As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 186 - Scary stories from Reddit & Other Strange And Scary Stories

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Today, on the 186th episode of the As The Raven Dreams podcast, we have 13 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 terrifying stories from Reddit, and other scary stories from listeners! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like or rate the podcast, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if the platform your own supports it! Scary story episodes 2 to 3 times a week (New stories On Wed/Fri, Comps/remasters on Sundays) If you have a story to submit, would like to find where to listen to the podcast, or want to find me on social media platforms, all of that info can be found at https://www.astheravendreams.com You can also send stories into my subreddit (r/theravensdream) or email them to me at [e-mail] Want to check out some ATRD Podcast Merch? ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Or for signed merch ➤ https://ko-fi.com/AsTheRavenDreams I wrote a novel, "The Insomniac's Experiment" by Raven Adams! Check it out on amazon (Or you can email me for a signed copy!) Join Patreon to get early access and support the Podcast! ➤ https://www.patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out my gaming channel with my pal Ghost_Ink ➤ @superNefariousBros On YouTube Disclaimer ➤ Episodes include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Listener discretion is always advised. ALL Audio and visuals on this podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format. Bless This Mess. #AsTheRavenDreams #TrueScaryStories #GlitchInTheMatrix Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in todays episode... Nolan W, EmmaRose, Lily Wood, Lane Butler, SW, Andi, Kris Fawcett, , ThatGuyCollin, snopesinjin, Maria, DeathTurkey-, Combat_Commo , dthomas028 As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. TimeStamps… 1 ➤ 0:52 2 ➤ 8:19 3 ➤ 15:10 4 ➤ 19:13 5 ➤ 23:43 6 ➤ 27:33 7 ➤ 32:49 8 ➤ 39:57 9 ➤ 45:08 10 ➤ 49:54 11 ➤ 51:34 12 ➤ 1:01:08 13 ➤ 1:04:16 ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #GlitchInTheMatrix #RedditStories 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

Welcome to aboard Via Raille. Embarked and profite. Embarked and relax. Ciroat. Bookine. Oh, that also. And profite.

Viarai. The voice that we love that we have. Good afternoon, my friends. Hope you're doing well on this, uh, whatever day it is. Uh, hopefully you're doing well. Hopefully you enjoy these stories. Today we have a collection of strange and scary

and then other stories from Reddit. Just kind of a. mashup of stuff. A mix-up of stories of all topics, and yeah. I don't do typically large collections of random stories like this too often, but it's a fun time when I do,

so. Anyways, friends, hopefully you enjoy. Hope you have a rest, a grace, hope you have a great rest of your week, that's what I was trying to say. And hope you have a great afternoon. Kind of said that backwards, but oh well. Anyways, friends, much love and enjoy.

This story happened to me back in the summer of 2018 when I was transitioning into eighth grade. I went to a sleepaway camp in the Appalachian Mountains. I considered it a second home for me. I didn't really have to worry about schoolwork besides summer homework, and I made some of the greatest friends I ever had there. This is one of my main reasons of why summer is my favorite season. I got along with literally everyone at the camp, Except this one person made me see how dangerous people can really be.

That summer, there was a new counselor whose name was Art. He looked to be about in his 50s due to his white hair and slight wrinkled skin. Being a camp counselor in your 50s does not seem right to me. I don't know about you guys, but it gives off pedo vibes to me. When me and my bunk first met him, he seemed like a trustworthy person. For the first week of camp he helped us clean our bunk when it was dirty and talked to us whenever we were feeling down. Me and my bunk didn't have any problem with him for the start, but the girls around camp would talk behind Art's back, and they would say things like, he's a creepy old man that probably prays on children.

After all, he was way older than all the other counselors, so I could see where they were coming from. One night, things got a little intense. We had a recess night where we got to do whatever we wanted, and me and my fellow bunkmates played tennis with each other. During the game, Art would watch us the whole time. During that time, he would give off a big grin that looked like how Pennywise the clown from IT would grin. I actually thought this was creepy. Why was he smiling like that?

Was he really who the girls had said he was? Part of me actually thought that he was just admiring how much fun we were. were all having. It didn't stop there, though. One other night when I came out of the shower, I saw a shaving cream bottle. Now, this is when I started to go through my puberty phases, but I didn't have any facial hair yet. I walked over to the bottle where it was on the bathroom's sink, and I grabbed it and examined the whole thing. As soon as I did that, though, I felt tense hand grips touch my arms. I turned around to see who it was, and it was art.

His facial expression had such a demeanor. He then spoke. Listen to me, you little C word that I can't say and keep this monetized. I'm not going to have you ever touch my belongings. You got that? I didn't know what was going on because everything had happened was so fast. I was really scared, so I just complied with, yes. Good.

You better not do it. it again, or else I'm going to kill you. He threatened. I then walked out of the bathroom with my bathrobe still on and was still shaking from what had just happened seconds ago. I was surprised that no one else in the bunk had even heard the whole encounter. I didn't feel comfortable telling anyone about this. It was just embarrassing.

Later I was able to cool off, but from there I'll try my best to avoid art as much as I could. It was now the end of the first week of camp. And one last thing happened that almost made me want to go home and never return to the camp. It was like a Tuesday or Wednesday night on the second week of camp. And me and my bunk were just heading back from movie night, which the camp decided to do that night. It was also Art's night off. This made me happy because I didn't feel safe around him knowing that he had threatened me just days before.

I got back to the cabin and about 15 minutes inside the cabin. I heard screaming from a far distance. There were definitely like ten little girls screaming. This went on for like another minute, and then it stopped. Me and all of my other bunkmates looked at each other in confusion as to what could possibly have been going on out there. We had three counselors present with us that night, and two counselors told us to stay here as they were going to investigate what was happening. The other counselors stayed with us.

We all listened and stayed put. About an hour and a half passed, and our two councillors were still gone. Something major had to have happened. It was also time for lights out, and so the counselor who was still with us, turned the lights off, and we were all in bed. I guess that we would all find out what happened the next morning. Morning time then came, and we were eating breakfast at the camp's dining hall. We were allowed to sit wherever we wanted to,

and that's what I did. I sat down with a few of my bunkmates, and some older girls sat down with us. As we were eating, one of the girls finally told us the story of what had happened, that previous night. One of the younger girls' cabins heard some noise from their bathroom last night,

while their counselors were outside talking to each other. The girls went to go see what the noise was, and when they reached the bathroom stall where the noise was coming from, they opened the door and they all saw the one and only, only 50-year-old counselor, Art, sitting on the toilet with his pants down, revealing himself. He then smiled and said, Hey, pretty girls. That's when all the girls screamed and ran out of the cabin, which were the screams that we heard.

They ran so far deep into the woods while one of the two other counselors followed behind. Art was still inside the bathroom while two of their counselors remained at the cabin, and the other councillors, including two of mine, went inside. They all saw him still sitting on the toilet with his pants down. That's when three male councillors wrestled Art to the ground and held him down there. Another counselor then called for the camp police on his walkie-talkie and said everything that all went down. When the police arrived, Art was still down in the same position, and that's when he was taken away in a police car. He was still in custody that morning, and that young girl's bunk had to sleep in a couple of other girls' cabins, because they were clearly not safe there.

Everyone at my table just stopped eating, and all of our jaws were dropped. I'm sure every other table was talking about it as well. My heart went out to all the little girls who had seen true terror that last night. I did one more summer after that summer at the sleepaway camp, and nothing that severe every day. happened again. Art, obviously, never returned again to the camp. And I wouldn't be too surprised if he is still being held in some sort of institution to keep him away from children. Monsters like him should be held in prison for a very long time, maybe even life. I hope he's getting all the hard time he deserves in prison because child predators like him do not belong in this

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Hey, everybody. I was randomly suggested the subreddit by a Reddit notification, and after reading a couple of and realizing there was a popular shadow person tag here, I thought I would share my own experience from when I was a child, with the entity that I have called the shadow girl for as long as I can remember. It should be said that I'm 19 male now, and all three of the events I'm about to

describe happened when I was pretty young, from around 6 to 8. When I was younger and my parents were still married, it was me, my one older brother, my two younger sisters, and my parents, obviously. My dad is in a very high post-secondary educational position, which he got when we were young in Winnipeg, where I still live now. As he was in the process of getting this position, we lived half the time in Winnipeg as we looked for a place to live there, and half the time in a house across the U.S. border in Pembina. We eventually got a house in Winnipeg, and we slowly moved into that house from the Pembina house over some period of time. I don't really remember how long, but it isn't important. The first encounter.

I was in the second grade when I saw her at our newer house. I had come home from school, and very soon after, decided that I wanted to play Minecraft on our family tablet, which was kept charging in my parents' room on the second floor of our house. I ran up our curved staircase and turned right immediately through the doorway of my parents' room. As I entered and stood to face my parents' bed, the tablets directly across the room from the foot of their bed, I saw her. I stood completely in shock. The pitch-black silhouette of a young girl in a puffy dress was sitting on the foot of my parents' bed, and staring straight forward at the wall ahead of her.

I didn't know what to do, but I felt paralyzed as I watched her. She ever so slowly turned her head to look at me with these saucer-like white eyes. Just an absence of black on her face, where instead was white, and those were her eyes. I slowly leaned out of my parents' doorway after a couple of seconds of eye contact and yelled downstairs. Dad? Dad? but nothing back. And so as I peeked into the room, she was gone.

Just gone. I was afraid, so I stepped carefully, but still retrieved the tablet, and scurried downstairs as if something were nipping at my ankles. Pembina is a small town now, and it was even smaller when I was young. In our house, which we called the little house, or the Pembina house, there was a very creepy basement, a main floor and a second floor. My brother and I shared the room on the second floor, as did my sisters, and my parents slept in a room on the main floor.

Now, the second encounter. I don't remember the context for why I was going to my room or anything, or how far apart this was from the first encounter. But I rounded a corner to enter the stairwell, and I remember distinctly I was looking at my feet on the first two steps. I then looked up the stairs and froze as I saw her at the top of the stairs.

Again, just staring at me. I don't know what had gotten into me at this time, but I was annoyed enough at this thing for showing up that I went up the stairs at a full sprint to try to catch her. I watched as her whole body just turned without lifting. lifting her legs, and walked so slowly around the corner and up the stairs, which led to the second floor just past the corner. I made it to the top, and surprise, surprise, she was nowhere. I looked in every room upstairs, and nothing.

She had disappeared again. Then the last encounter. This happened at our Pembina house. I was a very outdoorsy kid and loved catching bugs and collecting rock. and building forts and everything. It was awesome in our backyard, and I had caught a butterfly with a glass from our kitchen and decided that the best place to store it was in my sister's closet,

under a glass, with a single branch. My logic was that it would be safe and not be found or stolen by anyone since my sisters didn't use their closet. I slid a piece of paper under the glass to seal the butterfly in, and I remember that the paper had a drawing I had done of the iron robot from that animated kids movie of the same name. Very crudely drawn, but I remember that fun detail. Anyway, the next day I went back, up the stairs to the second floor, into my sister's closet,

and to my surprise, discovered a very dead butterfly. I was very sad, and I looked out my sister's window at that moment, and immediately caught her gaze. She was standing far out in our yard, very far, but she was looking up at me through the window. I put down the butterfly and slowly walked to the window, not breaking eye contact. After about a minute of her staring,

she once again turned without moving her legs and almost floated off to the side, out of view behind a hedge. To this day, I have no explanation further than her being a shadow person. And I was first introduced to that revelation in the sixth grade when I was reading a haunted Canada book, which had a story detailing a shadow person.

I hope people don't think that I'm just making things up as I try to include every detail I could remember. To this day, I'm still scared that she's watching sometimes. But it's just paranoia, I'm sure, since I haven't seen her since then. Anyways, if people liked this, I have a lot more ghost encounters that my whole family has experienced

after my parents' divorce, which I'd be happy to share. Have a great day, and thank you for reading. I'm not too sure why my former roommate Tessa took her sweet time to tell me this story. Maybe she was hesitant because she didn't want me to panic, potentially. But I find it strange, that Tessa never told me about this until a year after it happened.

It's really hard to say. In the summer of 2023, Tessa was getting ready to work for the day. It was between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. when she got up. As she was picking out her outfit for the day, Tessa heard the doorbell ring a few times in a row. Tessa's bedroom window was above the front door of our house, so she was typically able to see if someone was on our front stoop or not. until now. Tessa then opens up her bedroom window in an attempt to get a closer look at who this mysterious individual was at our doorstep. Tessa didn't see anyone, but she heard an

overall disturbingly friendly female voice begin to speak. According to Tessa, this mysterious lady sounded like she was in her early 30s. Hello? Is Emma Rose there? I need to speak to her now, please, said the mysterious lady at our front stoop with that same overly friendly voice to the point that it was chilling. Tessa replied questioning the lady. Who are you? What's your name? The mysterious lady then replied in a slightly more demanding tone. Is Emma Rose home? I need to speak to her now.

Tessa replied, can I at least see what you look like? The lady said abruptly. It doesn't matter who I am or what I look like. Get Emma Rose. I need to speak to her now. Tessa then abruptly said, Listen, if you won't tell us who you are or how you know my roommate, Emma Rose,

why you're here, let alone show your face so we can see who you are, then you need to leave. Tessa continued even more firmly and abruptly. We have no idea who you are. We've never heard your voice before. We have no idea how. you know us, let alone you're not telling us your name. You need to leave and never return.

The lady then sighed dramatically with sass and said, Yeah, well, I'll leave him a rose and note then. Then the lady stormed off as quickly as she could, as if she was a ninja who didn't want to be seen. Tessa then closed the window and continued to get ready for work. Apparently, according to Tessa, this all happened when I was either sleeping or out and about getting my coffee that I sometimes got on occasion bright and early.

To this day, I still haven't received any sort of note nor letter from this mysterious lady. I have so many unanswered questions that I probably won't get the answers I need any time soon about this particular and peculiar situation. What did she want? How does she know me? Was she dangerous? What were her intentions? What was this supposed note that she was going to leave me?

Or what would it have said? And why? Yeah, I've definitely had a bunch of paranormal experiences from an extremely long time, from a large handful of UFO sightings, potential glitches in the Matrix, dreams about the devil approaching me in my dreams at night. And the list continues to go on and on. Maybe this lady had the answer. to all the questions that I still have about my paranormal experiences.

I guess I'll never know. Or at least, I won't know until the moment I least expect it in the way that I least expect it. Hey, everyone. I'm a long-time lurker to this sub, and I'm a personal believer in Bigfoot and other supernatural things. But I've never posted anything about it anywhere. Until now, of course. but to be honest, I don't really think it was a Bigfoot that I witnessed in the story I'm about to tell. More so, I'm just looking for answers as to what I saw.

Suggestions to subs that may help are also welcomed, as I'm a new when it comes to Reddit. Alas, here is my encounter with something I cannot explain. This happened about four years ago in the small town of Shuela, Washington. My girlfriend, now X, not that it really matters for the story, and I decided to plan a getaway trip for a long weekend in a yurt, since we both love nature and going places far from the city. In the middle of nowhere, it seemed like a good time. And it truly was a great time. The thing that struck me most about staying in that yurt was just how dark and quiet it was at nighttime in the middle of the night.

When you're not used to the wilderness, it's quite striking how silent things can be, and how dark the outside is when there's no light pollution involved. The outhouse where you had to go to the bathroom was about 75 yards away from the yurt, and you had to take a flashlight with you to navigate the darkness. The first night we were there, nature called and I went outside to find the bathroom. I shined the flashlight that cut through the darkness like a lightsaber around and spotted eyeshine. It was nothing more than a good-sized female deer, but I would have no idea she was there if I didn't see its eyes via the flashlight. The actual encounter happened our last night there at approximately 11 p.m. to midnight.

We were playing cards inside the yurt by the fire when out of nowhere, we heard this huge crash, slash bang on the side of the yurt. Almost as if something threw itself into the side of it, or was running and didn't see it there until it was too late kind of thing. Obviously startled, we wanted to see what had made such a sound. As we were in the middle of nowhere, but we were still on a property, and not very deep in the woods for it to have been a bear or mountain lion. At least I thought so.

What happens next is hard to explain. I threw the door open, and I shined my flashlight like I did the night prior, when I saw the deer. And I saw something in the same spot, but it was different. It had no eye shine, and I only saw it for a moment. But it looked like it was white, or gray, and it had a slender build to it. What creaked me out was the way that it moved. It seemed to crouch down while looking in my direction, slinking away out of frame like a big cat or a monkey might move out of the way.

And then I never saw anything after that. I didn't try to investigate because, crap, I was scared. I thought it might have been a cougar or something, and I was not trying to die in front of my girlfriend, even if she left me not long after this. That aside, whatever I saw was unlike anything I've seen before, and I couldn't make out a face. I read on a post on this sub earlier today

that someone had a big foot encounter of its crawling across the ground. And for whatever reason it made me remember this encounter and it sent shivers down my spine. I'm not saying it was a big foot. Hell, it could have been something normal, I guess. I did only see it for maybe a few seconds at most. But I've never seen anything moved,

like that in real life, or even in a movie or TV show. It was strange. And I'm sorry if I'm rambling, but I guess I'm wondering if anyone has had any similar encounters or an explanation for what I could have seen. This just happened to me last night, and I am still hyperventilating from it. I'm going to tell you some information that might seem not needed at first, but it all makes sense once I finish the full story. I'm a 25-year-old female who is a manager at McDonald's living alone in a house in Rio Grande City, Texas, which is one of the hottest

places in the country. It's hot all year long and I want to leave this town, but sadly I can't afford to move somewhere else. Sometimes I would leave the AC on in the house, even when I'm sleeping. Sometimes I would also sleep with the window open because the AC bill is high, and I don't want to waste using it, because I don't have that much money, like I said before. Now let's get to the point of the story. I was going to bed, I didn't leave the AC on, so I decided to leave my window open, and it was also windy outside. I turned off the lights, went under the covers, and then fell asleep eventually. but not for too long. I woke up in the middle of the night.

I wasn't too sure what woke me up. I'm usually a deep sleeper, and I would only wake up if I'm thirsty or if I need to use the bathroom. I didn't need to do either of those things. I looked at my clock, and it was 301 a.m. I was starting to become more awake now. And then all of a sudden, I heard a noise to my left.

It was the sound of someone passing gas. I turned my head and just barely provided by the clocklight. I saw an old man. He was sleeping with his back of his head on the pillow. I almost screamed out loud, but I held it in because I was afraid that I would wake him up, and he would do something bad to me. What I did instead was that I grabbed my phone and quietly ran outside my bedroom and opened the door, hoping it wouldn't wake the man up.

I went to the bathroom on the other side of the house and dialed emergency. services. I soon connected with an operator and told them everything. The operator asked if there had likely been any sort of forced entry through the house. I told the operator, no, everything in the house was locked except my bedroom window, which I left open for fresh air. I stayed on the line for about 10 minutes until I heard knocks at my front door, in the words of police open up. I ran to the door and opened it. There were two police officers. I showed them that there was a man sleeping in my bedroom on my bed.

I showed them the way, and I walked behind them and also hiding behind the officer on the right. The officer on the left turned on the light, and we saw that the man was gone and was nowhere in sight. We searched the whole house, and nothing came up. They said they had to go and to call back if the guy returns. I just said, okay, no problem. And then they left. I moved to sleep on the living room couch because I didn't feel safe in my bedroom. I also didn't fall asleep that night after what had happened.

I'm about to go to bed on the living room couch again, because I still don't feel safe. And I'll probably sleep on the couch for a long time. I'm still afraid that the old man might come back one night, but it is pretty unlikely. Stuff like this doesn't usually happen in this town as it's generally safe. All I hope is that nobody watching has to experience what I went through. I have an experience that I wanted to share because it's been so strange. I don't think it's necessarily scary, but definitely weird. I don't know if it'll fit anywhere on your podcast, but I wanted to send it in either way.

It may have something to do with glitches or parallel universes or something, but I don't really know. I've been doing a lot of reading about these kinds of things, and obviously I listened to your show, so maybe my brain was influenced a bit by that. One of the things that I read was that strange things tend to happen between three and four in the morning, something about it being the witching hour. The other day I was online, I think I was on Reddit, actually, and as I was scrolling down whatever subreddit it was, I noticed that every single posts that it had been posted three days ago.

I scrolled for a while and I swear every single post was posted three days ago. This wasn't an unpopular subreddit. So for it to not have any posts for three full days, that would be a bit weird, right? It could have been a site glitch, and I know it's not a huge deal, but it's something that I wanted to mention, and there is more to all this, I promise. The next day, my boyfriend decided to stay over. We're not living together yet, and we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. So he comes over sometimes and just stays the night. We're both night owls, so it was once again about three something in the morning,

when he gets up and says that he wants a glass of juice. Nothing too crazy about that, but then I hear him shout from the kitchen. Hey, your milk went bad three days ago. At first it didn't mean much, but then I kind of just rolled the words around in my head and thought about the whole three days thing. I mentioned it was weird, that it was exactly three days ago, and he laughed asking why it was weird. I sort of explained it to him, but he laughed it off, and we moved on. The next day, as I was pulling out of my parking spot at my apartment, one of my neighbors was pulling through and not paying enough attention. and they clipped the back end of my car.

It wasn't a huge deal, but we did the whole stop and look at our cars thing. They pulled into the spot next to mine, and we were both behind our cars exchanging information when I looked over at their car, and they had a temp tag that had expired. I absent mind at least said, Oh, hey, your temp tag expired three days ago. I didn't even do the math in my head.

It was just instinctual, and worse yet it was factual. Their tag had expired three days prior. Thankfully, they had insurance and it all ended up fine, with the damage, I mean. On the next day, which I would like to mention is when the first day that I noticed the three days ago thing would be exactly three days ago,

was an incredibly weird day involving the number three. I grabbed coffee, and it was $3 even. It wasn't fancy, just, basic coffee. I pulled into my work and noticed a license plate that was a vanity plate that was 333. I had a meeting that started at 2 that was supposed to end at 3, but it went on until exactly 3.33 p.m. I watched the clock during the whole meeting. The elevator when I left work stopped on the third floor, and no one was there to get in. Then, when I walked up to the door at my apartment complex, there were three perfectly black,

round, and smooth stones, sitting on the welcome mat to the building. It sent to chill down my spine. I was kind of freaking out about the whole three thing, and I was honestly thinking that I was about to die or something, like this was some kind of weird omen telling me that my time was up. I wanted to grab them, as they were neat stones, like super smooth river rock, but I decided that if this were an omen, I needed to not acknowledge it and just let whatever was going to happen happen. What's crazy is that after that, there were no more threes. There was nothing crazy that happened, and I didn't notice anything else that was out of place.

I don't understand why those three days were so weird, why there were so many threes that happened on the third day, and I honestly don't want to know if I passed up some crazy happening by ignoring the stones or something. I'm glad to have gotten away from it all, but I'm still very weirded out. Like I said, this wasn't too scary, but it was an incredibly strange set of circumstances.

This is something that happened to me back when I was in the seventh grade, back in 2016, living in New York City. I had this math teacher named Ms. Andre. She wasn't exactly my favorite teacher, as I felt she wasn't the nicest to me in my class, and she would give us a load of homework that was like homework for someone who was like a senior in college. Anyway, let's get to the point of this story. It was a Friday after school, which was the last day, before we had a one-week break because of the President's Day holiday.

I was on my way home, riding on a school bus that I would take to school and to home every day. As I was halfway home, the bus stopped at a red light. As we were waiting for the light to turn green, I saw something that caught my eye as I was looking out the window, listening to music with headphones on. To the left of me, I saw my teacher, Ms. Andre. She was directly looking at me, and she looked at me, and she looked at me. looked so uptight. I felt so unnerved. I wondered if she was following the bus, but that was highly

unlikely. It was probably just a coincidence. Also, the window was pretty dark, so she might have been unsure if it was me or not. The light then turned green and we drove away. It was weird seeing someone I knew outside of school, considering that New York City is the most populated city in the country. I got home and was able to move past what I had seen earlier. The next morning, me and my family, along with my cousins,

went to go see a muse concert in New Jersey. Sometime in the concert, Ms. Andre appeared again. This time she was on the stage of the Prudential Center. She just appeared, like magic, looking straight at me with the same

facial expression from yesterday. This had to have been a hallucination. Because if it wasn't, everyone in the crowd would have noticed her and the security guards would have escorted her off the stage. I felt less uneasy now that I was coming to terms that this wasn't real, so I ignored it and continued to have fun grooving along to the music. That's when she disappeared again. Ms. Andre didn't appear again until the Friday of the next week. On that Friday, me and my family went to spend the weekend hiking at Mount Greylock. About 40 minutes into the hike, Ms. Andre showed up once again.

I wasn't scared anymore. It was getting really annoying, and I didn't know how to get rid of this hallucination. I was contemplating my next move, and then an idea flew into my brain. So, what I did was I ran to where Ms. Andre was, and once I got to where she was standing, she was gone. Just like the wind. Pooh. My family looked at me as if I was on drugs or something. My mother asked me if I was all right.

I came up with this excuse that I had to get some energy out. My mother said, okay then, as she still kept the same facial expression. I didn't want to tell them what I was seeing. I was just way too embarrassed. Plus, they probably wouldn't have believed me anyways. We continued the hike until we reached the top of the mountain. We camped out that night somewhere. in the mountains, and then the next night my parents had booked an Airbnb to stay at.

The house that we stayed at was fairly big. I got my own bedroom. During the next night, I fell asleep at around 11 p.m. I had a dream about Ms. Andre. The dream was about me coming back from President's week break, and she ordered the entire math class to kill me. I pleaded with them not to kill me and screamed the word, no, over and over.

Then a classmate of mine pulled out a pair of scissors from their pocket, and they were sticking it through my heart. Before the scissors could fully pierce my heart, I woke up, and I saw Miss Andre like an inch away from my face. She was laughing and screaming like a hyena, while she had such an angry expression on her face like she was in fact going to kill me. That's when I started screaming and crying for my parents as loud as I could.

and when I did that, Ms. Andre disappeared, like she was never there. Both of my parents came rushing into my room and asked me what was wrong. I could no longer hide what I had been seeing for the past week. I had to tell them the truth. I told them from when the hallucination started the prior Friday on the school bus, the two other instances and just minutes ago when I woke up from a nightmare. They looked really scared and concerned. They could tell I was being serious by me crying.

My father said that he was sorry and asked me, why didn't you tell us sooner? I said to him, I thought you guys wouldn't have believed me and thought I was just crying wolf. My mother then said to me that I could sleep in their room tonight so I could calm down and wouldn't have to be scared anymore. So I slept in their room for the rest of the night. The next morning on the drive back home to the city, I had a long discussion with my parents. about how I shouldn't return to that school because of what had happened this whole week, and I was scared that the hallucinations would continue if I stayed at the school.

I also wanted to transfer to another school right away. They seemed too hesitant to give me a straight answer, and they both said that they would come to a decision, and at nighttime they said that I was allowed to miss school tomorrow, regardless of what decision they made. When it reached nighttime, they said that I was allowed to transfer to a decision. another school if I agreed to see a psychologist once every week. I told them no problem. When I started at my new school, my friends kept asking me through social media and text why I left

the old school. I made up a lie saying that my parents wanted me to go to a school that was better known. Believe it or not, they all actually believed that lie that I told them. The real reason only stays between me, my family, and my psychologist. Speaking of my psychologist, I was able to talk about all of my problems, including the hallucination about my old teacher, Ms. Andre. That really helped me, and the psychologist was able to prescribe me some medicine to help me through each and every day, to make sure I was no longer seeing the stuff in my head, and it all worked. I never saw Ms. Andre with my own eyes ever again, nor did I see any hallucinations again.

I still wonder to this day what may have caused that specific hallucination, but I guess we'll never know. I had stepped out of my neurosurgeon's office into the blinding midday sun. My pupils were still dilated from the eyedrops and everything was a washed-out blur.

I fumbled from my phone, but when I lifted it, the screen was just a glowing white haze. Normally I wouldn't be alone for this. If I had to go through, a bunch of medical tests, a friend would pick me up, make sure I got home safely. But today my usual ride was busy, and after asking around, I couldn't find anyone else. I figured, oh well, I'll be all right. I'll just get an Uber. There was a shadow looming nearby. It was someone tall.

Excuse me, I said, blinking hard and trying to make out their face. I can't see my phone. Could you help me order an Uber? There was a pause, and then a voice, smooth, low, and polite. Of course. I held out my phone, as his fingers brushed mine, a strong musky odor hit me, making my stomach turn. It wasn't cologne and it wasn't sweat. It was wrong.

Earthy, damp, like moldy stone and wet dirt, but beneath that was something sharper, like sulfur or rotten eggs. I tried to breathe in my mouth, but the scent clung to the back of my throat. Even with my vision compromised, I could tell that he was too tall. His shoulders were broad. His movements were too still, too composed. My eyes flicked up at his face, but with the sun behind him, he was a deep silhouette. Then another note hit me, metallic and coppery, like blood.

I swallowed hard. You need to go home? he asked, already tapping on my phone. Uh, yeah, I mumbled. As I stood there, something shifted in my vision. A flicker, like a static over a bad TV screen. His face, for just a fraction of a second, seemed wrong. Not human.

It looked like scales. A slight shimmer to his skin, like snake skin catching the light, and his eyes looked like slit pupils. I blinked hard. My heart pounded. Okay, that was not normal. For a split second, a thought surfaced in my mind.

Reptillions? I've heard of them before, but not in any serious way. More like some weird internet theory. Conspiracies about shapeshifters secretly living among us and blending in. And the theory that made my skin crawl the most, they don't actually shift into humans. They control our minds, making us see them, as humans. Normally their illusion worked perfectly. So why was I seeing through it? Then it hit me.

Those tests, the brain scans, the eye drops. Something must have disrupted something in my brain just enough to make me catch a glimpse of the truth. Hopefully this was one of the kind ones. I didn't say anything, didn't react, I couldn't. The flickering was gone now and his features were smoothing back into something normal, something human. There, he said handing me the phone. Your Uber should be here in two minutes. I exhaled, forcing a smile. Oh, thank you.

He turned and scanned the street. Come on, I'll walk you to where it stops. I hesitated, but what choice did I have? I still couldn't see properly, and I didn't want to risk stumbling into the wrong car. We walked silently, but every part of me was on high alert. The way he moved, the too quiet way he stepped,

he wasn't normal. I stole a glance at his hand. His fingers looked too smooth, like the skin was stretched too tight over his bones. No wrinkles, no veins. The smell of him was worse now, like old damp stone, rotten eggs and rusted iron. You should be careful, he said suddenly.

You know what? I want to be too trusting. A chill ran down my spine. I said nothing. The Uber pulled up. I exhaled in relief reaching from my phone to check the details just to make sure it was the right car. The screen was still blurry, but I could just make out my destination. Home.

My pulse spiked. The address had already been pre-saved. My actual home address. He hadn't typed anything in he didn't need to. He saw him. it. I turned back toward him, but he was already stepping away and blending into the crowd like he was never there, like he had always belonged in the background. I climbed into the car, slamming the door shut and locked it. The driver started pulling away. I kept looking out the

window scanning the sidewalks, but I knew what I had seen, and I knew what he had seen too. I just hope that I don't see him again. I wanted to post about the time. I wanted to post about the I was visiting relatives in Mexico, mid-1990s, and believe that me and my friends encountered a possible Skinwalker. My ancestors came from a very small town, and back then everyone had outhouses due to no actual plumbing or even underground water lines. I believe this is still the case. It's pretty remote, and there are other surrounding towns with similar circumstances. there is hardly anything to do than to hang out, play some sports, go up near the mountains, etc.

This one evening we were hanging out with a buddy whose family owned a small store. I can't even remember all the stuff we were talking about now, but at some point, my cousin started talking about this old man that we all knew. As far as I can't remember, he was probably in his late 60s. didn't have any family that I could recall,

and he lived alone in his house slash property. In my cousin's own words, quote, he used to tell me how he would escape his enemies by disappearing. He said they would step all over him and that it would hurt, but that he needed to keep quiet so he wouldn't be discovered, end quote. Now, this old man already had a reputation for being a witch, and that's what some people refer to him as. I always thought the locals called him that

because he was a bit anti-social, old, and had seemingly no friends. But my cousin would talk to him on occasion as we walked through town. Just a simple, hey, mister, how's it going? So my cousin and the other kids from town that were talking about him and how mysterious he was, and that they believed he did indeed practice black magic. After we were done talking, it was probably around 10 p.m.

The store had already been closed since like six or so, and my buddy wanted to keep it shut so that we could keep talking about whatever without anyone listening. So once we left, this old man's house was about three properties away from the store, and while we were still talking about it, he was apparently looking over his adobe wall, which was maybe six foot tall. And he was not as tall as that, so he may have been standing on a chair. He was leaning over the wall and had the creepiest ear-to-ear smile on his face while kind of nodding his head up and down and watching us walk down the road.

This road, like many others, wasn't paved. Again, a very small town with very little 20th century features. And at that point, we were all creeped out, and it scared the crap out of us. of course there's no way to tell if he really was a skin walker but at that point i firmly believe that he was something evil and i wanted nothing to do with him the reason i think he was a walker years later is because in that small town like just about every other mexican small town there are always certain people that are accused of practicing black magic most of these times these people are accused of being Lechuses, which are supposed to be witches that transform

into owls. So the fact my cousin said that he could disappear, I figure now that means he can transform, and that's why I believe he is a walker. Did his black magic powers help him realize we were talking about him? Because otherwise, what the hell was he doing leaning over the wall with that creepy smile like that, at a time of night when most people were asleep. Just thought that was weird and ominous. Most times people refer to walkers as folks in the U.S., particularly natives. But now that I think about it, skinwalkers have always been prevalent in Mexico, except we don't call them that. However, one should be able to see the overlapping culture between Mexico and Nicaragua.

Native Indian tribes. I've got a handful more stories of my encounters in Mexico, and I'll post them on a different day. I was about six, and my dad and I loved everything about nature. He would take me hiking, camping, fishing, skiing, etc. And always had fun, but one day we were driving through a state park near where I lived in Michigan, and we were pretty deep in the park, when we spotted something off in a clearing. huge, rust-colored birds. They were probably like five to six feet tall,

and we never really had a camera on us, as this was back in the 80s, but we both remember them looking like the character, Big Bird, but reddish. There were several of them in the clearing, and a few other cars started pulling over to look. Someone has suggested ostriches or emus that had escaped exotic farms or something,

which is possible, but they weren't shaped like ostriches. Like their bodies weren't mostly feathers. I don't know how to explain it. My dad also says they definitely didn't look like ostriches or emus, and they were all a very distinct rust color. They finally got nervous when a few more cars stopped, and they all ran back into the woods. I remember thinking that it was so cool,

Like we had discovered something, but I still can't find any species that looked like that, other than a species that went extinct in New Zealand hundreds of years ago. This is just a thing that's been in my mind since it happened. At the time of this posting, it's been a while. This happened in August 27, 2024, in the state of Oklahoma and the U.S. So, for some context, I live in a rural area. that is currently being made into a big town. New stores, new neighborhoods, the whole nine.

It's still in the early days, so it's all in construction. So my neighborhood still has woodlands on one side and just open land for a few miles on another. Since the first night that I've come out here, I've always felt like I'm being watched if I'm outside. Sometimes it's not as direct, as if it's acknowledging my presence, but I'm not its priority, if that makes sense. But other times, it felt that I was the only thing it was looking at, especially at night. And I've done the dumb things, like challenging it by walking further out into my tree-scattered yard, blocking the moonlight in places.

Although some of those times were on purpose, I had to feel comfortable walking in my own backyard. So each time I did, I stayed longer, and went further. out until I finally got freaked out and went back inside. The entire time, I state my intent, whether I'm just going to retrieve something or simply saying I'm only walking because this is my backyard, but that I mean no disrespect. I even began to say that I respected its presence, and I don't mind its staying, but I don't appreciate it trying to make me feel scared in my own home.

While I acknowledge that this was its home first, my situation was not one of choice of me living here specifically. I've made this known every time I felt its presence prioritize me. This has been happening for a while now, but its threatening slash protective presence began to fade, and it was more of curiosity. At least it felt that way to me. I may be misinterpreting it, but the threatened fear present, started to go away. And while it started out happening only at night, I began to feel it around me during the day. When this started happening, I started finding feathers on the ground.

Well, yes, I live where a lot of birds are. I haven't found any in the time I've been living here until this happened. Each time I was genuinely ecstatic to find one. It started out with just one or two a day, and then it increased to about ten a ten. I have a full jar of feathers now. It was Blue Jays mostly for a while, and then others started appearing. I literally turned around and an owl feather was floating in the air in front of me. I just stared at it while it landed softly on the ground.

That was my absolute favorite one to find so far, even trumping the raven and juvenile hawk feather that I have. After finding the one owl feather, I found about five smaller tufts of owl feathers the next day. This continued happening for a few months with the Blue Jay feathers, and as it's begun to turn colder, there are less birds. One day, a couple of weeks after the owl feathers, I was taking my dogs outside and was just walking through the yard, talking to my dogs as any slightly sane person does. and I felt its presence again. I smiled, because at this point it's become familiar and I enjoy it.

Well, out of the corner of my eyes, something moves. While I have always felt its presence, I have never had such a physical reaction as I did when I turned to watch this figure step out behind a tree on the opposite end of the yard than me. I feel the goosebumps form on my arm as if ice had just been brushed across them. Every single hair on my arm's neck, back of my head, stood.

I stared, and I had trouble understanding what I was seeing for a second. Across the yard stood a figure with furze straped across them and hide clothing. They had bones and sticks tied in places, and on their head sat a skull with the biggest antlers I have ever seen. Their eyes laid behind the sockets as if wearing it as a mask. It locked eyes with me, nodded, and then took a step and disappeared. Two of my dogs were barking at something across the street, while my third, who was very independent and doesn't like to cuddle, watched this thing and then stepped closer to me.

So I know I saw it, because my dog acknowledged it, but it's still throwing me for a loop. Edit. As I answer or reply to comments, I've realized more has happened than I thought. After the night of seeing said entity, I would hear coyotes every time I went outside for about a week straight. But one night definitely stood out. My partner had come home late from work, and we did our usual routine of make food and then step out for a smoke and let the dogs out. Well, we did this, but this time we kept to the same. the dogs on a leash. We normally don't, but for some reason we did. I don't remember why now. It was quiet while we walked the dogs and let them do their business, and as usual, I felt eyes on me.

Now, at this point, I'm somewhat used to it, so I acknowledge it, and say I'm just letting my dogs go to the bathroom and I'll go back to the porch. But when I said this, the feeling of getting to the porch got urgent, which hasn't happened in months. This confused me, and I tried to shake it off and repeat what I said, but then something fell around the trees on the opposite side of the yard. Of course, me and my dog looked up and over. Immediately, there was a little whisper of a thought that said, porch. and so we made our way back. More things kept snapping or falling, but it didn't feel as dangerous anymore. We waited a bit, and it stopped, and we finally relaxed.

My partner and I stood while we talked, just enjoying the stars when the coyotes started going. Usually they're like a mile away, but this sounded just on the other side of the fence. Now, I know they weren't right there, but that's how loud it was. They've never been this close before. They sounded angry, too, like they had something surrounded. I had a sense of worry, but also was just in awe at the sounds of nature. I felt bad for whatever poor creature they had, but there was something beautiful about nature still happening as construction takes place around it. After it got silent, there was a bird call.

It was far away, and I don't have the best hearing, so I couldn't tell what it was, but it was. stuck in the back of my mind as we talked. After a moment it happened again, but this time I could make out the deeper tones in it. A few more moments, and I knew it, it was an owl. At this point I realized it was getting closer, and now I've heard it before, and obviously I have the owl feathers, but I never heard when it's near. We stopped talking and just listened as it went from tree to tree, closer into our yard until it was on the edge of the closest one.

I listened to it for what seemed like forever, but was about 10 to 15 minutes. It just sat there, calling out every now and then. Things began to snap on the other side of the yard, and my dog began to growl. I kept her calm, but her fur bristled. The owl called out again before diving at something and then taking off, and after this we absolutely went inside. Another thing I've noticed, like I've stated in a comment, was that since coming here, animals of all kinds seem to find me or be near me when they take their last breaths. It first happened with a snake.

My dog found it, didn't touch it. I picked it up, seeing it had an injury and went to look at it. It moved a little, and then stopped breathing. I teared up and took it to our fire pit as we were going to. have a bonfire soon. I wanted to give it a little moment, you know. After this incident, it started happening with spiders and a lizard, and then recently a moth with a deformed wing.

I brought the moth inside, gave it a slice of apple, and let it eat off of it, and then set it on the log with some moss inside. I checked back later, and it had passed. This doesn't happen often, but happens often enough. that I've noticed it. So, I recently moved to Wisconsin, and I wanted to explore the back country two falls ago. So I took a trip from the south to Superior, mostly off-road and on fire roads and whatnot. On my second night, I was in the north woods and it was getting late, so I was on a back road and heavy, heavy forest,

and decided to find a spot to sleep in my truck. I went down a dirt road, probably two miles or so down the dirt road. At this point, it was very dark, roughly 8 p.m. and absolutely no one for miles. I found a trail in the forest and drove about a hundred foot into the woods and parked, completely concealed from the dirt road I was just on. I got out to assess the area, but I could not see anything as it was completely dark. I got back in the truck and then set up for the night. About an hour into watching a movie on my phone,

I heard a sound that sounded like a woman screaming, and my dog heard it too. I grabbed my pistol, turned on all my lights, and opened the door to see what it was. Mind you, absolutely no one knew that I was out there and was far, far from civilization. I didn't see any. anyone or hear anyone, so I ducked back into my truck.

I was a little freaked out, but figured it was wildlife. I don't know, I rationalized it. About an hour later, I was falling asleep and felt my truck move as if someone pushed on it. Again, my dog woke up too, so I knew it wasn't my imagination. I did not turn on any lights or make a sound, but my dog seemed uneasy. I told myself that if I heard anything else, I would get out of Dodge. Well, I ended up falling asleep and around midnight. I woke up to my dog growling and it happened again.

I put on my boots, hopped into the driver's seat, and got out of there. As I was driving out, I went around a corner on the dirt road, and I'm not sure if it was my imagination or what, but I swear I saw a tall, skinny thing. running off the road as I came around the corner. It took about 30 minutes to get down the road because I continued down the original dirt road and did not go back the way I came. By this point it was raining pretty hard, and I didn't feel comfortable being anywhere dark. I drove an hour and finally found a gas station, and ended up staying the night there.

I've never been so scared in my life, and it takes a lot to get me feeling that way. I don't know what it was, but I know it was not human, whatever was out there. I know that much. Hi, Raven. I've been listening to and enjoying your stories for almost a year now. But this is my first time submitting one of my own. This happened about 30 years ago in the mid-1990s. It isn't a scary story and in fact is rather sweet, but it's definitely out of the ordinary.

One of the participants in our local women's group had met a member of the Chumash tribe that lives here in the Southern California area. She was offering guided hikes along the tribe's traditional trails in our local mountains. We were all very much interested, but between one thing and another, people dropped out of the group until there were only three of us. My friend, Laura, her mother, Jane, and me. We set off through the hilly-wooded area, our guide identifying trees and other flora along the way. She showed us the native way of walking silently in the woods and taught us how to watch for animals by unfocusing our eyes and quietly observing the whole scene until we could see small movements in the brush around us. We felt honored to learn the tribal ways of interacting with the land.

After a while, we came to a small clearing with seeding made out of fallen branches. In the center was a large flat stone, with several hollowed-out areas close to the edges. Our guide explained that this was where Chumash women and girls traditionally gathered to grind acorns into the flour they used to make bread. Laura, Jane and I sat quietly, enjoying the peace and beauty of this place that seemed somehow sacred. A light wind was blowing and I closed my eyes to relish in the moment. and then I felt it, a slight nudge against my back, as if someone were trying to get my attention. I opened my eyes and quietly said to Laura, who was sitting a few feet away, did you feel that? She had a strange look on her face.

That wasn't you? She asked. Our guide smiled and said, that's the people. Laura, her mother and I had all felt gentle touches, as if someone were saying, are you through yet, we'd like to use the grinding stone. We sat there for a while longer, savoring the birdsong in the unseen company. Since that time, Laura and Jane have both passed through the veil between the worlds, but that peaceful clearing deep in the mountains will always have a special place in my heart.

I will probably never find it again, but if I do, perhaps then I will grind some acorns with the women. 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.