Don't Open Your Eyes At Witching Hour

Since I was little I've always seen out of the ordinary things, but it would only happen when I was in bed. It happens while I'm asleep then wake up and look around my room. I think it must be when I'm most vulnerable because my mind is opened and relaxed. All of them are at around 3-4 am which I believe is witching hour?

I'd always pass it off as a dream even when I know they weren't but ignorance is bliss to keep a sane mind for some of the terrorizing unexplainable things I have seen late at night when everyone is asleep. These sightings are the reason I'm 20 years old and still sleep with a light or the TV on.

I won't go into all my sightings as I'd be here for a while and probably run out of characters. But here's my most concerning story.

I was staying at my friend's house for the first time, she had a flat in the back yard of her parents house. We fell asleep watching a movie at about 10. I remember waking up at about 3.30-4.00am and looking next to my bed and seeing a man staring at me. I looked him up and down, he was wearing what looked like old dirty protective clothes, old worn boots and his face was that black and dirty that I was immediately drawn to his white eyes that were staring directly into my eyes. I couldn't seem to look away or move. I could feel something was evil about him when he was staring into my eyes and at this moment I realized, "Oh sh*#! That's a ghost!"

As I kept eye contact with him while I managed to slowly pull the blanket up over my face as I felt he was going to lunge at me at any moment if I took my eyes off him. I kept the blanket over my head for about a minute. I poked my head out slowly to see if he was gone and he was. I was so shaken up I couldn't get back to sleep so I put another movie on and after a while I passed it off as a very realistic dream and fell back to sleep.

The next day all I could think of was what happened that night. Every time I'd close my eyes I could see his face and could see every feature like it was burned into my eyes.

I still passed it off as a dream. That was until a week later in the local newspaper. My friend's neighbor had discovered a sink hole in their back yard which had been growing for a few days and under further inspection turned out to be an old mine shaft. I asked my friend about it and she told me that the whole neighborhood used to be a giant mine site and that there's old shafts being discovered everywhere so she thought nothing of it.

As soon as she told me that I got the worst case of goosebumps and felt like I was going to throw up. I just kept telling myself in complete awe that I had just seen a ghost and that what was in the neighbor's backyard couldn't of just been an extremely big coincidence.

I have the link to the news article about the discovery of the mine shaft if anyone who comments is interested in reading it.

When the sink hole formed I believe there may of been spirits trapped in the mines that were able to escape.

I would love some opinions on what you believe this is because now my sightings are getting worse. I'm seeing more and more, not of the miner but other things.