I have experienced hat man and his entities many times in my life.
My first memory of life is dreaming. My body is stiff and I am unable to move. No light. Just the feeling of warmth and a soft constant vibration. They were comforting.
The dark shift didn’t begin until I was about five. I remember all these experiences like they just happened to me last night.
My first experience wasn’t the hat man. It was just a shadow in a humanoid shape. I remember the first night my body fell into sleep almost instantly, but my mind and eyes were still awake. I don’t think my eyes were open because it was like looking through a black veil and all the shadows where alive. I could hear snoring. It was like the snoring enveloped me and I felt it vibrating my body. It started off with a pattern then it became constant and the pressure begain. It was a soft vibration first then I remember it reached a point to where it was painful. Almost felt like pins and needles all over my body. As soon as it reached to the point of pain I felt a presence. It felt cold, like a freezing wind was blowing through my room. I tried to move to but I couldn’t. I remember feeling scared and trying to thrash out of the pressure. In the midst of the thrashing I can see the shadow to the left of me standing by my bedroom door. I remember the feeling like it was enjoying my fear. I fell out of my bed but I awoke in my bed covered in sweat screaming for my mother. I seen the shadow many times through my childhood, all it would do is watch me as I tried to break out of the paralysis.
As the years progressed I became less scared and had more control of my dreams. I studied them more and started having lucid dreams.
Hat man didn’t visit me until I was in my teens. It always started the same, the snoring noise, the physical vibrations escalating to pressure then pain, the cold.
But this night was different because it seemed like it was darker in my room and as soon as the pressure reached the point pain the constant noise stopped and I could hear whispers. They sounded like children to me.
As I aged I could move more through the paralysis, but it wasn’t like my body moved, it was more like an astral projection.
I remember trying to sit up but it was an immense struggle. I looked to my right and there was the shadowman pointing at me. I wasn’t scared seeing him this time. I remember he bowed down as if he was bowing to a king and when he stood up he had a hat and a cloak on. Behind him where two more shadowmen. This was my first experience with more than one shadowman. They were just standing there trying to whisper something to me. It sounded like voices coming through static. Then through the whispers I heard a tapping at my window. I stood up and at my window was my dog. (He had died three days ago when he got hit by a car.) I remember climbing out and following him around the back of my house to the patio door where all the lights were lit up in the house. He kept jumping on the door like he wanted in. So I let him in the lit up house but as soon as a stepped through the threshold behind my dog, it was dark in the house. I heard tapping behind me. The patio door was closed and my dog was back outside. I heard a shout behind me that sounded like “you know me” I turned back around and hat man is right in my face looking down one. I remember panicking through the house trying to turn on the lights and trying to scream while I’m running away from hat man. He chases me back into my bedroom. I remember him pushing me onto my bed and I wake up.
I have had him haunt my dreams for years.
The last time I seen hatman I couldn’t sit up for my bed, and I could barely move. He stood there and watched as his grey ash imps came after me. I remember them clawing at me and trying to climb into my mouth. It took all my effort to grab at the imps who where attacking by me. When I finally managed to grab them, they disintegrated into ash and dirt. This went on for awhile. I remember looking up at the hat man through the attack and trying to ask why. As soon as I managed to spill the word, the attack stop and hat man responded by screaming unknown words in my face.
I haven’t had another attack from the shadowlings since, but I see them from time to time in my dreamscape.
I believe the shadowlings are a type of regulator in the ether realm. Trying to keep us from some transcendent realization.