Why Do We See Shadow People When We’re Exhausted?

May 20

Written By Michele Edington (formerly Michele Gargiulo)

They stand in doorways and linger at the edges of vision.
They never speak or blink, and they somehow vanish when you turn to face them.

They’re called shadow people, and if you’ve ever gone too long without sleep, if your body has trembled from exhaustion, if the weight of the world kept you wide-eyed at 3 a.m., you might’ve seen them too.

You’re not alone, and no, you’re not necessarily losing your mind.

This is a story shaped by neuroscience, whispered through folklore, my personal experiences, and grounded in our deepest vulnerabilities. This is what happens when the brain reaches its limits, and the shadows start to move.

What Are Shadow People?

At its simplest, the term “shadow people” describes the phenomenon of perceiving dark, humanoid figures…often fleeting, peripheral, and silent. Some people feel watched while others feel threatened. Some simply observe them passively, without fear.

They don’t always have details and they’re not really ghosts, not quite.
They often appear when we’re severely sleep-deprived, anxious, or even neurologically overstimulated.

Thousands of accounts echo the same details with a dark figure that stands near the bed, or movement seen in the corner of the eye, also some kind of sense of presence when no one is there.

Sometimes it’s during sleep paralysis, other times, it’s during extreme fatigue, occasionally, during moments of emotional overload.
I, myself, have seen them more times than I care to admit.

My husband was the one who first reassured me when it started happening to me. I survived an extreme trauma years ago and went through all the changes neurologically that comes with that sort of thing. Within a year I was diagnosed with PTSD, night terrors (some were so bad I pulled muscles in my sleep), and insomnia. I realized there were shadows that seemed to move in the corner of my eye around the same time. Zak told me what he always called them: shadow people.

They were definitely more prevalent on days when I went without sleeping, but sometimes they’d pop up when I was decently rested (6 hours of sleep is a good night for me) or feeling totally fine too.

But why? What are they?

When Exhaustion Is a Prankster

Your brain, and mine, is a prediction machine.

It builds a model of the world, not just from sensory data, but from expectations. Most of the time, it gets things right, but when the system gets pushed too far…by exhaustion, stress, trauma, or neurological imbalance…it starts filling in the gaps.

The temporal lobe theory on the interwebs is one reason I could find. Basically, your temporal lobe helps you to process sensory input, memory, and emotion. When overstimulated (or deprived of sleep) it can misfire. People with temporal lobe epilepsy, for instance, often report seeing shadowy figures or feeling a "presence" nearby.

Sleep deprivation can mimic these effects, causing hallucinations even in “healthy” brains.

Sleep paralysis & hypnagogia is another reason you could be seeing shadow people. During sleep paralysis, your body is still in REM mode, but your mind wakes up. You're immobile, and that lack of control often triggers fear, sort of for a good reason. In this odd state, your brain often generates a presence…a figure watching you, standing near, even touching you. This hallucination is common across cultures, and often interpreted as a shadow person, night demon, or an “old hag”. Call it what you will, it feels and seems super real in the moment.

The amygdala’s panic mode is when your brain’s fear center starts to light up like a Christmas tree. When you're exhausted, it becomes even more reactive and it might detect threat where there is none: like a coat on a chair or a movement in the dark.

Your brain, on alert, might assign that shape agency and might say: “oh no, someone’s there.” And suddenly…there is. Mostly because our brains are how we experience all of life, don’t forget it creates everything from colors to sensory feelings. Magical mind machines.

The intruder illusion is what Neuroscientists have studied and call the feeling of a sensed presence…the idea that someone is behind you or beside you, even when you’re alone. One study from EPFL in Switzerland used robotic stimulation to disrupt participants’ spatial awareness. The result was healthy people started to feel an invisible presence nearby.

Our brains constantly map where we are, and when that map glitches, we might project that displaced sense of self as “another person.” A shadow or a figure, a version of ourselves perhaps…displaced?

The Global Shadow

Shadow people are not a new idea or phenomenon.

Across time and cultures all over the world, people have described shadowy figures tied to fear, night, and death. Sometimes they protect, sometimes they warn, often though, they haunt.

The “Djinn” – Middle Eastern Traditions

Shadowy spirits with will and motive, neither angel nor demon.
Djinn are said to live alongside humans, most of the time unseen. They can whisper, tempt, and sometimes appear as dark silhouettes.

The “Hat Man” – Modern Western Folklore

Thousands of people describe seeing a tall figure wearing a brimmed hat, often in the doorway or watching from the foot of the bed.
He doesn’t move, he just watches. I’ve personally seen him a time or two before.

Is he a shared archetype, or a cultural meme infecting exhausted brains?

The “Kanashibari” – Japan

A term for sleep paralysis, often attributed to ghosts or vengeful spirits. Victims feel pinned down by unseen forces, often sensing a dark figure in the room.

The “Night Hag” – Newfoundland & Scandinavia

An old woman who sits on your chest, stealing your breath. Many cultures have versions of this…linked directly to the helplessness of sleep paralysis.

So...Are They Real?

This is where science ends and experience begins.

Are shadow people real? Yes…and no.

They are real in the sense that you see them and that you feel them.
They aren’t real in the sense that they are external entities…at least not according to neuroscience.

But…is that the only definition of real that matters?

If thousands of people feel the same thing during the same mental state, does it say more about them or about us? Neuroscience has been proven wrong in the past and will more than likely be proven wrong again in the future in some areas. While we try to fit all of our life experiences in a neat little box, maybe we should stop and wonder if some things can’t really be measured with our current way of viewing the world.

Shadow people don’t only appear in sleep paralysis or after long nights either. They show up when you’re grieving or you’ve gone too long without human touch. When you’re trapped in a mind that’s screaming for rest sometimes someone else comes to see you.

Some see them during PTSD flashbacks (hello, it’s me!), others during depressive episodes (eh, also me).
They often appear in prisons, ICUs, battlefields, and sleep labs (…not me).

They seem to come when you’re at your most frayed and when your emotional seams split wide open and your heart bleeds out around you.

Lived Experiences (From Real People)

“I saw someone walk past my hallway. I live alone.”
– Reddit user, r/SleepParalysis

“I’ve only seen them during my worst times. When I was drinking heavily. When I didn’t sleep for days. They were there, watching. They didn’t want to hurt me. They were just…echoes.”
– Anonymous, interview in sleep psychology journal

Could Shadow People Be Something More?

Of course, not everyone buys the neurological explanation.

Some believe they’re interdimensional beings, bleeding into our awareness when our perception is altered.
Others think they’re entities drawn to human suffering, feeding on emotion.
I like to think that they’re spirits, guardians, or echoes of the dead. I know that’s not particularly comforting, but my own life experiences makes me think that way.

While science doesn’t support these views, they’re not without some sort of emotional truth. Shadow people appear in liminal spaces…thresholds between waking and sleep, grief and healing, stress and surrender.

And in those spaces, even skeptics admit: the veil gets thin.

I’m not sure it’s just about fear why I’m drawn to looking into what these shadowy figures are, I think it might also be about companionship in our loneliest hours.

When you're too tired to speak and too wired to rest, while feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders and it’s too hard to function, something shows up to witness, to remind you that the edge is real.

That there is an edge and you’re standing on it.