A Frightening Night in West Virginia
In the early hours of June 15, 1937, 21-year-old Glenna Mae Combs was asleep beside her three-month-old son, Jack. She lived in Ceredo, West Virginia, and her husband was away from home.
At around 3 a.m., the sound of a large clock woke her briefly. Jack stirred beside her but soon settled back to sleep. Glenna was exhausted and wanted to rest.
Then she heard a floorboard creak in the hallway.
At first, she thought someone might be moving outside her bedroom. But she was alone with her baby. Her husband was out of town, and she had no reason to expect a visitor in the middle of the night.
What happened next began with a terrifying dream. But the nightmare did not end when she woke up.
The Stranger in Glenna’s Dream
A man entered her bedroom
In her dream, Glenna heard footsteps approaching her bedroom door. She watched the closed door, hoping she had imagined the noise.
A moment later, the door opened.
A strange man with bushy hair and a disheveled appearance stepped into the room. He stared directly at her. Glenna did not know who he was or why he had entered her home.
The stranger stood between her and the bedroom’s only exit. The window was also behind him, leaving her with no obvious way to escape with her baby.
She was frightened and unable to move.
The dream turned violent
The man suddenly lunged toward the bed and grabbed three-month-old Jack by his legs. He appeared ready to smash the baby against the wall.
At that moment, Glenna opened her eyes.
She realized that the attack had been a dream. Her son was still beside her, safe in bed.
She was shaken by what she had imagined. But before she could settle down again, she heard something that made the experience even more frightening.
The floorboard in the hallway creaked.
The Same Stranger Appeared in Real Life
Footsteps approached the bedroom
Glenna was now awake. She could hear someone walking toward her bedroom, just as she had heard in her dream.
She knew her husband was away. There was no one else in the house who should have been moving through the hallway.
Then the bedroom door opened.
A man with bushy hair and an unkempt appearance stepped inside. According to Glenna’s account, he looked like the same stranger she had just seen in her dream.
The experience left her facing a terrifying situation. A few moments earlier, she had imagined a man threatening her baby. Now, an unknown man was standing in her bedroom.
Glenna fought to protect her son
The dream had left Glenna frightened, but it had also prepared her to react. Instead of remaining frozen with fear, she moved into action.
She put Jack down, jumped out of bed, and began screaming at the intruder. She chased him through the house and out the door.
The man’s reaction surprised her. He appeared caught off guard by her sudden resistance and fled the house.
Glenna did not know who he was or what he intended to do. She only knew that an unknown person had entered her home while she was alone with her infant son.
What Happened After the Intruder Fled?
Once the man was outside, Glenna shut and locked the doors. She returned to her bedroom and stayed with Jack.
She struggled to understand what had happened. The sequence of events was difficult to forget: first the dream, then the familiar sounds in the hallway, and finally the appearance of a stranger who seemed to match the man she had imagined.
The intruder was never caught, according to the account. His identity and intentions remained unknown.
There was no confirmed explanation for why he entered the house. It is also unclear what he might have done if Glenna had not confronted him.
For Glenna, however, the experience had a clear personal meaning. She believed that the dream helped her protect her son.
Did Glenna Mae Combs Have a Premonition?
The story raises an obvious question: Did Glenna dream about the intruder before he entered her bedroom?
The events, as Glenna described them, appeared to follow the same sequence. She dreamed about a strange man entering the room and threatening Jack. She then woke up and encountered a man who seemed to match that description.
But the story alone cannot establish that the dream predicted the future.
Dreams can feel unusually vivid, especially when a person wakes suddenly from a frightening experience. People may also remember striking similarities between a dream and a later event more clearly than the differences.
Without independent records or other evidence, it is not possible to determine whether Glenna’s experience was a coincidence, a misremembered sequence of events, or something she could not explain.
What is clear from her account is that she believed the dream affected her response to the intruder.
How Fear Helped a Mother Protect Her Baby
Glenna’s story also illustrates how people may react differently when they believe someone they love is in danger.
In her dream, she had been unable to move as the stranger approached her baby. When she encountered the real intruder, she did not remain still. She screamed and chased him away.
Her fear may have helped trigger an immediate response. Rather than waiting to understand the stranger’s intentions, she focused on protecting her child.
This does not mean that confronting an intruder is always the safest choice. Every situation is different, and a person’s safest response depends on the circumstances. But Glenna’s account shows how quickly a parent’s instinct to protect a child can take over in a frightening moment.
Her actions also changed the situation before the stranger could do what she feared he might do.
The Unanswered Questions in Glenna Mae Combs’ Story
Several important details remain unknown.
- Who was the intruder? His identity was never established in the account.
- Why did he enter the house? There is no confirmed explanation for his intentions.
- Did the dream predict the encounter? The reported similarities are striking, but they do not prove that the dream was a premonition.
- What would have happened if Glenna had reacted differently? No one can know what the stranger would have done next.
These unanswered questions are part of what makes the story memorable. Yet they also make it important to separate Glenna’s reported experience from conclusions that cannot be verified.
Conclusion: The Dream Glenna Mae Combs Never Forgot
On June 15, 1937, Glenna Mae Combs reportedly experienced a frightening sequence of events in her home in Ceredo, West Virginia. She dreamed that a stranger entered her bedroom and threatened her three-month-old son. Soon afterward, a man matching that description appeared in the room.
This time, Glenna fought back. She screamed at the intruder and chased him out of the house before securing the doors and returning to her baby.
The man’s identity and intentions remained unknown. Whether the dream was a coincidence or something Glenna could never explain is also unresolved.
But the experience left her with a powerful belief: her dream had helped her act when her child needed protection. For Glenna, that was enough to make the night unforgettable.