I’ve had a few paranormal experiences in my life but I’ll start with the first one I ever had.
When I was around 4-6 years old in my first childhood home we lived close to a cemetery.
Every night I would wake up to someone talking to me. I had my bed against the wall and when I would wake up there would be an old man with his head sticking out the wall talking to me.
This would happen for years I was never afraid to wake up and see the old man. He was always polite and would ask me about my day.
I would have boring 4-6 year old conversations about what I got up to in pre school/school or about all the stuffed toys I had with me in bed.
I remember telling my mum these stories when I would wake up in the morning about how the old man woke me up again that night to talk to me. She always thought I was just being a child having dreams and not actually seeing the old man.
We moved to a new area when I was 6 years old and I remember the last night in that house I was telling the old man I was moving cause my room was all packed in boxes. He was sad and said he was loosing a friend. I told him to visit me at my new house as I would have heaps more new adventures to tell him about. He told me he couldn't leave that house/area.
Sadly my first night in my new house he didn’t appear and I haven't seen him since.
Now as an adult I would actually go insane if I was to see a ghost now. I tell my mum about the old man now and she still says that I was just a child so it was all in my head.
I can still remember his face and the convos we would talk about.
I would like to revisit my first childhood home and the cemetery right near it.
I don't remember this very well myself, but when I was very little I used to ask my parents who the old woman in the window/by the woods was fairly often. They suspect it was my great-aunt on my dad's side, who passed away before I was born, but was apparently a very sweet lady who absolutely adored my dad and would've loved to meet me had she still been around.
I also think I've had encounters with the spirits of both of my dogs. My first dog we got when I was very little, but unbeknownst to us she had parvo and the vets couldn't save her, so we only had her for a few short days. But she was a very sweet and very smart little dog, and I swear a couple years after she passed, the room got unusually cold and I kept catching glimpses of white mist around her size/shape. It all went back to normal after a few minutes.
With our second dog who passed just a few years ago, I was kneeling down on the floor about where her height would've been while sweeping up some dirt, and I caught her smell very strongly out of nowhere. It was the middle of the floor and there wasn't anything around that would've had her scent on it, especially not so strongly like that. Another time when I was looking out the window, I swear I saw her coming up to the front door out of the corner of my eye. There wasn't any animal there and it could've just been my mind playing tricks on me, but did I open the door to let her in? Yeah.
These were all positive experiences, but I've also had some unpleasant ones at my grandparents' house. Some rooms just gave me bad vibes and I didn't like to be in there longer than necessary, and then one night as I was trying to go to sleep I faintly saw what looked like a glowy/flamey hand, maybe skeletal, slowly moving around the bed. I did my best to ignore the hell out of it and shortly afterwards I felt a slight burning sensation on my back. I... somehow continued ignoring the situation and went to sleep afterwards??
I stopped staying over at their house after that and didn't tell them about it for years, but they later confessed to me that they'd both seen some sort of bad-vibes figure at night on different occasions too. They actually wound up having a prayer session/spiritual cleansing held at their house because of it and honestly? The house has felt much nicer/lighter ever since. I still don't plan on sleeping there again though. Additional fun fact: my grandfather apparently bought the house for unusually cheap, which is never the premise for horror movies or anything!!
Moving away from ghostly things (partly because it's really late and I've gone and spooked myself remembering stuff about the last one ), we usually have a big feast on Halloween and will sometimes leave small pieces in the woods as presents for the Fair Folk. So one year, it's midnight on Halloween, during a full moon no less, and we're heading into the woods to leave food for the fairies. Coincidentally, our flashlight starts flickering and going out, like something straight out of a horror movie. Then, more coincidentally, the moment my mom pours out some wine at the base of a tree for them, the flashlight's instantly back to full power and doesn't flicker again.
It's a funny story and could've been all coincidence, but ngl given all the circumstances I do kiiinda believe that something was trying to play a prank on us (at least until we offered them booze, anyway).
As a child myself and a few friends decided to make a makeshift ouija board out of pieces of paper and a tumbler glass. We asked silly questions and got no response, until we heard a knock on the wall. We all freaked out and asked our parents downstairs if they had knocked on the wall but they all denied it. I don't know if they were lying or not but it was enough to put me off doing that sort of thing ever again.
Another supernatural experience I believe I had involved one of my old cats. He used to tap on the patio door when he wanted to come in and the same day he passed away my mum and I heard the same tapping at the patio door. We believe that was his way of saying goodbye to us one last time.
Also after my grandad died the clock on the mantle piece in his living room stopped working, what was weird about it was when he was alive he was obsessed with time. So much so he was buried with his favourite watch. After that my mum refused to have that clock in her house after my nana died, so it went to her brother. Luckily the clock works fine now.
I've shared this before here, but back when I was a kid my family and I encountered a man wearing a pumpkin for a head around the neighborhood block. We asked if he could take it off, but he couldn't, making it even creepier. Then one time when we visited him he even had a chainsaw with him. He just seemed very dedicated to the Halloween experience, loooool.
Do sleep paralysis demons count? mine loves to pay a visit from time to time, and we spent that time simply having a staring contest in the dead of night. Then my brain starts working properly again and I fully wake up. I can never quite shake off the feeling of dread that lingers a while longer. So I do the smart thing and doze off again lol
The worst that I've ever experienced were quick moving shadows in the dark (which I often dismiss due to my eyesight); or late relatives visiting my dreams days after they've died.
Although I do remember a weird incident when I was a teenager. For context, one of the previous owners of my childhood house died on the ambulance ride to the hospital. While I've never directly seen any ghostly figures, guests would often complain about a negative energy in the house. One cousin even said that a man peered through the master bedroom window.
Right, back to the story...So, my mom told me to change because we had to pick up one of my siblings from college. I went to my room but kept the door open because my dad and oldest sibling were at work. This meant that only my mom and I were at home. Right as I was about to lift the shirt over my head I heard an older man's voice mutter out "...sorry." It sounded like it was a few feet away. I looked at the window, and yep, the curtains were closed. I called Mom and she was in the restroom next door getting ready. I asked her if she had the radio on and she said no.
right so most paranormal experiences are apparently really just patternseeking and the brains tendency to insert detail to account for gaps in information. it bothers humans to not know how to identify something and instead of the objective "I'm not really sure what I witnessed" it becomes "well if I don't have a natural explanation for what I experienced then it's something unnatural." We all want to believe we are open minded and objective, and we try to be... but memory and perception are extremely prone to brain failure.
now. stop.
this is not a "people that are spiritual, religious, superstitious, believe in the supernatural or the occult have brain damage lolol1!" point and it's not what I mean by "braln failure." nor is it "ghosts" aren't real or "you didn't experience that." i haven't lived anyone else's life so I have no way to know and I'm not interested in belittling the topic with skepticism. there is a point to this so stick with me.
brain failure is... well instead of boring everyone with jargon, consider the poor efficacy of eyewitness accounts. this occurs because each time we recall our memory the brain begins to alter the details through an increasing amount of filters like your emotional state when the incident happened, it's affect on you, your world view, your assumptions, your age and past vibrancy effect there-in, and filling in missing details by incidental suggestion in reporting. and for an even simpler example... optical illusions. it doesn't matter how rational and intelligent people are, ultimately your brain is creating an experience specifically for you and to do this it cannot have gaps and it can't leave you hanging and so in a way it is actually an incredible evolutionary gift to be able to do this. now you might be wondering why Iam saying this, and it's probably not something that you would expect.
i think the interesting part about the macabre and paranormal is actually applying the scientific method to it. we don't have the explanation for every experience. that means to me it's sort of boring to chalk these things up to evil and spirits, ideas that offer closure but end the mystery. maybe there is a world unseen by most and not as brightly lit, and maybe not, but go beyond that. i suffer from hypnagogic hallucinations and night terrors so I see a lot of things in the waking world that shouldn't be there and a lot of times my dreams are an alternate life with it's own continuity and defined people. the physiological answer we have is that dreams are constructed from details we observed while the brain filtered it out in your day to day. going by that, i have to have seen the faces of these invented people and some media or idea in order to generate what i'm seeing while only partially awake. and yet I have no memory of ever even fathoming some of the things I go through in a night terror.
if i said to myself I was clairvoyant, or that I'm somewhere in proximity to death or it's astral projection and went about the day, that's easy. people have constructed enough beliefs in these things that we like to think we're in control with our rituals and guardian ghosts and an afterlife. and evil isn't so unnatural, so it's not a stretch to think it is some universal force that we constantly need to worry about that. when I was little I used to think if I slept covering my eyes, then I wouldn't get haunted or attacked by monsters. never got got, so even if it was just a comfort thing clearly I dealt with it. so either it worked or those things don't happen. or, things do happen and we filled in the blanks, but never answered the question.
so the terror isn't really the supernatural. it's that the supernatural has been natural long before we were ever walking up right. it's that maybe when you get down to it, everything is made of something. at one time, rain was a blessing and the stars were gods. but if there are ghosts
what happens when there were ghosts and they were ghosts... at one time?
tl;dr for people who don't want to read and are sensors I did see the Aunt Pratt painting in person when it was back at Shirley Plantation, a supposedly haunted painting. she didn't follow me home. my grandmother claims when they first moved into their house and were unpacking the upstairs room door opened and footsteps came down the stairs. as if satisfied with the new residents, a few minutes later the same door closed. she says it seems to be the wife of the man who built the house in 1901 as she's seen an old woman once or twice. whereas my uncle claims one night she bit him. coincidentally he is sort of a jerk. i spent many nights there and I've seen nothing, but the stairs are sure creaky at 2 AM.
I remember really wanting to see a ghost or anything paranormal really when I was a kid. My childhood best friend loved to purposely scare me and tell me all sorts of scary stories about Bloody Mary and Satan and werewolves and Pennywise and all that. Alas I have never seen any such thing, despite the fact that I spent 5 years living in what is apparently one of the most haunted cities in America! I even walked through an old cemetery almost every day.
Anyway, I don't believe in anything paranormal, but I have had some freaky sleep paralysis experiences. When I was 11 or 12, I really loved Emily the Strange, and I had one of those posters of her on my wall facing my bed. One day i wake up to find that I couldn't move, and of course, Emily the Strange gets all The Ring on me and starts crawling out of the poster, towards me. So I stopped hanging posters in front of my bed like that lmao
This other time in college I wake up, can't move but my eyes are open and I'm laying on my side, and there's this dark hooded figure, like a cross between a nun and an executioner, just sitting there inches away from me, watching me. I try to tell it to go away but I can't speak, but then i somehow try to swat it away with my hand, and then I fully wake up.
These days when I have sleep paralysis I see what I like to call the imposter version of my husband. Not fun.
To be honest I'd bet that sleep paralysis could explain a lot of peoples' paranormal encounters; they can look very convincing!
I've seen the shadow people that some people believe exist. In many cultures it is a taboo thing to even talk about the details of the entities because they are seen as negative and you don't want to attract them. I've seen them at both night time and day time and they definitely weren't dreams or hallucinations. You don't want to be around them.
I've also seen light colored ones. Maybe that is what some call ghosts? Idk. I didn't seek these out and I don't think anyone should. There isnt a benefit to doing so anyway impo.
I've seen the effects of a ouija board in person and was not with anyone who was paid or into trickery. I don't advise messing with those. It was foolishness to dabble impo and still would be. But there were temperature changes, feelings of a presence and the door was locked in the room but something tried very to get in which is odd as spiritual beings have the ability to walk through things. This door had a large gap underneath and there wasn't anyone there moving the door and it's knob. However anyone who has any belief in the spiritual world or realm knows the importance of order and permission so I'd imagine that was what that was about. It's one reason why some people really don't like mats or signs that say welcome by their house door.
Also, I wasn't solo witness.
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And I have seen mysterious things in the sky, but they could have been satellites or debris. Too fast for planes and they didn't flash. And I was solo to those things.
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That's pretty much all I've got that's worth anything to a thread like this and that is also spooky.
I do have dreams of dead relatives, ones I've met and ones I haven't when I get very very ill. I mean very ill, not oh you have the flu ill. I dont find it spooky but some may.
I do think there is a little more in the world than what meets the eye.
I'm a skeptic who nonetheless is interested in the prospect of the paranormal, suprnatural, unexplained, etc. The only incident that comes to mind is something that I'm 99.999% sure was just a dream is seeing my recently deceased grandfather's spirit standing at the top of the stairs of my grandparents' house back when I was a young child. Maybe there's that .001% chance that it was actually me seeing him, what with the whole concept of young children being able to see things that we lose the ability to see as we get older, but I really think it was just something my sleeping mind conjured. It's been nearly three decades since it would've happened, so I lean more into the idea of human memory being unreliable.
As I'm pretty sure that I've never actually had a paranormal experience, I don't buy into YouTube channels, television shows, etc. featuring ghost hunts. I do find Ryan Bergara and Shane Medej (formerly from Buzzfeed Unsolved, now on Watcher) entertaining though and watch those for fun. That said, I'm someone who would want to go to supposedly haunted locations and see if anything strange happened. Perhaps a bit of a weird/dumb/callous thing to say, but I'm the slightest bit jealous of those who have had such experiences because I want to see what it's like for myself.
I'm indifferent about the prospect of aliens and have had no sightings or encounters. Urban legends are cool but no experiences with them either other than reading or hearing about them.
Thanks for the cool thread concept and thanks to everyone for sharing your stories.
I’ve been loving the stories everyone has been posting
It’s time to share my second story this will be broken into parts as this story happened over 4 years:
Back in primary school we have these religious annual camp for grades 4-7. It was always at the same campsite in the woods in the middle of nowhere. For some stupid reason it was always in winter too which makes no sense cause the cabins were the worst built and quality was horrible. AND MOST CABINS HAD NO DOOR……..
I absolutely hated going each year and I would try to be “sick”. But nope I had to go.
I can’t not explain in detail how creepy this place was every time we drove into the campsite you would just feel like someone was watching you.
It was always dark and gloomy/ raining. I remember when I first went in the 4th year I had all the older kids telling me the stories of the place about the strange happenings and the ghosts of the campsite.
The campsite was built on an old farm from the 1800s. One of the most popular stories was about a glowing women dressed in white that would walk around and whisper into your ear.
We had 2 parents with us in each cabin and the first year I went to camp my cabin didn’t have a door. So the two mums sat outside all night looking after us. I would never sleep at this camp as I was terrified.
What made it worse was because I was awake I could hear everything.
During the night one of the mums started screaming women there is a women over there!!!!!!!!
The second mum says what where???
The first mum was in tears saying she saw a glowing women in white staring at her from the other cabin.
I heard the second mum tell her to calm down as she would wake up the kids and that she was just tired.
In my second year of going to this camp for some reason our cabin just had holes in the wall which I don’t understand why my school would keep sending back small children to this camp in the middle of winter.
The campsite was still creepy and you still felt like no matter what you were doing something was watching you very closely.
Being a second year now I knew to try not look outside for the white glowing lady. I would always keep my eyes down after we had dinner and was walking back to our cabins.
We didn’t have any parents with us this year in our cabin and we thought we were cool cause we were older so we actually had fun eating lollies and listening to music on our iPods which we snuck in.
The night was going well and I thought maybe I was just a silly kid last year this place is kinda fun.
NOPE…….
It’s now late at night and a mum from the neighbour cabin comes in to say goodnight to us all and if we need anything just to come over.
I can’t get to sleep as I feel like someone is watching me. I open my eyes gently to see a black figure staring at the girl next to me. I freeze and close my eyes. I can hear it whispering something as it moves around the cabin.
Next morning I tell the girls in my cabin about what I saw. Some of them said they heard light whisperers but thought it was someone talking in their sleep. Another girl said she woke up and saw a black figure staring at me while I “slept” she said she was to scared to call for the mum from next door that she too closed her eyes.
This is now my third year going to this camp I still hate it. I had convinced my mum to help out this year as my younger sibling started her first year too.
I’m now in the older grades so I’m put in a 2 story cabin/house with the older grade above me.
I can actually remember how jealous I was at the older grade cause this was their last year at this horrible camp.
Camp was still creepy I remember going to the bathroom and always hearing faint sounds of someone whispering. I would consistently look down at the floor when I would walk anywhere.
I remember after one night after dinner which was actually nasty I started to feel sick the “crumbed steaks” we were giving were so nasty I actually didn’t eat meat for 4 years after this. I remember running to the bathroom to throw up and as I came back up from the toilet bowl.
I saw a small part of a finger on the floor behind the toliet in a pool of blood. I kept staring at it to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. I ran to go find my mum at one of the cabins to show her when she came to have a look the finger was still there so I wasn’t going insane.
My mum freaked out and went to tell one of the camp instructors. Mum said they didn’t seem to care and said oh yep I’ll get the cleaner to grab it.
My last year at this camp I never went to the bathroom alone never looked up when I walked and used headphones at night so I couldn’t hear anything. I was that freaked out.
The only thing I can remember happening in this year was. The girls in my cabin found out that there was a 1800s cemetery behind the grand hall.
After lunch during the day we set out to go find it. I stayed back with another girl at the edge one main reason because we would be punished if we left the camp grounds and I was not in the mood for that.
As the group of 4 girls left me and another girl we set up a shade area to read our books under.
The group of girls were only meant to go for a walk find the place and come back.
2 hours later me and the other girl are freaking out cause we covered for them for not collecting their afternoon tea but now it was almost dinner time and it was starting to get dark.
The group of girls come out saying how cool it was to see the old cemetery and that it’s not far at all behind the grand hall.
Me and the other girl go off saying they have been gone for 2 HOURS!!!!
They looked confused as they said they had only gone for the walk which was about 5 mins, stayed at the cemetery for 10ish mins then walked back which was another 5 mins.
I don’t know what happened there with time but that was the last thing that ever happened.
With my little sister going to the camp also she did witness strange things too that we talked about later in life as we got older.
I saw this interesting thing while I was on vacation and nobody I've shown has been able to explain this. I'm still confused as to what these lights are. I removed the audio since it's just my cringe, feminine voice commentating on how weird this is. If anyone has any insight on what these even are, I'd love to know.
This is at Disney World on property, but there were no events of any kind happening (ex: fireworks show).
I've never been to Disney World so I don't know the area or how large the property actually is. Were there any stadiums nearby? Those lights kind of look and move like sky search beams. The sky looks cloudy as well, so maybe that could have hidden the beams a bit?
I've never been to Disney World so I don't know the area or how large the property actually is. Were there any stadiums nearby? Those lights kind of look and move like sky search beams. The sky looks cloudy as well, so maybe that could have hidden the beams a bit?
I saw this interesting thing while I was on vacation and nobody I've shown has been able to explain this. I'm still confused as to what these lights are. I removed the audio since it's just my cringe, feminine voice commentating on how weird this is. If anyone has any insight on what these even are, I'd love to know.
This is at Disney World on property, but there were no events of any kind happening (ex: fireworks show).
Disney parks have helicopters flying around at all hours to check for people and items which pose a risk to the safety of parkgoers. That's more than likely what those lights are. Just really high level security.
I remember we lived in an apartment where the toilet seat would slam randomly at night and pots/pans would fall from the shelves in the kitchen. Constant footsteps and shadow people were seen by not just me, but family as well. Lights would also turn on randomly at night.
I was home alone once in the same apartment while everyone was out. I stayed home to play on the PC (firs time we had a PC that could play actual games) and the power went out randomly. We had a picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall and it suddenly (I kid you not) flew off the wall like it was thrown. I swiftly went to bed lol
I haven't really experienced anything "paranormal" but I found and captured (can't seem to upload the video) a strange string of lights in the night sky when I was biking, just a couple of weeks ago. It seemed to be going east/upward before slowly disappearing. Anyone know what it might of been? A satellite perhaps?
Also, I heard a fox, just outside, yelling really loud. My brother scared it off with a flash light. Luckily it didn't go after our neighbors cat who likes to chill on our lawn.
), we usually have a big feast on Halloween and will sometimes leave small pieces in the woods as presents for the Fair Folk. So one year, it's midnight on Halloween, during a full moon no less, and we're heading into the woods to leave food for the fairies. Coincidentally, our flashlight starts flickering and going out, like something straight out of a horror movie. Then, more coincidentally, the moment my mom pours out some wine at the base of a tree for them, the flashlight's instantly back to full power and doesn't flicker again. 
mine loves to pay a visit from time to time, and we spent that time simply having a staring contest in the dead of night. Then my brain starts working properly again and I fully wake up. I can never quite shake off the feeling of dread that lingers a while longer. So I do the smart thing and doze off again lol
