Have you ever had a dream that felt so real that when you woke up, you felt like you were still in it? Something similar recently happened to Dr. Krista Edelman. The doctor says that a dream about a field mouse trying to get into her mouth bled over into reality, as she woke up to discover that something had been trying to make its way between her lips while she slept.
She shared the horrifying experience on her Instagram account recently, posting as @kristaedelmanmd. In the video, she talked about how she reacted when the fog of sleep cleared and she discovered that a bat was pawing at her lips. As a physician, she says she had a pretty good idea of what she should do after getting the bat off her face.
But not everyone knows about the dangers these kinds of encounters can cause, so she said she wanted to tell her story as a PSA for anyone who finds themselves dealing with their own bat drama. Now, her experience is going viral, which is allowing even more people to learn how to react when faced with a wild bat.
Spoiler alert: This isn’t something you can ignore, since the potential complications can turn a scary moment into a deadly cautionary tale.
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Dr. Edelman Was In the Middle of a Dream
The Richmond, Virginia-based gastroenterologist shared her video on Aug. 21, 2026. In the clip, she explained how she awoke to find a creature on her face, desperately trying to access the inside of her mouth. While she had previously been dreaming of a “cute little field mouse,” she knew almost immediately that this wasn’t what she was dealing with, and she reached up to pull the animal away from her face.
“And then I felt on its back really kind of coarse, short hair, and when that happened, I realized that was not a mouse,” the doctor told WRAL News. “I screamed, and I was screaming repeatedly, something to the extent of like, ‘There’s a bat in my mouth. The bat is trying to get in my mouth.'”
Hilariously enough, she says her husband ran to get a t-ball bat, while she caught the bat under a bucket so the creature could be tested for rabies.
The Doctor Called a Friend for Advice
Being a physician, Dr. Edelman knew that she needed to take some extra steps to protect herself from the potential diseases the bat could be carrying, so she says she called a friend who happens to be an infectious disease doctor.
“He was anxious, and he’s not a very anxious person,” she explained. “So when he got anxious, I started to get anxious, and what I didn’t fully realize at the time was that the closer to the brain the exposure, the markedly accelerated risk of transmission.”
Knowing that, the doctor quickly headed to the hospital where she worked so she could begin treatment, which involved starting the rabies vaccine series and receiving a dose of immunoglobulin.
You Shouldn’t Take Risks When It Comes to Potential Bat Bites
Dr. Edelman was treated by Dr. Adam Landsee, who spoke with WRAL News about the incident. “If you wake up in a room with a bat in your room or in your kid’s room or in your house, you kind of have to assume the worst,” he told the outlet, noting that the size of a bat’s teeth makes it hard to know whether they’ve punctured the skin or not.
“Bat teeth are very small, and you don’t know if you’ve been bitten or not, and with rabies being essentially fatal, they need to be treated,” he continued.
Fortunately, the doctor was later able to confirm that the animal tested negative for rabies.
Rabies Tests Take Around 48 Hours
According to the Cleveland Clinic, hospitals aren’t able to test for rabies, but your local health department usually can, which will determine whether you need treatment for rabies or not. Of course, not everyone can catch the bat they’ve been exposed to quite as easily as Dr. Edelman and her husband, so those who can’t have the animal tested may be started on a treatment plan regardless.
While this cute field mouse dream turned into a real nightmare for the doctor, hopefully she can take some comfort in the fact that her PSA could help some people as a result.