A doctor from Virginia says she woke up to find a live bat inside her mouth.

Dr Krista Edelman, a gastroenterologist from Richmond, told WWBT that she was sleeping next to her husband when she began dreaming that there was a "little mouse" trying to get into her mouth.

"In my dream I was reaching up to my mouth, and when I did, I grabbed something - ultimately I had folded the bat's wings," she recalled.

The couple caught the mammal so animal control officers could test it for rabies.

Dr Edelman received initial preventive rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin doses, which were stopped once tests confirmed the bat was rabies-negative.