I’m not too familiar about amulets or talisman but when we moved into the house I’m currently staying in, my mum got a talisman from some temple and pasted it on top of the doorway of the house and I’ve never felt anything wrong with the house until few years back.

I’d have to walk across the living room to get to the toilet in the kitchen(standard HDB layout). And since my family sleeps early apart from me, everyone else would be sound asleep past midnight and the living room will be pitch black apart from the corridor lights shining through the windows.

For a period of time, everytime I had to go to the toilet and back, I kept feeling that I wasn’t alone and that I was being stared at. So I always fast walked to the toilet and back. And I’d turn on all the lights in the kitchen whenever I entered it.

This went on for quite a number of days until I incidentally looked up at the top of the doorway when I was about to leave my house. The talisman was torn. It was weird that it would be torn because there was no reason for anyone to touch it at all. We didn’t have any painting or renovation work going on that required us to touch it or even tug on it. But I dismissed it as merely wear and tear because the talisman was there since more than 10 years ago after all.

So I lived with the so-called ‘presence’ in the nights, rushing to and fro whenever I needed the toilet at night till less than a week later. I went clubbing or something and had already sobered up, still had breakfast and everything and then I got home to sleep. The sun was up and my bed was a single bed tucked in the corner of my room against the wall nearest to the door.

I remembered that I dozed off, lying on my left, facing the room. And then a sense of dread came over me and I woke up but I couldn’t move. I was conscious but my body refused to move. I could feel that my eyelids were shut but I had my vision. I could see how my room was, how the sun was up, etc. But I wasn’t scared, because I thought that it was just sleep paralysis, until I felt the empty space between my body and the wall on the bed being occupied by someone.

I could feel my bed sinking near the side of my feet and slowly travelling up to my body, as if someone was crawling up the bed to lie beside me from the foot of the bed. And I always slept with my door closed and I would be able to hear it if someone opens the door. With that, I panicked. Just kept on reciting Amitabha in my mind (was a freethinker and didn’t know any scriptures at all) until I broke loose and sat up with my whole body covered in sweat.

Checked behind me and I couldn’t see anyone, but decided to leave the room immediately to be safe. Checked with my mum if she heard anything from my room but she said nope. Then without further ado, I asked my mum to replace the talisman immediately, and after she did, nothing else happened ever since.

Maybe it’s just a placebo, but if it works, it works.