I was living in Thailand and went to a small village to stay with two friends, henceforth to be known as American friend and Thai friend. Thai friend's family had recently built a little compound, with several houses for extended family and a courtyard in the center. There was an unoccupied bedroom on stilts above a dining area, and they considerately offered that room to American friend and me, so we'd have a bit of privacy. It was simple and lovely—mattress on the floor, mosquito net, and small attached bathroom.

We went to bed late, sharing the large mattress on the floor. I woke with a start in the middle of the night, convinced I'd felt a rat scurry across my foot. This is important: I was wide awake, not in any kind of fugue state, because feeling a rat on your limbs wakes you up with a jolt. I laid there trying to get my bearings when I felt, essentially, the pressure of someone's hands walking up along the sides of my body. It was as if someone was starting at my feet and climbing up past my knees and hips and waist to look at me face to face, slowly placing one hand after the other higher and higher alongside my body.

All of a sudden there was a heavy, person-sized weight on my chest and the sensation of hands choking me. I panicked. I tried to scream but the pressure on my throat prevented it. I flailed my arm trying to reach American friend but she was too far away. Just a few seconds passed but I felt like I was going to die. I very clearly felt that this thing, whatever it was, meant me great harm. Then, just as quickly I felt the hands retreat down my body and the presence disappeared entirely. I barely slept for the rest of the night.

The next morning, I told American friend what had happened. She said, "Oh you have to tell Thai friend," and didn't seem all that surprised. As it turns out, I was the third person to have a bad experience in that bedroom. A few weeks prior, a visiting Tibetan nun had slept there. The next morning she had been very shaken up, claimed the room had bad energy, and refused to return to it. A couple weeks later, a visiting Thai woman had an almost identical reaction. Anyway, I told my Thai friend what had happened, and she nodded thoughtfully. She explained that her alcoholic, abusive father had died the previous year. He had been horrible to her mother and all of her siblings, and so when he died, no one in the family stepped up to make merit for his next life. (No young men became monks for a short time, etc.) Because of that, she explained, his evil spirit probably remained around the house. "I had better do some more chanting for him," she admitted.