Skeptics may believe there is a logical explanation for everything.
Whether it's a creaking noise on the second floor when no one else is home, or demonic hallucinations that may or may not have been part of a dream, people have felt something with every fiber of their being that convinced them there were other forces at work.
Redditor TurtleBoi87 wanted to hear about unexplainable phenomena from strangers on the internet and seriously asked:
"What is the creepiest experience you have ever had?"
Not everyone believes in ghosts. But they also probably would not want to see proof they exist.
The specters are just waiting for the right moment to make an entrance.
A Presence In The House
"I grew up in an old farm house. It was around 150 years old (must be around 175 now) located in a sparsely populated area in north central Iowa. Very rural. There were a lot of small odd occurrences over the years my family lived there, but the most frightening one for me occurred when I was a teenager. I was old enough to be home alone, but not old enough to drive."
"My parents and older sister were all out for the night so it was just me and the dogs at home. I settled in to watch a movie in the living room located on the first floor of the house when I heard someone walking heavily in the hallway above me. This house had plank wood flooring with nothing remotely sound insulating. These steps were distinct, heavy, and unmistakable. I knew I was the only person home and the house was miles from the closest neighbor, let alone town."
"My stomach was in a knot, but tried to be logical and quickly decided it must be a dog (even though the steps sounded much too heavy for our small terriers). I leaned forward in the recliner to call for them, but as I leaned forward I saw that both dogs were already sitting at my feet. And they looked terrified. I took the dogs, the wireless house phone, and ran out of the house, and locked myself in my mom's car in the driveway. I called my parents and waited in the car for them to get home. They had both had enough experiences in the house to not doubt me."
"ETA another story from that house -The family who built the house lived out their lives there, including their daughter. Her name was Minnie and she never married and thus lived in the house her entire life; birth to death."
"A few years after my parents moved I was talking to my mom about all the odd incidents that happened in that house. She asked me if I ever found little gold safety pins around the house. I hadn't. She then shared that she was always finding little gold safety pins when she was alone in the house. Multiple times she had even had them drop onto her, landing in her book or on her sewing project. She would look up and even checked for cracks in the ceiling, but they seemed to fall from nowhere. It made her uneasy, but it mostly just perplexed her."
"Then my grandma told my mom that she had a once met Minnie years ago. My grandma was an RN at the local hospital and when she was a young nurse Minnie came into the ER. She was very old at this point and in poor health. In order to treat her, the nurses had to undress her as she was wearing layers and layers of clothes. My grandma said it was an incredibly frustrating task because all of her layers of clothes were fastened together with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny gold safety pins"
Possessed Laptop
"One time I was in my room trying to go to sleep when my closed laptop randomly blasted screams of what sounded like a woman in pain. I still have NO IDEA how that happened, but it scared the sh*t out of me."
– caitycha
Gramps Has Had It
"I was at home alone with my dogs and one of them wouldn't stop barking. She had a shrill piercing bark. Suddenly a man's voice yells 'SHUT UP.' I was on the phone with my mom at the time and she asked 'who's there with you?.' I said no one I don't know what that was. She told me to gtfo immediately. I didn't, I figure the only person who died while living in the house was my grandpa and I can't blame his ghost. That dog was being super annoying."
A good night's sleep didn't come for these Redditors, who either experienced being in a partial sleep state or witnessed someone who did.
Face Stealer
"As a kid (maybe 12) I walked in to my mums room to kiss her goodnight. I didn't realise she was asleep and as I entered I woke her. She saw me standing in the doorway and jumped straight out of bed. She grabbed me and threw me on to the bed and tried to choke me out, while kind of clawing at my face. I grabbed a pillow to try to put it between us but she was on top of me and screaming. I remember seeing her face in the light coming from the hallway and she was crazed. I kept screaming at her 'it's me! It's me!' But she wouldn't stop. "
"Somehow I got out from under her and I ran out into the loungeroom where my dad was stood up, about to see what was going on. I grabbed him and threw him between me and my mum, who was right behind me and still clawing at my face. He grabbed her and bear hugged her, while her arms reached out over his shoulders, still clawing at me. I don't know how but she woke up, and immediately started crying, really sobbing, and apologising. She said she was stuck in some sort of not quite asleep, not quite awake state and when I stood in the doorway all she could see was that I was wearing her face, and she felt she had to get it off me. We stayed up all night crying and I still won't walk in a room if someone is asleep."
– PiperPug
The Long Night
"Sleep paralysis. Was laying in bed after one hell of a day and the mind was racing like never before."
"Eventually, the body fell asleep but the brain didn't or however the f'k it works. Luckily I prefer to sleep on my sides or face down, that night was face down so I guess I skipped a lot of the nightmare fuel."
"Felt a pressure on my back, akin to say a large cat laying on your back."
"Then came the hallucinations whoo boy. Dark moving figures in my peripheral vison, odd sounds in an empty house, sensations of touch on my arms and legs."
"It was a sh*t night."
– Helluks
"When I was about 10 I was lying in my bed when a pair of hands came up from behind my headboard and started choking me. I remember trying to move or scream but I was completely paralyzed and silent. Then all of a sudden I 'woke up' but I was sitting bolt upright in my bed. Had no idea what sleep paralysis was at the time so it's safe to say it scared the absolute sh*t out of me!"
It's interesting the things the brain interprets what we're seeing.
Cosmic Rays
"When I was younger I've been walking around with a friend of mine in the middle of the night. We walked over an open field when we suddenly stood in a flickering extremely bright and somehow 'dancing' light, we both looked around but there was no light source or something we ran away and when we turned around to see if it's still there it was just gone. Today we still have no idea what happened back then and yeah."
O Brother, Where Art Thou
"Went to visit a friend since I had moved away. We were hanging out in the bathroom and I saw her brother walk by and down the stairs. Couple minutes passed and I asked if her brother was off, she said no he's at work right now. I told her no I just saw him passed by us and he was wearing his sweatpants. He was in fact at work. When he got home the first thing he said was 'you can see it to.' His room was the only room that was ice cold. His mom ran sage through the house and after that his room went back to being warm. His parents or sister would never see this figure, but I did."
Demon Beast
"I started experiencing all the typical haunting stuff. lights flickering, shadows, objects moving, feeling weight on the bed, even being touched."
"Didn't phase me."
"Then I saw a demon beast appear outside my window, just waving at me with the most sinister smile, pure evil, something even hollywood couldn't recreate."
"That got me. Almost left my apartment without my shoes."
"When I returned I was intent on capturing it on video, But it never fully manifested again. I guess it made it's point."
Sinister Silhouette
"Several years ago, before kids) I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. As I crossed from the bed to the bathroom I looked down the long hallway to the guest room at the end of the house. We slept with the doors open then, before kids. The guest room has a big window lined up perfectly to The hall. The shades were shut but there was lots of ambient light in the room. It lit up a black shaped ghost/ vampire perfectly. Only saw it for a second but nearly gave me a heart attack. I have convinced myself that it was just my eyes playing tricks on me,but…."
They say your mind plays tricks on your and your wild imagination confuses your perception of reality.
While that's plausible logic, why do they always have to happen when we're all alone, and usually at night or in the dark?
As a kid, my "imagination" had a field day with me when I spent the night home alone for the first time without a babysitter.
I think I was just paranoid because it was eerily quiet, but I could've sworn I heard the rocking chair behind me creak a few times as I was reading a manga comic book.
When I turned around, the rocking chair was completely still, but the creaking noises simultaneously stopped as I turned around.
It probably didn't help I was reading The Drifting Classroom, one of the most disturbing manga by Kazuo Umezu, a well-known Japanese comic book artist specializing in the macabre and unimaginable horrors.
When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.
But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.
Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.
It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.
Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:
"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"
These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.
Bleeding Out
"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."
"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."
– DongLaiCha
Tragic News
"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."
– accountnameredacted
Bottom Of The Barrel
"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."
– Crotch-Monster
A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.
Like Father, Like Son
"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."
– psycospaz
Busted
"Flashing blue lights."
– FiddleOfGold
"This sobered me up just thinking about it."
– redmaple_syrup
Losing Sight
"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."
– MissHibernia
Quitting The Bottle
"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."
– omgtater
These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.
Unplanned House Guests
"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."
– Oneinsevenbillion75
Serious Health Warning
"Elevated liver enzymes."
"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."
"So I opted for recovery, instead."
"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."
– Far_Meal8674
The Joyride
"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."
– foxfood9116
The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?
How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.
But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.
Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.
We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.
Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.
These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.
From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.
Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:
"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"
"Tale As Old As Time..."
"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","
"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."
"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."
"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."
"Lol!"
"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom
"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."
"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."
"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."
"I think he was a germaphobe."
"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."
"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."
"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.
"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."
"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."
"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000
Money Burn GIF by nog
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Who Wore It Better?
"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."
"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."
"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."
"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'
"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"
"No."- mertsey627
Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...
"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."
"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."
"It was very low key."
"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."
"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."
"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."
"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."
"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa
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See You In Court!
"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."
'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."
"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."
"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."
"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."
"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin
It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!
"I work in a public library."
"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."
"A popular book that just came out."
"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."
"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten
A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!
"My own."
"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"
"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."
"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"
"Unacceptable!"
"This shall not stand!"
"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."
"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."
"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."
"I got over it."- DeathGrover
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Holy Matrimony!
"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."
"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."
"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."
"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."
"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."
"It's just a party."
"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree
When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...
"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore
In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...
"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."
"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."
"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."
"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."
"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."
"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."
"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."
"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."
"We don’t offer wrapping services."
"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."
'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae
Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno Calypso
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Happiest Place On Earth!
"I used to work for Disney."
"That in itself should tell you everything."
"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."
"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."
"Suddenly got worse huh?"
"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."
"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."
"I'm not kidding."
"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."
"My wife worked booking."
"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."
"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."
"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."
"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."
"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."
"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong
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The horror!
Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!
It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...
Said absolutely no one.