Someone please help me - desperate to know what is happening before i go to sleep

[Snowhound]

Hi all, I'm sorry this thread is so long but I feel I have to explain my situation thoroughly in case there is someone out there who has similar experiences. I have the most peculiar things happen to me just before I drift off to sleep which I have no control over. I am now 48 and I had my first "experience" when I was 26. I had a terrible headache that night and took a couple of codeine painkillers. As I was in that relaxed pre-sleep state the most strange & frightening experience occurred. I heard a loud cat-like screech and saw what looked like a very large & fat dark cat with a huge ugly head crouching on the end of my bed. Then I could see and feel my duvet cover being violently shaken up & down & it appeared the beast was doing it. I know I wasn't dreaming as I could see my digital clock which read just after 23.00. This fact really scared me because I knew I was awake & that this was really happening. Then, all of a sudden I felt the most hideous sensation which I find very difficult to describe. I felt my body (or more like my spiritual body) being pulled back through the narrow space under my bedhead, under the bed & back over again, repeatedly. I could feel the very uncomfortable sensation of severe butterflies in my stomach as this was going on. I was screaming really loudly but had the feeling I wasn't being heard & I had no way of stopping this from happening. When it stopped I jumped out of bed & ran into the lounge where my father was sitting as I was staying at my parents' place for a while. He recalled I looked petrified & was white as a sheet. I told him what happened & he put it down to a bad dream as a reaction to the codeine. I insisted I wasn't asleep but he told me I must have been. So I went back to bed & luckily drifted uneventfully into sleep. The next night I had a similar experience, only this time I felt my body was being lifted upwards & felt someone attacking me, hitting & trying to strangle me. I couldn't see anyone but could only feel what they were doing. So it wasn't the codeine. I put it down to something weird about that room, but over the years I have had very similar (although also quite different) experiences in various places, even in the company of others. One person said they could hear me making whimpering sounds so that was my proof it really was going on. I told the person I was screaming loudly but my friend said she could only hear tiny whimpering. These experiences have ranged from violent attacks, where I've felt myself being beaten black & blue, or my body being pulled out & dragged around whilst I've felt someone mocking me, & at other times some "being " giving me extreme sexual pleasures like I've never before experienced. Two nights ago I was raised up very suddenly & quickly to the ceiling & the more I thought about going higher, the higher I went & then came crashing down. I often know when one of these experiences is about to happen as a strange feeling & sound comes into my head, then off I go into this place of no control. Anyone out there who can tell me what these experiences are or has had something similar? Any help would be most appreciated.