As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 143 - 12 More Chilling Paranormal Stories & Scary School Stories

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

Today, on the 143rd episode of the As The Raven Dreams podcast, we have 12 True Chilling stories. These stories come from the shadowy corners of reality, where everyday life takes an eerie twist & ordinary people experience the extraordinary. Today we will be diving into some more Paranormal stories as well as a collection of Scary School Stories. So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. Have a Story To Submit? ➤ https://www.astheravendreams.com Or Post to the Subreddit ➤ https://reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Join ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join Or Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in today's Video... BlakeF, AmateurWriter, BeanPaste, Grant Mason, Tom Chiaromonte, Choriquezodulce, Moonfire, Allen Valdez , Missy M., Crista Thompson, Carla Base As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. 'As The Raven Dreams' is a community where we explore the darker parts of human existence through true and harrowing stories. From sinister encounters with strangers and stalkers, to terrifying experiences that defy explanation and unsettling mysteries that linger in the shadows, I am here to tell you the most haunting narratives ever whispered. Much Love, and Sleep Well... ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories ➤ Stories include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio of this Podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤ If you like any of the following stories, consider subscribing! - Dark Web horror stories, creepy lets not meet stories, stalker stories, Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Unexplained Horror stories, Paranormal stories, cryptid encounter stories, Crazy ex lover stories, creepy neighbor stories, quantum immortality, true scary stories from reddit, or any other True horror Stories! ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's something else here now. Something new. From. Exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi Vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules.

Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Hey there, friends. Before we get into the podcast today, I wanted to address a comment I keep getting from, I think just one person, but I want to address it because it's kind of silly. For some reason, one person at least thinks that my voice for this podcast is AI generated. I can tell you with full certainty and without hesitation that my voice is mine. It is not AI generated. No audio on this podcast is AI generated whatsoever. This is one. 100% me, recording stories, sent by listeners from Reddit, from Facebook and forums, and other places. So, again, my voice is mine, this is not AI generated, and to the person who keeps saying that it is, you're wrong. Anyways, have a nice day, friends, and enjoy. Over the summer, our high school was going through renovations.

They were completely remodeling the oldest part of the building, making some change. to the halls and adding a pool. A lot of us were pretty stoked because adding a pool meant we may have a swim team and also may have swimming added to our PE classes. And I, for one, quite enjoyed swimming. They had completed the work on the main building, including putting in the pool by the time school started for the year.

However, they had not finished the work on the old building. There was a long enclosed overpass that led to the older part of the building, and that part just had classrooms and the normal lockers in the hallway. They moved the anatomy and biology room out of there in order to install more modern supplies, like better air vents. Since they had not finished that part of the building, they just had it blocked off with tape and cones. We were not allowed to go over there until it was completed. They even ripped out the lockers, so there was no reason for students to be there. For the first weeks, a lot of us discussed

what all they may be doing. I know I've said it before, but most of the school was rebuilt and added on to the original to make it larger. But the West Wing was still the old building, and there was a reason for it. They kept it that way as some

sort of where we started versus where we are now type of sentimental element. So they kept the structure. I was curious if they were going to do anything other than repairs. A couple of my friends and I had stayed late at school to have free reign of the pool. We had joined the swim team, so we used it as an excuse to go swimming when at all possible.

In between laps, we talked about that old part of the building, and just like that, with high contact alone, we made plans to go check it out. We got out of the pool, dried off, and dressed, and silently waited in the locker room, hoping the janitors and maintenance people might think we already left. They had walked by several times as we swam. I'm sure they were waiting for us to leave too. We gathered our backpacks and walked quietly to the overpass, making sure to not run into anybody.

We had to shuffle into a nearby restroom once as we heard someone coming out of a classroom with a cart. We reached the overpass and slowly pushed the doors open just enough for us to shimmy through. They had under-construction tape across the doors, so we didn't want to snap it, giving away that someone had entered. Once on the other side, we walked through the sunroom like overpass and reached the other side where the floor was covered in plastic. I could smell fresh paint, which made sense with what we were seeing. All the doors to the room were propped open or missing altogether.

There were some wires hanging down from the ceiling, where they were putting in new, lights and intercoms. We pointed out to previous rooms we had been in as well as memories from those classes. We took a right, wanting to go into an old room to see if the paper clips we slowly hung from the ceiling were still

there. Surprisingly, they were still there. We stayed in the room, talking, reminiscing again, and trying to figure out how to get our paper clips back as our souvenirs. However, while we were talking, My friend Sam stopped mid-sentence, and his eyes were shifting around the room.

The rest of us, there were four of us total, stopped and looked at him. Did you guys hear that? Sam asked us as he continued looking around. I didn't hear anything, and from the looks of my two other friends, they hadn't either. He said that it sounded like there was somebody groaning. We all paused and waited, but we didn't hear it, so we immediately started to. giving Sam a hard time about trying to scare us. But the look on his face told us that he was not playing around. He may have been the type to mess with us, but he could never keep a straight face.

We all started walking out of the room when I heard it. There was definitely a groan. We all looked at each other to confirm that we weren't collectively hallucinating. We all wanted to find out what it was, so we headed further down the hall, away from where we had entered. We heard the groan once more, and it was obvious that we were walking towards it. But then we spotted something else. Blood. There was a streak of it along the hall and a small pull of it on the floor.

What the hell had happened here? It was supposed to be closed off. Who or what was here? That's when my friend Isaiah tapped out. He said that he didn't want anything to do with it, so he agreed to wait at the entrance for us. headed back. So that left Sam, Keith, and myself to find out what had happened, even though we definitely should have headed back too. As we continued down the hall, we could clearly follow a trail of

blood that seemed to stop in front of another room. Sam was getting pretty spooked too, so he said that he would wait in the doorway while we checked it out. I was gripping my phone pretty tight as I was using it as a flashlight, and I started bringing it up so I could prepare to call 911. That's when Keith nudged me, and I looked up. The back of the room was lined with all the tables and chairs, and towards the front of the room was a body. It was a man, and from where we were, he looked dead. As we got closer, I knew who it was.

It was our previous year's history teacher, Mr. Matheson, and, and he was, and he was a little bit of And when my light hit his face, he squinted his eyes and groaned again. The noises we were hearing were definitely coming from him, and from the looks of the stomach, so was the blood. We all freaked out. Sam took off. Keith kept asking me what to do, and I called 911. The operator was telling me what to do, and I was trying to explain to Keith what he needed to do.

I quickly pulled out a spare shirt that I had in my bag, and held it against the wound as instructed. It felt like forever with just the two of us. I was hoping that maybe the other two ran to get help or something, but they never came back. Luckily, the janitor was still in the building, and they helped the paramedics clear the doorway, and soon we heard wheels rolling and a lot of talking.

They had arrived, and I was never more relieved than I was at that moment. They wheeled Mr. Matheson away, and Keith and I walked back to the doors where we entered where we saw Sam and Isaiah, as well as the janitor and some cops. The cops were immediately suspicious of us and had already detained Sam and Isaiah, but the janitor apparently kept telling them that we were good kids, and they confirmed that we were the ones that had called it in.

We had to sit there for a few more hours as we all individually had to tell two different cops what happened, what we saw and what we witnessed. Our parents arrived during this, thankfully, but I also don't know who's questioning I was more overwhelmed by. Once all was said and done and the teacher long gone, we were told we could leave with our parents as well. It was hard to sleep that night. It started as such a normal day.

We went to swim practice, and instead of just going home or leaving, we decided to go where we shouldn't have. But because of that, we may have saved the teacher's life. I don't know if they did any work overnight, so they may not have found him until the next day. With the amount of blood we found him in, I'm not sure that he would have lived. Then I thought about how it happened. Was it self-inflicted?

Did someone do that to him? And then it dawned on me. If someone did do that to him, who was it, and where did they go? how long ago even was it compared to when we found him we were on the second floor so it's possible he was still in there and left using one of the sets of stairs but what would have happened if they would have seen us there were four of us so surely we could have taken them down

but we were also still kids I nearly gave myself a panic attack that night thinking about it the teachers mentioned it at school the next day and we all had to go to a school rally thing they held in the gym during big events or news. They didn't give out any names, but they explained what had happened the previous day, and asked for anyone with information to come forward. That evening, my mom told me that she had heard about Mr. Matheson's condition. He lost a lot of blood, but he was going to be okay, and he wanted to thank us for saving him.

My mom took Keith and I to see him that weekend, and he was seemingly back to how I remembered him, except he was smiling a lot more. He was typically a nice guy, but if you just saw him in passing, you would think he was pretty stern and intimidating. But he was a pretty cool teacher, and seeing him that day just made me think that no matter what,

we did the right thing. Oh, and as things started calming down, we learned that Mr. Matheson was not coming back to the school, and the rumors started flying. Kids were talking about how he got fired, but all we were told was that he was moving on. Then they talked about what had happened that day. People were saying that it was a drug deal gone bad,

but even after asking my parents about it years later, they claim they have no idea or any additional information about what happened. Hopefully he wasn't involved in anything bad like people were saying. I'm just thankful that we were there. there to help. And maybe if he was involved in drugs or something worse, just maybe that was what he needed to kick it. Lazzang sur-gillet, puissance-mojointed for 15 minutes. We're like to dojo. Pre-a-jou! Vive the pleasure with Leo Jo! The casino in line that propose the more recent machine-ass

and games of casino in direct. Profite of 50 tours gratu on Big Bas Bonanza, without exigance of misgings and with the payments instantane. Hey, I! I got a! I grew up 108 and plus, 1st5%%% 20%%%%%%%%%% $10% pay pay for

responsible, the conditions apply I grew up in the deep woods of mid-coast Maine in a town consisting of one small store one smaller post office and a population of fewer than 800 people

most of which were over the age of 60 the town was old and tired and needless to say there weren't many options in the way of exciting activities for young teens. My friends and I would often stay up all night and take sunrise walks, down familiar winding roads in the early hours of the morning. Golden Ridge Road, my road, earned its name in October as the trees lined the street with golden foliage. It was beautiful, but truthfully, these walks were motivated by stolen menthols cigarettes,

two beers split three ways, and the occasional pinch of weed smoked through modified aluminum cans. It wasn't much, but it was something to do. One late night, when I was roughly 14 years old, three friends and I decided to take a sunrise walk down to a small field at the end of a long twisted road. The field was bordered by the road on one side and thick tree line on the other. In the field stood a tall, skinny tree in the dead center of the clearing.

We took our time on the walk, stopping frequently, and by the time we got to the field, the sun had fully risen. To our shock, in the field was a young woman, roughly in her late teens, wearing a very old-style nightgown, 17th or 18th century, a bonnet and no shoes, frolicking and dancing at 5 a.m. Our first reaction was to pretend like we didn't see her so as to not scare her, or call attention to ourselves. Growing up in an extremely small town, you tend to get to know who lives nearby, and I had never seen this girl before.

Not only was she under the age of 60, but she was also very beautiful. Myself being a lonely hormonal teenage boy, I would have remembered. Surprised and confused, we continued to walk when abruptly the girl stopped dancing. She looked straight at us and quickly sprinted to the lone tree in the center of the field.

She appeared to be trying to hide from us, which seemed strange because we had clearly already seen her, and also because the tree was slightly too skinny to properly hide behind, especially with a wispy nightgown. We continued walking down the road, curiously peering at the stranger out of confusion when all of a sudden she vanished.

All four of us witnessed this girl go from unsuccessfully hiding to completely gone. Her frame went behind the skinny tree on one side and did not reappear on the other side. In disbelief, we began walking around the tree searching for any plausible explanation for the girl's whereabouts. We had no intention of scaring or harming her, but we had to investigate. Sure enough, she was gone. There were no low branches to climb the tree, nor were there enough leaves to conceal a person that somehow managed to shimmy their way up undetected.

There was no cover above. Also, the forest that bordered the field was far too great a distance to make a run for it without being seen. Had she moved one foot towards the woods, we would have seen it. Upon telling the events of the night to my older brother, he noted that this area was a hot spot for

brutal battles and slaughters between Native American tribes and early colonists of 17th century Maine. He said that many people died here, and the whole region is widely known to be haunted, especially the woods. Even if he was just trying to mess with me, every word he said was true. Was this girl a ghost? Was she a victim in those slaughters? Did she know she was dead? If it was a ghost?

it seemed like she was having a good time before we showed up. Hopefully we didn't scare her. Hopefully she exists in a perpetual state of blissful freedom, only to occasionally be interrupted by teenage wannabe stoners. So, that's my ghost story. It's not as scary as it is interesting. Scary or not, I'm glad that I didn't witness this alone. Having friends to share this experience with

made a world of difference on how I processed this event, and my mental well-being in general. My biggest fear is not to witness cryptids of the paranormal, but to witness them alone, leaving doubt to the grounds of your own sanity. I live in a small city, on the east coast, in a one-bedroom apartment,

with my girlfriend and our cat, Vader. The story takes place on a weekend that my girlfriend was out of town visiting her family, I'm in my mid-30s now, so I'm not the partier that I was in my 20s. My idea of a good solo weekend nowadays includes working on my music and watching cheesy action movies with my cat. The layout of my apartment is important to understand the following events that took place. My living room couch faces the TV.

Directly to the right of the TV is the door to our bedroom, which swings inwards towards the room and away from the couch. If you're watching TV and the bedroom door is open, then the bedroom is in your peripheral vision. With that being said, one night I was watching a movie with the lights dimmed, the bedroom light off and its door half open. All of a sudden I noticed a rounded head-size outline

that appeared to be sticking out from behind the door at about eye level. I started this strange shape for a minute or so trying to figure out what it could be. I was puzzled by the silhouette, but it was a dark shape in a darker room, so the profile is all that I saw. Though it seemed odd, initially I thought it might be part of the laundry bag that hangs off the inside of the door. I thought maybe the bag had broke or had partially fallen off the top of the door that held it up. But it was the wrong shape. and height to be any part of the laundry bag.

Then I thought maybe it was my black cat doing some new weird door-hanging trick, but he was fast asleep in his bed. I was trying to figure out what this mysterious thing was, and as I was looking directly at it, the figure abruptly ducked out of sight. It had moved right in front of my eyes. Realizing that it was not the silhouette of some inanimate object, I immediately assumed that someone had broken into my apartment and was hiding in my bedroom watching me.

Being absolutely horrified, I jumped up, ran to my bathroom, and locked the door. The shape had no features, so if it was a person, they must have been wearing some kind of black mask or something. I stood in the bathroom for ten minutes repeating, What the hell was that? Over and over to myself. I would have called 911 to report a break-in, but my phone was on the coffee table right in front of where I saw the figure. After forcing myself to calm down a bit doing some breathing exercises, I mustered the courage to grab the biggest knives that I could find in my kitchen and confront the intruder. I had not heard any movement in the apartment, so I knew nothing had left.

Butchers knives in one hand and a serrated bread knife in the other. I approached the bedroom door, yelling, I saw you in there and the cops are on the way. I have two big knives, and if you come out now, I'll let you leave without violence. No response. The light switch for the bedroom is outside the room behind the TV, so I turned the bedroom light on and barged in screaming like a lunatic, yielding kitchen knives.

My plan was to scare the intruder by acting crazy. Alas, the room was empty. It hits a small room with nowhere to hide, with one small window, three stories above the street, with no ledge to climb out on. In addition, there was an air conditioner in the window that was very difficult to move and impossible to put back onto place from the outside. The only door leading out of our apartment is right next to the bathroom where I initially took

shelter, and I was positive that nothing had gone by or opened that door. The apartment is old and creaky, so it's impossible to cross the hall or open the door silently. Upon realizing that it could not have been a person, my fear and adrenaline kicked back in. Again, I started repeating, what the hell was that? What the hell was that? I had heard stories about what some referred to as shadow people. and based on those descriptions and what I saw, that was the closest I could come to an answer. Eventually, I decided that, unless I came to peace with a creature, there was no way I could sleep in that apartment. I'd been living there for ten years, and I had never seen anything out of the ordinary before.

I reasoned that if, in ten years, the worst thing that it had done to me was to let me catch a glimpse of it, it probably wasn't malevolent. I began talking out loud to the shadow creature and tried to bargain with it, asking it to keep to itself, and I'll try to do the same. I believe that I stated that we could live in harmony, and since that night, I have not seen anything strange in my apartment, and I hope to never see it again. School was a pretty average thing for me as a kid.

I didn't get overly excited to go unless there was a class party or a field trip, but I also didn't hate it. To me, it was just something I knew I had to do, and I did my best at it. I did enjoy bringing home my work to show my parents so I could be praised for it, but, again, that was as a young child. I'm talking elementary school. My sister, however, was two grades below me, and she loved it. She was always ready and willing to get up in the morning and nearly dragged me to the bus stop with her. We got along quite well, though, and to this day, I would still do anything to protect her or help her, so it wasn't a problem. But when my parents started arguing more to the point that it would upset my sister Paige, I was happy to get out of the house and go to school.

It was a relief at that point. It wasn't every day, but it started getting close to almost every day. so I would get up early so we could leave earlier, even if it meant that we waited outside a little bit longer than normal. School kind of became my escape. I could talk and hang out with my friends. I had to do work, which kept my mind occupied. It honestly started becoming my favorite thing,

and weekends were the worst. But during my third grade year, something happened that messed me up mentally. and there was still part of me that has not gotten over it. It started as a normal day. I woke up, checked to make sure Paige was up, and got ready for school. I went to make myself breakfast when my mother made a remark about being low or out of something, which spiraled from there.

They started arguing, and it was only a matter of time before it escalated. I grabbed a few packages of Pop-Tarts and waited in my room until Paige came out. Once she was ready, we walked to the stop to start our day. School itself went fine. It was right before recess and I needed to use the restroom. I got the pass from my teacher and walked away. This way I wouldn't have to stop during our break. I spent a little longer at the sink.

I remember letting the water run down my hands like a waterfall. I was very young, like I said. I finally came back to reality when I heard the familiar buzz. of the intercoms pinging on. The voice told all staff to check their emails, and that this was not a drill. I didn't think too much about it. I just finished washing and drying my hands and walked out of the restroom.

But once I was out in the hallway, something felt off. Normally around that time, I might see a different class coming or going from recess, or even another teacher or staff walking the halls. But it was eerily silent and empty. I slowly walked down the hall, keeping my shoulder on the wall. When I reached my class, I tried the door, and it was locked.

I had to stand on my toes to look in the little window on the door, but from what I could see, the lights were off, and the room looked completely empty. There was normally a bell to tell us when we went to recess, and it never went off. I know that I didn't miss it, so I was confused as to where my class was. I began walking towards the door that we used to go outside, but not only was the door locked,

but the playground was also completely empty. So where did my class go? At my age, I began to fear the unreasonable. I figured that maybe they all left and I was forgotten about, or that maybe I was in the restroom longer than I thought I was, and school was over and I was left behind. I could tell that I was starting to panic and choked back tears, not wanting to cry. The only idea that I had left was to walk to the entrance and see if I could leave.

As I got closer, I noticed the lady that was at the front desk was still there. I started walking towards her when she looked over and noticed me. Her eyes were wide and she immediately waved me over to her. She asked me if I was okay and where I had been. I told her what all happened, explaining my exact whereabouts. I also tried asking her where everyone was, but she just asked me to sit in the chair next to her desk. She had called someone on her phone and specifically mentioned, I have him in the office. She then explained to the other person what I told her, followed by some one-sided response.

I was relieved that I wasn't alone, but then I was also still terrified of the situation. Why was my classroom locked and empty? Why was I sitting in the office like I was in trouble? After she ended her call, she did something on her computer and then turned her attention to me. She was very kind and soft-spoken, as she always was. She asked me again if I was okay and if I knew what happened. I shook my head. She asked me if I saw anyone when I looked outside and I again replied, no.

Then she asked if I had seen my sister. I remember feeling ill at the moment. I was just a kid, but my little sister meant the world to me. Did something happen to her? Before I could ask why, she then asked me if there was anything going on at home, and specified scary people showing up or my parents fighting. I confirmed that they had been fighting, but I never saw anyone around that I didn't know, so her questions confused me.

I was also confused as to how she would know anything about my parents fighting. She then told me that I would be remaining in the office with her and that my teacher would be bringing me my schoolwork. Again, I was terrified. Had I done something wrong? Was I in trouble, and why did she ask about my parents and sister? I sat at the desk working when I heard the bell finally go off for recess and watched as some classes piled out of the rooms and outside.

upset that I was missing out. My class, unfortunately, was around the corner, so I didn't see them. It would be my normal recess time anyways, so I remember spacing out at that point, doodling on some scratch paper. Anything really to just keep my mind occupied. When I started hearing the sound of walkie-talkies going off. Two cops had entered the office, and the lady greeted them and walked outside the office to speak to the

them. I knew something bad was happening and yet I still had no idea how I was involved. Shortly after, the three of them came back in the office, as well as the principal who told me they needed to speak with me and that it was very important. I'm sure that he could tell I was about to cry, but he assured me that I wasn't in any trouble and that my mom was on the way. One of the cops then sat down next to me and asked me a few questions about myself and then started asking about Paige. They asked me when I last saw her, if there was anything weird or scary going on at home,

if I heard or saw anyone different than normal and so forth. As they asked me these questions, I saw my mom into the office and she immediately went to hug me. From there, everything seemed to move so fast. The cops asked my mom about my sister as well. They asked her about my dad, suspicious people, fighting at home. And I still did not know what was happening. Once they were done with the questioning, my mom took me home.

The car ride was pretty silent, and I was too afraid to ask what was going on. That was, until I got home and realized Paige wasn't there. I asked my mom about it, and I was too afraid to ask what was going on. All she said was that she would be home soon. I could tell by her voice that she did not want me to ask anything else, so I didn't. I just went to play in my room. Except my sister didn't come home that night, nor did my father. In fact, they didn't come home for a few days, and only then did my sister return.

Turns out, my sister had been abducted at school, but her abductor was my dad. I remember being so confused and hurt as a child. Apparently after my parents got into a huge fight, my dad threatened to take us and leave. But he only took my sister. One of the kids saw her reach over the fence for a man who picked her up and walked off. They then went and told the teacher and gave a description of the man. Unfortunately, being a child, he didn't have much of a description,

so the adults didn't realize it was our dad. It wasn't until my mom explained very vaguely that it was my father that took her. She didn't really go into detail beyond that. So that left me wondering as to why my dad took Page only and not me. Why did he choose her? Why would he not even say goodbye to me? I was hurt. I assumed my dad didn't love me and that was it.

My mom loved both of us plenty and never made me feel like I was loved. loved less, and I will always thank her for that, but sometimes the thought popped into my head about my dad. I never saw my dad after that. Neither of us did, for that matter. I learned when I got older that he did some time, but after that, we would ask to see him, but he was always too busy, nor didn't return our calls. My mom would let us call him ourselves, to show that she wasn't lying.

I finally came to the conclusion that if he didn't want to put in the effort to see us, then neither would I. And I stopped trying after I turned 13. But I wanted to share this because that day in school, back in third grade, was one of the scariest days of my life. The feeling of being left behind in school, being secluded in the office with the police, and then once again feeling left behind by my own father, who was also the reason for the school being on lockdown, it's not one that I have ever forgotten. While I don't count myself among the religious,

I do feel a sense of spirituality about me. This was confirmed many years ago, just days after my father's sudden passing. It was mid-December of 1992, and I was fortunate to have my entire family with me to see a Christmas play at a local theater. It was then back to my house for a meal of homemade chili and tamales, my dad's favorite dish. This was the first time we were all together since Thanksgiving, and I was so pleased that they all enjoyed my dinner, especially my dad.

My dad was a quiet man and did not engage in conversation, but my relationship with him was good, albeit without much communication. We said our goodbyes for the evening, and I felt pleased for planning a nice get-together. The next day I was giving a final, I'm a college professor, when I was interrupted by one of our campus security officers who gave me a note that simply read, emergency with an unknown phone number. I rushed back to my office, got my office mate to proctor the rest of the exam, and called the number. To my surprise, my brother answered the number.

the phone. He was in the waiting room at the local hospital. I asked him what was up, and his simple reply was, Dad is dead. I was in shock. We had just been together the night before. Dad looked so healthy without any indication that he might have had a health issue. In a days, I went back to my classroom, and in a very calm voice, asked my colleague if she could stay until the students were finished, that my dad had just died and that I needed to be with my family. She was more emotional than I was, as she embraced me. I believe it was shock that kept me calm. On the right over to my sister's home, the entire realization of my father's passing

caught up with me and I could barely contain myself. It was difficult to maintain my driving, but I was in a complete emotional meltdown. I've never cried so deeply before and have never cried. ever since. Now, this is where the story gets interesting. It was my brother who opened the door to my sister's home. And, without warning, grabbed me, looked me directly in the eye and said, You knew, you knew!

He was referring to the evening that I had planned the night before. Not really processing what he meant and still reeling from my dad's sudden death. I just kept repeating. No, I had no idea this would happen. We all sat motionless and almost silent for what seemed like an eternity, all in disbelief, all in shared grief, until we said our goodbyes and parted ways. When I went to my car, it was early morning and dark. As I opened the door, I noticed a small, shiny object. Looking down, I saw a dime on the asphalt, next to the open door.

I hadn't noticed it before. It didn't fall from my pocket or escape from my car, but there it was. I picked it up with a sense of disbelief and hope. You see, I grew up in a working-class household. My dad never finished high school, and my mom, for the most part, stayed home to raise us three kids. For as long as I can remember, my dad had a second job and would work at menial tasks, usually relegated for high school kids. but he never complained or thought anything was beneath him. When I was a teen and my social life was expanding,

he would always say to me as I was exiting the house for a party or football game, Hey, do you have a dime? My response was always, of course I do, Dad. Money was tight, and he could never offer me anything more than that, but he knew that having a dime meant that he was just a phone call away. This year will mark the 32nd anniversary of my dad's passing, and I think of him often. I now have two grown children of my own, and through hard work, and a work ethic that my dad gave me, I'm able to provide for my family.

And while I can give them more than 10 cents, it's still that simple dime that has made me wealthy, beyond belief. To give context, I'm from a small, kind of. in South America, and attended a religious school every year. You go to this sort of spiritual getaway in a camp situated in an open field next to a small river, and the sort of forested mountain area. Said place is beautiful, but gives an off vibe, like it's lost in time due to its very old structures. Because of this, the place has been shrouded in mysteries and horror stories.

It doesn't help that the whole town was once burned to the ground in a very gruesome war that almost wiped my country off the map in the 1800s. So here's what happened. It was my last year in school, our last camp. After a long day of all of my classes, I was tired from hiking in the forest next to the camp. So after dinner and a short stay at a campfire, we were sent to bed. My class was made mostly of women. We were very few men, only six, including me, so we had the whole dorm hall for all of us.

This dorm, which was housing only six teens, was a long hall full of bunks made for at least 40 people. Since we didn't have to share, we all chose top bunks next to each other, three on my side, including me, and three on the row facing me. It was about midnight and we would just lie there, talking, joking and laughing in the dark since the lights were out.

After a couple of minutes, I fell asleep. I woke up at what I would assume was between 2 to 3 a.m. I rose my head from the sheets to see my best friend in his bunk in front of me, also raising his head. He nods, jokingly to the bunk next to him, where another classmate was sleeping. When I turned to see the silhouette of my classmate just standing, staring at his bed.

I laughed quietly and nod to my friend as to play a prank on him, and then before we could act, I see the silhouette crouch and notice that my classmate was fully asleep in his bed. Almost at the same time, my friend and I react and look at each other wide-eyed. Both of us cover ourselves in our sheets doing our best to fall asleep. Somehow we managed to do so. The next morning I went straight to my friend, before I could finish asking if he saw it,

he interrupted with a yes, and he told me exactly what he saw. It was the same thing. We approached this classmate and explained it to him. Of course, he thought we were joking. Both me and my friend remember that events to this day, talking about it every now and then, almost seven to eight years after it happened.

This is a real story. It would have been one thing if I was the only one. to see it, but the fact that my friends saw the exact same thing that I did, it gave me the biggest chills. The OP actually sent me a message with a little more context and information that they wanted me to share. So, I'm from Paraguay, a rather small country that was almost destroyed in a war against three countries in the late 1800s, known as the bloodiest conflict in South America. By the end of the war, Paraguay was using literal children to fight since we lost 90% of the male population. There's a reason why I'm telling you this.

We have many legends and myths, and one of them is Cassandra, very similar to the Weeping Lady, or La Lorona. She's a woman that forever looks for the bodies of her two sons, who were killed in very real battle, which saw the deaths of thousands of kids. She supposedly tends to be crying and calling for the children in places near the water, and by night she'll appear in the rooms of kids trying to take them with her. It's a very popular camp horror story, but the parallels are notable for what happened. Contrary to the girls' dorm room, which was located in a building near the entrance from the campsite,

our dorm was way further, very close to this small river and forest, to the point that you could hear the water flow. Also, the way the whole thing unfolded in retrospect was almost a textbook copy of the tale. This figure behaved similar to the story. When we thought it was still our friend, getting ready to climb back into his bunk, we noticed that it would just stay still in front of the bed,

almost as if it knew we were watching. It crouched slowly as my actual friend turned around in his bed fully asleep. To answer the question of, could it be somebody else, I had clear visual of every classmate, including the one that was awake with me. Everyone was in bed. Could it have been a teacher? Well, no teacher or groundskeeper was staying with us.

Whatever that thing was, it was not one of us. I just spoke with my friend who witnessed everything, and he also remembers it in full detail. I asked him if he saw what the figure looked like since his bunk was next to it and he said that at first the silhouette kind of looked like our classmate but something about it was off he said that before crouching it turned and he couldn't make out which direction it was staring at every time I remember this

my heart sinks greetings Raven first off I want to say that I'm a newer listener but in this short time and countless episodes later, I've become a big fan of what you do from the content matter to your delivery of user-submitted stories. Thank you. It's comforting to know that I'm not the only one to experience the unknown, and I feel right at home, so thank you for that.

That being said, I would like to share with you which is one of the many unexplained experiences from my childhood. This one in particular has haunted me my entire life. This day has always been a clear memory for me and has always scared the hell out of me since. So, just to give a little context here, when I was a kid I always had a really bad habit of sitting on the arms of our family's sofas.

And it was one of my dad's pet peeves. So, of course, he would always yell at me for doing this. I think the year was either 1995 or 1996. So, on the day in question, and I would have been five to six years old. I didn't have school that day, so I was at home during the daytime, and my mom was home too. But being the neat freak, she's always been, she was busy cleaning the house. My dad was at work, so I was just kind of bored and wandering around the house when,

just as I walked into my living room, who else do I see but my dad? And there he is, just sitting on the arm of the sofa, the exact, same way that he always hated. But he had a weird energy about him and looked slightly different. His eyes were black, and his skin was really pale, much more than his usual complexion.

I just remember being completely caught off guard, not only because I was constantly getting in trouble for doing that very thing, but he was supposed to be working still, as it was late morning, early afternoon, and he would work the standard 9 to 5. So, I ask him, why is he sitting like that if it was bad?

He doesn't respond. He only stares at me. I followed up by asking him, aren't you supposed to be working? Once again, not a single response, just a creepy, lifeless stare. I start feeling unsettled and run off to go find my mom to let her know that dad was home.

I find her in one of the bedrooms in the back of the house and let her know Dad's home, prompting us to walk out into the living room. But when we walk around the corner, no one is there. He was gone. I assume he just left to go back to work, but later on that evening after coming home from work at the usual time, as we were talking, I decided to ask him why he came home earlier in the day, followed by why is it okay for him to sit on the end of the couch but I couldn't. A puzzled look comes over his face as he explains to me that he was at work all day and had absolutely no clue what I was even talking about.

The thing about my dad is he's always been a straight shooter, a no-nonsense guy, and never one to joke around. So, if that was not my dad that I interacted with, then who or what was it? and furthermore, what in the hell did it want for me? I would hope that perhaps my story may help inspire other people with similar experiences to come forward and share theirs as well. It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet,

from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. Jet, where your story takes off. admit that, but I'm always looking for ways to improve. While picking my elective classes in my junior year of high school, one of the choices we had included a creative writing class. I immediately knew that I would be choosing that class,

and even my previously favorite elective, which was French, was going to be overshadowed by all its glory. But I was excited. I wanted to improve my writing and even learn more techniques. But while I enjoy using my words to create a place people could get lost in, others use theirs to cause harm, fear even, and not the kind that we enjoy, not the kind that we're all here for. Our class had more people in it than I expected,

and definitely some people were there that I was surprised by. The bigger question was, were they there because they truly wanted to take the class, or because they thought it was going to be an easy one to pass? Either way, I wasn't going to let them distract me from what I wanted out of the curriculum. The teacher was the senior English literature teacher, Ms. Clark, so while I hadn't had her as a teacher yet, I was at least familiar with her, which was nice. I would get to experience her style of teaching a year earlier.

I quickly learned that Ms. Clark was definitely the teacher for this class, and for anything English and writing. She was very much a miss frizzle, but for literature type. She was eccentric, colorful, and very kind. It seemed that she would do anything in class to get the kids motivated and in the right mood, even if it meant making a full of herself. She stood on a desk before, tapping a rhythm to a poem as she recited it from memory. She was a lot of fun.

The class was for the whole year, not just a semester, which was nice too. The goal for the end of the year was to write a short story with the minimum of so many words. Of course, once I learned that, I thought surely this must truly be a group of people that were passionate about writing. Because that would be no easy feat, right? Throughout the year we looked at different topics on how to write a story. I promise this is all related. Some of the sections we talked about were our main plot, ideas, characters, settings, how to show more than tell, and so forth.

In the second quarter, one of the topics we worked on were character qualities, strengths and weaknesses, fears, accomplishments, etc. She wanted us to focus on building a dynamic character that was different from our average daily joe that we might see. And her way of doing that was to hone in on our fears. Of course, we didn't quite know the full take on this at the time. time. It started as her explaining how we were going to use a single page and write down all of those

qualities. We could be as descriptive as we wanted, and we could write it however we wanted. In lines, number them with pictures, it didn't matter, as long as we thoroughly explained them. The only stipulation, really, was that we had to be able to separate each thought in the form of being able to cut each of them out. Simple enough. I made my list and thought it was pretty extensive, expecting that we would use these for character development, too. We had to do a similar assignment where we wrote down secrets, dreams, and goals.

I thought that I saw where this was all going, and I was liking the idea. So, after us writing all of our ideas and cutting them out, Ms. Clark came by with a wide and dark colored basket, and told us that we would be putting all of our ideas in the container. Now, of course, this seemed kind of terrifying at first, given what was written on those papers. But we were all instructed to use pencils, and no names were to be written on them anywhere. It was supposed to be completely anonymous. I thought the names weren't provided because we would just be keeping the list to ourselves.

I was not expecting that. She explained how our fears and vulnerabilities can be used to make more. convincing characters. She was going to read them out loud in front of the class, and then pinning them to the sideboard so we could go back to them. The purpose was to give us more conflict options about our characters. We weren't expecting this to bleed into our actual lives. Some that she read were tame, like stresses of passing classes, sadness about a relative

passing too soon, or losing weight. But then there were some heavier ones that definitely made the classroom feel different. Someone confessed an eating disorder that they feared would eventually killed them. Someone mentioned drug use, possibly being pregnant, and the mood of the class slowly shifted. We all started looking around to see if we could catch someone's reaction to the confessions. Everyone except Ms. Clark. She would continue with a poker face reading off the slips. Occasionally she would look over her glasses at the class but still gave no reaction.

She paused when one of them made us chuckle a bit, and she basically scolded us. She reminded us that these were very real. These were very important topics for us, and we were to take them seriously. She wasn't one to get too serious, so when she did, we all pretty much straightened up. But then she trailed off reading one. We knew something was wrong. As mentioned, she collected these from us the day that she read them, so she didn't get a chance to go through them before.

I fear that one day I will not be able to handle it anymore, and I'll steal my dad's handgun, bring it to school, and... Ms. Clark stopped reading it, clearly. But it was already out there enough for us to fill in the rest. She quickly looked up and scanned over the room, her face completely pale. She held it up and asked, Who wrote this? No one responded. We all looked around hoping someone. would confess. I hoped they would stand up and say it was a lie or they were just messing around,

but no one did. Ms. Clark stood up and gave a small speech. Her voice was almost shaky. She explained how she understood this was a very personal assignment, but that this was more than that. She explained how she appreciated the honesty and true emotions that we chose to share in these, but said this one needed more attention, to be more than a topic for a fictional story. She continued to look us all over slowly, studying our faces, asking one of us to come forward. She even pleaded.

If we didn't feel comfortable now, she asked us to approach her after class so they could talk about it more. We sat in silence as she waited for a few minutes, but, God, it felt like hours. The room was tense. Some of us were holding back tears. it was insane.

I remember sitting there really trying to figure out how much we knew each other. I had a few friends taking the class. Two of them were in the same hour as myself. My other friends had her in a different hour. However, my class was the first creative writing class that she taught for the days, so I would have to be the one to tell or rather warn my friends that this was going to happen. So I had a few friends in this class. I was acquainted with others.

and there were some other sprinkled in that I hardly knew or rarely talked to. I remember looking them all over, thinking, if that were true, that confession, who would be capable of something like that? Or who's been having enough issues at school that they would do that? And their plans were obviously more than just self-harm, right? Since they wanted to bring it to school. I had to keep myself calm to not cause anxiety, but that was a hard day. It only seemed to get harder from there.

I remember people forming their normal cliques in the halls. Anyone they saw, such as myself, that weren't a part of it, they watched you intently. There was whispering or gossiping, rather. People either kept to themselves or those they knew more while some tried to make friends and force that connection harder. The rumors spread really fast. It was like they were all trying to figure out who wrote it, or maybe just be on everyone's good side.

I don't know which one was better. But then there were other fears and confessions that were shared that day that caused panic and isolation from others. Some people accused others of being the owner of the confessions. The rumors spread about a few girls in that class being pregnant. I was even made fun of because they thought that I had an eating disorder. It was harsh and difficult to see us all crumbling because of one assignment. There were letters sent out to parents about a possible threat,

and every one of my class was required to speak to a counselor. The talks with my parents were just as painful. Overall, the weeks following that class were pretty draining, but the even bigger concern was that no one ever figured out who wrote it. Or at least if anyone did, they were keeping it very quiet. I would like to think that maybe they could have looked at the handwriting and compared its other work done in the class, but a lot of our work was typed. but maybe they were able to, and they were able to just resolve it.

I know that no one was suspended, and no one seemed to be absent from the class, but the effect definitely lingered in the class. Even Miss Clark seemed different. She did her best to elevate the mood and try to stay in a positive light, but the damage was already done. Miss Clark wasn't there for my senior year either, and there was no announcement of her leaving, so I wonder if she was actually fired after that year.

The class still remained as an elective, but I heard it wasn't nearly as exciting as it once was. All I know is that I learned a lot more in that class than just writing styles, and it left a lasting effect on me. And to my fellow classmates, if those feelings were true, I hope that you got the help that you needed. Hi, Raven. This is my second submission only.

I appreciate you giving us a place to hear these stories and not feel crazy, so thank you. I get ghost visitors mainly. I've been getting ghost visitors since I was a young child. I would even talk to them. Eventually, I was getting scary ghosts coming, and so I began fearing them. I recently opened my eyes to how I have been giving my power to these ghosts. More and more, I seemed to have attracted negative energy from the ghost, ghost realm, but I think it was from my fear of them.

As I grew up, I was metaphorically running away from them. I was usually alone when they'd come, and I eventually hated their visits. But this year, 2024, I had my first, quote, alien visit. My husband and I were in bed. It was dark approximately 2 a.m. For the first time ever, one came when I was not alone. I was shocked. I instantly turned my head, seeing my husband was beside me. I, for the first time, confronted the intrusive visitor.

I stopped, quote, running away by pretending to be asleep and being scared out of my mind. Something inside me woke up unconsciously to protect my husband from its dark energy. I wouldn't have it. If it was Satan himself, I would stop him. Above me as I was lying in bed was a floating alien head inside a circular black smoke. No body, only the head. The smoke moved constantly slowing in a circular formation. I felt the entity had ill intentions.

My husband was sleeping beside me. I turned my head back to the alien head floating above me in fury. It too was looking at my husband in those seconds as I was, but it was smirking at my husband when I looked back at it. And that pissed me off even more. I did not fear it. Something inside me woke up. The protector.

I spoke to it in fury, but from my mind, I knew it could hear me. How dare you come here with him here? It looked at me at the same time I looked back at it. I stared up at its glowing red eyes furiously, and I felt that my eyes were just as red. It did not speak. I said for it to go away now. It poofed away as instantly as it appeared and I went back to normal.

I was no longer mad at my protector's sign and me went back to sleep. So now when I get intrusive visitors, you feel them coming into your force field and or in your dreams trying to possess you. I'm aware of their presence and I internally confront them, not afraid. I no longer run away. I ask them internally. Why are you here? What do you want? Go away.

If they don't, I tell them, God's light is in you too, and God's love is in you too. He is here and where you are. Connect to God because you are capable as I am capable to talk to him. They usually disappear then. Thanks again, and I appreciate you reading my story.

Hey Raven While I have a few stories of my own That I plan on submitting This one is about my son We will call him R It happened about six months ago When he was six He came out of his room one morning

And let out a big sigh He told my husband and I That he hadn't been sleeping well And our conversation went something like this Me I'm sorry to hear that bud Do you know why Thinking it might be bad dreams

growing pains, etc. Him. A guy is in my room at night. My heart drops. I try to stay calm. I look at my husband and we're in a silent agreement to not escalate the situation. We often say R is in his own world. He's full of imagination and wonder.

My husband. A guy? Like you keep dreaming about someone coming in your room? R. No, he's really in there, but maybe he's not. a guy. I don't know. He has the shape of a human, but he's all misty black. Me. What does he do? R. Well, I wake up and look at the edge of my bed and he rises up from there.

Me. Does he say anything? Do you try to talk to him? Him. No, he doesn't say anything. I don't either because the longer I stare at him, the taller he gets. He goes up to the ceiling over me. I just close my eyes. I just close my eyes. and go back to sleep eventually. I don't want to walk past him to come and get you. Me. How long has he been coming in your room? R.

At least three nights now. That's why I'm so tired. Me. Does he make you feel scared? R. Not really, but I don't feel safe either. He has a knife in his hand. I feel like he wants to scare me but won't actually hurt me.

At this point, I get up and grab all of my cleansing. tools and begin to clear his room. I'm a practicing witch, an energy healer. My husband asks R to draw him. My son then draws what I can only describe as a shadow person. The only distinct feature is its orange eyes,

which he said kind of glow. He came in the room as I was clearing it and said, I'm going to kind of miss him. I think he was used to people being scared of him and was just lonely. I told him while that might be the case, he was keeping R from getting good sleep,

and there's no reason that any spirit or human should try to be scaring a child. I tried to keep it as light as to not instill any fear that might attract more spirits or make him feel any more uneasy. I was confident in my ability to clear the room and protect it.

Ever since I did, my son hasn't seen him again. I refresh it every so often and spray Florida water in there every night. before bed. R cut out the drawing of the figure and carried it around a while. He named it 99. Eventually he used it as inspiration to create an entire story about characters with number names. 99, 88, 66, etc.

This was eye-opening for me, and now I make sure he knows how to protect his energy. And I keep the house cleansed regularly. He's drawn to spooky things, so I'm glad this lesson came up while he was young, as I'm sure this won't be the last of his encounters. What's worse than having one of your neighbors stock you? When they still do it after they're dead. In 1991, I was living in a small one-bedroom apartment in Nampa, Idaho. The complex was shaped like an L with only five units on both sides.

Back then, the rent was cheap. Only 2.25 a month. If only we could bring that back. All but one of my neighbors were nice and kept the noise down. I was in my early 20s living alone, working an office job. I'd only been living there a couple of months before the trouble started. I would notice sounds of movement behind and around my apartment at all hours when I was home, off and on. I always kept my doors locked. The biggest giveaway was the time I finished a phone call and heard the scattering of gravel outside my bedroom window. I flipped the curtain aside and saw him.

Some guy was hunched over and running away. I was irritated the stranger had been listening in on my phone conversation. He made me more nervous knowing that he was the same one who had been sneaking around trying to get glimpses of me through my window, through gaps in the curtains. I decided that if it escalated, I was going to tell the landlady. Fast forward to the last month of September, I was watching TV when I heard a commotion of ambulances and fire trucks in the parking lot.

I went outside to see my landlady smoking and staring at the scene. I tried asking a cop what was going on, but he said he wasn't allowed to tell me, but the landlady did. She said the young 20-something man, three doors down from me, had been fighting with two other women in the apartment. He had stabbed both of them, and then himself. I watched the ER team carry the bodies out to the ambulance and drive away. One of the bodies had been my peeping tom. The spying stopped, or so I thought.

Two months later, I awoke to see a faceless, long, black, swirling man-shaped, cloud hovering above me. To make it creepier, he was looking back and forth from my face to my body. I knew what he was about to do, so I screamed at him to get off of me. He flew backwards into the wall behind me, and changed into a smaller, weaker version of a more solid shadow form until he disappeared into the wall. I slept out in the living room for a while. The last incident that made me move out,

was three weeks later. He woke me up by sitting on my bed. I could even feel his weight, making my feet roll into him as he looked down to me. That did it. I moved out a couple of weeks later. I only saw him one more time four years later. My sister lived in that same complex and had a one-year-old daughter.

I babysat sometimes. She was in her crib in her room, and I sat on the living room couch reading. When I saw a faint shadow stand behind the light. This light sat in front of me on a tall stand, and had a dimmer switch. The light faded off and on slowly three times, and then the shadow stepped away to who knows where. Peeping Tom was back, and he remembered me. I never understood why he was so obsessed with me, but at least he doesn't follow me anymore.

I wonder if he's still there, or... if he moved on. There have been a lot more strange paranormal occurrences in my life, but that's just one example. Maybe I'll include those in another post, and thank you, Raven, for listening. Hey there, friends, I hope that you enjoyed this collection of scary stories on this episode of the As the Raven Dreams podcast. If the platform you're on has the option to follow podcast and you enjoyed my work, please do consider doing so.

Also, leaving ratings and reviews are super important for the algorithm to support the growth of the podcast. I'm just one guy doing this. I don't have a team. It's literally just me doing everything. So any support like that is greatly appreciated. Never expected, though. So if you go above and beyond with that, I do appreciate it. Some platforms also allow you to leave comments, and if you feel inclined to do so, please do.

I would appreciate that. I do have a Patreon in a merch store that you can also check out if you want to support a little further. The Patreon side of things get you early access to all of my content. It is formatted differently as it goes in line with what my YouTube channel is, but it is the same stories, just different collections. There is also a website, astherravendreams.com, where you can check out pretty much everything about me, my social media platforms,

fiction stories I've written if you want to read those, as well as submitting your own stories, which there's a big button on the front page, you click to do so. And those stories basically keep the podcast alive, to be honest with you. So, yeah. All that said, friends, I do hope that I see you again here very soon. Until then, remember that you are loved, that you are valid, that you are important. You're the best you that you can be.

Don't forget it. And until next time, much love and sleep well.