Lucid Thoughts

April1, 2026

Over the fall I moved into a new house: a typical South Philly row home full of character and signs of aging. My room is small, only able to hold space for my bed – it’s cozy.

About a month into adjusting to my new living arrangements, I woke up in the middle of the night to the entire house aggressively shaking. I lay there for a minute, absorbing everything I was feeling. Based on initial logic, there was a minor earthquake, or a low flying plane was directly overhead. I jolted up to look out the window, but the shaking faded. The city remained still and quiet.

Assuming that my roommate would also have been woken by what just happened, I texted her in a panic asking if she knew what the cause was. She had been living there for almost a year before I moved in, surely this wasn’t the first time.

No response.

I drifted back into sleep, only falling between phases of being awake and deep sleep because the house started shaking again. By then I was wide awake and convinced something was terribly wrong: a water main break or a gas leak or an attack on the city. I began to search on the internet. The local Facebook group was not active, meaning nobody else was phased by the shaking, the flight radar showed no planes nearby, no earthquakes, and no emergency leaks or explosions. I thought I was going crazy.

I couldn’t fall back asleep for hours. Nothing made sense for what I just experienced alone.

The next morning my roommate finally responded – she felt nothing nor had ever felt anything like what I described.

I went about my day normally, completely confused and exhausted and somehow that night I slept peacefully through it and continued to for the following days.

A week later I woke up again. The shaking was the same, but this time accompanied by a low rumble like an underground train. My body immediately entered fight or flight. I resorted again to the internet, hoping there would be some sort of update from last time that would give insight into this occurrence, but still nothing. So, I attempted to dive deeper. I discovered that below my neighborhood, during previous wars, a railroad carried machinery to the Navy Yard. According to the internet, this railroad reopened again and was the source of the rumbling. However, it was too many blocks away to cause the shaking.

Defeated, I accepted that no explanation would ever be found, and this shaking was something I was going to have to get used to. I continued to wake up randomly at the same time in the middle of the night to the house on the verge of collapse.

However, the other day I found a post about people who experience this exact phenomenon. Every single comment portrayed a story like mine told by equally confused people. Reading these stories felt like a breakthrough. Some offered realistic advice, explaining that it’s a biological response that happens during in between phases of sleep. Others developed a spiritual connection, our bodies at this time are deeply aware of shifting energies.

I think two can be true at once.

The biological explanation behind this happening is real. Whatever hallucinations my mind creates are incredibly freaky to live through and think about, but they are happening.

The spiritual aspect feels more comfortable to connect with. I’ve always had a deep infatuation with the universe and its energies. It could just be that I’m an empath, but I choose to believe that I purposefully have stronger capabilities to understand others. The post encourages those going through this bodily energy shift to focus on what happens during surrounding life moments of when the event occurs – there’s meaning to our awakening.

I experienced another moment of shaking upon waking up today, the first since discovering that post. It wasn’t the middle of the night like normal; it was on the brink of sunrise. I found it unique because the change in time this morning was the only moment that has ever been different. There was also a sense of peace rather than panic.

It’s a testament to my new discoveries and spiritual understanding.