. What if it does not work if it is indifferent to me as I lie in my bed? Perhaps it is only important to him that I am there at all. At some point I slept in while thinking about all that and when I awoke in the middle of the night, I was suddenly laying on my back and I could not move! Although he was not in my field of vision, I could still see the shadow. He came back through the wall and sneaked to my bed as usual. Then I could felt how the mattress lowered and as he leaned on it to climb on me. With all my strength, I tried again to interrupt the stiffness of the body.
Inside, I called for help and tried to turn, but I could not move an inch. I already felt as he sat on my chest and I felt very clearly his thighs as they clung to my groin. It was that time again! Somehow he had managed to turn my back or I had accidentally turned around while sleeping. I did not know, I could only guess. Again he took my breath and at the last moment before he could kill me, it was again possible for me to move and beat myself.
“Dad! Dad! “I cried, croaking in my fear, and a short time later he was standing by my bed.
“What is it, Jonathan? Is everything all right?”
“The shadow was back! He is like a black man! I had really turned to the side, but he still managed to turn me on my back, and to sit on me.”
“Now calm down again. This black man is not there and the Sandman is just a fairy tale… “he said, and at the same time something fell out of his hand.
“Oh, wait!” He bent down to pick up the object which had fallen from his hand and when he straightened up again, I looked into a terrible devil’s face. It was so terrible that I awoke screaming in my bed. So I was not really awakened after I had chased the black man! So it did not get any better, but other strange phenomena emerged, like the “false awakening”. If I had finally succeeded in freeing myself from the black man and awakening, I only awoke in a parallel reality. I was not really awake. That happened every single night for months…
One day my father took me to a clinic at the university to make an EEG with me. But despite intensive examinations the doctors could not discover anything. My brain functions were completely normal. The doctor gave us a recipe for some pills. These pills were white and I didn’t understand what pills have been this, but they helped to forget..
Months passed and one day the nightmares disappeared. But had they really been nightmares? Wasn’t it an encounter with the black man on an out-of-body level?
Today, I am sure that every human being has experienced this encounter with the black man, but has only forgotten it. Only a few can still remember him.
An old friend of mine had reported similar things, which for these reasons even gotten asthma. With all certainty the asthma was due to the fact that the black man had sat down on her. She could no longer breathe and that was the moment when her asthma appeared.
During my life, I received some reports from people who can remember the black man, or the “Sandman”. Even when I had talked about my last experience with the black man. I received an email from Peter, who reported to me something similar from his childhood. In his experiences, every night a black shadow had come into his room and sat down on him:
“In the nocturnal experience of January 18, a man had sneaked into my bedroom and just lay behind me and then whispered something into my ear, while I was in the body stiffness. I could not move, so I had no choice, but to listen to his incomprehensible words. Then he sat down on me and seemed to try to turn me onto my back.”
“This afternoon I went to bed for an hour, and while I was in the body stiff, the black man came back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed. I could feel his presence unmistakable. Even his weight on the mattress was clearly noticeable when he sat down to me. As the curiosity plagued me, who could conceal himself behind this black shadow, I tried to at least be able to move my arm to feel it. Only after about one minute, I was finally able to move my arm and grab him at the waist. Frequently, I tried to grasp the chest to determine at least the gender, but all I could feel was a very thick fabric, almost like a cardigan. Then he must have felt my grip and then simply lay down on me. At this moment, it was very hard to breathe, and I had no choice but to awaken my body. As I opened the physical eyes, I saw the light of my bedroom window, but the window did not stay in its place, but it raced from the top to bottom. As soon as it had reached the bottom of my sight, it reappeared on top. It worked like a broken movie, which showed the window again and again and ran from top to down. Maybe to compare with a picture that you can not fix. After a few seconds, the window stopped and I could feel normal again. I strongly assume that I perceived several alternative realities, in which I looked to the bedroom and could not temporarily fix any of the realities.”
For me, there are two possible explanatory approaches to solve this riddle around the Sandman or the black man. But before I start, I would be interested in the opinion of my readers on how to assess the situation. If you want, you can leave a comment staying anonymous, or send me an email.
See also:
The Books of the Matrixblogger in English