17 people share the scariest thing they've ever woken up to.

Waking up out of a peaceful slumber to see your child staring at your from a dark corner like a demon from a horror movie can be an unsettling but hilarious experience...

Unfortunately, most mornings aren't the ideal flood of sunlight, aesthetic breakfast in bed and fruit smoothie vision boards that social media would like you to believe. So, when a Reddit user asked, 'What's the scariest thing you've woken up to?' people were ready to share their terrifying campfire tale.

1.

Once I woke up to go to the bathroom, got up, SMACK* something slapped me in the face. Turns out it was my entire right arm completely numb, nearly scared the piss outta me and concerned me greatly afterwards, has not happened since. - TheShadowOfKaos

2.

My partner waking me up during a camping trip. He woke me to gather all our gear and our dogs into our truck ASAP, the lightning we had spotted 6 hours earlier in the day, had sparked a wildfire. We got out as ash and sparks were falling around us.

When we reached the top of the ridge surrounding our camp we got out to look and watched the fire eat our entire campsite. We are so glad we called in the strike when we saw it, we met blm and firecrews on our way out. The fire burned for like a week, one of the fires in Oregon in 2020, Lakeview paisley fire - mothernyxpearl

3.

I once woke up to an earthquake at 4AM. I lived in a house over the ocean on stilts so my house house was rocking like crazy. It was my first earthquake and for some reason my brain first thought that someone was robbing me.

I grabbed a machete and ran outside shirtless in my underwear. The neighbors next to me looked at me alarmed and started laughing. - Cokestraws

4.

Laid down, was just drifting off when I heard something thump the edge of the mattress, maybe 1 foot from my face. My mind started racing. Forced myself up to turn on a light. It was a frog. Got in through the window AC, I guess. - AffectionateTie4511

5.

A bed bug infestation. I had had them for weeks and had no idea what they were. I would see one or two here or there and I'd just kill them, wonder what they were and move on.

One morning, I woke up early and found quite a few of them on my bed. I started looking more closely and realized that the creases of the mattress were infested with them.

Then I started to do some research, learned that I had bed bugs, felt my soul leave my body, then began the process of getting rid of them. - El_Mariachi_Vive

6.

I have woken up several times with the voice of a child speaking in my ear, the scariest thing is that my whole room is completely silent and nobody around me. - yuyureddit_

7.

100mph winds hitting my house like a truck. Literally sounded like a boom and shifted the house a good degree, also lost a shed “which I never found and the lawnmower inside of it” That was last winter, it lead to a 3 day power outage and -30F. I’m glad I was prepared but my gosh that sucked. - Longjumping_Drag2752

8.

When I was like ten I had a nightmare that ended with a local newscaster recapping the events of the nightmare. His TV news set looked just like it did in real life except there was a Native American “dreamcatcher” hanging up behind him. The same dreamcatcher that was on my bedroom window.

As I woke up from the dream and opened my eyes, the dreamcatcher was precisely in the same place in my field of view as it was in the dream.
I sat there for quite a while, staring straight ahead and wondering if I had actually woken up. - SonOfMcGee

9.

A few days after my wife and I got our kitten, (her first pet ever) I was woken up by both of them screaming bloody murder. My wife had stepped on the kitten's foot or something, and wasn't used to a hairy, pointy, howling animal in the darkness.

And then of course she felt guilty and was crying about how she'd hurt the kitty, and the cat was fine, but she was upset so she was hiding, which made my wife feel like the cat would hate her now... it was a long middle of the night.

Accidentally squishing pets is old news to me, but I had so much adrenaline from waking up like that that I was basically vibrating with anxiety the whole time. Ugh. - EarthExile

10.

To my son telling me he swallowed a penny and it was stuck in his throat. Never moved so fast in my life. After a quick examination, we determined he was breathing fine, so threw him in the car and off to thr ER we go (as oposed to calling 911.)

As we are at the reception desk, I am explaining the problem and getting him registered and turn to him. He is looking very green. I ask him if he is okay and when he opened his mouth to reply, he puked all over the floor.

Husband points to the floor and says, “Whelp, there it is!” Staff started DYING. This, for whatever reason made thier day. They insisted we be seen anyway to make sure there was no tearing. Doctor came in giggling. “Heard what you did at the reception desk! Making my job easy today” He was fine but what a scare at first. - Drachenfuer

11.

Waking up to my husband yelling ' get the f*ck out of my house.' A man broke into my house and crawled in bed with me, turns out he was in the house for a couple hours. (Door camera) My husband was asleep on the couch. Came to bed and found the guy on the bed beside me, asleep. - forestNymph_84

12.

My ex-gf grabbing me saying “dont open your eyes he’s right on top of you.” Turns out she was having a night terror and had a vision of a small child with a boot about to stomp on my face if I opened my eyes. - texasslim2080

13.

I had a dream I was being carjacked and was shot in the back. I was woken up by a clap of thunder that seemed in sync with the gunshot. - Union_of_Onion

14.

Back when I lived alone in an apartment, I used to wake to just about anything...never woke up more terrified than the night when I woke up to the sound of my toilet flushing. To this day I can only assume that a ghost just couldn't hold it anymore. - Mitch0416

15.

When he was little, my younger son wouldn't try and wake you up if he needed something. He'd do that creepy thing kids do where they just stand there looking at you until you wake up.

Well, I wake up at about 1am in a dark bedroom and see the black silhouette of a young kid standing right next to the bed. Holy sh*t that's scary. Then he asked 'Hey dad, wanna play Rock Band?'- HumpieDouglas

16.

Rolling off my bunk on a ship in the middle of the Pacific because we were plowing through a storm. - DesertDaisyXO

17.

A goose squawking and flapping its wings like crazy right next to my head. Damn friends in high school just left me at the lake when I fell asleep drunk! - Smuckinfartass