For some people, the concept of ghost stories brings up a whole slew of memories and unexplainable events, and for skeptics, every spiritual experience is easily explained away. Regardless of where you fall on the belief spectrum, hearing people's bizarre experiences with the unexplained can be as satisfying as a top tier episode of X Files, except with sadly less Gillian Anderson.
Sometimes, the possibility of the paranormal presents itself through unexplainable sounds, moving objects or shadowy figures in your space, other times, there is a ghost with a name and consistent habits hanging around your life
In a recent Reddit thread, people shared their most haunting experiences with the paranormal, and these may inspire you to close all the curtains.
1. Deitaphobia had a terrifying first night at the apartment.
"First night in my first apartment. Didn't have a bed so I slept on the couch in the living room. Had a nightmare that someone with a knife was going down the hallway. Just as they got to the living room door, I woke up. I jumped in my car, spent one more night at my parent's."
"Two months later, my roommate falls asleep on the same couch. Next morning he tells me about a dream he had about a guy coming down the hall with a knife, just as he got to the door, my roommate woke up."
"Few months later a friend asks if he can crash for a night. Sure, he can sleep on the couch. Next morning he says he had a weird dream. I said, 'Guy coming down the hall with a knife?' My roommate added, 'You woke up just as he got to the door?' Dude went palest shade of white I ever seen."
2. Tato7069 worked at a haunted hotel.
"I used to work at a "haunted" hotel at the front desk. There was a room behind the front desk where you could sit when it was late and no one was in the lobby. There was a TV with the security cameras including one on the front desk so you could see if anyone was out there. You could see the whole front desk, including the classic bell that people ring for service."
"A coworker and I were sitting in the back room, no one up front, and the bell rang. No one, NO ONE was out there. Over the next hour the bell rang 6 or 7 times, but only when we were in the back. I don't believe in ghosts, but fuck. This was a nice 4 diamond old hotel that had huge ball rooms and dining rooms that I had to walk through late at night when I was alone. When I worked overnights after that as the only employee in the hotel, I would get freaked out, but never really saw anything else "supernatural.""
3. -3rd_STAR- is unsure who the man was.
"I've had many experiences since I was a kid, the one that freaked me out the most though actually happened a few months ago."
"I'm only 16, I don't like sleeping in my room so I sleep on the couch in the living room(my choice and it's actually really comfy). I also suffer from insomnia and have trouble staying asleep. This being said in normally awake when my dad gets up for work at 4 in the morning and will wish him a good day at work and such. I was trying to sleep but I woke up. Having gone through this many times I just kept my eyes shut. Then I felt something that felt like a leg lean against the side of the couch and hover over me, and then I heard heavy and low breathing."
"It was so loud and sounded like a man so I naturally assumed it was my dad. Since I thought he was trying to check if j was awake i whipped around to try and to scare him but nothing was there. I was so confused that i kinda just sat there for a few moments thinking about what just happened."
4. booksandrats was haunted by a regular.
"I was working counter late at night at Tim Hortons. I heard an older lady set down her china mug and say "Thanks dear!". Turned around and there was no one in the store. I'm okay with a regular dead customer having one last cup."
5. sendmeabook is haunted by a woman in a blue dress.
"Long story short, multiple people who are not friends with one another have been in my house and seen a woman in a blue dress and then told me about it later. I don't tell anyone else about it (not even my husband) because it doesn't bother anything. No big deal right? Any who, I myself have seen her twice."
"The first time I woke up in the middle of the night and saw her leaning over the baby's crib. I immediately sat up and she just faded away. I felt crazy because I didn't know anyone else had seen her at the time."
"The next day I went to Walmart and some lady walks by me and says, "She likes the baby". I stop and ask what she said and she says, "The woman, in your house. She likes the baby." Low-key peed my pants and ran home."
6. celtictamuril69's mother's ghost helped her cope with death.
"My mother passed when I was 22. It was an accident and a shock. My husband and I went 3 states away to stay at her house for a bit to pack things up and settle her estate. I have always had really bad problems with my sinuses. Well the stress and everything got me sick and I had a horrible sinus infection. I had medicine and I was on the couch crying after looking everywhere for it. My husband was sitting next to me holding me."
"Then we looked over on the table where the bible was opened and the meds where sitting on the bible. The bible had been there earlier..closed. I remember sitting it there myself. My husband started freaking out because on the page it was opened to a verse was underlined. It was the only one in the whole book underlined. It said..and the grieving shall be comforted. I usually would not put any credence in this. I was sick and a mess. My husband was not. He is a very level headed person when it comes to things like this. Also quite a few other things happened for a while after that. I like to think my mother was trying to help me cope. I really hope she finally found peace...I did."
"I’m convinced the house I lived in during my freshman year of college was haunted. I also swear that all of this is 100% true. I don’t talk about it because it sounds ridiculous but it happened and I can’t explain it. The house was 120 years old. My room had a door to the attic that I kept locked. I had 4 other roommates who all swear they weren’t fucking with me."
"I was laying in bed one day and I heard a super loud crash behind the door of the attic. I grabbed my big male room mate and we opened the door together. At the bottom of the steps (there were 6 awkwardly shallow steps leading up to a bunch of that pink foam stuff and your typical attic) there was an old painting of some lady. We were creeped the fuck out. Nobody had ever seen the painting before (let alone gone into the creepy attic)."
"We put the painting in the corner of the attic where it COULD NOT fall and didn’t think about it again. A few months later I heard the same crash. I figured I dreamed or imagined it. Again, I opened the door and found the painting sitting there. This time I moved the painting into the basement. There were some shelves and I just threw it in the back of the top shelf. A couple more months went by. Yet again, late one night, I heard the crash from behind the attic door. I thought to myself “no fucking way”.
"Grabbed my roommate again and opened the door. THERE IT FUCKING WAS. That god damn painting was sitting at the bottom of the steps again. I don’t understand how. I kept the door to my room locked as well as the door to the attic. My roommates couldn’t have gotten in there to play a prank. I truly don’t understand it."
"After the third time we took the painting out to the fire pit and burned it. Thankfully, all the creepy shit stopped there. I moved the fuck out of that house as soon as the lease was up. I can’t explain what happened I just know it was creepy as hell and you could not convince me to go back there."
"I live in a house from the 1950s - no one has died in it that I know of - my parents bought it in the 70s when they got married - that said, weird things happen occasionally. About 5 or 6 times a year, every door shakes in its frame, as if someone had grabbed the handle and was pulling / pushing as hard as they could manage, even cracking the doorframe once or twice. We have named whatever is doing this 'Bob' - anything weird that happens is automatically Bob's fault."
"Well, in 2016, my younger sister got married - she moved across the country, so it wasn't a local event. I couldn't take a week off of work to attend, and our dog was in poor health... so I stayed home alone. More weird shit happened that week than any other I can recall - doors shaking, faucets turning themselves on and off, etc."
"The most notable thing, however, was when Bob apparently decided to help. I was out of soda / drinks in general upstairs, and my family keeps most of the spare in our basement. Given all the weird shit that was going on, I wasn't about to go downstairs - I was browsing pizza delivery menus, when I heard a rather loud thump. I grabbed a baseball bat, left my bedroom... and the door to the basement was hanging open, and there was 3 twenty-four packs of soda on the kitchen table. That was a bit too much for me, so I decided to search the house. No one in any bedroom, closet, OR the basement (Yes, I checked. Nothing weird going on down there, and I took my phone / had a finger hovering over the call button to dial 911 just in case a burglar had decided he wanted me to have some Diet Mountain Dew.)"
"All the doors were still locked, the windows were secure, and I found no one - so I just called out "Thanks Bob!" and went back upstairs. I checked our carbon monoxide detectors as well, just in case... but still nothing.
Thankfully, the remainder of the week was uneventful."
9. knivadollar's son got an eerie message from their stuffed animal.
"When my son was about 3.5 years old we were driving home at night with him and his 7 year old brother in the back seat. As we approached an area of the road across from my older son’s former babysitter’s house my younger son clearly blurted out the name “Ashley”. Ashley was the name of the babysitter and she had died the year before in a car accident."
"My younger son had never met her and neither son knew that she lived nearby because she always drove to our home to babysit. When I asked my younger son what he said he repeated the name Ashley, and when I asked him why he said that he said “Raven” told him to. Raven was his favorite stuffed animal. My wife and I were stunned and can not explain what happened."
10. mxmnull has a work ghost.
"I work nights at a hotel. I was setting up coffee one morning a few years back, and I see someone very tall in the kitchen. We make eye contact. Dude's wearing an olive green jacket and a pair of jeans. After a second, he lifts his legs at the knees and floats out the door."
"Now, if I were just seeing things, I'd have panicked. I've hallucinated from exhaustion, and the shit I see scares me. This was there. This was real. It must be a guest or something in an employee area. This has happened a couple times. I take off running to catch this guy and tell him he is not permitted back there."
"No one is there, because of course not. The back is empty. I am alone. I was still convinced for several minutes that this guy was just hiding from me and he'd have to come out and I'd be able to talk to him. Almost a full 5 minutes elapsed before I realized I was literally chasing a ghost."
"I have been saved from death 8 times by a spirit guy wearing a bowler hat.
Each time has been different, but I am not the only one who has seen him. -He has woken up my father and told him to check the garage. My father found me seizing and choking. -I fell asleep while driving. He turned the car sharply before we went off into a river. He also shook me awake before my two friends in the back seat, both asked who I had picked up. Those are the two times others have seen him."
12. Kazmodeous shares a space with a ghost named Abigail.
"My house used to be the largest on the lot before our town expanded. It was the largest because it was a funeral home. They sealed off the room with plaster walls where they would prepare the bodies though, underneath the carpet in my parent's room is a hatch too. I've seen plenty of things, heard plenty of things and friends or family have said things I have seen."
"We have a spirit, ghost, whichever you wanna call it that lives here named Abigail. She's a trickster, she likes to hide things, move things, open doors sometimes or tease our dogs. Whenever my aunt comes to visit with her family small items tend to go missing. Items like her toothbrush that she set by the sink two minutes ago."
"The things here, and there are a few, aren't as active anymore. Or maybe I don't see them or notice them much."
"At my sisters old apartment you could see into the kitchen from the living room. The kitchen cabinets would open and close and her dog would immediately start to bark. One night we were watching a movie and we heard something stumble and hit the ground in her kitchen and the dog didn’t even seem to care. I’m pretty sure we heard a ghost trip and eat shit on her kitchen floor."
"When I was around 11 years old, i heard scissors snipping coming from my parents bathroom, which was next to my bedroom. This happened every night from around 1 to around 1:30 every night. after about three months it stopped, and the dream i had that night was about a witch looking thing dragging its nails against my back and the next morning my back was covered in scabs that looked like someone scratching my back."
15. lil_Big_G grew up with a friendly child ghost.
"I grew up in a haunted house. it's never scary though, just a bit unnerving sometimes when you realize what is going on."
"Firstly, my house isn't some old colonial with an estranged who Husband returned home after the war of 1812 and slaughtered his family, or any of that nonsense. It was built in 1992. People always ask if my house is super old when they hear it's haunted, I really don't understand why people think houses have had to have deaths, or be old to be haunted. Like why the fuck is that a thing? Like we know why ghosts exist. I have my own theories."
"Now, I could give you all sorts of stories as to what I've seen. But it's typical shit, voices, people talking when no one is home and the t.vs are off, seeing actual physical ghosts etc. But instead I'll give you my two most solid pieces of evidence as to why I know it is real."
"First piece: Summer of 2004, me and my buddy are jamming in my room, house is empty. This was before everyone had a cellphone so he asked for our phone to call his girlfriend, I tell him to go to the back bedroom, my little brothers, and use his. About 30 seconds later he comes back nonchalant, we jam out a bit more and go for a smoke."
"As we are smoking I ask him if he got through to his girlfriend (I think she was coming to pick us up) he says "Nah, your brothers friend was in there and I didn't want to make it all awkward." I ask what the fuck he is talking about, he tells me there was some girl sitting on my brothers bed facing the wall. I didn't bother telling him what he really saw until later, as not to freak him out."
"Then about two years ago I decide to ask my brother about any paranormal shit in the house, now this is without me ever saying a peep to him about my own experiences. For reference, the most common occurrence was a little girl, in the back room, looking away from you, during the afternoon. The conversation basically went."
"Me: Have you seen any ghost shit in our house before
Him: Oh yeah, it's never scary though.
Me: Uh, what do you see?
Him: Mostly a girl
Me: Describe her"
"Him: I have honestly never seen her face, she is always turned away
Me: .....where did you see her?
Him: In my old room, only during the day.
Something about that just chilled me, him describing it exactly as I have seen it."
"A week ago actually my Mom admitted to me that it is, she is one of the most skeptical people I have met. I was in her kitchen in the early morning, she suddenly stops what she is doing, turns off the radio and asks if I hear noises upstairs, I jokingly say its the ghosts (I used to freak out all the time as a child about it to her) she just looks at me and says "it's never really scary though". We sat around for a moment listening to the bangs, and finished eating breakfast. Honestly, what I wonder the most is why the first thing we all say is that it isn't scary."