Feel Like Someone Is in the Room When You're Sleeping? Here's What That Means

You're settled in bed and are just about to drift off when — ‌what's that?!‌ You get this weird feeling that someone else is in the room. Or even stranger, a feeling that someone is getting into bed with you.

But it's not an intruder or a ghost. It's just your brain playing tricks on you.

Even so, the experience can be deeply unsettling. So if you feel a presence in the room while sleeping, you may want to understand why — and what you can do about it.

Turns out, you're likely either experiencing a sleep hallucination or sleep paralysis. Here's what that means, along with what causes these strange visions or feelings.

Sleep hallucinations can happen as you're about to drift off or just as you're waking up, says Shelby Harris, PsyD, a psychologist specializing in sleep medicine and Director of Sleep Health at Sleepopolis.

The experiences, which are brief and occur as your brain is transitioning between sleep and wakefulness (or vice versa), tend to have a visual component, like seeing a person or an animal in your room, according to the book ‌Fundamentals of Sleep Medicine‌.

It's also not uncommon to feel like you're falling or floating, or to hear sounds or voices that aren't there. You might jerk or twitch, too.

Sleep paralysis is a similar phenomenon where you can't move or speak right as you're waking up. It's sometimes accompanied by hallucinations, like seeing, hearing or sensing the presence of someone who isn't actually there, notes the National Library of Medicine.

Sleep paralysis usually happens after being in REM sleep, the stage of sleep where most dreams happen.

"During REM sleep, your body is paralyzed for protective reasons, so you don't act out your dreams," Harris explains. The paralysis can linger for a minute or two as you resume consciousness, so you feel awake but aren't yet able to move your body.

Sleep hallucinations and sleep paralysis aren't typically every-night occurrences. In fact, most of us will only experience them from time to time, Harris says.

That said, certain factors or underlying conditions, like the ones below, can make them more likely.

Simply falling short on sleep can make you more prone to sleep hallucinations or sleep paralysis.

"If you haven't gotten enough sleep, especially REM sleep, your body might try to rebound with more REM sleep," Harris says, which makes hallucinations or paralysis more likely.

And the longer you go without getting enough sleep, the more prone you might be.

Any kind of stressful life event — like an illness, relationship change, moving or work difficulties — can up the odds for sleep paralysis or sleep hallucinations, the National Library of Medicine notes.

The reasons why aren't fully understood, but it could be due to the fact that heavy stress can make it harder to sleep well.

If the feeling of a nighttime visitor came around when you started a new medication, the drug could be to blame.

Many prescription meds can increase the risk for visual hallucinations, both during the day and as you're falling asleep and waking up, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

One of the most common culprits linked to sleep paralysis is ADHD medications, the National Library of Medicine says.

Certain sleep disorders can up the risk for sleep paralysis or sleep hallucinations. One common culprit is sleep apnea, Harris says, which can disrupt your sleep and leave you sleep-deprived.

Sleep hallucinations are also a common symptom of narcolepsy, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which can occur after experiencing a terrifying event, is known for causing nightmares. But the problem can disrupt a person's sleep in other ways, too, by increasing the risk for sleep hallucinations or sleep paralysis, per a November 2021 ‌Frontiers in Psychiatry‌ review.

PTSD can cause other symptoms, including flashbacks or unwanted memories related to the traumatic event, severe stress around things that remind you of the event, feeling numb or hopeless and feeling detached from friends, family or activities you used to enjoy, per the Mayo Clinic.

Let your doctor know if you're feeling like someone is in your room at night more than once in a while, or if the experience is making you anxious or stressed, Harris says.

While occasionally sensing someone else in the room probably isn't cause for concern, if it's happening regularly, it could be a sign or an underlying sleep or mental health issue that needs to be addressed.