Image by PhotoVision from Pixabay |
Years ago, I used to live in a house that was built in the early 1900s. There's something about old houses that can be a bit creepy. Every creak and every groan––especially at night––sounds unnerving, as if there is something out there... watching... and waiting. I even swear I saw a ghost a couple of times (I think he was, given how he appeared, a murder victim of some sort) but I put it out of my head for years. So of course I'm rehashing that fear while getting paid to write silly articles on the internet. What can I say? It's a living.
People revisited the specters of their childhood after Redditor redditor_pro88 asked the online community,
"What paranormal things did you experience during your childhood?"
"From the moment we moved to the house..."
"My house growing up was built in the 1920s. While I can think of several things that can be explained by other things such as sleep paralysis, childlike imagination, creaky pipes, and bad wiring, there's some things that have left me and my family members unsettled. I generally think most hauntings can be explained by natural phenomena and I'm happy to think this could be the case too.
From the moment we moved to the house (I was 6) I absolutely hated my closet. I would cry if my parents didn't close it at night. This fear never went away even when I was a teenager, I always had to have it closed or covered up. I can't explain exactly how genuinely terrifying this feeling was but i always felt watched. My whole family was creeped out by that closet too and generally avoided it.
The upstairs was small and had a landing surrounded by our 3 bedrooms and the bathroom. I would wake up with this oddly unsettled feeling and walk to the landing and stair down into the darkness of the stairs, which was odd as normally if I had to go to the bathroom I would sprint there and back. A few times I would find my brother already standing there but looking up at our attic door instead and I'd have a heart attack.
The weirdest for me was the several times someone in my family heard a voice that sounded like one of us but we weren't there. There were at least two times my dad came into my room annoyed at me for waking him up when I was deep asleep and completely tangled in my bedsheets. He told me that I tapped him hard on the shoulder and very clearly told him to get up and that I needed help but when he opened his eyes I wasn't there and he had to search for me. My brother told me about times he heard me talking in a room but when he checked I wasn't even upstairs. It still gives me chills to think about it.
There were also times I clearly heard the door open and my mom come home and call my brother and me but when we got downstairs no one was home. It would be really odd and we'd both definitely heard it, even with headphones in. Sometimes we'd leave the house because we'd be so freaked out by it.
There are other odd stories of things going completely missing and us finding them odd places months later but I've always just put that down as forgetting where we put it or our cats hiding things. Some of my friends refused to come over after sleeping the night but they wouldn't tell me anything other than the place really creeped them out."
Your friends refused to sleep over?
Time to exorcise the house.
"I searched that night before bed..."
"I was about 9 years old, playing with some Star Trek action figures in my bedroom (yes, I was a cool kid). My room was positioned directly above a guest room that was almost never used and I almost never entered. The furniture was outdated compared to the rest of the house, and it just had a creepy vibe. This will be relevant later.
I had a Spock action figure which broke apart easily. His shirt would snap into two pieces by pressing on the seam, and then all his limbs would fall off. He was easy to repair, so I took him apart often. He'd be used for body parts if I wanted to pretend someone had been killed by an alien.
One day just as I had set up a decidedly gruesome Star Trek scene, my mom called me down for dinner. When I came back upstairs after eating, I noticed that Spock was gone. Just him, though. All the other action figures were still in a little circle exactly as I left them.
I searched that night before bed, thinking my younger brother (my only sibling, who was 2 years old at the time) may have somehow gotten into my room and moved my stuff. It had never happened before, but it was all I could think of. The whole family was at dinner and there was no chance for anyone to go upstairs and move anything.
The next morning, I searched the house for Spock. Nothing. Not put away, not in my brother's room, not in the living room. It was baffling. As a last-ditch effort, I decided to check the guest room. The room looked untouched, as usual. Except for one thing: a dismantled Spock action figure, in the exact same position as I had left it in my room the night prior, directly below where I had been playing with him in my bedroom.
I asked my mom and dad. They claimed to know nothing about it. My younger brother could not have made it down the stairs, and also would not have been able to make the same Spock pile that I had made the previous night. It was as if my toy had just translated a few feet in the z-direction, right through the floor.
I still don't have an explanation."
And you won't get one.
I feel like this could be a "Monkey's Paw" scenario, and I'm here for it.
"My mother told me to visit her friend..."
"My mother took me to visit her friend when I was 8 years old. This friend lived alone in an old house. I was exploring the house and went up the stairs where all the bedrooms were. As I got to the top of the stairs I looked to the far end of the hall and saw an old man standing there. He saw me but he was looking through me (difficult to describe). I knew instantly that something wasn't right because the lower half of his body was not really defined. I raced down the stairs to tell my mother and the friend told her that yes, this is the ghost of the house and he is harmless. I have never forgotten the creepy feeling that I had."
Harmless, huh?
Are you sure they weren't just saying that?
"When I was 11..."
"When I was 11, I was staying with some friends at their cabin deep in the woods (in the middle of rural NOWHERE, like literally not another house for miles). We were playing soccer and my friend yelled and pointed to the trees behind the yard, and we all saw a man standing there in a dirty brown shirt and jeans, who walked towards us and vanished behind a tree. We screamed for their dad and he came running out to see what was wrong and told us to go inside while he looked around.
He found nothing, but we didn't wanna go outside and play again. Later that night we had pretty much calmed down and were watching TV in their living room (which had big glass sliding doors facing the forest) when their dog started growling and barking at something outside the glass doors. He hadn't acted like this before, so we called their dad again and he went outside through the doors and found nothing again, but the dog wouldn't stop barking until a few minutes later."
You see?
This is why I won't go into the woods.
I've seen enough horror films to know that's a terrible idea.
"I woke up..."
"I woke up and saw a shadow man run then jump at me while I was in bed. I was so struck with fear I was unable to move but he disappeared right before he landed. The memory was so terrifying I still remember it nearly 30 years later."
I think that's what some people might call a sleep paralysis demon.
Have seen a couple myself. It's not fun.
"But for whatever reason..."
"My great-aunt had a house that was built in 1792. There was an upstairs room that had been made into a sort of playroom for us kids. It was very small, with a sloping ceiling.
Now, this could just have been a kiddo's imagination or a bad dream I had as a child, but I remember before it being a playroom that it was a dying man's room. I remember where his bed was and what he looked like. He was suffering. I could never get comfortable in that room, and I couldn't tolerate more than a few minutes in there alone.
I should add that I'm not a person who believes in the supernatural. I'm open to the possibility, but I've never encountered definitive proof. My husband, who has had paranormal experiences, has had to take me out of places that he thinks are haunted, that's how immune I am to that sort of thing. In supposedly haunted hotels, I sometimes wander the hallways late at night hoping I'll find something to make me believe.
But for whatever reason, I felt something was deeply wrong about that room in my great-aunt's house, and I avoided it unless there was something specific I could duck in quickly and get."
"When I was growing up..."
"When I was growing up I lived in a century home, it was about 115 years old at the time. The house many years back was a funeral showing home, they would hold ceremonies and their viewings. This always creeped me out and may have gotten my imagination running but sometimes I still wonder.
There were a servant's quarters with a separate staircase to the kitchen, oftentimes we would hear footsteps and go check to find nothing there.
Multiple times we would hear the tv upstairs in the servant bedroom connected to the stairs turn on and then off if we went up to the room. It became my parent's room/the master bedroom when we lived there.
A few of my mom's friends told us stories of seeing an old lady in the closet of my sister's room (next to mine) when they stayed over and slept in that bedroom.
My youngest sister would frequently have night terrors and sit up eyes wide open screaming or sulking. Freaked me out big time.
My personal worst experience was what I now believe to have been sleep paralysis. I always slept with a hall light on and my bedroom door open. One night I "woke" up and saw my bedroom door shut slowly as my closet door opened. As this happened a figure of a woman walked to me and sat on my chest staring at me. I tried screaming/calling for my mom but I couldn't get words to vocalize, felt like a whisper/pressure. Eventually, I was able to turn over, and immediately when I did I woke up again and was not rolled over but on my back. The door to the closet was shut and my bedroom door open.
Overall I am personally a nonbeliever and could probably rationalize these experiences/chalk it up to being an imaginative kid. But they still stick with me and make me curious. I haven't experienced anything like this since moving from there. The bottom line is old houses with history are creepy, especially for a child!"
"I saw her when I opened my eyes..."
"The three-headed shadow at the foot of my bed that would move to tuck me in. I saw her when I opened my eyes some nights. It shouldn't have been, I called it a "shouldn't be," but I was never really in danger. I also knew each head was meant to represent my grandmother and two grand aunts but they were not them. They were something else."
It's funny how our dreams can tell us things without explciitly voicing them out loud.
"I have always insisted..."
"I have always insisted that the house I lived in until I was 8 is creepy. It was only a year or two ago that my family casually mentioned that it was built where a Victorian maternity ward used to be. So, it's mildly possible that ghost babies haunted me."
So... still want to purchase that creepy house that the locals say was built atop an old Native American burial ground? Still want to go spend time in that cabin in the woods near the site of all those murders?
You're braver than I. But if you do survive a night (or two) be sure to report back. You're bound to have seen something.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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People Describe The Exact Moment They Realized Their Friends Were A-Holes
Everyone has friends who you become less and less close to with each passing year.
This isn't always by choice, though, but simply by circumstance, when your lives both take different directions.
In some cases, however, we do find ourselves making a very conscious decision to stop spending time with certain friends.
Owing to the fact that these people might not be our friends after all.
In certain cases, the communication ends as the result of one specific moment.
Redditor D1Tytos was curious to hear the triggering moment when people decided to end their friendships, leading them to ask:
"What's the moment that made you realize your so called 'friends' were really just d*cks?"
Lack of Compassion
"When I got cancer and they never checked on me."- justagirlx19
Being Taken Advantage Of
"Worked with and rented a large house with my friend group after high school."
"Dumb and inexperienced with life, I didn’t know they were lying to me about bills and making me pay more/whatever they felt like until a family member asked about it."
"Eventually they all looked at moving into a new place without telling me."
"I felt guilty and confessed they would basically steal my money to shop with and planned on moving out while I was visiting family so I came back to an empty place and responsible for everything."- dylandbloom
"I found myself getting irritated whenever they called/hit me up."
"Because every time they'd only ask for something , never just to talk to hang out."- ybbetter_ratio
Happy Birthday Indeed...
"The last time I tried throwing a birthday party for myself."
"It always seemed like the ratio of people who said they'd come to people who actually showed was...lacking."
"But my final attempt."
"I had 20+ people say they'd show."
"Exactly one actually came."
"I've never had a birthday party since."
"But I'm still good friends with the one guy who showed."- Lachwen
Unkind Exclusion
"They asked to not have one of the people in our group over."
"They didn't want to tell him there was no game, they just wanted him to knock and pretend no one was there."
"I wasn't very cool with this but they didn't want to be 'confrontational' with said person."
"Before the next week rolled around they were saying 'there wasn't going to be anything going on' that Saturday."
"I knew they were full of sh*t, but went by to confirm they were all there that Saturday, and sure enough they all were."
"Just dropped them like a sack of potatoes and never spoke to them again, no reason to."- MickCollins
True Colors
"Had 3 friends."
"2 I liked and 1 I didn't really like at all."
"Turns out they had a secret group chat where they just called me slurs and talked about me behind my back."
"The guy I didn't like sent me screenshots of this and me and him have been friends 3 years now."- c_a_t2·
Blurred Perceptions
"When I stopped drinking and realized that’s all we had holding our friendship together."- BillieBoJangers·
Unreliable
"I remember I was severely depressed and I called someone I thought was my friend."
"When he realized I wanted to talk about real sh*t he made up an excuse to hang up."
"After that he kept ignoring my calls."
"What's crazy is I was there for that dude when his wife left him for another guy."
"There were times where I wanted to escape his depressing stories, but sat there and listened because he was my friend."- horsetoothjack@ss119
Ungrateful
"Couples retreat of 3 pairs, other 2 girlfriends flaked last minute, leaving mine."
"They still came, then had the nerve to tell mine the trip would’ve been better without her right to her face when I was out surfing."
"This was never established as a guys trip at any point."
"She fed them, organized the trip as a whole, etc."
"Losers."- SwingmanSealegz
Provoking Others
"Guy lies about his well-being being bad cus he loves how worried someone reacts."
"I called him out on it when he lied to someone else and he literally said 'I enjoy winding people up, I love how they react when I say x'."
"That's gross to me."- PastaNotFound
Ending a friendship is never pleasant.
But time heals everything, and over the course of a couple months, it might become evidently clear how much better off your life is without certain people in it.
We all have songs that we can't get out of our heads, resulting in our randomly humming them while walking down the street.
Among the most infectious songs are theme songs to TV shows.
Be it from tuning in every week to catch up with Friends who will always" be there for [us]", or being "stuck in the middle" of a Grace And Frankie binge, we often find ourselves humming the theme songs of our favorite shows more often than we find ourselves quoting the best lines.
Even if it means humming an infectious melody to a wordless piece of music (Will & Grace or Seinfeld anyone?)
Redditor LinksOtherUncle was curious to hear what people considered the all time greatest theme song to a TV show, leading them to ask:
"What is the greatest TV Show theme song of all-time?"
"Whoo-oo"...
"Duck Tales, of course."- Beautiful-Stranger20
"Believe It Or Not It's Just Me!"
"Greatest American Hero!"- GayHole
"Bum Bum BUM bum...bum bum BUM BUM bum bum bum..."
"Sanford and Son"- jkulpa
The Original MCU
"90s X-Men."- Ourobius
"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale..."
"Gilligan's Island"- Cantbetoobad1953
Bored Gilligans Island GIF by TV Land ClassicGiphy"It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights..."
"The Muppet Show theme song!"- Poorkiddonegood8541
"A World Of Criminals Who Operate Above The Law"
"Knight Rider!"- BladeBronson
"Heroes in a half-shell, TURTLE POWER!"
"The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon theme."- Petulant_Platypus
ninja turtles GIF by Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesGiphy"You want to go where everybody knows your name."
"Cheers."- Big-Significance3604
The only thing more comforting than turning on our TVs to revisit a familiar town with familiar characters, is the comforting familiar music which greets us on our return.
People Explain Which Bits Of Common Knowledge They Learned Way Too Late In Life
Who hasn't had a moment when they learned what they thought was a revelatory piece of information, ran to share it with their friends, and were then greeted by a barrage of stone faces?
Owing to the fact that what we only just learned a few minutes ago, was apparently common knowledge.
These include your favorite movie star was in fact the offspring of another movie star, what gelatin is actually made of, or little tricks and strategies which make certain experiences so much more pleasurable.
For no particular reason, some people learn these things far later than just about everyone else.
Redditor Big_Piccolo_8369 was curious to learn which bits of common knowledge people were late to the party in knowing, leading them to ask:
"What is common knowledge that you found out way too late?"
Strategic Planning
"Always eat before shopping at Costco."- mtl_jim
Sometimes Silence Is Golden
"Just because I hold an opinion on something doesn't mean that I need to share it."
"I spent WAY too much of my early adulthood inserting my viewpoint into discussions that I wasn't really a part of."- xjuggernaughtx
How To Keep Friendships Strong
"Simply asking 'how are you' once in awhile is all it takes to not fall apart from old friends."- a_burdie_from_hell
Know Your Worth
"Hard work isn’t always the answer."
"When I worked a minimum wage job, I would work hard and not take breaks, so a great job, and always finish early."
"I just then got told to pick up the slack for the employees who spent their time goofing off."
"Never got a promotion, raise, or even a 'hey, good job'."- Disco-Onion
Think Twice Before Lending Money
"That when people ask to borrow money especially if it's a friend or family just expect to never see it again."- Different-Chest-5716
Loan Borrow GIFGiphySpotting Charlatans
Being well-educated in one area doesn't mean that a person can't be a total idiot in other areas."- Red-belliedOrator
Never Make Decisions When Angry
"'Every action made in anger ends in sorrow'."
"An attorney, when I was 24."- yours121110
"Don't make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings."- Yoschnitzel
Angry Inside Out GIF by Disney PixarGiphyThe Importance Of Sleep
"Going too long without sleep can impair your ability to drive the same way as drinking too much alcohol."- SuvenPan
We're all bound to be looked down upon every now and then for just learning something everyone else already knows.
Though always remember, the wisest ones are those who never want to stop learning.
I'm a simple person when it comes to video games.
I prefer to go with nostalgia.
All of these fancy deals put me on sensory overload.
But my goodness the technology really has come a long way.
And there are actual storylines and drama.
Good for y'all gamers.
Redditor TolisKoutrowanted everyone to list their thoughts on the greatest of the great.
"What video game do you consider a masterpiece?"
I love you Ms. Pac-Man. Always and forever.
It's a Ride
video game physics jet GIFGiphy"Roller Coaster Tycoon 2."
Icy_Entrepreneur_859
"Loved RCT2. The canned child laughing sound and the chain lifts noise are permanently burned into my brain."
Career-Known
my whole childhood...
"Man I miss Valve... Their games were designed in a way many developers could only dream of, they were revolutionary in almost everything they laid their hands on."
johnbacosta
"Yeah that’s my whole childhood, still some of the best games… and actually playing HL- alyx for my very first VR experience was nuts. Loved it."
dub3ra
"They made a new game based in the Portal universe. It’s really short but it’s free and funny."
Advanced_Position_25
Better than Perfect
"Portal 2."
Natural-School5690
For real. The first one was absolutely perfect and then they somehow managed to make the second one even better."
Jack_Mackerel
"Portal 1's only fault is that it's very short. I just replayed it a decade since I last touched it and I cleared it in under 2 hours. Portal 2 had so much more room to add more mechanics, more puzzles, and more story. It's the perfect sequel."
YossarianWWII
Classic
"Half Life 2 was brilliant. After that I'd call out WoW Classic. It's hated now, but the first couple of years it was magic. It was a completely new experience exploring such a massive open world and nobody knew anything. So much fun on Ventrilo. Will remember forever. Championship manager in the early 90s. Maybe what I have played the most. I'll mention Fallout series, Witcher and Skyrim as well."
Joppe84
Simply the Best
Movie Raise The Roof GIF by Star WarsGiphy"Star Wars knights of the old Republic. KOTOR. Surprised it hasn’t been said."
gerbs650
"Absolutely! I played it as a kid and it practically taught me life lessons. KOTOR 2 is a little darker but quite good also."
Lensk
How can you even tell any of the Star Wars games apart?
FAVE!!
Episode 8 Mario GIF by Paramount+Giphy"Super Mario World. It’s perfect. I don’t think there’s a single thing about it that I would change."
AdevilSboyU
"That game is awesome. That and Mario 64. But I love the soundtrack from Yoshi’s Island."
HmGrwnSnc1984
Options
"Deus Ex the first one."
Funkyouup82
"At the time the open ended options and story presentation were both really impressive. You could really appreciate that the developer committed to that (e.g. you could physically destroy most locked doors). I think a lot of games stop short of doing that because they don’t want to allow brute force solutions in addition to more elegant ones."
NewKitchenFixtures
"Journey. Not as long and vast as many games here but an artistic masterpiece in my books. It’ll age much better than most games too because of the simplicity."
justthisones
"I absolutely love journey; the music mixed with the visual story telling is absolutely stunning. Also it has, imo, one of the most interesting multiplayer experiences of any game."
"It’s def one of my top three games, but Gris’ artwork and music are peak for me. Also if you really enjoyed the exploration of Journey, you’ll probably love Outer Wilds. Great game, it’ll leave you wishing you could forget it and play it all again."
SynnamonSunset
Play NOW!
"Chrono Trigger, if you know you know, and if you don't, go play it immediately."
sketchypoutine
"Definitely, I feel like some of the best RPGs came from the SNES and Sega era. Chrono Trigger, FF 6, Secret of Mana, super Mario RPG, Earthbound, shining force 2, Phantasy Star 4. Still some of my favorites that i try to revisit every year or so."
chrono_bound20xx
"Came here for Chrono. Time travel just makes for amazing stories, and I love how you can make the game different each play through."
anna1781
i can see your...
Master Chief Game GIF by HaloGiphy"Halo 3. Incredible story and thrilling gameplay. Hilariously fun multiplayer. Fantastic community. Nostalgia."
Current-Ad1250
Video games have surely come a long way from Atari.
What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.