As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Vol 30 | ATRD Podcast

Episode Date: March 23, 2025

Today we have more than 2 hours of true scary stories with a late night ambience. Scary Stories For Dark Dreams is a collection of older stories, remastered and put together in a long form episode. This Collection includes the following stories; Home Alone Stories, Spring Break stories, and Other true scary stories, all from 2022. So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in todays episode! Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Much Love, and Sleep Well... ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories ➤ Stories include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio of this Podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤ If you like any of the following stories, consider subscribing! - Dark Web horror stories, creepy lets not meet stories, stalker stories, Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Unexplained Horror stories, Paranormal stories, cryptid encounter stories, Crazy ex lover stories, creepy neighbor stories, quantum immortality, true scary stories from reddit, or any other True horror Stories! ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. TimeStamps… 1 ➤ 00:24 2 ➤ 14:11 3 ➤ 27:19 4 ➤ 41:09 5 ➤ 49:10 6 ➤ 1:02:59 7 ➤ 1:11:48 8 ➤ 1:17:51 9 ➤ 1:26:07 10 ➤ 1:33:58 11 ➤ 1:44:44 12 ➤ 1:49:55 13 ➤ 2:10:18 14 ➤ 2:11:28 15 ➤ 2:13:54 16 ➤ 2:16:32 17 ➤ 2:19:35 18 ➤ 2:28:08 There is one midroll after the first story. ----- #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

If you have a true scary story you'd like to share with the podcast, go to as-the-ravendreams.com and click the button to send it my way. Also, if the platform you're on has the option to rate the podcast or leave a comment, please consider doing so. And as always, thank you. This happened to me and a few of my girlfriends one spring break a few years back. We were in our last year of college and being consistently broke. throughout it. We decided we wanted to go wild for spring break and have a great time before we graduated, as we may not see each other for some time afterwards.

So, when we weren't studying or in class, we were working as much as we could and saving every penny to make sure we had enough for a hotel room, and a little extra for food and shopping. Surprisingly, we made it. and we had a great plan set up for us to have some much-needed fun. We were planning to drive down to New Orleans. Thankfully, Sydney had a pretty new car that we all trusted to get us there. We were also lucky to get a hotel that was close to a popular and busy part of the city, so we could easily walk around and back to said hotel.

So, with everything planned, we counted down the days, and hardly slept the night before we departed. The next morning, Sydney, Ava, and I crammed our suitcases into the trunk, filled up a few bottles of water, and stuffed a backpack full of snacks and instant coffee from the rec room, and we took off.

We listened to cringy, cliche, girly, road trip music, and it was probably obnoxious when we had to stop to fill up and use the restroom, but we were in a zone. and it was an amazing time. When we finally got there, though, I don't know if we really were still excited and wired,

or if we were just delusional, but we were ready to check in and go have a great time. But once we got unpacked, we all crashed. Sidney and I were out pretty quick, so Ava tried to watch some TV, but said she passed out soon after. Anyways, we woke up pretty late that night, so we decided to order in and just make a nice night of it.

When our food arrived, I went to get it when they called us. We were all in our pajamas, which for me consisted of a tank top, and basketball shorts and a sports bra since I was leaving the room. As I got to the lobby, there was a guy leaning over the front counter while the receptionist was on the phone. I was grabbing the pizza when I noticed the guy had looked at the table. looked over at me while I was handing over the cash, and once I made eye contact, he smiled at me. Not going to lie, I didn't dislike the attention, though. I was the chubby friend. While the other two were more fit and attractive, I often wore baggier or looser clothing to hide my belly,

which is also why I was wearing basketball shorts. So, needless to say, I smiled back. He was attractive to. He was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and some band's t-shirt that I don't remember. My favorite part was his long blonde hair. It was a little past his shoulder with the curls that I wished my hair had. So, definitely my type. I didn't know what else to do, though, so I just continued to walk back to our room. I got back with the pizza and explained to them what had happened.

They gave me grief that I should have gotten his number or something and insisted on going out there to find him. After pleading with her not to, Ava walked out of the room to find the guy. After a while, she came back in and slapped down a napkin on the bed with a scribbled number on it and his name, which was Alan. She'd actually gotten it for me. They teased me for a while and said I should talk to him and invite him out with us tomorrow night,

so I told them I would consider it. I stashed the number in my pocket, and we enjoyed the rest of our night. The next day was going to be our day. We planned to be there for the weekend, so this was our full day to do whatever we wanted. We did some shopping, went to a popular local place for lunch,

and then hung out in the pool to chill before we got ready for the night out. While we were in the pool, we talked about where we wanted to go and planned on hopping around to a few different places. As we were getting out and I was wrapping a towel around me, I saw Alan, walking in the pool room, wearing trunks, and holding a towel. Again, he looked me up and down and smiled and said hi to me. I smiled, not knowing what else to do, and watched as he walked past me and got into the hot tub area. My friends pushed me to go sit in there with him, but I was way too nervous to do that. I wouldn't say that I'm really conservative in my ways, but I only had one serious relationship,

and I'd been out of it for some time, so I was still very shy about initiating anything. And with that, I walked back to our room with them. We all showered, munched on our leftover pizza, and got to our... not ready for the night out. We planned on going to a bar that was pretty close by at the recommendation of another person staying at the hotel and decided to start there first. We had a great time there.

Doing shots, being loud, I'm sure, but just your typical girl's night out. It was the next place that we decided to check out that things started picking up. That was definitely more of a part party place. More drinks and dancing took place there, for sure, and then they made jokes that my boyfriend was here. Sure enough, in Wax Allen. At this point, it can't be helped. He spots us, and he's waved over by Ava. He's just standing by us, bobbing a bit, and asking us how we're

doing, where we're from, things like that. Then, he offered to get us all drinks. They didn't hesitate. So we got some free drinks and danced and talked for a while longer. He then suggested that we hit up another place he knew of, and we all agreed. It looked more like an old home or apartment style that was turned into some kind of makeshift bar. I know from explaining it, it seems like it could be really suss, but it looked pretty legit. There was a bar, and they asked us for ID. There was a dance area, booths in the back, just all of it.

So, we were cool with it when we got there. It was more of the last place, though. More drinks given to us by Alan, dancing. Alan started dancing with me, grabbing my hips and whatnot, which was unexpected, but I let it go. Then, he started to get a little bit more aggressive with it. He would try to grope me in different places, and, Being the shy person that I was, I didn't really know how to react to it, so I would just move in a weird direction where he couldn't grab me anymore and make some kind of comments like, uh-uh, and slightly shake my head or something. I wasn't intending to play hard to get, but I'm also not interested in one night's stands.

So, as the night continued, the groping continued, and so did the drink. However, then the sickness started to show its ugly face. I started feeling nauseous and dizzy, yet my friends weren't. I figured since we were all doing the same shots, then I must just not be holding mine in well. I didn't want to ruin their funds, so I told them how I was feeling, and said I was just going to go back to the room. They offered to go with, or at least walk me back, but I told them I'd be fine. then Alan offered to walk me back I again told him that he didn't have to but he insisted

I gave up and agreed to let him walk me back and I told my friends that I would see them later we walked back had some small talk and he asked me if I was okay I told him that I probably just didn't eat enough or something and said that I would be fine I got up to our room and thanked him as I turned around, and then he pushed himself on me and started kissing me.

I pushed him away, and I told him I wasn't ready for anything like that, as it was way too fast. That's when I saw the unexpected side of him. The anger on his face was obvious, and he made a comment about, what the hell was the point of all those drinks then? Don't you think you owe me? At that point, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a twilight. that I had and told him to have a good night, and then shut the door.

The rest of that night, though, was a total blur. I remember going to the bathroom, getting sick, and then I crawled into my bed and passed out. I remember having a weird dream that was almost like sleep paralysis. I'd never experienced anything like it before, but I remember seeing a dark figure above me, and I felt like my body was being pulled and moved in different directions, but it wasn't by myself. Then it disappeared, and I didn't remember anything else until I woke up earlier to my friends. They were desperately trying to wake me up, and I remember going in and out, thinking they were just messing with me, but I could hear the concern in their voice, which finally got me to wake up.

but I was still very groggy, and my head was pounding. Then, they started explaining what was going on. After we had left, Alan hadn't come back yet, and it had been over half an hour. That was plenty of time for him to drop me off and come back. They were kind of worried because they knew that I wasn't the type to just let him in, and especially not without telling them. They thought maybe he just didn't return because he wasn't interested in them, but when they tried calling, it seemed to be ignored,

and then went straight to voicemail the second time. They then became worried and started to leave. Then, as they were leaving, there were a few guys distracting them and trying to get them to stay. They finally got out of there and rushed back to our room, and when they got there, they opened the door and saw a figure, standing in our room in the dark.

They flipped on the lights and immediately started yelling as they saw Alan standing in the room with his pants off. He quickly ran to the door where Sidney tried to stop him, but he shoved her out of the way, and as she was trying to get up, he got out the door and was gone. Sidney said she tried chasing him down the hall but lost him. However, she was screaming, so it got the person's attention at the person's attention at the the front desk. All of this, of course, was told to me afterwards because I had obviously been drugged.

That's why I didn't remember any of this, why I felt sick, and even worse, why I felt like I was experiencing sleep paralysis. It was him. He was trying to undress me. He didn't get far, though, when they walked in on him. From there, the reception is called the police, but he was. long gone. They took their report and then when I finally came to, they questioned me. I had to go to the hospital, though, to make sure I was okay. I just felt bad, and I was sitting

there thinking that I ruined our trip, whereas my friends felt awful for ever letting me go alone or getting his number. I think we all explained to each other back and forth plenty that we don't blame each other. Unfortunately, the guy was never caught, and Alan was most likely not even his real name, as they didn't even have anyone checked in there under that name. We still have no idea if it was a fake, or if he was even staying there. I'm a lot safer now, and I don't dare go anywhere by myself, or at least not with strangers, but to Alan or whoever the hell you were,

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Ciroat. Bookine. Oh, that also. And profited. Via-Rai, the voice that we love. There have been recent developments with my poltergeist. to the point where I'm not even sure it belongs in paranormal tales anymore,

but I guess it's still interesting in its own right. So, buckle up for a scientific examination of pericinetic activity, which is probably the most boring, spooky story you will ever come across. I'm a skeptic. Even the most unlikely natural explanation is by definition, more likely than a supernatural one, and what are the odds is not good enough, reason to overturn a tried and tested model of the universe.

Having said that, unexplained things do happen, and I've tended to file them away under until I had gathered enough data points to form a working hypothesis. Things behave as if this were the case, and then figure out if it, A, explains existing data, and B, predicts future data. Of course, any fresh evidence. or unexpected lack thereof means it has to be completely overhauled. Also, when I use terms such as poltergeist, I'm using it as a shortcut for things moving about, presumably from an external source.

I'm not subscribing to the spooks, ghost, and demons that are commonly ascribed to the cause. I don't know the cause. I have no information to indicate that, so I just stick to the facts available. Oh, and in case it's relevant, I am bipolar. I learned to handle it without medication by recognizing when my brain meat was messing with me and slamming the brakes on the downward spiral. If things are as bad as they seem, then they will be just as bad when my brain is functioning properly. So I need to write out the current down swing and look again when things are back to normal.

This is relevant later on. My first recollection of a definite event was when I was 14. We had just moved houses and school, which I hated. On several occasions, while I was doing homework in my room, there would be a knock on my door, which was not too unusual. Three clear knocks. The first few times I said come in, and there was no response, and it turned out that everyone was downstairs.

The last time it happened, I paused before answering. The Knox came again, and I asked who is it. No response. Nobody there. And it didn't happen again. 17 was a bad year, but nothing really happened. But at 19, I moved into my own place and things started up again.

I was very fond of switches, something that always fascinated me as a child, and the water heater with its hefty high-wadage clunk switch. turned itself off a couple of times when I was home alone. My radio, again with the physical slighty click switch, turned itself on while my cousins were upstairs on my computer, and my hi-fi would suddenly start playing back badly, although I can't say for certain what that was. I was teaching my cousin to program on the C-64.

I told him about the events and the winter was cold, so my computer was downstairs in the living room. We took a break for a coffee, and we went into the kitchen, about ten feet from where we were sitting, and he asked if I had opened the curtains. I told him no, but I hadn't closed them, but he said that he had, but now they were open. I shrugged and closed them, pulling them hard along the curtain wire, no easy glide there. We got back to the computer, went to make another. coffee and stopped dead on the threshold.

The curtains were open wide again, despite being only a few feet from where we were sitting, and only slightly behind us. My attitude at the time was, oh, I know what that is, and I got on with making the coffee. My cousin wouldn't go in, and I asked him what was wrong, since I told him stuff like this happens, and he replied, I know, but I didn't. Believe you. Time went on, decades passed, and nothing major happened. It became just something that happened to me in my younger days.

I moved continents, ended up living on an anarchist commune, looking after animals and life was good, until my now ex decided that she had the right to cheat on me. We'd been together for 16 years, and I was totally committed to the relationship, So I was trying to get things back on course while she refused to even consider any changes to her behavior. Then, things started up again. We lived in an RV, and the water pump would turn on just after we went to bed. Even when it was left on, the water pressure would drop over around ten minutes, and the pump would kick in with the loud dur-dur-dur-dur-dur-dur.

So we only turned it on when we needed to. about once a week we would go to bed and have the pump kick in so the switch became known as the bugger switch based on what I said because I had to get out of bed when we were camping and she was in her own tent she complained that the lantern in there kept turning itself on

throughout the night and threatened to perform a banishing ritual if it didn't stop and I told her to leave my buddy alone Other things moved and fell over, but nothing I can definitively say wasn't a coincidence. My ex, fortunately, had the same approach as me. I didn't think that sort of thing happened, but evidently I was wrong, so we lived with it. Things got worse between us, and I started taking St. John's Wart. I hate that stuff, because it makes the world flat, grey, and boring.

but I had used it before to get my mental state back to a zero point, usually a couple of weeks. This time, I was on it for three months and everything stopped. Nothing unusual happened. I later did some research and found that in the Middle Ages, it was supposed to ward off evil spirits, so, yes, I can see to their mindset that would be what was happening, or maybe they thought depression was possession by demons. When I did stop, things kicked back in with a vengeance.

Things falling off of tables became a daily occurrence, and one day we were both sitting at the table working on our computers when I heard of scratching. I figured the mice had gotten into the RV and thought that I'd best set traps before going to bed that night. Then the scratching got louder, and I figured I had better set the rat trap too, just in case. Then my hairbrush landed on my shoulder. It had been further along the dinette seat and lower than shoulder level, but my ex, who was facing me, said she'd seen it move.

After I got over the goddamn it factor, I had to admit it was a pretty good prank. And that was the thing, it seemed, to kick in to annoy me and prevent me spiraling down into a depression, so it appeared to be looking out for me. Again, this was a temporary working hypothesis, and now that I had more data coming in, I could try to figure out what was behind it. I was volunteering at a food bank, and things started happening there, to the point where my boss was beginning to freak out. I filled her in on what was happening, and she told me I needed to get rid of those demons.

I pointed out that it was mischievous, but not malevolent, and seemed to be trying to stop me from seeing. Stinking into depression, she accepted that. I got in one morning and found that a very heavy steel table had been moved exactly its width forward. It hadn't moved for years, so the dust rectangle plainly showed where it should have been, and it took two of us to move it back. I figured someone had moved it to Hoover under it, but she said it wasn't there when she left the night before. I pointed to the video cameras in the corner and said that it must have been caught on them.

I was excited because I would finally have video evidence of what was going on, but she said that they hadn't worked for years, so that idea was gone. Things with my ex fell apart. I moved back into my home country and fell into a severe depression. My doctor said he wasn't surprised, and getting a therapist for the first time, he later admitted that at first he wasn't sure whether there was anything to do to help me.

Sometimes, I would find myself missing the 22 rifle we had on the farm. Hell, I didn't like living here when I left 25 years before. It certainly hadn't improved then, so for three years, I wasn't utter despair. And what did my spooky sidekick do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Even the events that could be dismissed as a coincidence kind of feel different, but at the lowest point in my life when I could have really done with the company, there was nothing there. I kind of missed him.

Now that I'm coming out of the other side, I've been able to evaluate everything that has happened and revise my working hypothesis. If it was about watching out for me, then this period would have been when it was needed most. That it wasn't there undermines that whole idea. On all of the occasions when things did happen, it occurred to me that my mindset was pretty much the same. Stress, desperation, but with just a chance of getting out of the situation combined with being distracted. Depression didn't cut it.

Since it's so dependent on my state of mind, Occam's razor says not to add unnecessary variables to a hypothesis, so I figure I can set aside the idea, of an external entity for now, and put it down to an internal cause to telekinetic, is more likely than poltergeidic, which is disappointing on so many levels. It would be comforting to think that something was watching out for you, and that would suggest something about the nature of the universe and reality. Telekinesis, on the other hand, might make changing a light bulb easier if it could be mastered,

but is otherwise relatively mundane. If this is true, then it could offer some explanations to the traditional view of the poltergeist. My trigger is desperation, and I've always approached fear as something to be overcome as quickly as possible. When I found I was afraid of climbing vertical surfaces, I joined a climbing club to get over it within my own terms in my own time, so fear wouldn't be a trigger. If someone didn't do this and fear was their trigger, I could imagine a feedback loop that might lead to the traditional room flying around you type events.

So, where to from here? I have no idea. It's taken me a lifetime to get the facts that I have, and recreating the mindset to try and trigger it is not something I've ever tried before. Then, there's the problem that having achieved that state of mind would be followed by, oh good, oh bugger, because feeling pleased about it would replace it. Even if I could recreate it, how do you direct the results? Since distraction is also a factor, concentrating on what you wants to happen would be counterproductive.

I have a feeling that it's just a symptom of the mindset and not a direct result. So, while some definitely don't work, it doesn't feel like precision would be that crucial. The way my life is going, I'm pretty sure that I'll stumble across it again over the next few years. And I'll see what, if anything, I can do with it. This is really long, and I'm sorry in advance, but as most of the major happenings over the past 13-plus years. I've lived with what I was told by a medium is the spirit of a baby that I lost during pregnant. and to this day have daily experiences with. I also shared on here my glitch stories, so needless to say, my life can get pretty freaky at times.

This is a true story, and is only a few instances of some of the scarier things that have happened to us over the past 13-plus years. I am sorry for how long it is, but as mentioned, below, it really is a tiny percentage, but some of the scarier things that we've gone through and still go through on a daily basis. A little context for our living situation and where this all took place. Four months after I gave birth to my first child, my mom offered to sell me her in-home child care business because she was ready to do something else after running her daycare for 20 plus years. I essentially grew up in the daycare

and started working there in my teenage years. I helped run the business with my mom after I graduated high school, so taking it over completely in my early 20s was an easy transition. My dad had built a second house on their property, so she wasn't living in the house that the in-home daycare was run out of. It's more a classification for the state licensing. board. There's daycare centers, in home child care, etc., but that's not important. In fall of 2005, when my daughter was five months old, her dad and I thought it was best to buy my

mom's daycare and move from the small two-bedroom apartment we had in a not-so-great part of town to the five-bedroom house in the small town I grew up in, next door to my childhood home. About six months after moving into our new home, we found out that we were expecting another child. And I gave birth to my son in the winter of 2006. For a few years, things were relatively quiet, so let's fast forward to 2009, when my son is three and my daughter is four and a half. They were playing in the front part of the house that was technically considered a daycare, and I had been sitting in the living room while they played. Out of nowhere, they both started simultaneously screaming and crying hysterically

as they came running out of the living room. After I got them calmed down, my daughter explained through tears that there was a little boy with glowing green eyes watching them play. She said he was peeking over the half wall that separates what was then the craft area from the kitchen. In my opinion, they were too young to make something like that up. They both told the same story for weeks after it happened, and for them to start crying at the exact same time? The daycare had been closed for the evening,

and there was obviously no one there when I went to take a look. So I 100% believe that they both saw something, and the events that followed confirmed that our house was in fact, haunted. After the first sighting, activity picked up but was relatively innocent. Every day, as long as it was nice out, my employees would take all the kids outside to the playground while I stayed inside to cook lunch. Quite a few times, I would see, out of the corner of my eye, a little boy running across

the room. Out of habit, I would remind him that we don't run in. inside before realizing I was alone, and that all the children were outside and accounted for. Over time, it got worse. I had just gotten into bed one night when I heard a strange noise over my son's baby monitor. I went in to check on him, and when I reached his door, I noticed a pillow over his face. I flipped the light on to see two small indentations in the pillow, and in that same split second, my son started gasping for air.

There was some invisible thing trying to smother my baby with his pillow. After a few weeks of hell, trying to get him back to sleep in his own bed, things went back to normal for a while. I say normal, but at the very least it wasn't actively trying to hurt my kids. A few times a week, always at night, And usually between the hours of 10 p.m. and 3 a.m., we would hear faint chants in old church songs coming over the baby monitors. I can't explain what it sounded like exactly, but it was by no means anything that would be sung or said in any modern church. Things would get knocked off shelves.

I'd feel what felt like something crawling into the bed with me. I would see things out of the corner of my eye, but more important, importantly, my kids weren't being affected, and for a while, I was hopeful that the worst was over. About four months go by. My daughter was probably around five years old, when just like before, as I was getting into bed, I heard her call out for me over the monitor. First, in a quiet voice, she whispered yells, Mommy. But then a second later, she started crying and said, That wasn't nice.

I run in there, and after I got her calmed down, she said there was someone watching her. And when she got scared and called out for me, it had made him mad, and he had scratched her. I pulled up her sleep shirt to find three deep scrapes on her back that went from her left hip to her right shoulder, which would have been impossible for her to do herself, unless she was secretly a contortionist at the ripe old age of five.

After that, I started calling anyone and everyone I could find online to get help, or at the very least, get some answers as to what we may be dealing with. After a week or so of emails and phone calls, I got a call from a well-known medium in my state. He asked a handful of questions about the activity in my house, but nothing about my job, marital status, nothing that could have led him to the answers that he gave me. I was literally in the middle of answering a random question

when he interrupted me and said that the spirit in my house was my child. He somehow knew that I had previously had a miscarriage, and he explained that my son was jealous of the attention his brother and sister got, and he was angry with them for getting to have a life with me that he would never get. He told me what I needed to do to stop at all, to get rid of the spirit in my home, but I could never do it. If this medium is to be believed, I would be casting out my own child. Obviously, I had to put my living children first,

their safety was and always will be my top priority. But after acknowledging what I was, was in my house and walking around, probably looking like a crazy person talking to him whenever I was alone, everything got better. The kids would see him once in a while, up until they both reached around the age of seven and eight, and for the most part, he left them alone. They both, over time, have forgotten most of what they went through when they were young. My son, who is 13 now, will see things, and he remembers quite a bit since he never actually stopped having encounters with this spirit.

Not long ago, he came running in the living room. He said he thought he saw the shadow of a person and didn't know why, but he felt like he was being chased. So, other than small things like them hearing what sounds like someone walking up and down the stairs, someone whispering their name, things being pushed off of shelves or doors being opened, and the activity in my house, as far as my kids are concerned, has pretty much stopped. This is an edit that I'm adding. This was the original story that I posted on Reddit over a year ago, and in that small amount of time, things have kicked up again.

My daughter, who's very practical, she's 17 now, did not believe the things that were happening to her brother and I, and sometimes her dad, over the years. Unfortunately for her, she voiced her skepticism often, and I would warn her to be careful of what she says, as I've learned that stuff like that can definitely cause it to go out of its way to prove that person wrong. My husband learned that the hard way.

but she didn't believe me. And in the past year and a half, has seen that it is in fact real. She left her drink on her nightstand only to come back in her room a few minutes later and eventually find it high up on a shelf she couldn't have reached without a stepstool. She had her school laptop on her bed

and went back in her room to it missing. After a lengthy search, she found it in her library. a room that she hadn't been in in days. We've figured out that most of the things that go missing from her room end up somewhere in the library, so it's gotten easier to find her missing items. After it started happening to her,

we recently had a family meeting, and I laid it all out for them. Like I said, and they forgot the bulk of the things that had happened when they were little, but I felt like now that they were 15 and 17, they needed to know the truth, so they understood what it was that was doing all of this, and we were all better about ignoring

and not drawing attention to the things that happen, because that seems to keep the happenings to a minimum. I know people are going to judge, and you're all probably thinking that I'm an absolute idiot for not doing what the medium said and gone through with getting rid of him. but I didn't make that decision lately. Please understand that.

I read into a lot of things after that, and I wasn't 100% convinced it was the baby that I lost. Spirits don't usually hurt people, but poltergeists do. On one hand, what if it was my child, and the steps to get rid of him didn't work, and it only made him more angry. What if he lashed out and succeeded in stupt. smothering one of my kids with the pillow.

And that goes for it being something else completely. What if I only made it more angry by trying to get rid of it? At that point, it was extremely annoying but no longer hurting my children. I just couldn't take the chance of undoing the peace that I finally had in my home. This story may be long, and I'm sorry for that, but it really is the bare bones of what we went through, and what we are still going through today. I can't explain why, but I honestly felt like it would all get a hundred times worse if I had tried to get rid of him completely. And yes, ten-plus years later, he is still here.

At least a few times a month, I will hear what sounds like my living son's voice outside my bedroom door at night saying, Mom. He would do that a lot when he was little and got scared. Instead of coming in my room, he would stand him. my doorway calling out for me. The strange part is, is that the voice that I hear now is not the crackly voice he has as a 13-year-old prepubescent teen. It's the sweet, innocent voice he had as a small child.

Many people have told me that this is not just the jealous spirit of my unborn child, that it's some sort of poltergeist, and that regular spirits cannot do what we have seen him do. but for whatever reason the way we've chosen to approach the situation has made coexisting possible and for me that's enough i just don't have it in me to make it leave and i don't think i ever will back when i was about thirteen my family moved into a new house it was an average-looking house with nothing particularly special about it it was my first myself, my parents, and my little brother. At the time, he was about two or three, I believe.

There were occasions where I would be left at home if one of them was at work, and the other needed to go do something, and I didn't want to go. So being home alone was normal for me. It was never scary or a big deal, though, as I usually just did the same thing. I would play my N64 in my room or something like that. and probably not even notice how much time had passed until they caught back. However, we had a cool-looking, crawl-space-like area in our new house that I was itching to explore.

There was a small door lift in the basement leading to it. My dad said it wasn't anything special, as it would most likely just be dirt and spiders, but if it was a potential hideout spot, I wanted to check it out. While my dad was at work, my mom let me stay home one day as my brother had a doctor's appointment that she had to take him to. After she left, I was watching something on TV when it reminded me of the crawl space. So, I decided that now was the time to take a look. I grabbed a flashlight from the drawer and a small bag to collect anything I found and wanted to keep.

I didn't think about the door actually being hard to open, but... but being a scrawny little boy, it took me some time to finally get it open. I hopped down into it, and there was probably enough room for me to crouch through it. I couldn't quite stand, and I'm sure that my dad would have had to have crawled. I saw a fair share of spiders and other insects, but I didn't scare easily, so I just maneuvered around them or killed them. For the most part, it was uneventful, but as I made, made my way around the edges, I noticed a pile of stuff in the back corner.

When I approached it, I could tell that there was an old blanket covered in dirt and cobwebs, covering something else. I gave it a light kick to make sure nothing moved underneath it, and when nothing came out, I pulled the blanket back, and it seemed to be a bunch of baby stuff. There was an old vintage-style stroller, and it was a box with some kind of toys, and what I think were old photos. You could barely make anything out in the photos, but there was writing on the back of them with a date.

I don't remember the date, unfortunately, and the rest of it wasn't a very fluid cursive, but I couldn't make it out. The toy looked like some kind of baby doll, but it was all soft like a stuffed animal. Then there was the box. Inside, sitting right on top, was a bunch of small, teeth. I think they were human because they weren't pointed like canines and felines, and given the fact

that they were found where they were. There was something underneath it, and I was going to pull it out, when I heard what sounded like footsteps above me. I figured my mom just got home, so I decided to start putting stuff back as it was, covered everything back up, and headed back to the door. To my surprise, as I was walking back, I actually heard my dad call out for me. So I came out of the crawl space, shut the door, and hollered back that I was in the basement and started running upstairs. I expected him to be waiting at the top of the stairs, or in the garage, as you have to go through the garage to get to the basement, but he wasn't.

I walked into the kitchen from there and the living room again, and he was nowhere to be found. I called out for him, and when I didn't get a response, I just went through each room, even the closets, to find him. I never did. I checked the time and realized my dad should not have even been home, as it was only around noon and he usually got home around six. This actually spooked me quite a bit.

The sound of footsteps, I could see me mistaking for possibly the floor, creaking or the house shifting, even though it was a pretty clear pattern of a step, step, step. But that was definitely my dad's voice, and I had no idea how that was possible. I called my mom and asked how much longer she was going to be, and she said that they were on their way home. I took the home phone to my room, turned the TV up loud, and sat against my door so it couldn't be opened, until I heard my mom come home and actually try to open my door. I never told her or my dad that I went down there, because I wasn't supposed to be alone. But that legitimately creeped me out. It didn't end there, though. After that day, I would hear

disembodied voices, but it would always be a familiar voice, usually that of my parents, and even my uncles. My uncle was really, cool, so I remember one time running out of my room looking for him after I heard him. And my mom looked at me like I was crazy when I said that I had heard him, asking where he was. I also seemed to be the only one that could hear it, and felt like it was driving me crazy. I constantly asked my dad if we could check out the crawl space, and after many, next weeks, or maybe someday, he finally agreed. I let him lead the way, and I pointed out curiously what was in the corner.

He saw the same stuff, but didn't open the box. He told me to go get a trash bag, and when I went back to the basement, he was already out of it and holding the stroller. He tossed everything we found into the bag, and pretty much chucked the bag and stroller out the side window down there. I was curious what his plans were, and if he had opened it, in the box, so I asked what was in it. He said there was nothing special, and when I followed him outside, he just took it all to the

trash. Something felt weird to me, though, about the whole experience. Yet again, my dad didn't seem bothered by it, but I felt like someone was watching us and was not happy. This feeling continued for many days, but then something came over me, and I felt like I needed to go back to the crawl space. So, the next time that I was home alone, I went down there again. I went back to that corner and saw that there were still a few of the teeth on the ground.

I took them to our backyard and buried them, thinking maybe this was something paranormal. I'd watch a few ghost movies with my mom and did something similar, and part of me thought it was silly while I was doing it, but I still did it. However, I didn't hear the voices at all after that. When I was alone, I didn't hear random footsteps or voices, and I thought, maybe that's what they wanted or needed? Maybe it was a coincidence, but if it was something else, I hope that I was at least able to help them rest.

This happened to me back when I was around 10. I remember a lot of it because it was terrifying, but some of the details are gone. At the time, my mom was a single parent. My dad wanted nothing to do with me, I assume, because I didn't even know he ever existed. Then my mom had another kid with a different guy, and they split up. My mom was the only one that worked, though. I remember he always stayed home with me and my stepbrother until they split up. When he moved out, he would take my stepbrother with him, but would say that I wasn't his responsibility.

So I was left by myself at times. It usually wasn't long, so I would walk to the back door, let myself in, and wait an hour or so for my mom to get home. This would change, though, on holiday breaks, like Christmas or even spring break. My mom didn't have anyone nearby that could watch me, and she didn't have the money to pay for a babysitter, so I would be left alone for six to eight hours by myself. I was given rules, though. I was not to answer the door for anyone, because she would have a key and she wouldn't knock. I wasn't allowed to answer the phone except at certain times.

She would call at exact times and would answer by saying it's mama, before I would talk so that I knew it was her. And since we had thick curtains, they were to stay closed at all times. Other than that, it was the whole no-touching the stove or microwave rules, of course. She made sure that I had plenty of accessible food that didn't involve cooking, like pre-made sandwiches, lunchables, juice, just things like that. I didn't really think much of it other than, okay, I get to play, eat, and sleep as much as I want. That was the end of it.

So this took place when I was home alone on one spring break. My mom prepped my lunch, went over the rules again, and left, locking the door behind her. I had my breakfast while watching cartoons, and that probably took an hour or two, because, you know, I was a child, so I was easily amused. After a while, I went back to my room to grab some toys to bring them to the living room to play with while I continued to watch TV. That made up most of my day. Sometimes I would get out my coloring stuff, or give my toys a bath. I had these colorful soaps, and I always wanted to use them. So I would do that in the bathroom sink.

Anyways, one of those days I was playing, and I decided that I needed flowers. I think that my dolls were getting married or something like that. I don't quite remember. I was going to color flowers, but then I couldn't cut them out because I wasn't allowed to use the scissors while I was alone. so I decided I would go pick the flowers in our yard I thought I would go out the back door pick a few flowers and then quickly run back in that way no one would even ever know

so off I went to pick some flowers but then I thought I needed some dirt to put the flowers in so I ran back to get a cup to put dirt in as I was filling the cup I noticed the neighbor next door was outside watering her flowers. She noticed me too. She waved and smiled at me, and since I wasn't supposed to be outside,

I just smiled and quickly ran back inside. I thought it was a pretty smooth move at the time, as no one ever came over or called and my mom never found out about it either. So the days continued on as normal from there, until a few days later. I was playing in my room when I decided that I needed rocks. Look, kids' imaginations

are crazy. I specifically wanted the rocks that we had out front because they were flat and smooth. I was going to make them into some kind of structure again for my dolls, so as I had done before,

I would run out there, make sure no one was around this time, and grab a few rocks and go back in. I opened the door and looked around, and no one was there. So I grabbed my little purse and walked out to start gathering some rocks. While I was leaning over picking out the rocks, I heard the gate open. It was metal, so it had a squeak to it when you moved the handle. I looked up to see a woman that was not my mom coming in. She smiled and started to say something for me, So I immediately ran to the door shouting Mom to make it seem like I wasn't alone,

and then I shut the door and locked it. The lady then walked up to the door and knocked, and I just laid still on the couch, waiting for her to leave. After a few more knocks, she did finally leave. I peeked through the curtain to see her get in a car that I didn't even notice in the driveway and drive off. I thought I cut it close on that one, so I told myself that I wouldn't go back outside, no matter what. However, I didn't even have to do that. While eating my lunch the next day, there was a knock on the door.

I was scared that it was the same lady coming back, so I sat still waiting for her to eventually leave. After a few more minutes and not hearing any more knocks, I proceeded to peek at her. around the curtains to see if she had left, when I was greeted to her face trying to look in as well. I nearly screamed when I saw her, but I think that I scared her, too. It was definitely the same lady, though. She motioned to the door, and being caught at this point, I kind of thought, you know, what choice do I have? I remember feeling like I was just caught doing something that I wasn't supposed to be doing, So the only option I had left was to confess.

I opened the door, and she said that she wanted to talk to my mom. She looked like a nice lady, though. I remember she was wearing a dress or a skirt with a vest over it, and she had her hair pulled back like my mom. In fact, she reminded me a lot of my mom, which at least made me feel a little better. I told her my mom was busy, though, and that she couldn't come to the door.

That's when she started laying into me. She said, are you sure she's home? You're not lying to me, are you? I told her no and said that she was just in the shower. She then pushed her way past me into the house and said that she would wait for her to get out. I again told her she couldn't because I wasn't supposed to answer the door while she was in the shower.

So she turned to scaring me. She said that she knew I was lying to protect my mom because I wasn't supposed to be alone. This, of course, caused me to be more alert because I was just hearing that I was going to be in trouble. She said she was there to arrest my mom for leaving me home alone, and I started crying. She started asking me more questions about when she would be back, and the crying got louder and uglier until I was begging her to not arrest my mother. She said she wouldn't arrest her if I went with her instead, and then my mom could pick me up when she got off work. I thought, if I could keep my mom from getting in trouble because, let's face it, I had messed up, then I would do it.

So I agreed to go with her. She told me I could take my backpack with whatever I wanted in it, so I ran to my room, grabbed my favorite doll and book, and I headed out of her. out the front door. I was still very scared and sad thinking I was going to get in trouble when my mom picked me up. When I got to the car, I began to wonder how my mom was going to know where we were, so I asked her if we should call her before she knew. That was probably her mistake, though. She was opening the back door when I asked this, and she very quickly and dismissively said something like she's not going to know because you're not coming back. She's a bad mom.

So I started crying again and I was even more scared. I don't remember what all I said, but I do know that I was nearly screaming, bawling and pleading with her to let me stay and see my mom again. She kept telling me to shut up and to get in the car, and that's when the old lady next door came out. She was waving and smiling and was asking, what was going on here as she walked closer. The woman started to become irritated at this point.

She said she was taking care of me since there were no adults in the house. The old lady was smooth as can be, though, and responded back with something like, Now, Katie, I told you I would be right back, didn't I? I was confused and still crying, and all I could do was muster out an apology. She then explained to this woman that she was watching me, but had to run back home to get something, and then she apologized for leaving me alone. I don't know what she did,

but this woman then let go of me and shoved me at the neighbor, and she said she would be back if I was ever caught alone again. I stood next to her as we watched the woman drive away and nearly burn out of the driveway. Once she was gone, she asked me if I was okay, and suggested I go back home. I started running back home when I noticed that she was following behind me and up to the front door.

Right before I was going to shut it, something told me to let her in and that I was going to be safe, so I invited her in. She then told me that I was okay and could go play, and that she would wait there for my mom to get home. I made my way to my room, and after lying on my bed for a few, I could hear her talking.

I looked out of my room and I saw her talking on her home phone, so I went back to my room and I think I actually fell asleep. Obviously, something like that can wear a kid out. When my mom got home, though, it was another whole scene. I woke up to my mom gently shaking and rubbing my arm and crying. She then hugged me and apologized, and so did I. As you may have guessed, that lady was definitely not with CPS or anything of the likes. The neighbor, Barb, had caught on that I was home alone, so when she saw me out,

she was just making sure I was okay. She noticed the lady come over the first day, but since she left, she didn't think much of it. But when she showed up the next day, in her same ugly, beat-up car, not looking like an official vehicle in any way, she felt like something was wrong. And when she saw me crying while walking to the car, she felt the need to confront the situation. When we got back inside,

she found the paper with my mom's number on it and called her to let her know what had happened, and my mom came home shortly after that. I don't think my mom ever reported it, though, because she was worried if anything would, would be done about her leaving me home, so we just never saw the lady again and hoped that we never would either. However, Barb did start watching me after that. She came over to our place, so I could still play with my stuff, and everything went fine from there on.

Barb has been a part of our family ever since, actually. She said I reminded her of her own granddaughter, that she rarely got to see since they lived on the other side of the country. country now, and she was glad to have the company, since she lived alone. I was, and am, still incredibly thankful for her being so watchful over me, even when I never talked to her, because that honestly could have saved my life. Who knows what that woman was planning to do with me that day? So, this was three years ago, right before the pandemic hit, and it's a lot of the pandemic hit, and it's now one of my favorite stories to tell now that I'm no longer scared. I've moved thousands of miles away, and a few years' time has passed. So my husband was in the military during this time,

and I was a housewife due to work being hard for me to get in my area that I was in, as I can't drive and lived off base. Well, any military person knows that military schedule is pretty darned. predictable. And much of our lives ran on an easy-to-memorize schedule, and to make matters worse, my husband was often gone for long hours. For two-ish to three-ish months, I'd been seeing the sky wandering around my home peeking in the windows. Honestly, I didn't originally think much of it beyond being weirded out. We didn't have anything that would interest a robber, no TV, a single seven-year-old computer, a broken couch and table, a mattress on the floor, literally nothing expensive in our home beyond a gun that was locked up in a safe that may have

looked like it had stuff. But that is a lot of work for what looks like a home of people living in poverty. So I didn't think anything of it. Yet he kept coming back when my... husband was gone. I'd see him every few days or hear him due to my normally super sweet cat at the time hating him and hissing and yowling when he saw him. So I would know he was there when my cat was making an angry fuss. Well, one day I went out with my husband, and I guess I didn't lock the door or something properly, as our lock could be a bit funny and I was running late. According to our north,

normal schedule, I'd have gone to base with my husband for family mandatory fun, and I'd have come back home alone in an Uber while my husband stayed on base to work, or hang out with his friends. What ended up happening was that I fell sick with a migraine. I have hemiplegic migraines, so it can be serious, and his sergeants told him to take me home and take care of me when he saw me. Now, before I go on, I should probably describe my old home. I lived in a two-bedroom apartment complex in the mountains. It was a massive complex. My home layout was this.

My front door led to my kitchen and dining area. My kitchen and dining area wall next to my door was another glass door. Think, like patio door. Across from my kitchen was my room. Then, you go down the hall and hit the living room. that has another glass door wall next to the fireplace. And finally, after that, you go across the living room at the end of the hall, and you hit the guest room, or my plant room slash cat's playroom slash guest room, with yet another glass door wall.

I was literally surrounded by giant glass doors. Then, outside we had a porch, and on the porch was a storage closet where I usually kept my bike, as I couldn't drive due to my migraines and seizures. Back to the story now that I've set the scene. So, when my husband brought me home again, not per our normal schedule, we came home to find our door slightly ajar. We gave each other a look and went inside anyways, with me mumbling how I must not have locked it properly, due to us being in a rush that morning.

We walked into the kitchen where my husband immediately went to the fridge and started looking around for water for himself and me. He then spoke for the first time while in the fridge. Honestly, I don't even remember what he said. But then we heard something maybe a few seconds after he spoke. Our porch glass door in the back of our home moved. We both knew the sound really well, as I liked to sit on the porch reading for hours,

so I was always coming in and out. He then grabbed my shoulder and whispered to grab his gun from our room, and he then grabbed a butcher's knife and went towards the living room. I went and grabbed the gun, noticing on my way to our room that down the hall, our living room glass porch door was wide open. Upon giving my husband the gun, and following behind him as I dialed knife,

1-1 in my panic, saying that I had an active break-in while my husband did a sweep of our home, and while I was on the phone upon coming back down the hall towards the kitchen, to see if he went around back up and to the front, the only way out of the area that he went. As we lived on a literal mountain side, and one side was blocked off out back. We heard our storage door out back that we forgot to shut slam open. me and my husband run back out there where we found our storage doors swinging open and just barely saw the same guy who'd been spying on me and our home he didn't end up coming back that day

i also later found that the only things missing were some of my clothes lingerie and bathroom care products the police showed up about four hours later and took a statement from me and my husband Eventually, my husband had to return to his normal schedule. I was terrified and he didn't like it, but we also had no choice till we could find a new place in three months when our contract ended. The first week things were fine. He didn't come back. My cat didn't yowl or throw any fits, so he didn't see him either.

Things were fine that week. Then another week went by, and I started to say, started to think that maybe the gun we brought out had scared him. Yeah. No. The third week he ended up coming back while my husband was at work in the morning. He first tried the door and was trying to force it open. Then he started banging on the glass next to the door.

I put 911 on speaker and texted my husband while I panicked and cried. While I was on the 911 call, he ended up leaving the front door, giving up, and when I voiced that he walked away from the door to the 911 dispatcher, the lady spoke to me like I was being ridiculous, freaking out this badly over someone trying to get into my locked door. I hung up, and then finally called my husband while I had a full-on panic attack, and it turns out he was already coming home with a car full of his and my friends that were also in the army, and whom work with him, as they turned around towards me as soon as I texted what was going on. He ended up going to the back door and trying both glass doors there as well,

before finally giving up. About four minutes later, my husband and his friends arrived and found me clutching my cat and crying. They ended up scanning the area and still did not find him. The cops showed up seven hours later. and I was very angry this time but gave another report. I ended up with three of the guys sleeping over in the spare room, and my husband and me slept in our now locked and bolted bedroom. I got a lock installed on the bedroom door after the first time. Then, the next day, me and my husband's friends went out and got

and installed cameras in all of our doors and window areas. After this last time, beyond him going back to looking in our windows three more times, I never had another issue. We moved out shortly after this, and since then I never saw him again. I have only talked to about three people about this incident, largely because I feel as if it is my fault somehow.

In 2018, I was hanging out with a friend that I wasn't supposed to be with, So, for the sake of secrecy and ease, I told my 17-year-old sister to drop me off at our old elementary school and then have them pick me up from there. Nothing weird happened. We hung out, and then I told them to drop me back off at the elementary school at midnight, the time of their curfew, and my sister would come get me. I was almost 15 at the time, and though we had moved about a 15-minute drive from our old. school, it wasn't in a bad area. I used to live in Utah, specifically the sandy area, in a middle-class neighborhood, though we weren't middle-class.

It was a quiet neighborhood, full of Mormons, and I never truly had any scarring experiences. It is important to note that, despite being nearly 15, I probably looked anywhere between 9 and 12, as I was on the shorter side and I truly didn't hit puberty until about 15 and a half. When we pulled up to the school, there was a hatchback white car that was driving around rather recklessly, such as speeding it around in reverse, doing spin-outs and stuff like that. It was driving in circles around this curb that split off the drop-off zone and the small faculty parking lot. I sat with my friend in their car for a second, expressing my concerns about the other car, and they assured me that it was just some stupid teenager.

I didn't say much more about it and said my goodbyes and got out of the car. The way the school is set up is that there is a large brick building, and when looking head on at the school, there is a small opening to the left that leads back towards the playgrounds. The faculty parking lot is about 20,000. to 30 feet from the entrance to the school. When I got out of the car, I sat by the main office doors that would lead into the school right underneath a bright light. I needed to put my shoes on.

I don't remember now why I hadn't done it before. The car stopped in the faculty parking lot, not in a parking spot, but in the middle of the central lane. Cautiously, I got up after successfully securing my shoes on my feet, and I was a And I stared at the car. As I said earlier, I am easily anxious. A man, hard to describe as he was back lit by a streetlight, got out and started walking towards his now open trunk.

I watched as he paused and pulled something out of his trunk and then paused. Though I couldn't really see his face, I knew he was staring at me and he said, I'm sorry for whatever happens to you. It's not your fault. I didn't say anything in return, and I ran towards the back of the school, and I kept running until I hit a large portable,

hiding behind it and peering around towards the drop-off area. He must have gotten back in his car as he pulled out of the parking lot. The back area of the school is large, and in the far corner, there's a back exit on, to a large, steep road that goes down. I tried to call my sister a few times, but after she didn't answer, I called my friend. I made my way towards the back alleyway

and exited back onto the road, and just then as I crossed a small side street, the car turned on to the road. He saw me probably as immediately as I saw him, and I ran down the road hanging up on my friend. When I reached the bottom of the hill, there was a house in the corner and I cut through their grass and stood on their stoop and rang their doorbell once. The car stopped at the corner, still on the street with the large hill.

He then rolled down the window to talk to me. Hey, I'm a police officer. I wanted to know if you needed any help, the man said, leaning slightly into the center console, presumptuously so I could hear him better. I insisted that I did not need help and that I was okay. But the man kept insisting that I come to the car. Of course I didn't. After about 30 seconds, he left.

The people in the house opened their door, and I was crying. It was a middle-aged man and his wife. I also had a dog, it seemed. I explained the situation about the car that was chasing me, and I got my friend who dropped me off on the phone. My friend is absolutely the worst at directions. and as the wife tried desperately to give it to them, it didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The car came back as the two were sitting on the stairs with me.

I started freaking out as it drove slowly by the house, and all I could say was, that's them, that's the car. The man walked down his drive with the dog, but the car sped away. Eventually, my friend found their way, and the woman walked me up the hill to their car. I couldn't thank them enough. I went home and notified the police, but nothing ever came of it. I don't know what that man's intentions were, but I can clearly tell that they were not positive. I have a creepy story that happened a few years back when my wife and I lived in an apartment at a fairly small apartment complex.

It's one of those could have been worse stories. And I'm glad that it happened to me instead of someone else, which may sound weird, but it'll make sense by the end. A few years ago, I went through a pretty rough time in my life. My wife and I were living in the aforementioned apartment complex, and things were going great until I was laid off from my job. I worked for a company that had some branch offices, and I worked at one of those branches.

The company decided that they wanted to downsize and move out of my state. So, they shuttered the branch office and basically told us that we no longer had a job. They did offer us a month's worth of pay, but, to be told, by the end of Wednesday you won't have a job. On a Monday morning, it kind of sucks. I was obviously a bit down in the dumps after this happened, and it seemed to get worse about three days later when my wife's car decided that it wanted to stop running. It had something wrong with it, and it wouldn't start. It's a bit unrelated, but it was the alternator, so it wasn't a terrible fix, but we didn't

really have the spare money at the moment, considering I didn't have income. Thankfully, I did have a car, so she was able to take it to work. but this basically meant that until we got the car fixed I was stuck at home unless I wanted to walk wherever I wanted to go I didn't mind walking but when your attitude is a bit soured by being laid off well let's just say the first week or so I stayed in bed I will also add that between the two cars

it was pretty clear who drove which one I owned a decent pickup, and she owned a tiny bright blue Yaris with Tinkerbell stickers. Not trying to drop any sort of gendered stereotype, but if you knew it was a couple living there, you could guess which car belonged to which person. Context out of the way, moving on to the story, what happened actually happened in the middle of the second week of me being home. I had decided that I would get up and make it a point of trying to clean up the apartment. Basically, I just wanted to get out of bed and have something to occupy my time.

And if I could surprise my wife and make her happy, well, that would be even better. The first thing I needed to clean was myself. Obviously, so I got out of bed and went ahead with taking a shower. By the time I was awake and in the shower, it was around 9.30 in the morning. So it wasn't really early, but it also wasn't late yet in the day. I was in there with the water running, just soaping myself up, when I heard a very distinct sound, the sound of our front door opening. Our door had a bit of a stick on the bottom,

so it would drag on part of the floor and make a sliding or, scraping noise as you opened it. My obvious initial thought was that my wife had come home early from work for whatever reason, but that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. She didn't mention that she wasn't feeling well. She didn't tell me that she was taking a half-day or anything like that, and we weren't in a position where we could afford to lose even a few hours of income. I kind of stood there for a few minutes waiting for another sound.

Like her keys or purse hitting the counter, her feet on the tile, her going to the bedroom, literally anything that would tell me that I wasn't just hearing things. There wasn't anything else for a few moments, so I went back to my shower. I finished up, turned off the water, and I slid the glass door open to grab a towel. The second that I opened the sliding door to the shower, the bathroom, the bathroom, door flew open. And the person on the other side was not my wife. It was one of the people

that worked for the rental company as a maintenance person. He pushed the door open hard, like he was trying to enter the room aggressively, and he was met with me, standing in the shower, facing him with all the glory

bestowed upon me the day that I was born. The look on his face was actually kind of of priceless, which I know adds a small amount of humor to this, but I guess I shouldn't detract from how terrifying this really was. I was in the shower, completely vulnerable, and this guy shoved his way into the bathroom the minute the shower turned off. This was meticulous.

He was trying to catch someone off guard with his actions, and, considering which car was in the driveway, my guess is that he was. that he thought my wife was the person that was home. This perspective hit me immediately during the few moments that the two of us were just standing there and staring at each other, and I was pretty livid. I asked him if I could help him, and he started stuttering and trying to figure out what he could say to justify being in my home like this. In the end, he tried to claim that we had been notified yesterday that he would be there,

and when I asked him how he notified us, he basically tried to say, uh, your wife should have been told. Never mind. I think I must be mistaken. And then kind of slinked out of the apartment. As soon as he was gone,

I called the office and asked them why they had sent maintenance to our place, and they claimed that they hadn't. I informed them about what just played out, and they said they would look into it. Their excuse that they gave about three days later was that he had gone to the wrong unit, and they apologized for the inconvenience. Inconvenience be damned, I knew what he was doing.

He didn't go to the wrong unit. He thought that my wife was home alone and that I wasn't there, and he entered our home with malicious intent. Like I mentioned, the fact that he waited for the shower to turn off, and then barged into the bathroom tells me all I need to know about this situation. I kind of wish that I would have been more aggressive with him, though. I know violence isn't the answer,

but it terrifies me to think that this wasn't his first time doing something like this. I don't know if he was planning a full-on assault, or if this was maybe some kind of voyeur kink thing, but it was sickening. We don't live at that property anymore, thankfully, and we got everything solved with her car, thanks to her brother, not long after this. I also bought a couple of nest cameras with the money that we had saved. I justified it with my wife after I told her what happened and what I thought, and she agreed

that it was a good idea. I don't recall ever seeing that maintenance man after this event, and I'm kind of hoping that he got fired, and maybe they just told me a lie about him going to. to the wrong unit. After having a horrible experience with a roommate, I got my first apartment by myself. It wasn't the best as they were old buildings, so there were several maintenance calls to have things fixed.

But the front office people and the techs were also friendly, and they were really fast at getting things done, so I couldn't complain. The buildings were small and had eight units in each. and my neighbors all seemed pretty chill. There were a couple of old people that I think had lived there forever, and a young couple that I usually only saw in the halls at night. I think they worked the overnight shifts or something,

but they definitely were not the social types, which was fine. It just meant that there were even less problems to worry about, as everyone typically minded their own business. While I did live alone, I started dating a guy that I had met through a mutual friend. Sometimes he came over and stayed at my place on the weekends, or if he wasn't working. He was still living at home with his parents, who were also really cool people, but his drive to work was about an hour, and my place was almost the halfway mark. So, sometimes, he would just stop and sleep at my place if he'd had a long day,

and didn't want to make the drive all the way home. He was an EMT, and would often work late or overnight shifts. So if he wasn't catching naps at the hospital while on call, it was just easier for him to stay with me. When he did, he would text me that he would be stopping by, and since it would be later, I was usually already asleep as I worked at 7 in the morning. He would come in, kiss me on the head,

and typically take a shower before finally passing out. He didn't have a key to my apartment, partially because I wasn't supposed to make copies myself, so I usually just kept the door unlocked. Again, everyone here seemed trustworthy, and there hadn't been reports of break-ins or suspicious people, so I didn't really have a problem with it. It was one of those nights where he was going to be working late,

So, on his lunch, he told me he was going to stay at my place, and I agreed. I made a large dinner so he could eat something when he got home, too. And around 10 p.m., I finally headed off to bed, texting him good night. After some time, I woke up to hearing some noise outside of my room. I figured it was him getting there, so I just tried to go back to sleep, expecting him to be in soon. I even faced away from the door as the bathroom was across from my room. That way, when he opened the door, the light wouldn't blind me.

I heard my door creak open a bit, and as I opened my eyes to see the sliver of light on the wall as well as his shadow standing in the hallway. However, instead of coming to my room, he just walked away. I thought that was weird, as he never didn't do what I had mentioned. mentioned, and it was kind of something I looked forward to. I continued to lay there for a bit thinking maybe he was going to go eat first,

but after I closed my eyes again, I heard the shower running. Now, being an EMT, I know that he can go to some pretty messed up scenes or even lose a patient, so I thought maybe that's what happened, so maybe his mind wasn't in the right place. I decided I would go in there and make sure that he was okay. I got up and I entered the bathroom, and the clothes on the floor, they weren't the scrubs that he was usually in. They were regular clothes,

but they were really dirty jeans. He didn't like wearing jeans, so I found it odd. I asked him if he was okay, and he didn't respond. So I started saying something, else as I opened the shower curtain, when, to my horror, the man in the shower was not my boyfriend. I don't know who was more scared as he started shouting something, but I was also screaming and ran back to my bedroom, locking the door behind me, and I called 911. I could hear some sounds outside my room, like the guy was running around, and I was terrified if he would try to get into

my room, but I never heard the doorknob shake or the door even budge. When the police finally showed up, I came out and explained what had happened. The guy was long gone. We walked through to see if he took anything, and I noticed the shower was pretty dirty. It looked like there was mud or dirt or something all over the bottom of the tub. His clothes were gone too, but there were wet prints in the carpet that we could follow. They came out of the bathroom, into the kitchen, there were no puddles and no carpet, thankfully. He had actually taken one of the pre-made salads in the fridge, and then the prince led back out the door. I felt bad as it was late, but they knocked on my neighbor's doors to ask if they saw anything,

and I noticed the younger couple was already standing outside talking to the cops. I learned that they had heard the screaming, and when they opened it, their door to look around, they saw a guy completely naked, holding a bag and some clothes running out the front door, and they didn't know what had happened. They followed him out the door, and they saw where he went, and they gave his description of the man, which also matched mine. They went around the area, and before they came back, my boyfriend had showed up, and was obviously curious as to why I was awake. I explained everything to him. The cops came back to tell me that they didn't find the guy, but if they did, they would come back to ask me to identify him, and then they left.

Unfortunately, they never did call or come back, so I have to guess that he was never caught. However, a few weeks later, I started hearing stories about break-ins in the same city as me, but the person either didn't take anything, or it was just food. and they always seemed to take a shower. I don't remember ever hearing about this happening before my incident, but by then I had seen it a few times. The news interviewed a few people, and someone mentioned that it may be someone who was homeless,

just trying to help themselves, I suppose. I don't know if that's what happened in my case, but I could believe it by the shape of the clothes that the man was in. It was still a terrifying, situation to be in, but it was weird to me, that he definitely looked in my room and saw me. Why not leave at that point? I am glad nothing worse happened, but I went ahead and broke the rules to make a key for my boyfriend, and I never left my door unlocked after that.

I was a weird kid growing up, and I easily got way too attached to people that showed any interest in me. I think part of it was that I was an only child, and with both of my parents working all the time, I clung to anyone that paid attention to me, liked anything that I was interested in, or was even proud of the work that I had done. It was easy for me to make friends, but difficult to keep them, as I know that I could be overbearing. I've worked on myself a lot since then, and I've gotten better, but sometimes, I still struggle.

Anyways, this is what led me to get close to one of my teachers. It was in middle school. He was our social studies teacher, Mr. Jay. He made history interesting, though. I struggled at times with other teachers when I couldn't understand something, and they would just refer me back to the textbook. He was actually kind and patient when I asked questions, though. I was typically afraid to ask during class, so I would ask him after it was over, and he was always willing to answer them.

It was a nice change of pace. I remember at the time I was very interested in the Cold War, and I had so many questions. Most of them were outside of the realm of what we learned about, or what was covered, so the fact that he was into the conversation with me and giving me good books to look into only made me appreciate him more. Over time, I found myself spending more time after class and after school in his room and talking.

I also learned he was good with math, and he helped me with my homework there, too. I pretty much looked to him as a father figure. As a guy myself, my father, worked a lot, but I never really felt like I lived up to his standards. So I loved the attention from Mr. Jay and how he put me up on a pedestal, telling me how intelligent I was and how I was sure to go far. Anyways, I had a decent time in middle school, and I had to make my way to high school.

During our graduation, I went in to hug him, and instead he had to be. he shook my hand. They had a ceremony for completing middle school here. Then, I was off to a bigger and scarier world. High school was fine, for the most part, though. I made friends with a few people, but I never really had one of them that was super close to me. For the most part, it was the friends you talked to at school,

but never outside of it. I may have run into a few of them. them at a store or something, but that was about it. There was one girl in my neighborhood that I was close to, but she was homeschooled, so I only ever saw her when I was home, of course. I also had a few teachers I was cool with, but nothing as close as I was with Mr. Jay. I tried to find someone to cling to like him, as I wanted that connection again, but it never really happened.

High school was even more confusing for me, as I began to realize that I was gay, and the girl from my neighborhood was the only person I was ever comfortable enough with telling, but she made me feel like it was normal, and that there was nothing to be ashamed of. I slowly worked on myself during this time to learn who I was,

and what made me the way that I was so that I could be more. outgoing. Of course, you can only do so much on your own without a therapist, and when your parents just think you're weird, they just ship you off to some camp for boys to become stronger, I guess. So, during spring break, instead of getting to chill at home and be comfortable and happy, they sent me off to some camp thing for boys. It wasn't Boy Scouts, but was more or so for those with special needs. Yeah.

Anyways, I gathered my things and my dad dropped me off at the rec center with the rest of the people. I started walking on the lines in the parking lot to keep myself entertained when I heard a familiar voice. I looked up to see Mr. Jay talking to one of the other boys. My mood completely did a 180, and I ran over to talk to him. this time he hugged me and it was the best feeling. He hugged me tight like my grandmother did, but never my parents. It was something that I had missed. He asked excitedly if I was here for the trip, and I confirmed, nodding.

He said he was going to be part of the leadership team, so I was going to get to spend four days with him. I then told myself that this was going to be a lot better than I would have ever expected. and I even helped him get everyone in line, the bus packed up, and all ready to go. We got to the location, and I again helped everyone get set up. We talked about some basic survival stuff, like certain plants we could eat, we helped start the fires, things like that. The first two days went fine.

We played some kind of kickball game, and I was on the same team as Mr. Jay's, so he always celebrated with me when I got a goal and just made me feel valued. I loved it. It was the third day that everything changed for me. We would be going home the next morning, so this was a day for us to choose what we wanted to do, and just have a day of relaxation. It was later that evening that I decided to walk around

and see if I could find anything that I could take home as a momentary. I ended up at a small creek or runoff that had a small bridge that you could walk over. I decided to sit there and watch the water, as there were a few ducks in it trying to clean themselves. After a few, I heard someone walking up to me and looked over to see Mr. Jay approaching. I waved him over and he sat down next to me and asked what I was up to. I told him I was just watching and trying to clear my head. as I was actually upset about having to go back home. He talked to me about how I was feeling lost in high school,

in what was only about half an hour, maybe, and he made me feel normal. He made me feel like I was important, and that I was going to be able to make it through just fine. I thanked him. I told him that his words really meant a lot to me, and he said that I meant a lot to him. I didn't know how else to react, so I hugged him and got a little choked up,

as I told him that he was like the father I wished I had. That's when his tone and manners started to change. He said, is that how you really feel about me? But his tone just seemed off. I paused for a minute, and I confirmed what I said. I don't remember his exact response. but he basically said that I meant a lot to him, and that he missed seeing me all the time after school.

He went on to say that he was glad I was there because he was hoping to see me when I was older. Mind you, I was 16 at this time. Then he mentioned how hard it was to wait for me. I leaned up at this point to look at him as I noticed that his hand was on my zipper. I didn't know how to read it. react to this. I never really learned about this kind of thing or even if this was okay.

This was someone I trusted and cared for, so it was all right, right? Thankfully, my brain was overloaded, so my instinct kind of kicked in, and I jumped up quickly running away. I went back to my tent, zipped it up without saying a word to anyone and just cried. I stayed there for the rest of the night, and when anyone came up to my tent, I told them I just wasn't feeling well. We packed up the next day, and I avoided everyone as much as possible. Thankfully, he seemed to avoid me as well, but yet he was all smiles and laughter. Within an hour, he'd completely destroyed me and was still over there having a great time.

I went home and I was quiet for a while, not knowing what to do or if I should tell someone. I mean, who would believe me? Did it really happen? Was I just overreacting to something? My neighborhood friend could tell that something was wrong, though, so she finally got it out of me. She told me that I needed to tell my parents or the school counselor immediately. I was terrified how they would react, but I did finally tell my mom. She was a lot more understanding and sincere than I ever expected, though.

He was arrested, and I never saw him again, thankfully, but I wasn't the first kid that he had done this to, sadly. I just hate that it happened to any of us. I already didn't feel normal, and this just screwed me up even more. Thankfully, though, I have a great therapist now, and I've become a lot more stable with my emotions and who I am. But to Mr. Jay, I'm glad that we will never meet again. Starting off, this happened nearly ten years ago, but I recently spoke with an old co-worker that I ran into again, and talking about the old days, it was brought up. and that was when I realized the feeling of being stocked was not limited to just me. When I was about 22, and working for a small, small security company of only 18 people at the time,

we worked in a tourism area location called Seven Falls, in southwest Colorado Springs, in the Cheyenne Mountain Canyon area. I remember the shifts being grueling, due mostly to the fact that we were mostly in direct sunlight during the afternoon and evening. In an average shift, we were expected to walk a minimum of seven miles between the base of the parking area to the top of the falls, and rarely were allowed to use the guest elevator for handicapped and the elderly. The whole park was on a hilly incline, so, Walking the top down was okay. Bottom up is what exhausted us.

In the evening, near the base of the falls, native Ute and or Cheyenne tribal dancers, would perform and we had to monitor the crowds, which were slight breaks for about 15 to 20 minutes. These falls were frequented by area tribes for hundreds of years, and was still considered spiritual. So it was the native tribes that pushed for their performances since Seven Falls is considered a state park. At the end of the night, we would sit at the main entrance into the falls at the bottom of the canyon

off Lower Gold Camp Road, and we would monitor the toll booth until roughly 1 a.m. Except during the weekends and holidays, and then we were out there until 3 in the morning. On several occasions, when waiting for the end of my shifts, I always had occurrences that made me feel like I was going to get attacked, by either an animal or a person. Gutteral hissing, deep, manish groans,

and harassing growls could always be heard from behind the giant gate. Glowing eyes, either red or white in color, but larger than area wildlife could be seen from behind broules. and tree canopies. But what stuck with me is the shimmering humanoid shape. The shimmering was otherworldly. The way I always described it to my family and a few friends was that it was like the predator.

My first work firearm was an older Smith and Wesson semi-automatic single-stack pistol that was my dad's, from when he worked for the Mountain Police Department, but this was the first time that I felt I was defenseless while working. I watched the shimmering silhouette crawl on the asphalt, over to the toll booth, to then appear to be standing upright and extend a long, waving arm. This looked like a being phasing between the physical and incorporeal realms. As I shifted my weight to look closer as I was awestruck,

the glowing reddish eyes slowly came back into focus. Then, in a snap, I hear what sounds like an animal climbing up the side of the toll booth gutter, and watched as the shimmer jumped to a tree no less than 20 feet away. From here, the shimmering thing jumped again, this time a broken branch fell from the tree. A loud clashing sound rang from the top center in the gate, as the shimmer looked. looked back one last time, before going over the gate and disappearing into the Seven Falls Park. This brings us to today, in May of 2022. My old co-worker and I ran into each other while at Walmart. We decided to go to the Gunther Tottie's diner next door, while having a burger and reminiscing

about the good old days, he brings up, did you ever see the predator in his active camouflage at Seven Falls? My blood ran cold, and I dropped a shade to just about pale. He then proceeded to tell me about his experiences on his shifts that I've never heard. After leaving the diner and arriving home, I sat in my driveway for a moment, just contemplating what it is that inhabits Lower Gold Camp Road. Like many things that I have experienced, I only realize or perhaps notice how strange, scary they are, after listening to myself as I tell others about them. This story is like that, in which I realized I was scaring the person that I was recounting it to, and that perplexity made me significantly more scared than when it was actually

happening to me. I think it might be in our evolutionary interest as a species to try to preserve our own sanity when we tell ourselves to brush things off. or that a particular event was not that traumatizing. You know, just to keep going through a life that, to varying extents, cannot be entirely explained in a rational way. There are 22 years between the events that happened to me as a teenager, and when I told the story to my own teenager just earlier this year.

We were driving through the local orchards at night, on our way home from the next town over, and it was very dark. He grinned and asked me if I ever had a scary thing happened to me that I couldn't explain. I told him that I had many freaky things happened to me over my life, but I would tell him about one since he was obviously excited to hear about it, and we agreed some time ago to tell each other more things about our lives when it came to unexplained events,

because he has always liked spooky forms of entertainment. I started off with asking him to imagine all the vast numbers of humans that existed in the world before sleep paralysis had a name, or before his own Gen Z. That even goes as far as calling the shadowy figure accompanying the paralysis as a sleep paralysis demon. I asked him, and now I'll ask you, imagine how many people have lived through such a thing and never told a soul, because no one ever used to talk about these things until they permeated society as a collectively experienced thing that we can all accept and now joke about at times. By joking, I mean all the memes and the comedy videos you can find online having to do with this particular subject.

The running joke seems to be that you're trying to sleep when a person covered head-to-to-to-in black clothing, or sometimes I've even seen trash bags come twirling. out of the closet at 3 a.m. to party and wake you up. I told my son that, for me, I had started having sleep paralysis around the age of 4 or 5, as far as I know, and that by the time I was a teenager, it had become this very annoying thing that very much pissed me off when I was trying to sleep. That is why I find those kinds of videos so funny. Because that underlying anger at having to deal with this annoying bastard keeping you up at night,

It was something that I could totally identify with. When it first happened, I was so extremely terrified. I was frozen, but I could see my room. I tried to call for my mom and no sound would come out of my vocal cords, just the characteristic strained breathing of the word mom, because that was all that would come out. I'm writing this in the assumption as I told it to my son, that most people know what sleep paralysis is,

and how terrifying it can be, if not by experience, than by some other account that you've probably heard somewhere. That was when I was four or five. I could hear my parents in the living room watching TV. I heard them laughing and talking as the view of the living room was visible through my open bedroom door, but had no way to move or speak. I remember telling my mom about it after I could move again, and she told me it was just a bad dream.

and nothing real. It was like 1990, so sleep paralysis would not have been part of my mom's vocabulary at all back then. Anytime this happened and I regained control of my body, eventually, I ran out and would tell my mom about it. Then she would tell me it was a bad dream and to just go back to bed. I think eventually I just realized that this is something I have to deal with on my own, because my mom doesn't believe me. I will admit that the first time I had sleep paralysis,

it was terrifyingly accompanied by a deep and commanding male voice speaking to me from the general direction of my closet, and I was moved off of the bed to the middle of the floor, so that probably made it seem all the more unbelievable to her as a real thing that could have happened. I genuinely believed my house was haunted as a child, And this is how I explained it to myself internally all those years growing up there, going through these kinds of things.

We lived in an old Victorian house, and my parents would always joke when they couldn't find their belongings where they should have been, or when their things would return to them without explanation, then it was the ghost of the house playing tricks on them. So my little kid brain just ate that up, and used the ghost of the house concept to explain anything. thing that scared me there. I never heard the male voice or any voice talking to me again after that first traumatizing experience when I was so little. But there were times that I would wake up

on the other side of the room. I'm not sure if I was moved in my sleep, or I had a phase of sleepwalking that I was completely unaware of besides waking up on the floor. When the episodes would come, I started to learn that I could force my toes or fingers to move, eventually. if I kept trying really hard to kick my legs or fling my arms about. I was a pro at what I called wriggling out of it by the time I was in middle school, and the occurrence of experiencing sleep paralysis dropped off significantly as I became a teenager. In the year 2000, my family was on their second computer ever, and I got my first cell phone,

a little digital brick thing that burned your cheek if you talked. for too long on it. I remember my friends and I all texted a mile a minute using the T9 keypad, and our MP3 players only had buttons, no screens. 9-11 hadn't happened yet. I had my first boyfriend and my first job ever that year. I was 16 years old. This is the world I was living in when I believe I saw my first sleep paralysis demon.

I obviously did not have a word for it at the time, so I'll try to detail what happened to me one night when I was 16. I honestly cannot remember where I heard about it from, maybe friends at school or something, but people were talking about how they could sleep better after meditation, and I had no idea what meditation was, so I looked it up online. Google existed, but it wasn't the search engine I used, used most back then. It was called Alta Vista. I found several blog posts labeled meditation for beginners, and I read through them.

I had stayed up late studying and texting friends all night. I recall feeling dumb because I only had a few hours before I had to go to school the next morning when I finally decided to go to sleep. My bed was a twin daybed under a window with blinds. I recall when I lied down that the angle of the blinds brought the moonlight right into my eyes and made a pattern of light and dark lines across my pillow. The moon was very full and the sky was clear.

No clouds. At the foot of my bed, I had a small bookshelf and no other furniture on that side of the room. Other than the moonlight, there was a green digital alarm clock next to me and another one coming from the blue display on my obnoxiously large CD player reading No Disc, in text that just moved and wrapped over and over across the display.

What I'm trying to say is that the light in the room was sort of all pointed towards the corner of the room next to the bookshelf, especially the bright moonlight. This is where I say the obligatory this information will be important later on. Lying down, I decided to try a meditation I had read about earlier that day, in order for me to fall asleep quickly because I wanted to get the most out of the few hours I had left before school. It was what I now know to be a rather typical body relaxation exercise, the kind where you do a slow body scan from head to toe, and relax all your muscles along the way. So, I completed the body relaxation meditation, willing away tense spots until I reached my toes.

I had never tried a meditation before, so I had my eyes open as I was following the path of my mindfulness. When I reached my toes, I noticed something unsettling. I was just staring beyond the shape of my toes, poking the blanket up, kind of squinting and puzzling over how the shadow of the bookcase could be so large and so dark. I thought, that's not possible. I sleep in this room every night, and I've never seen a weird shadow like that. that. Like, it was physically impossible for a shadow to be there with the objects and lighting, positioning in the room. It should have been empty and illuminated, but there was a small area

of blackness there instead. As I'm remembering it, it honestly feels like I was just kind of stumped, and then it slowly became alarmed, and I don't know what in the hell possessed me in that instance, but it really felt like fight or flight were my only option. At that point, I know I was not paralyzed yet because I started to sit up, and the freaking shadow, I kid you not, wiggled like a flame of a candle, except it was all blackness. It was still smaller than a person, but unnaturally larger than my tiny bookshelf that only came to the height of my small bed. When I say that I don't know what the hell possessed me, I mean that I was angry, like, furious. I wanted to go to sleep and this little thing was in my room making me uncomfortable.

I stared directly at it and I said out loud, You're not real. At this point, you may be expecting the story to end neatly, but my son, on our drive, as I told this to him, said what I'm sure many of you are thinking. Oh no. Yeah. Oh no is a natural reaction to telling the sleep paralysis demon that they are not real, apparently, but 16-year-old me, 22 years ago, did not know any of these things. The thing moved away from the wall, so yeah, definitely not just a shadow, and started to grow a little, taking up half of one of my closet doors as it moved along the next wall, over from where I originally saw it, covering the door in wavy, formless blackness.

I held on to my anger like it was the only thing that could save me, and honestly maybe it did. This time I yelled at it. You're not real. And this is where things just went insane in my room. The thing grew until my entire field of vision was just blackness. I was completely paralyzed, and the loudest thundering wind I have ever heard in my life was swirling around my room. but only the sound of it was present. My hair was not being moved at all,

and my skin could not feel all this horrible wind that I was hearing. If I could describe it, it was like a demon screaming in both ears at once, and having a hurricane going at the same time. That little shadow had become a cloak that surrounded me, held me in the tightest grip and would not let me go. I was forced down on to my back, in this attack and although I could not talk I screamed at this thing in my mind I can't

remember exactly what I was screaming I remember yelling frick off with my whole being as I struggled to move but with the actual F word that was the general sentiment that I was feeling I have no idea what would have happened to me if I just got scared and let it take over my mind as well. It felt like that was what was happening. People who have sleep paralysis might know what I'm talking about. Like when it first comes on and it feels like pressure dragging the back of your head in a way that makes you struggle in order to not lose consciousness. Having had sleep paralysis so many times at this point, albeit not with the phenomenon

anything close to this, I can tell you that this is the most constrained my body has ever been, when paralyzed. I was sweating as I tried to move against being unable to. I could not move anything but my fingers a little, and being able to move them was not helping the rest of my body come online, or whatever it is that happens when people escape sleep paralysis. Normally, wiggling fingers and toes leads to limbs moving and eventually regaining control of the body.

At least that's how it's always worked for me before this. It was such a struggle to get that first finger or toe to move, but once I did, I could always control my body again very quickly after that. This time was different, though. I could sort of flick my fingers occasionally, but everything else was just as I said. I was paralyzed, couldn't speak. Everything was pitch black, and a hurricane demon had spawned in my room three hours before I had to be at school the next day. At that age, I'd become enamored with a set of friends. fantasy books that my dad had gotten me from the neighbor.

The neighbors were an elderly couple and the wife had passed away naturally at a ripe old age, leaving all of her books behind, which took up most of the space in their small house. Every fantasy writer at that time that was popular, she had all their works. But my dad, not knowing any of this, just randomly filled a box up for me with one or two books from different sets, after the husband said he could take whatever he wanted. for me. In one of these books, I had read at some point, there was a tale where a mage was so evil the good guys had to destroy his very soul, so that his evil would not reincarnate. That particular fantasy world had reincarnation and magic that it could apparently destroy souls, mages that

could see the soul and permanently disintegrated. That thought crossed my mind in the middle of the raging dark storm gripping me. I felt like this thing, whatever it was, was screaming in my face. I have no idea how much time passed. I just knew I had struggled more against this thing in a more awakened and heightened cognitive state than any other sleep paralysis episode I'd ever been through. As in, I was very awake and aware of what was happening to me,

and I was pretty much awake and just not trying to sleep. And God, I was so angry at this thing. I screamed in my mind. at it. F off or I'll destroy your soul. And I thought about the imagery in the book of a flame shaped like a phoenix flying out of a dying person, only to be chased down and ripped to shreds by other birds made out of light and flames, until not even ashes were left. The deafening wind sounds stopped, and it really felt like this thing was taken aback. Like how when we first met when I had to repeat myself earlier and saying, you're not real.

I looked where I felt it in front of my face in the quiet, and to my whisper that I could barely manage through the paralysis, I said, I will destroy your soul and you will cease to exist if you don't get out right now. And then literally everything went back to normal. There was no blackness. The wind sound did not pick back up after it had died in my first statement. Like, I had no idea how to destroy a soul, but when I was facing it. Facing off with that thing, I really convinced myself that I had to scare it worse than it was scaring me.

And my bluff or overconfidence or whatever left me covered in sweat back in my bed in my room with nothing strange going on in any of the corners. The normal lighting had returned, and so had the normal shadows in my room with them. And I went back to bed. Since that time, I've only felt darker presences and sleep. paralysis starting to happen in times of my life where I'm sleep deprived, and also going through a rough time emotionally. Like, it occurred frequently in my 20s when I was working overtime all the time, and I dated a guy

that treated me very badly. I feel like if there's negative energy surrounding you, you're more likely to experience these kinds of things. Only in my 30s have I become somewhat comfortable sleeping alone. it was really hard for a long time. As for what the demons or whatever they were said to me, the one with the deep voice near my closet as a child, and the screaming banshee thing from when I was 16,

I don't wish to disclose that as the content of their words just truly frightens me, and I don't even want to recreate them anywhere. I do want to end with going back to my mom not believing me all those years when I was very small. small. My poor mom had her own episode with sleep paralysis in her 50s. It happened once. There was no demon or demonic voices present, and she reacted to this by sleeping in a different room for three whole years and having the lights on at night ever since then. She was that terrified by just

the paralysis, and she always randomly apologizes to me for not believing me until she herself experienced it, and my little brother started having even wilder stuff happened to him, like getting dragged by his ankles off the bed while paralyzed. Neither of them have ever experienced anything on the level I have experienced, and neither of them have had any experience with it as a child, just randomly as adults. So that was my wild sleep paralysis story. It scared my son so much. I had to step out of the denial of events I can't explain box and kind of accept that a really frightening thing happened to me.

And I somehow crazily met it with unrelenting anger and bluffing. I often wonder what would have happened to me if I just let the thing take over my consciousness and couldn't fight it away. I wonder if my life would have ended or turned out differently. Or if I would have forgotten the whole thing and just listened to it. would scream like a raging storm for all eternity. I was house-sitting for a family member. The whole day went all right, so before bed, I decided to take a bath. As I relaxed, I looked toward the bathroom door and saw something at the bottom where most

doors have that crack near the floor, and I saw something move. It looked like a small child's foot wearing a white sock wiggling its toes. I got so scared but told myself that it was impossible as there were no children there. After I got out and got dressed, I looked around the house for an explanation, but I couldn't come up with one. When my family member returned, I told her about what I saw and she said, that's funny, that's what my kids do when I'm taking a bath. All of her kids were with her at that time. I was the only one there, so there's no way it was them.

My husband and I have gone the last ten years without any of our friends and family believing us about what we saw one night. It would be amazing to have just one person believe our story because it 100% happened. We are not crazy. We're not on any substances. We've made it 35 years of life. life with never seeing anything like this, aside from this one time. So here's our story. Ten years ago, late on a Saturday night, we were headed to a friend's house party in

Bendel, Mississippi, very rural area, with nothing but woods and small winding roads. I was riding shotgun in our little red Honda. I look over at my husband, and he had both his own. hands on the steering wheel, leaned forward, looking straight up out of the windshield staring at the sky, not looking at the road at all. So I say, what are you looking at? Look at the road before you wreck. He didn't answer. Didn't move. So I leaned forward to see what he's looking at, and floating right above us at tree level was a neon green craft of some sorts. The same size as our car.

No sound. It was going the exact speed that we were just hovering right above us. I saw it for about ten seconds before it shot up into the sky and disappeared completely out of view, never making a sound. No flashing lights, just straight neon green. We were so baffled. We didn't know what the hell we had just seen. The second we got to our friends,

house we told them and nobody believed us. They all just laughed and thought we were on something to make us delusional. We still talk about this experience at least once a month. We will never forget it. It was absolutely unbelievable to see something so strange like that. Back in 2012, I fell asleep on the sofa one night. My husband turned off the TV and went to bed without disturbing me. I woke at some point in the night and saw two iridescent blue humanoid figures standing in front of me with their backs to me. One appeared to be male and the other female.

The male was somewhat taller and wore a white coat with a high collar. The female wore basic military-style clothing. They seemed to be looking down at something and the male appeared to be explaining something to the female. This is strange, I thought. I must still be asleep in dreaming this, but I feel very much awake. I can sometimes lucid dream if I have a hint that I'm dreaming by asking myself, do you remember waking up today?

Because I had just woken up, my usual method of checking to see if I was dreaming wouldn't work. My brain was pretty adept at preventing me from lucid dreaming usually. I can read till time and dodge any number of other tricks set out in lucid dreaming guides. So I really only have that one sure-fire method that works, and my brain had likely just beaten it too. As I laid there, trying to think of some other method to prove that I was dreaming, it occurred to me that this might be sleep paralysis. I'd never experienced sleep paralysis before, but as far as I know,

There's no rule stating it must always be terrifying. Besides, if anyone was going to do something sleep-related abnormally, it would be me. I decided to see if I could move. I pushed myself up off the couch, not sleep paralysis. When I pushed myself up, however, a couple of things happened. The two figures turned to look at me. It also woke up my dog who was sleeping between my feet. The two figures looked at me in gas.

The male grabbed the female's arm, and they bolted down my hallway. My dog leapt off the couch and chased them. I got up and followed my dog, but they were gone. I didn't go back to sleep after that. I've had more than my fair share of weird sleep-related things happen, but this was by far the strangest. This is a story that was shared with me years ago by an old-school friend named Mary, and is about a strange discovery that her uncle made when he was in high school.

His known nickname, too, is Dally, and is also the name he went by for the story event below. Dally explored an old-fashioned house behind an abandoned mall in New Hampshire with his friends Sally and Jonathan during their spring break in 1996. They went to explore it, too, to see if the room, about it being haunted were true or not. It was filled with old items from the late 17th century and was rumored to be haunted by the spirit of a man named Dr. Valner. The building is green and red in color and has three floors.

On the second floor you can sometimes hear heavy bootsteps on the wooden planks while you explore there. Then the first floor has a parlor on the left side of the end. entryway near the front door. Past the parlor, lies a kitchen in a laundry room on the right-hand side. In these rooms, too, you can sometimes hear loud singing, and without finding a radio on or anything else being activated to cause the singing to occur. In addition to the rooms mentioned above,

the first floor also has a winding black-colored and redwood-made staircase that leads up to the second floor. On this floor, several bedrooms can be found on the left-hand side of the stairs. Also another set of stairs on the right leads into the attic. In it lies a small maintenance room. On this floor, there usually isn't haunted activity that happens, except for the reports of doors slamming that occur at once a night, at around 11.30 p.m.

In the maintenance room is a big bookcase. In the bookcase, there are a few science reports on strange activity that happened in the area surrounding the home, one of which was the tale of a missing girl named Lucy. The report said that she went missing, and three days after, her mother heard weird whistling noises coming from up in the third floor attic. and when she went to see if her daughter was still playing in the room next to it. On the last page, it said that the mother was named Victoria, and it gave a description of her and her daughter on the report as well. Their home was also described,

and it was said to be an old farmhouse-style one that is in the tail end of a forest that lies in a town named Crescent Creek as well. I've been living on my own for many years now, Around the time of this event, I was in my 30s and had been living in the same apartment complex for about four years. It was a one-bedroom, and I decided that I wanted a two-bed so I could have a spare if I had company, or just to have the extra room. They had someone moving out, and since I was renewing my lease, they asked me if I wanted the new place as a kind of an upgrade for being with them for five years. I gladly accepted. It was going to have all new appliances, new carpets, and even an accent wall, so I was pretty excited about it.

Thankfully, I didn't have too much stuff to move, so I was able to do it all in a week. The neighbors in the new building were very kind and helpful, too. One of them, and their younger son, actually helped me move my mattress and couch in, so that was appreciated. As for the building, they were fourplexes, so each building had a number like 9247, and then the apartment unit with it,

such as apartments A through D for the first floor, and the second floor. So then the next building would be 9249 in the apartment numbers. They were all very similar and easy to confuse if you're not paying attention, I suppose. Throughout the week of moving, unpacking, and settling in, I had a few visitors come say hi and introduce themselves.

I guess I looked very welcoming or something. They asked me about myself, if I was living alone, if I had any pets, the normal things, I suppose. I also found myself running out to my car or the dumpsters, so I kept the door unlocked during the day and was quick to open it when someone rang. I finished my living room for the most part and was working away at my kitchen

when I had a knock on the door. I looked through the peephole and saw a guy in a baseball cap and t-shirt. Thinking it was another neighbor or maybe I had dropped something in my shuffling, I mistakenly opened the door with a smile and they greeted me by shoving me into my apartment, closing the door, and pulling a knife out.

He nearly shoved me on my couch and told me not to scream or try anything, or else he would slit my throat. I didn't know what to do other than hold my hands up and wait until he wanted to talk to me. The conversation just went all over the place from there. I remember he said, where is she? I asked who he was talking about, and he said, Don't mess with me, you know who. your old man owes me a lot of money, and if he skipped town, then someone has to pay it back. Again, I was terrified and confused because I didn't have a boyfriend or anything like that.

I was single, and had been for the past four, five years. I pleaded with him, trying to explain that I didn't know what this was about, and I tried everything I could to convince him that I was single. I noticed he was looking around at this point while still holding the knife up defensively. That's when I told him I had just moved in here and that maybe he was mistaken. He told me not to move and he went to the back of the apartment, pushing the doors open. After what seemed like an eternity of me contemplating if I should actually try to run or just stay there, he came back to the living room and threatened, saying, if I told anyone, he would come back.

and then quickly left. I got up and locked the door and sat back down on my couch, terrified about what to do next. It's a horrible feeling just moving into a place and then immediately feeling this unsafe. I had lived there so long before, too. It was saddening that this was the first bad experience that I'd really had with this place. I didn't even know if I should call the cops. What could they have done? and if he was outside somewhere watching the place to see if I did,

would he have to come back and would he try something else? I lived alone, so it's not like I had anyone to depend on in such a vulnerable moment. When I finally came to my senses a bit, I decided to go back in my rooms and see if he did anything. He had opened all the doors and shower curtain, like he was looking for someone or something. but I guess he found what he wanted in my bedroom. I had an old jewelry box given to me by my grandmother,

and I kept my tips in the bottom part of it, and he had taken all the bills. It was probably about $200, roughly. I was just saving them if I ever needed some extra cash, but at least I got to keep my life. Unfortunately, it seemed like this was a normal scene for this apartment, as when one of my neighbors saw this man come to my door, he called the cops, which they then came knocking on my door. I know it may have been stupid, but I was still afraid, so I just told them that they came looking for someone else,

and I told them they had the wrong place. I didn't even have to identify or give a description as he mentioned the guy had been in the area before and was told to leave the property by management. I told them I would let them know if I saw the guy again and they left. The rest of that week definitely changed for me. I felt super uncomfortable being alone for a while, so I invited people over to just hang out with me and use unpacking as an excuse. I did finally tell one of my girlfriends that had come over about what happened,

and she convinced me that I was probably fine, and that it probably wouldn't be worth the end. effort of them coming back, in a nice way of course. And I understood what she was saying. It was reasonable and definitely helped me to relax a bit. I also ended up running into the same neighbor that called the police at the rental office. I guess he's the neighborhood watchdog type, and he knows the ins and outs of everything. However, he did ask me about the guy and told me a bit about the last tenant that lived in my apartment.

He said he thought that they were doing some shady stuff in there, as they always had people coming and going, not staying longer than 15 to 20 minutes. He said he saw the guy that showed up at my door, and he knew that he was also over there frequently. They were constantly fighting and yelling, too, so when he saw him enter the complex again, he was worried about me. The last tenant also seemed to move out in a rush,

leaving a lot of their stuff. That was part of why there were new appliances in carpet. There was no way that carpet would come out looking clean, according to him. So, whatever they did or whoever they were, they left quite the impression. I had no idea what was going on in this little complex, but might always seemed quiet, and everyone pretty much kept to themselves. So this was intriguing to learn. Unfortunately, I still had a few more unwanted visitors show up at my door, but it was always locked and I checked who was there before I answered.

I ended up taping a note on my door saying the previous residents moved, so they would quit asking. So all I have to say is, when you move into a new place, make sure you update everyone, including all your so-called friends. at least for the new tenants' sake. The following story is not mine, but my great-grandmother's told to me by my grandfather. Some context before the story. My great-grandmother grew up in the Ecuadorian countryside, and like most kids at the time, late 1910s to 1920s, she worked in the fields with her parents, who in turn worked as farmhands for homestead owners. The homesteads generally were some ways away from the nearest town,

at least a few hours by horse or foot, and only a few people owned horses or mules. One night, a few hours after dark, my great-grandmother was coming back from getting water from a nearby creek for her mother. She was walking along a lonely dirt path, leading to the homestead where her family worked and lived, surrounded by trees on one side and a field on the other. As she walked down the path,

she spotted a man dressed in a long black coat and a black top hat. When my grandmother got closer, she noticed that his boots were shiny and had no dust on them, which was weird for someone who she assumed had been walking down this dirt path, but she didn't think much of it. As she passed him, she said, "'Bueness noche, signor,' "'which is good evening, sir.

"'But he didn't reply, "'like he hadn't heard her, "'or just ignored her. "'My great-grandmother continued walking, "'and after some time, "'she turned around to look behind her "'to see if the man was still there. "'But the path was empty,

"'like no one had been there in the first place. "'From what my grandfather knows, "'she never told her parents "'about the man in the top hat "'and only told him, about it as part of some stranger danger lecture. However, my grandfather staunchly believes the man in the top hat that my grandmother saw when she was a girl was the devil. And I myself doubt that the man with the top hat was human.