Ever since I was in college, I have been seeing strange and sometimes creepy things at night when I am in bed. It's not sleep paralysis, because I am able to move around. Some might call them hypnagogic hallucinations (vivid perceptual experiences occurring at sleep onset) and hypnopompic hallucinations (similar experiences but occurring at awakening). I think it might be something else. I believe that when we are between awake and asleep we can sometimes see things that are normally closed off to us. Also, when these things happen, I am not afraid until I see something that doesn't belong.
The first time it happened I was in bed and I awoke suddenly to see something that looked like a monstrously large spider dangling from the ceiling. I actually threw my sheet at it and there was nothing there. The next time I saw a person, about three feet tall, standing in the doorway to my bedroom. It was just watching me and then it suddenly moved forward towards me. I turned my bedside light on and it vanished.
Another night I was laying in bed and had not yet gone to sleep. I was looking around the room and I saw my cat Rocky jump up on the dresser. He was walking back and forth across it. This is not creepy in and of itself as he does this quite often. However, it soon become rather unsettling when I looked at the end of my bed and he was curled up fast asleep! I kept looking from him to the "cat" on the dresser expecting the other "cat" to vanish, but it was still there for several minutes. It did finally fade away.
Not too long after that I awoke in the middle of the night, rolled over on my back and came face to face with someone hovering over top of my bed. Needless to say I screamed and turned on the light. It vanished. A couple nights after than I awoke and rolled over and saw a person hanging by the neck and swinging from the archway in my bedroom.
It seems like the more scared I was the more frequently I would experience things. Once I stopped being afraid, I stopped seeing them as often. It kind of makes me think that something was purposely trying to creep me out and keep from getting a good night's rest. What do you guys think?