As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 239 - 12 True Paranormal & Other Scary Stories

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Today, on the 239th 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 paranormal stories & Other true scary stories from listeners. Would you like to participate in the postcard exchange? It comes with a free ATRD Sticker! Just Send a post card to the following... Lucas PO BOX 8198 Rochester, MN 55903 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 on supports it! I upload episodes every 3 days, so there are 2 days between new uploads. The podcast consists of new scary story collections, Glitch in the matrix collections, and also what I call the "Dark Dreams" collections (which are older stories, remastered and layered with rain sounds). 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 Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in today's episode. LeAnn, Melina, Paulie B, Junipero, Ronan, E G F, Megan Y. Tricia M, Dtc, Jessamy, Liz L'Eclair, WOLFPAKPLAYS , Andi J.B TimeStamps… Ad breaks after Story 1 & Story 5 1 ➤ 1:29 2 ➤ 16:56 3 ➤ 25:52 4 ➤ 29:01 5 ➤ 35:34 6 ➤ 38:49 7 ➤ 44:14 8 ➤ 47:27 9 ➤ 50:08 10 ➤ 54:55 11 ➤ 58:25 12 ➤ 1:15:53 ----- 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. None of my audio is AI Generated, I am a real person reading real stories into a real microphone. Note: The podcast nor the host endorses any advertisements played during the podcast, ads are not chosen by ATRD or Raven Adams, they are chosen automatically by the advertisement systems by the platforms that host the podcast. I do not endorse, support, or promote any opinions or statements made in any adverts played during the show. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #GlitchInTheMatrix Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Hey there, friends. Hope you are doing swimming on this lovely day. If not, hope the day gets better for you, as always.

Today we have a collection of paranormal and just strange and scary stories, so kind of a mixed bag today. A bit of everything, bit of other stuff, you know. Just fun, scary stories for you to enjoy. I realize I don't do much self-promotion, so I figured I probably should on this intro. So I'm going to self-promote a little bit and say that I do have a memory. merch shop if you would like to check that out atrd dot shop it has a few designs on there i need to get more on there i'm a bit slow i did move um shop platforms and unfortunately since it's a print on demand through fourth wall i have to re-upload everything and they have some different specs they need for

pictures i use and such so anyways atr d dot shop check that out if you want to look at the merch if not i will not be offended it's totally fine i guess i guess that buying Spotify podcast and YouTube channel merch isn't in everyone's budget or any, you know, isn't, isn't in the forefront of a lot of people's thoughts, but I thought I would offer it in case anyone was interested. I'm going to hush now because my words are getting all scrambled, which means I need to get to the stories. So that said, my friends, much love, and of course, enjoy.

I didn't add my real name to this because I want to remain anonymous. The kid in the story's name was changed just to keep him safe, and this is the real name of the town. I've never looked into the validity of the story he told, but I did hear the things in this story. It was my lived experience. If anyone know more about this supposed legend, I would love to hear it. If you choose to add my story to whichever storyline it goes into, I would be honored. I'll be honest. I'm not sure if this is a glitch.

or a paranormal situation, but I will be in the comment sections to send an update if need be. Thanks for reading and choosing this story. Thank you for sending it in. I am sorry if this is a long wind, Raven, but I can't wait to hear you read my story out. The dollar store in Beggs, Oklahoma, had a cursed employee. So I was 22, female. When I moved home to finish junior college before I transferred. transferred to a state college. I decided to get a job at the local Dollar General

and got to experience something quite queer, is the pest word here? The literal dictionary definition. Things were odd within a few weeks into my job there. My GM called me into the office to move my car up to the front of the store as the sun was setting, and they had a safety rule that required all employees to move up their cars at night. So I said okay. Where should I park? My GM set to park to the left of the handicapped spot so that when Tommy's, not his real name,

mom got there she could park next to me. Tommy was a new shift manager, only promoted days into my working there. He was 19 and very responsible in my book. He was fun to learn from and he didn't hover over us when he had a stock, so that was awesome to me. I came back in to drop off my keys when the GM said, Hey, just a minute, will you? I need to make sure you know this is Tommy's first night closing the store without another manager here. I know he can do it.

I've taught him myself, but I need you to promise me that when you all leave, you walk with Tommy to your cars and wait until he gets into his mom's car before you get into yours. It's very important. It's important that you make sure he is in his mom's car before you get in. into yours. I was very confused. Sorry, why is it very important? I mean, I will, but why is it that important?

She said, sometimes Tommy doesn't make it to his mom's car, so we have to make sure he gets in her car and you have to let them leave the parking lot before you. Can you promise me that? I thought, this is weird, but that's okay. I assured her that I would do so. She grabbed her bag, satisfied I would comply.

I kind of dismissed it, and then I went on about the night. Tommy asked me to stalk beauty while he stocked the food. That way we could keep watch on the door. At 845, he called me up to the front. It had been a slow night, maybe five customers in the last three hours we were left alone. I noticed that his mom had pulled up and that the son was really getting left. in the sky. It was early to midfall. He went and locked the doors at 8.59, because there was no one else in the parking lot, and he came to take my till back to the back so we could count it. After about 15 minutes

of getting all the tills sorted while I cleaned up a little in the back room, the phone rang. I asked Tommy if he wanted me to get it. He said, yeah, it's probably my mom wanting to know how much longer. Tell her I need five more minutes to finish out this last sheet and we can clock out. I picked up on the last ring. Dollar General begs, how can I help you? The voice on the other end said,

Don't answer the doors. Excuse me? She quickly responded. This is Tommy's mom. Do not answer the front door. Okay, ma'am, do I need to call the cops? No, there's nothing they can do about it. just wait to come out until I call you back. I said that I would listen and relay the message to Tommy.

I hung up and told him what she said. As soon as I finished telling him that, I heard a knock on the exterior wall directly opposite the manager's office. I spun around. What was that? Tommy shrugged. Maybe it's whoever my mom's seeing outside. He said it so blatantly.

Can you pull up the cameras? Tommy said he could, and then did. We could see the doors, and there was no one standing at the entrance. He clicked the one over in front of his mom's and Ma's car, and that's when I really got creeped out. What's going on, Tommy? You hear that knocking, right? Why is your mom staring at empty space in front of the door while someone who isn't on the camera knocks on the wall right outside? And how are you not freaked out about this? It was all running through my head, and I started to word vomit when I stopped a moment.

Do you hear the knocking? Of course I do. It's loud. Then what's going on? How was there knocking where the ice cooler is standing? Flatly, as if explaining why rain exists, he says, My mom thinks I'm cursed. When I realize this will be a long story, I tried prodding him. Why would you be cursed?

Well, ever since my 16th birthday, when I applied here, my mom's been seeing all of these entities around me. When she demanded that I turned down the job, I said no. She said that she would let me work here under one condition, and since I was a minor, I had to get her permission to work school days. When she said that it was just that I had to let her pick me up and drop me off from work every time I came in, I agreed. So, I just figured better to pick my battles. Plus, then I can spend my checks on stuff I need for when I moved out. And then, of course, now I can't seem to have a good enough reason to break tradition now.

But we have to listen and just stay in the store. My mom has a bad habit of aiming guns at me when I don't wait for someone to walk with me or come out before she gives the all clear. From what, though? How did you get cursed? I don't know. You didn't grow up here, so you wouldn't understand. He was right that I technically didn't even live in town. I never went to their school, and I didn't really know much about the town,

other than they had the grocery store on one end of town, and the Dollar General on the other. Thankfully, I was on the side with the DG after I finally got the supposedly true history of the bridge coming into Beggs, Oklahoma, going south on alternate 75. There's a railroad track that goes over the top of it, but I also have no idea when it was running. And I can't recall if it was still active in the 2010s. I also want to preface this with the statement that this was a decade plus ago. I haven't been there since I moved to the university, and even more recent, I believe this year, 2026, they got hit by a tornado.

If it wasn't this year, it was late 2025. So I don't know what still remains there, and I don't keep up with the news all that much, other than weather. It's too depressing. Anywho, here is that story that I was told. Supposedly, this bridge coming into town was also the hanging bridge where the Beggs police would hang the criminals. And the plot of land that the Dollar General was on was at one time the police office, and many nights at 9 p.m. they would have the last-minute place. and stuff from that day's list of condemned.

Tommy didn't know what might still be here, but that his mom was a firm believer in this story of the land being haunted, and that's why she didn't want him to work there. Because, according to him, this place always seemed dark, even before they built the Dollar General. About ten minutes go by as he's telling me all this, and I asked him a question.

I don't mean to sound mean or rude, but did your mom? If my mom ever have mental health issues? He cut me off before I could finish. No, she was completely normal. And honestly, she's not being unreasonable. No one's been hurt when she's had to shoot one of the entities. It scared the crap out of people, and that's why we have such a high turnover rate.

No one wants to work with me on closing shifts. I said that it was perfectly fine for me to wait. We did our jobs, and we have a customer that's in fear of our safety. She seems perfectly capable of making a simple request, and we weren't even milking the clock as we had already clocked out. So we just sat there. After about 15 to 20 minutes in total of waiting, I noticed all of a sudden that the knocking had stopped.

And as I mentioned it, the store phone rang. It was Tommy's mom saying that the coast was clear. We walked out together. I waited at the door so that he could lock the door's outer locks. We walked to our cars and I let him get in first. And once his door was closing, I opened my door. I got in and started the car, immediately locking the door. I smiled at them and then put my bag down before backing up to allow them to go out first.

They turn right, going south and under that bridge, and I turned left going north. I worked with Tommy on two more closing shifts before I left for college. On the second closing shift with him, it was, again, both just the two of us, and when the GM got ready to leave, they had me promised her again to not get into my car before Tommy. I asked her, Do you think he's cursed? She said, I've seen him get into his mom's car from the camera some nights, and then an hour later I look up and notice that his mom's car is still out there.

I would call her and ask if everything is okay, and she would just say, Yeah, I'm just waiting on Tommy. He texted me about 75 minutes ago that he was getting off soon, so I just figured he forgot I was coming to get him and kept stalking. I know y'all don't always pay attention to the clock close to close. When I told her that he had left an hour ago, and that I watched him get into the car, she would say, no, he hasn't come out,

and I would look up at the cameras. I would see him stalking a shelf that he wasn't at moments before, and I would call over the intercom to have him come check out. Girl, he was already clocked out every time he tried to clock out. He had been for an hour. So, maybe. But that's not for me to say. She then left for the night. The night proceeded, busier than the first night.

I didn't get a chance to do much stalking to help morning crew. at 8.59, when we had been dead 10 minutes, and the glance outside showed no customers, we locked the door and went to do the till. Tommy and I joked about the fact that I was two pennies short and that he was going to have to take it out of my paycheck as he grabbed two of the pennies that had been thrown in the take a penny leave a penny cup and then placed him into the till. I straightened up the office while Tommy finished his managerial duties, and just as we were getting ready to clock out, his mom called again.

Don't answer the door. Wait until I call you. This call was then relayed to Tommy who chuckled. I'm so sorry. Want to try and see what she's seeing and make sure it's not a real threat? I was grateful of the suggestion, and since the paranormal had fascinated me since my walk-in with the Orphium Theater in Akmolgi, Oklahoma's Ghost.

Now, by fascinated, I mean terrified, but in an interested way. I was raised Christian and I'm definitely not anymore. So, insert piece emoji here. I looked at the screen of all the angles of the outside of the building, and other than his mom in her car parked next to my car, staring at the doors, there was nothing else to see. He apologized and said this isn't a planned thing, and he didn't want me to think he was being a creeper or something.

That he genuinely wishes she wouldn't do this. But that he thinks he's figured. out a way to make the entities leave him alone on closing. I sit down in my bag and shrug. It's, no worries, what is your plan for stopping them? Genuinely invested in his haunting now. There was knocking coming from the exterior wall once again, and it sounded like there were two people knocking.

But it only lasted about four minutes, and as he goes to speak about his plan to fight the hauntings, his mom called and the knocking stopped, so we decided to wait until tomorrow. when he and I closed again since no one else wanted to close with him ever, but I didn't care. We walked out, and I did just like last time letting him get in and then get in, lock the door, start the car, and then drop my bag before waiting to leave until after they left. The next night, one of the other girls announced that she would also be closing since we had gotten

so busy, and she had extra hours that she could work this week. I couldn't decide if this was his plan or if this was happenstance. But that night, there was no call to wait, no knocks on the exterior wall, nothing on the camera but his mom sitting back in her seat waiting for Tommy. We finished everything and walked out at 9.10 p.m. And we walked out altogether, and I waited until Tommy got into his car. The other girl got into her car, and then I got in and drove off from there. I actually didn't get put on another closing shift the rest of the time I worked there. And it wasn't like I had done anything bad, they just had more people wanting to do closing.

And I had originally been hired to do the school time slots, so the high schoolers had more shifts during the week if they wanted them. I ended up leaving that job because I was moving across the state to a different college for my bachelor's. My thing is the GM was in on it. maybe in on cursing him or just knew what the hell was going on. I'm not sure, but I never got the chance to find out more. Hey, Raven. I started listening to you on YouTube last October and have since become a devoted member. Thank you very much.

I thought maybe I would share one of my various stories with you that have happened to me throughout my life. This one occurred when I was 19 years old. I'm 52 now, and still remember this like yesterday. It was actually the day that made me realize I was very sensitive to seeing and hearing spirits, no matter what occurred in my life. It also still makes me laugh when I do happen to think about it. Just to give you a small background for better understanding, I knew from a young age that I could see and hear spirits.

I knew what my paternal grandmother and great-grandmother looked like without ever being told or seeing pictures. They had both passed before my birth. They would come to me at bedtime. I knew who they were, they told me, and I was never, ever frightened by them. I think when my daddy heard me describe his mama and g-ma, well, I honestly think it scared him into going to church. Unfortunately, he started a non-denominational church that truthfully was a cult. I was told at an early age that I was absolutely not, under any circumstances, to ever say anything about spirits or ghosts or talking to people that have gone to heaven, as this was how they had described my grandma and Gigi ma to me. Fast forward to my tween in early teen years.

Across that pulpit, I heard sermons to the extent of All spirits are evil and demonic. There isn't any such thing as ghosts, and, oh, my favorite, if you even think about these things, you can be possessed. Yeah, I was young and impressionable. In the midst of having these things preach to me, I apparently blocked out the gift that I had of seeing and hearing said spirits. aka demons trying to possess me.

When I was 17, a scandal rocked the cult, in the form of an abuser being arrested. It didn't shock me. I had spent the last two years pulling away from that cult because of things I had been witnessing and experiencing. As my eyes and thoughts started clearing, I started seeing and hearing them again. The spirits, they started coming back to me. I no longer felt they were evil. Hell, I knew they weren't. My 17-year-old mind had the capacity to break free and think,

you know, if they were evil, I'd have already been another Exorcist movie. Anyway, when I was 19, I took a job at a nursing home, close to where I lived at the time, and started CNA classes, so that I could work up to nursing school and have the facility pay for my schooling. I worked the graveyard shift, and there was a girl on the same shift, Mary, that was a year younger. We had become fast friends, and one of our least favorite patients had become a lady named Alva, not because she was mean or hateful, but she was just a pain in our rear ends.

We would get her settled and in bed, turn the lights off, and she would stay in said bed for no longer than ten minutes before she was up and roaming. It really wasn't the roaming that was so bad either, as all the doors were locked around the clock, except that she got up and roamed herself straight out her door, across the hall, and into another residence room. The other resident was bedridden and unable to speak coherently any longer. So she would hit her nurse's light and start hollowing incoherently, and it was always Alva in her room, messing with this poor lady's personal property. We would check on her and apologize to her,

scoot Alva along back to her room and back into bed, for the next 10 to 15 minutes. Then the cycle would repeat. This was four to six times an hour. On top of the other 24 residents that we cared for in our hall. We even tried moving Alva to another hall and room on the other side of the building, but no-go. She would roam all the way back,

back to this specific residence room and start rummaging through her stuff. All it accomplished was taking two other CNAs off of their hall to come and get Alva. So, she was moved back to her original room and the nights went back to normal. I'm sure it's quite obvious that Alva suffered cognitive issues in her advanced age. Mary and I had just finished our CNA classes and earned our certificates about a month before Alpha passed away during the day shift. My first question upon arriving for my night shift was, Did you open her window when she passed?

They hadn't. I told Mary that she was still here and that we would hear from her soon. Mary had no clue exactly what I was talking about, so I explained to her that when someone passes, the window is supposed to be open so their spirit can leave and not be locked in the building. I don't think she thought I was serious. Before I tell you the last part of the story, I do have to add that the lady whose room that Alva used to frequent, like others frequent a resale shop,

had also unfortunately suffered a stroke and was not able at this point to work the remote for her TV and call lights any longer. Anywho, three weeks later, we started to make our hourly rounds at 2 a.m. We finished early and were able to sit down for a few minutes before our 3 a.m. rounds started. when the light across from Alva's old room went off. Knowing that the lady was incapable of using her remote any longer, I looked up, looked over at Mary and said, Alva's back. I smiled and got up and then headed down the hallway.

Mary followed, not looking like she was in a hurry to go near either room. I'm sure you've already guessed, but no one turned that light on who was alive and in that room. This went on for over a week. Before one night we went to do our hourly rounds and headed down to grab our cart. I looked up to see Mary standing as still as a statue. Then I looked over to the point where her eyes were glued. Alva stood in the middle of the hallway, like she had been headed to the other residence room. She turned her head and saw us.

She grinned, waved, and said, hi girls, and then headed on into the other residence room. Then the light started beeping. Mary turned around white as a ghost herself and asked me if I had just seen and heard Alva saying hi to us too. I told her yes, I had seen Alva, if that is what she meant, and I heard her say hi girls to be exact. Also, I said that I didn't know why she was so scared, as Alva never heard us. when she was alive, so why would she now? Mary's answer was a very solid, oh, hell no, and she went back to the break room.

I just laughed, and then went down and turned off the light and rejoined Mary. It took a week or so for Mary to calm down and realize what she had seen, and honestly, I can't blame her. I'm sure if you don't grow up with this type of phenomenon happening, it probably is one of the scariest things to encounter. We tried moving the other resident when Alva returned to us in her spirit form, but nothing helped. Wherever the resident was, no matter the hall or room number, that light would come on several times a night. I had to wonder that, at some time before I ever came into the picture, before the years had worn on them and taken their health, if those two weren't rivals of some kind, work-related, man. related. And if that wasn't Alva getting the last word in.

I was there for almost six months after the second resident passed, and that light never came on again. Thank you for reading my story. I do hope that you enjoyed it, even though it wasn't very scary. I strong disagree. That was indeed scary. This story goes back to when my cousins and I were younger. I was probably about six, maybe seven years old, and my oldest cousin was probably around 13 to 14 years old, and then all the ages in between. My cousins used to live in an old house in Coral Gables, Miami. Those historic type of houses probably were some of the first built in Miami. I would always sleep over at their house.

They had a big house with a pool and a big front yard. definitely the fun house. They also had a ginormous St. Bernard dog, who was super fluffy and friendly. I loved that dog so much. My cousin's room was in a separate hallway that led to their room and their own bathroom. Now that that backstory is out of the way,

let me tell you the creepy story. They never told us, my cousin and I, this story until we were older because they didn't want us to be scared of the house. Anyway, one day all of my cousins and I slept over at their house. There were about eight of us. Anytime we had big sleepovers like this, the last thing we would do is actually sleep. We would stay up playing video games or dark room, which is basically just playing hide-and-seek and pitch darkness.

We would roam the kitchen late at night for snacks and drinks. My uncle was actually alone this time around because my uncle was on a work trip, so it was just us eight kids, my aunts, and the dog. No one else. My aunt said she was sleeping alone in her room with the dog. When out of nowhere, she feels a tap on her shoulder. A real tap. A human tap. She woke up confused, of course, but not scared.

When she woke up, she said that. she smelled gas, like from the stove. She got up quickly and went to the kitchen and saw that the stove was slightly on, filling up the house with gas. She quickly opened all the windows and doors to air it out. My cousins and I never had a clue about this. My aunt just told us to be careful of touching the stove at night because we left it on and that it could have been very dangerous.

She scolded us a bit, but nothing crazy. It wasn't until years later that she told us about this ghost. She said my uncle and she had known about this ghost for years and that the ghost was mainly in my cousin's hallway, but that it was a friendly ghost. That ghost basically saved our lives that night. My aunt said that she would see the dog's fur moving sometimes when he was lying down and it was as if he was being petted. So it wasn't nice ghost, but still a ghost. I'm glad they didn't tell us because I would have freaked out. Hi, Raven.

I've been so enjoying all the different types of videos you've been doing, including the paranormal ones, and of course my favorites are your Glitch in the Matrix stories. Thank you. I recently listened to your Glitch in the Matrix video that was done six days ago, where you had the word minutia in it, just to give you some context. and in that video, people were talking about things that happened to them all the way back into their childhood, as well as closer to the present or in the present. I hadn't really talked about the kind of interesting things that had happened to me as a child, and only really shared it with a few close friends years ago. So, I thought I would go ahead and write to you once again and share this rather long, maybe too long, description of my own unexplainable experiences.

I don't know if this is something you'll share on your show, but I hoped you might find it interesting and may even know someone who has had similar experiences. To get started, I will start with when I was growing up in Maryland, going to a parochial school, which I attended from the second through fourth grade. I had to wear a school uniform that I really disliked, and of course I had to get up early for school. I was and still am kind of a lazy-bones, and like to stay in bed as late in the mornings as possible. But what I would often experience as I'm lying in bed is seeing and feeling myself get up, get dressed, getting all ready for school and about to walk out the bedroom door, only to find myself in bed having not moved an inch. This happened repeatedly.

Now, of course, this could be a child's imagination, and the reason why I mention it is because I had other, much more what I would consider, spiritual events happened to me than also occurred in that childhood bedroom in Maryland, going on around that same age. For instance, and again this happened repeatedly, I would be lying in bed, but again wide awake and about to get up and start my day. So there I would be, lying there, fully awake, fully conscious, and I would feel myself floating out of my body on,

all the way up to the ceiling. So close that I would actually have my nose almost pressed against the ceiling. I knew I was back in my bed wide awake, but I was also right there, nose to the ceiling. This experience so early on in my life spurred me to look, later in life, into astral projection. Also as a child, I would have what I now call astral projection dreams. When sleeping, I would dream that I would fly out of my bedroom window and join my neighborhood friends, where we would spend time flying around the neighborhood lamppost. It was just such a joyful and fun dream, or perhaps it was some kind of real experience,

since I still remember it clearly at 67 years old. I tend to think that it was so much more than a dream, and it was again a recurring event in my young life. As I grew older, these dream experiences. of leaving my body and going places, by what I have come to believe, was me traveling on the astral plane, happened on and off for years. In one instance, I traveled outside of my body, after my boyfriend had broken up with me. This was in my teenage years, and I ended up in my astral form walking into his house, almost as if through a veil, and finding closure just from being there. In my 30s, my parents lived in the Shenandoah Valley, and I lived in the city near Washington, D.C.

One night, I again traveled astrali, in my opinion, to their house, and could feel myself floating up the staircase, and was able to walk around the house and just really feel like I was visiting, even though the household was fast asleep. The last experience that I will tell you about was after my first husband and I returned home, late in the evening from an event. He fell asleep, but I was restless and could not sleep. Still wide awake, all of a sudden I found myself sitting up and out of my body. I don't mean dreaming about it. No, I sat up while all of me was still lying down.

Much like what happened to me as a child when I was awake but floated up to the ceiling. But as a child, I was not afraid. I just took it for granted. As an adult experiencing this, I felt terrified. I was so scared as I tried to lie back down really quickly, but I just could not get my head to connect, and I had to try several times until I finally was able to reenter my body. I woke my husband almost hysterical about it, and to his everlasting credit, he believed me and comforted me. So I've had experiences where I believe I have experienced astral projection in dreams, and when I was wide awake.

I just don't know if this is exactly astral projection, but it sure felt like what I have since read about astral projection experiences. Anyway, I just thought since other people were sharing dream experiences or night terrors, even night paralysis, that I would share some of my unusual events from childhood on, that used to follow me throughout my adult life. Interestingly now, I don't have astral experiences, and I miss them. But I feel that the fear I felt as I sat up outside of my body long ago has prevented me from having these kinds of experiences again.

But who knows? Maybe I will experience them again someday, I hope so. Thank you for reading this really long essay about my strange experiences, and I look forward to watching your next glitch episode, along with all the rest. Thank you for all you do, Raven. You sharing our stories, I believe, helps many of us to fill a real connection and some validation about the many wild and unexplainable things that happened to us in this crazy universe.

Take care and have a wonderful week. Long-time listener, and I've been wanting to share a few stories, but I didn't really seem like they would be interesting. But I figured that somebody might enjoy this or have had something similar happen with this one. This occurred in the winter of 2007 or 2008, when I was a little younger and I was involved in some unsavory activities. Nowadays, it's legal in most states, and you can even purchase it in stores, but my bedroom window used to be a walk-up service. so I would sleep with my window cracked just enough to hear anybody calling my name, or even pulling up in a car. This night was slow and snowy, and I didn't have any customers come knocking that night. It just so happened that I was out of smokes.

Newport Shorts were my boredom vice back then, and I was all out. But as it also just so happened, I knew my neighbor would be home shortly. He would get home around 1130, so I waited on my bed. with my head by the window. When I heard my next door neighbor pulling into his driveway, I waited until he closed his car door and then proceeded to accidentally scare the bejesus out of him by yelling his name as he was walking to his door. I apologized and asked him if he could take me to the store for a pack of smokes.

My SUV was down with a punctured radiator. He agreed, and then remembered that he had a carton in his room, so he said, give me a minute, and I'll go grab a pack for you. you. While waiting, I had my head propped up on my left hand, and I kind of started to fall asleep. Within about five minutes, give or take, I was woken up by a warm hand being placed on my face. I didn't initially freak out because I thought that it was Matt, or his sister waking me up. But I opened my eyes to nothing, nothing outside my window or in my room. So I grabbed my flashlight to get a better look outside and didn't.

not see anything. No person, no bigfoot, or footprints in the fresh snow. About two minutes later, Matt came out and I asked him about it because I still thought that it was him somehow. He had no clue what I was talking about, but when I explained what happened, he said, what about the guy who was standing by my window? Apparently, when I got his attention, he'd already noticed someone standing by my window. I explained that I had no one come to my window that night, and I looked outside when it happened,

and I didn't see any trace of anyone being outside. It really freaked us both out to the point that we ended up sitting in his car talking about it. To this day, I don't know what that was. I know I didn't imagine the warmth and feeling of that hand being firmly placed on my face. Thanks for taking the time to read my story, and thank you for your tremendous storytelling. You are a big help to not just my day driving two plus hours, but many others too. Well, thank you kindly. Hi, Raven.

This is my second story submission. This, as well as the others, are true. I'm 32, and I wanted to share a few more experiences connected to my grandparents' house in Ohio. The house was built in the 1920s and originally served as a multifamily home, until my grandparents bought it in the 1960s. They renovated it and turned it into a single-family house. Over the years, several strange things have happened there, not just to me, but to multiple members of my family.

Eventually, we gave the ghost a name, Raymond. My family loved sharing paranormal stories during holiday gatherings like Christmas and Thanksgiving, especially my dad. He was always incredibly animated when he was telling them. And because he joked around so much, I never really took him seriously. What always stood out to me, though, was that my grandparents never dismissed anything he said. Then, one night, when I was around 10 or 11 years old, I spent the night at my grandmother's house. I had stayed up late watching America's next top model when I heard my grandma's bedroom door open.

It had to be around 3 a.m. She hated that show, and she especially hated when we left the TV running all night. I heard her slowly shuffling down the hallway, so I quickly turned toward the couch cushion and pretended to be asleep to avoid getting scolded. A few seconds later, I heard her walk into the room, let out a loud sigh and turned the TV off. Then I heard her shuffle back down the hallway. I waited until I heard her bedroom door closed because I fully intended to turn the TV back on, but then out of nowhere I felt like I was being watched.

It felt like someone was standing directly behind me, towering over me. I couldn't move. At first I thought maybe my grandma'd come back to catch me fake sleeping, but this felt completely different. The air suddenly became heavy, hot and suffocating. The room somehow felt darker, even though it was already pitch black. Whatever was behind me felt huge. I became so terrified that I started sweating immediately.

My eyes were wide open, but I could barely breathe. I was trying so hard to stay completely still because I didn't want whatever was behind me to realize I was awake. I remember feeling sweat rolling from my right temple down to my eye. across the bridge of my nose and into my other eye and then finally down toward my ear. The fear that I felt that night was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I was too scared to move on and way too scared to turn around. I just laid there for hours wide awake staring into the couch cushion while sweating profusely. I could feel heat on the right side of my face, like someone was standing inches away from me.

There was a window above me, and after what felt like forever, I finally noticed the sun beginning to rise. Somehow, seeing daylight gave me courage, enough courage to turn around. Nothing was there. I gasped loudly and instantly felt ridiculous. Had I imagined the whole thing? Honestly, I still don't know. The next morning, my dad came by to visit, and I told him what had happened. He laughed and said that Raymond had done the same thing to him years earlier.

According to him, when he was younger, he had been lying in bed with his girlfriend at the time, and there were no curtains on the window, so the moonlight lit up the whole room. He said that he wasn't fully asleep, but his eyes were closed when he noticed the room suddenly got darker, like someone had stepped in front of the window and blocked the moonlight. He assumed that it was his girlfriend standing over him, and without opening a little, his eyes, he said, Deborah, what are you doing? Lay down. Then, he felt movement beside him, and she responded with, Huh? I am laying down. He said that his eyes flew open and he jumped up in a panic,

but there was nobody there. Again, this story came for my very animated father, so I still don't know whether he was joking or not. Even now, that house still shows up in my dreams. As terrifying as it was, I still miss it. My grandmother sold the house in 2010, and, strangely enough, it has remained empty ever since. I've attached some photos from when it was listed on the market, but I honestly can't tell whether what's showing in the pictures is dust or a bunch of orbs. But either way, it still freaks me out. I'll share more stories later on. Please do. had issues dating back to around the time everyone thought the world was going to end, aka 2012. And most of those issues were being hyper-fixated on one thing, and then the next month I'm hyper-fixated on another.

And me now being a 25-year-old, some of it has worn away, but my story happened around 2024. So here's my glitch. There was a show that was released around the beginning of 2024. I'm not saying the name, but it just ended recently. I love the show so much that I got all of its merchandise, costumes based on the characters, and me and my friend, let's call her Jolly, also loved the show. And we did a duo costume based on a ship in the show. There's like a jester character, a bunny, rabid character being shipped together,

It's called Funny Bunny. So she decided to be the jester because the jester was a girl and I was the rabbit because the rabbit is a boy. And I'm a boy, so. I also had vivid dreams when I was a kid, but that'll all come into play later. Anyway, my costume was easy to get in, but I had to wait for her, so I was playing my Gameboy. I think I was playing Pokemon, but I forgot at that point. I also had a dog at the time, and we dressed the dog as chase, Paw Patrol because they were the same dog breed. And me and Jolly were dating, and I'm planning on

getting married soon, but that's beside the point. We took the dog out trick-or-treating with us, and after we got our candy, we went home and just kind of slouched on the couch. We saw that there was a new episode for this show that we really liked that was out. So, naturally, we watched it, and it was a pretty good episode, but it was a YouTube and Netflix exclusive. I was on eBay later that night because I was looking for graded baseball cards, because I am a baseball card fanatic. I have an entire binder full of them, and I see on the front page of eBay, the recommended for you, it had a DVD set for the show, which only had four episodes at the time. This made no sense because the producer of the show, which also made multiple other shows,

and has a YouTube channel announced on Twitter right after the show started, that it would be going to Netflix and YouTube only on rare occasion. When it was the last episode, it would also go into theaters. I just push it off as fake, but then that night when I went to bed, I had a dream that was really vivid, where I was one of the characters from the show. I woke up from it to get some water and looked in the mirror and thought that I saw the character from the show. I still don't know if I was dreaming or not, but still it was kind of creepy.

And very odd. And thank you, Raven, for reading this. I just want to say that I've been a subscriber for like three years now, so yeah. Thank you very much. Hi, Raven. Not sure what category this would fit into. Possible glitch, possible paranormal. You decide.

When I, 32 female, was in my preteens, my sister and I took the bus to my grandmother's house after school. My mom worked late and didn't want us home alone. and my grandmother lived only a few blocks from the school. She loved telling us stories about the past, and one day she started talking about her father, my great-grandfather. She began by saying that we wouldn't remember him, but before she could continue, I interrupted her and said, yeah, it was really tall, wore blue jean overalls with a red shirt and walked with a cane.

She looked stunned and asked, And yeah, but how did you know that? I told her that I remembered seeing him when I was younger. I remember him getting up from his chair, walking to the front door and looking out to the screen door, while the main door stayed open. She seemed confused and then told me that he had died when I was less than a year old, but confirmed that he would look out the door multiple times before making his way back to the couch.

That is what still confuses me. I vividly remember the way that he walked with the cane, how tall he was, and how broad his shoulders looked. I remember watching him from the couch as he walked to the door, and I can still picture the back of his head. In my memory, I was not an infant. I felt more like I was five or six years old. I even remember thinking, why does he keep getting up to look outside at nothing? My grandmother laughed, said that I had a good memory and then went on with her story. I stayed quiet, still trying to make sense of what I had just said.

Eventually, I convinced myself that maybe I had seen a photo of him somewhere, and just imagine the rest, but that explanation never fully fit because I had never seen a photo of him wearing the outfit I described. I still don't know how I was able to describe him so exactly if he died when I was less than than a year old. Strange things have happened at my grandmother's house, and to this day I still don't know whether I'm remembering something incorrectly or whether I may have seen his spirit. I do have many other spooky stories from her home, and I plan to share those here soon. Hi Raven. This isn't a glitch. It's a dream that I had last night. When people want to tell me about their dreams sometimes, I must admit that I glaze over because your dreams aren't necessarily interesting to me.

I truly hope, though, that this dream is interesting to your listeners because it poses what I consider to be some interesting questions, which I'll briefly analyze later. I'll read it like I'm telling a story that happened to me because that is one of the questions. Is this someone else's memory? We open to a kid on a bicycle. I'm about 10. It's very hot and sunny. I'm in the UK, so we don't understand hot and sunny.

The bike is out of control, and I know for a fact at this point that crashing is inevitable. It's one of my neighbor's houses, but I've never met them. As the bike hurdles down the driveway, I pass a large tree in the front yard next to the driveway. As I'm trying to break, but failing, I look up and see something of a surreal sight. A dog is inside a clear plastic tunnel, curiously, and excitedly looking down at me. Soon after, the collision with the front door makes an extra loud bang. I'm not badly hurt, and I get off the bike and look up at the tunnel again.

It connects a window that faces the front yard to a small treehouse structure, in that tree that I mentioned. There's a rudimentary ramp propped up against the tree, which presumably allows the dog to get from the grounds to the treehouse by climbing the ramp. The dog, a retriever, is still there and is continuing to look at me quizzically. I then hear shouting inside the house, and a woman and man soon appear asking me what's going on. I profusely apologize and say that my breaks failed and that I'm really sorry that I crashed into their door. Two young kids appear, one about my age, the other maybe 16 or 17. The older one is gloating he has soccer tickets to a game, but the younger one kid. can't go because he can't afford the tickets. He's super upset. The older kid then shows me his ticket,

which was 50,000 won, approximately $32.50. But other than that, they aren't really paying much attention to me, or to why there was a bang at the door. Would I assume to be the mom and dad of these kids then ask me to get my parents because they think I've damaged their door? My dad is then on the scene shortly afterwards, but nothing in the dream explains how he arrives quickly. He talks to the owner about any damage to the door, but none of the discussion is privy to me. It seems they come to an arrangement. If my dad pays for the soccer ticket for his younger son, they'll let any door damages slide. My dad agrees to this, and in my mind I know my dad will be fine with it, so I don't worry about him being mad later.

The 10-year-old now becomes super animated, and over the moon that now he gets to go to the game. And I'm happy for him. Even though he was gloating earlier, his older brother also seems happy. So, the question. Was this a download from the ethereal plane into my consciousness? Did someone who has this exact childhood memory recently pass away? Or did they somehow send this experience to my subconscious in some other way? How am I able to recount the details?

Is it my mind just being creative? I don't know much about brains and creativity and dreams, but there was just something about the POV of being that kid, and experiencing that memory firsthand, as it were, that really makes me feel like it doesn't come from me. It comes from somewhere else, like it was a memory. I looked it up, and when the price for typical soccer matches in Korea was, 50,000 won, it was about 2008, which makes me think this is when this happened, if it is a memory, of course. I also like to believe that somewhere in Korea there is a house with an unusual transparent

protrusion, which adjoins to a treehouse, and a lovely doggo at night knows he can leave his family home, walk across the tunnel to the tree, climb down and have a little patrol of the garden knowing all the while he can go back inside, and back to the beach. and back to the bedroom whenever he wants. I'm your standard ghost kid, so. Normally when it hits between midnight and 3 a.m., my lights will flicker, or I'll hear a little kid giggles and fast-paced footsteps. My light flickers, and I'll hear whispers,

and it's not uncommon for me to see long, tall, black figures. I'm almost always dismissed because, well, no one else has happened upon them. What I do when it starts happening is grab my Chinese powder-puff Xander and hide under a blanket and wait for it to stop. What is a Chinese powder-puff Zander? Fun fact, it's a dog and I'm guessing its name is Xander. Sorry about that. Well, yes, when it first happened, I played it off as just old house, faulty lights, and my mind was just making noises for the fun of it. But it kept happening, and it seems like it only happens to me. Sometimes, my friend says it also happens to her, but I'm not so sure, but it soon progressed from just noises and shadows of figures and then started moving stuff, for say like a piece of paper and then it was moving some of my dinosaurs.

There are some crosses hung in the hallways on either side of the entrances, but I could see in the room that goes off to the hallway, and I saw a figure standing there, with the two crosses hanging above it to the kitchen. And then I saw that figure out of the corner of my eye in the kitchens, so if it wasn't clear, it was basically taking the crosses as just suggestions. One time, me and my brother who was sleeping over, we were in the same bed. At 309 in the morning, my door hit me with that horror movie creaking noise. And I saw the thing. The lights do the thing, the giggles, fast-paced footsteps happen, I couldn't get Xander or Molly, who I'm assuming is another dog, because they were locked up in the kitchen. I pulled my brother's head into the covers and told him in a barely audible whisper to be quiet and stay still,

because that's how you get them to leave, is to just be quiet and stay silent. It lasted probably five to ten minutes. My brother was so shaken up as that was his first time witnessing it. I wanted to put on a video, but he was, asking me about it, and I told him that talking about it would call them back. I said that we could talk about it in the morning. Now, I'm not shaken up by this stuff, but the fact that the thing, or shadow person, whatever it is, doesn't seem affected by crosses?

If I didn't make it clear, the shadows are attracted to noises of any kind. If they don't hear any, they'll leave, and it's not all in my head because I can see one of those shadows in an old photo. The worst thing it had ever done was the fast-paced steps, but they were hard stops, and then the shadow, or something, chucked one of my things across the bedroom. It keeps happening, but if you can get a solid light on the interaction of the shadows, they'll scram and just get scared off. But that's my story. Thank you, and I love what you're doing, Raven.

For context, I wrote this out as a form of therapy to help me make sense. of and understand what happened to me. I've been sitting on it for a while and finally decided I would share it with you because you're so awesome. Well, thank you. And I enjoy the stories that other people share, so I thought I would do my part. At the start of fifth grade, my mom decided that we were moving to New Mexico. Her grandpa's house was being put on the market.

He had passed, and she didn't want to lose it. Plus, she thought that a fresh start somewhere new. would be good for us. So, we packed up and went. It was a hard move for me. I left behind all of my friends and a big extended family. I really hadn't wanted to move, but thought I would make the best of it. And to give a backstory, my grandpa had bought this house back in the 1960s. It was a good deal because it needed fixing up. It sat abandoned for a while. No one wanted it. Why? Because it had been used, as the town's first hospital. It wasn't a huge building.

It was what would be a pretty average two-story house by today's standards. That's all they needed for a hospital back then in such a small town back in the 1890s, when it was built. My grandpa was told that the upstairs had been the nurse's quarters, and the patients were kept on the main floor. He knew where they did surgeries, etc. Eventually, the town grew large enough that they needed a bigger hospital, hospital and shut this one down. It stood vacant for years when my grandpa finally bought it and got to work.

He was handy and planned to do the renovations himself. Shortly after buying the house, he was upstairs doing some renovating, and all of the sudden he heard a crash on the other side of the room. Some built-in drawers, which were common in those old houses, had suddenly fallen and flipped out landing upside down. When he went to pick them up. up, he saw names handwritten on the bottom of the drawers. They were the names of patients who had died there. He assumed that it was some kind of old record-keeping by the nurses. From what I know, my grandfather was a religious man, but why he had the self-preservation instincts of a rock? I have no idea. He finished the house, and he and my grandma moved in.

Now, I do remember visiting as a kid, and always feeling, uneasy, especially on the second floor. The stairs that led up were narrow and steep, which was common for such an old house. As you walked up, they would creak, and upstairs it just felt eerie. It had poor lighting and dark paneled walls. Although he had updated it by the time we came around in the 90s, it was definitely dated. During the renovation, to make rooms more rectangular, he closed off parts of the walls. So they looked like ordinary rooms, but there were small hidden chambers that could open up.

They were very strange and useless. Again, why, Grandpa? Why? As uncomfortable as I felt being upstairs, I didn't really have an opinion of the paranormal or ghosts or anything like that. I was just a kid. I had no reason to. And even today, unless you've had an experience to tell you otherwise, I'm not sure why anyone would believe in it. Now, fast forwarding to when we moved in, that changed pretty quickly. I do hope that the house treated my grandparents better than it did us. At first, we were all excited to move in, getting to pick our rooms, that kind of thing. The house was on a couple acres of land,

and it was just a beautiful place. It felt special to live in my grandparents' old home. Their house had made me nervous, but I was older now, and I was sharing a room downstairs with my sister. It was my brothers who were upstairs. But pretty soon after settling into our new house, my brother started refusing to sleep in their rooms. They would say it was too hot, too cold. They couldn't get comfortable, whatever. So, they would sleep downstairs in the living room at night.

I didn't blame them. It actually felt better about them not being up there. It just felt safer to me. I couldn't ignore what I felt up there, and apparently they couldn't either. Because they would not sleep in their rooms. Upstairs was empty at night, and even still we would hear footsteps. My mom tried to tell us it was just the sound of an old house settling in night. It's nothing.

Ignore it, but this was different. This was walking. rhythmic, deliberate pacing. And it was something that I could not get used to. I remember the fear I felt listening to those steps and wondering when they were going to start descending the creaky stairs, which would lead right to the foot of my bedroom. Was it a burglar this time?

My feeling of safety was erased by this point, and we knew that we weren't alone. After that, we started to notice other things, subtle things. Like you'd feel a tap on your shoulder and no one would be there. You might think that you heard someone say your name from another room, but they hadn't. An item was moved and you don't remember moving it. A faucet would be left on.

Little things. And it kind of just made you feel crazy. It was all stuff that you would try to brush off. I tried to tell myself it was normal for these things to happen, like I was just imagining it, or it wasn't real. But after a while, the strangeness became harder to ignore. It became darker. My mom and her husband didn't have a good relationship and they would argue.

And it felt like whatever this thing was, it was feeding off their anger. The more arguing that went on, the more strange things tended to happen. And the more this dark feeling spread like smoke throughout our house. But still, we would just try to live our lives. We would put this strangeness aside, ignore it. We loved this house, right? Even when our neighbors would say that they saw a figure in the upstairs window when nobody was home, or when we would take a picture and there would be weird lights or blurs in it that should not be there.

Even when you felt like you had eyes on you, and not the kind that we're watching out for you. I know my mom believed, but she had this insane way of blocking out and not. ignoring when bad things were happening and just lived her life. In other ways, not just this one. So I actually didn't tell her everything that was going on with me at the time. I was just confused and scared and honestly, I didn't want to be a problem. I knew she wouldn't do anything but tell me that I could pray to be protected from evil.

Either way, though, I know that she believed. There were hints that cracks were forming. One day when I was about 12, my mom had been folding laundry in the living room by herself. She was home alone that day, and randomly my younger brother walks past her and starts walking upstairs. We were all supposed to be at school that day, so she was really confused about that. So she called his name. He didn't answer. Jeremy, why aren't you at school? Did you miss the bus?

No answer. My mom decides to follow. him and see what's going on, getting annoyed at this point that he stayed home without telling her, and now he's ignoring her. She walks into his bedroom, and it's empty. Jeremy is at school. And now my mom is upstairs, led by whatever brought her there. She turned around, walked downstairs, and kept doing the laundry. She actually decided to get in touch with our church and ask for blessings on the house. It was scaring her. It became something that even she couldn't ignore. The bishop came out and we talked about what was going on. He seemed kind of hesitant. I'm not

really sure if he believed us or not. I just remember being so nervous. Like, if this doesn't work, this is really going to piss off what's here and probably make it worse. But he went ahead and did the blessing. It wasn't like in the movies. There were no crucifixes, sage or salt or anything like that. He prayed and said that we needed to have faith that it would help. And then he left. It was pretty anticlimatic. I was hopeful, but I didn't really feel like what he did was that big of a deal. We had prayed before and nothing changed, so why would it be different if he did? One evening when I was about 13, my cousin was visiting. I was sitting in the living room just watching TV by myself.

Everyone else had been outside playing and I was alone in the house. My cousin comes in to the kitchen and I watch her walk past me. I just kind of follow her with my eyes, wondering what she's doing. I see her make her way to the stairs, which were behind me. She knew I was watching her. She stopped a couple of steps up, and she turns around and smiles at me. Then she nods her head as if to say, Come on, I've got something to show you.

Which really piqued my interest. It felt secretive. Like it was something just for me, so this must be good. She usually only played with my older sister. So I get up and follow behind her. She reached the landing before me and turned right into my brother's room. I followed her in, but when I got there, the room was empty. I figured that she was playing a trick on me, like she was hiding and now I had to find her.

I didn't like this game, especially upstairs, so I called her name. Nothing. I start looking around the room. Nothing. I know those stairs were the only way in or out, and the longer I looked, the more my stomach twisted. I knew it had brought me upstairs to be alone with it. It loved to be upstairs, and it loved this game. At this point, in a very twisted way, I was kind of used to this,

and like my mom said, I should just ignore it. That was my only option. I was terrified and confused, but I walked back downstairs without trying to act too upset about it. That might make the whole situation worse. It might make it know that it had gotten to me. I headed straight for the kitchen door that leads outside, and I found my cousin playing in the yard. When I asked her why she had gone upstairs, she looked confused. I already knew.

I didn't have to ask her. But I think I just needed her to say it. I needed confirmation of what had just happened. Well, life went on. Strange happenings were a daily thing. My mom would hear old music playing but couldn't find where it was coming from. You might see someone turn a corner and find that nobody was there. You would feel a tug on your sleeve.

We knew that we were never alone, and the longer we were there, the more hostile it felt. One evening when I was 14, I had just gotten out of the shower, and I made my way into my bedroom. As I went to put my dirty clothes in the closet laundry basket, I noticed that the clothes that were hanging in there had all been pulled down as if ripped from their hangers. It was a pile on the floor of my closet. I was confused. I had just been there 20 minutes before. Ignore it.

That's what I always do, so I throw my clothes in the hamper, turn around and start walking across my room. Right in front of me, all of my CDs get thrown from my nightstand on to the floor. Ignore it. Now, nighttime was always particularly hard, for me. I'm not sure when it first started, but the darkness had moved into my room. I think I was an easy target, prone to anxiety, and always more sensitive to these things than others.

I knew it was there. It would stand in the corner of my room watching me. It stood dark and tall like a towering shadow. It filled me with absolute dread, almost like it was happy to do it. and I would freeze in fear. I couldn't scream. I needed to be there and protect my sister, no matter how defenseless I felt, so I would just pray. I would hide my face with a pillow

as it would slowly make its way closer to me. It liked being in my room, so it came back the next night and the next. I remember wishing that I could just sleep outside. I would be safer out there. If I were outside, I could just run from it, but I couldn't. I was trapped. By the time I was 14, this thing had become my constant companion.

Not that I was its only target, but again, I was an easy one. I was losing this fight. I knew that I couldn't go on much longer. It would torment me to sleep and wind up in my nightmares. My mental health took a turn for the worse, and I knew that I needed help, like yesterday. My aunt who lived in another state at the time caught wind of what was going on. She was a very religious person and knew that this was bigger than what we could deal with. She invited me to go live with her for a while.

I felt terrible leaving my younger sister, but I knew that she wouldn't stay in that room by herself. She knew she wasn't safe. She would sleep in our mom's room. Being at my aunt's house, it was a lot better. was a lot better. They had a stable, happy home life, and it was really good for me to decompress. No more night visits, no more tapping on the shoulder, no more being watched. It was a piece that I hadn't felt for years. Being in a house that felt safe was something I wasn't used to anymore. It was insane to me to realize that those things weren't normal. and I hadn't been imagining them.

I was able to get my mental health on a better track. It was during that time with my aunt that she convinced my mom that it was time for our family to move, that the house wasn't safe. We had been there six years too long. So, my family got everything in order and started the process of selling. My mom didn't want to, but we were running low on faith that anything would get better. We got a realtor to help put the business. the house on the market. My mom went back and forth on whether to tell the realtor about the

history of the house. Maybe there would be someone who might want to buy it for that reason. Maybe turn it into some twisted bed and breakfast. She decided not to, which I thought wasn't fair. I thought that they had a right to know that they were getting themselves into this, even if we lost money for it, but I remember when the realtor came to sell the house after we had moved out, he refused to be in there alone. We hadn't told him a single thing about what had happened, but he said that the house was evil. He knew.

He could feel that the house wasn't truly empty. Fast forward, things are a lot better now. It wasn't an easy road, and moving out was just the beginning of trying to untangle what had happened. As an adult, I have gone to therapy for, you know, I have gone to therapy for. the PTSD that I got from living there. I will still get nightmares of being in that house with it, and to this day I sleep with a pillow over my head.

Not because there's something watching me anymore, but because that's what I trained myself to do when there was. As a final side note, after talking to my family members about this, there were so many more crazy things that happened in that house that they never told me. But I guess that's all for another day. Just, I'm glad I got out. And yes, I know that there are some obvious red flags to how I was parented, and therapy helped with that, too.

It's been well over 15 years, and I still have no explanation for some of this, whereas some could be chalked up to sleep paralysis or highly realistic dreams. To give you a bit of context, the house that my family and I moved into when I was a young teenager was what most people would call haunted. We regularly heard footsteps up and down the hall, figures appearing in the corner of the eye, and my mom saw full-body apparition at one point. One occurrence was when I was lying in bed reading and my mom was in the laundry room, right across the hall from my room, and I watched a pencil-thick bunch of her hair get lifted up into the air and then dropped. Most of the time the energy of these felt,

curious, or maybe mischievous, at worst. However, there was a point when this changed. Prior to any truly freaky incidents in the home, there was a strange encounter in a park with some friends. It was late at night, and we were wrapping up a game that we played as a group. The playground where we usually went was sort of nestled into a woodsy area, and near it was a horseshoe pit in a long-abandoned bathroom. Rumor had it, a girl was attacked and murdered there back in the 90s.

Near this bathroom, one of us spotted what looked like a head and shoulders sitting on the waist-high grass. They were stooped over like they were asleep or nodding out, which wasn't all that uncommon in the area. We pointed and commented amongst ourselves. And then one of my friends called out to the figure asking, Hey, you all right? Do you need help? Or something like that. The vibes instantly shifted. This figure sort of cocked its head and turned toward us a bit.

A bit spooked already, we started picking up our stuff to leave. As we started gathering our stuff, I kept my eyes on this figure, and just as we were ready to go, this thing started to stand. And that's when I truly got crap scared. It stood up from the grass, seemingly getting taller and taller. It had to sort of stoop or duck to keep its head. from disappearing into the branches of the nearby trees. Mind you, the trees here are huge and old, with most of the denser branches,

starting at around 8 or 10 feet off the ground. It moved very slowly, smooth and twitchy at the same time, like a mantis or a weird lizard. I couldn't tell much in terms of details, but it looked to be bald, covered in gray leathery skin and had no discernible facial features

other than depressions where its eyes should have been. It sort of reminded me of a clay model, but an unfinished one that someone stretched out to be too thin and tall. It had spinly limbs and hands, which kept reaching up into the trees to brush the branches away from its head. At this point, I couldn't do anything but scream and book it running. The rest of the group saw what I did

and did the same, leaving behind lighters, smokes, whatever we hadn't already packed up. When we had gotten far enough away, I turned to look back to see if we'd been followed. Instead, I found that this creature had crept over to the bathroom area and was ducking down into the entryway. We kept running until we got to the neighborhood crash house, and stayed up for hours afterwards bouncing between rational explanations and pissing ourselves at the realizations of what we saw. The next encounter I wanted to go over was a bit less outright frightening but equally as bizarre,

and took place in almost the exact same location. It was a few weeks later. My friends and I, albeit a smaller group this time, as some of us had refused to come back to this park at night after that first encounter, were sitting on a bench smoking and chatting, trying to pass time until our parents went to bed. We tossed around the idea of psychic influence many times prior, and this night in particular, we wanted to experiment.

Essentially, we were trying to shut off lights in the park. Yes, I know we were young and dumb and thought that we were special. We watched one light in particular for quite a while, until one of us pointed something strange out. There was what I can only describe as a sort of void, a somewhat round spot that was darker than everywhere else. It passed through the areas where light shone down, but remained completely black, like a, total absence of light. It moved toward us, slowly, drifting across the field until it was about 10 feet from us, where it stood totally still. Naturally, we stood up and walked toward it like the foolish teenagers that we were. We stood around, shining our lights at it, finding that it didn't

show on camera whatsoever. This was around 15 years ago, and I'm not really in touch with any of this group anymore, so, unfortunately. I don't have any of the photos that we took from that night. Bear in mind, this was on this warm summer night, the kind where it's still sweat-inducing up until morning. But the air around this thing was freezing, and felt thick enough to suffocate us. I, feeling overly brave, thought that it was a great idea to touch this thing.

I stuck my hand toward it and watched the darkness swallow my hand. It felt even more dense than the surrounding air, like I was sticking my hand into a huge bowl of cold jello. I remember all of us just sort of doing a collective shoulder shrug and walking away, and then watching this thing continue to sit in place where I made contact with it. Eventually, we left, and we talked about it as we did, and then brought it up countless times in the next couple of months. The final experience that I want to recount to you

is the one that I have the hardest time believing was real. but also the one that was the most impactful for me. As I said before, my house was haunted. Once or more a week, my mom, sister, friends, or myself, would encounter something unexplainable. Usually these were indirect, harmless, and short-lived. Shortly after the void experience, these interactions became more frequent, more threatening, Sometimes just an air of dread, and sometimes they would cause actual harm, like pulling hair or scratches. I considered myself to be the protector of the house, so I took it upon myself to first attempt direct contact with whatever was in my home.

And second, to attempt to banish it, or otherwise remove it. My first attempt at contact was through the use of a pendulum. Simple. Clockwise, counterclockwise, yes, no communication. Looking back now, this was full-hearty, and I regret doing it. Shortly after closing the pendulum session, I was sat on my bed reading, and I heard loud, creaking steps going down the hallway, when I knew for a fact that I was alone.

I spoke out loud to who or whatever was causing this, stating that it was not wanted, not welcome, and that I commanded its to leave. Almost instantly the creaking steps were seated back down the hallway, before ceasing completely. I breathed a sigh of relief, and shortly after I was in bed asleep. What I awoke to was probably the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced. My bed was over a foot off the ground.

I knew this because my body was still on the bed, but at the level of my windowsill. I felt hot breath on my face before I saw anything. And what I saw was the face of something entirely non-human, unrecognizable and unlike anything I have ever seen. The closest thing I can think of are the hunger enemies in the Elder Scrolls, or the Viper Wolf from Avatar, or maybe a horse skull with skin stretched over it.

It had a long, thin snout that snarled and revealed thin needle-like teeth. The sides in front of its head were lined with several sets of eyes of varying sizes, all in a relatively straight line around its head. Its skin was a sort of grayish blue, and its eyes were almost entirely black, except for a very faint orange, red glow. Despite being absolutely terrified, I didn't feel legitimately threatened. Instead, I was emboldened by seeing this thing, and I spoke to it. I told it over and over again that I was not afraid, and that it had no power over me and no place in my world. It continued to snarl at me silently, until my message finally got through to it, or it realized that it wasn't having the desired effect. I blinked, and my bed was back where it should have been, and that creature was gone.

To this day, the strange paranormal activities in my mom's house are completely, diminished. And I never encountered anything like that again. Hello there, friends, Raven here. Welcome to the end of this episode of As the Raven Dreams. I hope that you genuinely enjoyed this collection of scary stories, as I enjoyed putting them together for you. If the platform you're on has the option to follow the podcast or leave ratings or reviews, please do consider doing so as it helps the podcast grow. Of course, if you enjoy the content, that is. If you didn't enjoy it, then feel free to also leave a rating as honesty is important, and I take all feedback seriously.

Also, I do have a YouTube channel. It's a lot of the same content, but we do live streams on Saturdays around 6 p.m. Central, so if you're free one Saturday night and want to come over and say hi, I would love to have you there. We just kind of have a good time doing whatever we want for the few hours that I'm online. You can also join the Patreon, patreon.com slash as the raven dreams, for early access to all this content. Check out the website, astherravendreams.com, for information and where you can listen to the podcast, find all my social media links, find the merch store, and send in your own stories to keep the podcast going, as it pretty much exists on crowdsourced content at this point. All of you really do keep the show going, so a huge thank you for that. Also on the website is information about the book that I wrote, titled The Insomniacs Experiment by Raven Adams.

It's a psychological thriller, and I think it's pretty good. You might actually like it. Check it out. It's available on Amazon. Or if you want a signed copy, you can email me to see if I have any left, and I will absolutely oblige if I do. All that said, friends, I hope you have a lovely rest of your day. I hope I see you again here very soon. But until then, remember that you are loved. You are valid. You are important. And the world, is a better place with you in it. Don't forget that. Until next time, much love and sleep well.