Parents Reveal Spooky Things Their Kids Have Done That Have Actually Made Them Believe In The Paranormal
Children are wonderful... until they're scaring the living daylights out of you, that is.
Today's burning question came from Redditor blurryrhombus, who asked the online community "Parents of Reddit, what is something your kids started doing/seeing that made you believe they were communicating/seeing ghosts?"
Leave it to these parents to serve us ice-cold dishes of Can we f*cking not?
"My son..."
My son will be quiet for ages in his room and I'll think he's asleep, then he'll start hysterically laughing. He's 2.
"Before our oldest was talking..."
Before our oldest was talking, we found that often when we lay him down in his room (either to sleep or change his nappy), he'd look over our shoulder and start smiling or chuckling, like he was reacting to someone. My wife and I independently decided that it was my dad come to look in on his first grandchild. (All the other grandparents are still alive, dad took his own life when I was 12.)
This went on for a couple of months or so but we never addressed it out loud at the time. Then we'd put our boy down to sleep and for a little while we'd hear him chuckling and gurgling for a while before he slept. Kids do that but it really sounded like he was reacting to someone playing with him.
One night he was still going an hour after we put him down and my wife said "he's your dad, go talk to him."
So, feeling slightly silly at first, I went in and said to the room, "dad, please let him sleep!" I told my son "say goodnight to grandpa and get some sleep."
As I walked out, I said "I miss you dad. I love you." I've never been too sure about whether I really believe in spirits but I certainly felt suddenly warm and comforted.
That was the last night we heard the bedtime playing. From then on, when we put our boy down, he went to sleep without a quiver and still does several years on.
About 18 months later our second child (now at roughly the same age her brother was when dad visited) starts howling not long after she's gone to bed. I go in and comfort her but got a distinct feeling of confusion for a minute before it went and then she settled down.
A couple of nights later the same thing happens. I go in to settle her again but this time I said "dad, she can't handle this like <brother> did. If you were here, she'd love you and be in your lap all the time but not like this. She can't deal with it, please leave her alone."
That was the last visit we ever had that we're aware of, even with their three younger siblings.
"We took my 3 year old daughter..."
We took my 3 year old daughter to meet my wife's grandmother who lived on the other side of the county...we walk in the house and my daughter doesn't even look at her great grandmother, but instead goes straight over to a picture of her great great grandmother, points at it and says, "That's the lady who lives in my room. She's nice."
"I had a dog..."
I had a dog from the time I was about 6 or 7 until I was about 19 or 20. My oldest son was born a few years after he died. Flash forward to when my son was around 2.5, he started telling me about "the black dog that lives in the basement" (where the dog, who was a black lab died.) He said something along the lines of "I woke up when you were still working and the black dog was in our room."
I asked if he meant our current dog, who was black and tan, but he was insistent it wasn't "Goonior" but "the other dog." And I also didn't allow the dog in our room, ever, and he never tried to come in.
Also, same kid, same time frame...
My best friend committed suicide days before my son's first birthday. He had no recollection of Pat besides knowing he had an Uncle named Pat. Well, I come home from work one morning and he is wide the f**k awake at 6am (I worked overnights and he usually slept until around 9am) talking in his crib. I assumed he was talking to himself. I asked him who he was talking to and he said "my pirate friend" and said "he has a patch" and I kinda brushed it off. Then I realized "wait... Pat was blind in one eye... Pat always cosplays pirates... Pat loved him..."
Pat continued to visit my son for years after that.
"When my youngest son started speaking..."
When my youngest son started speaking, the wife had a friend with a newborn. My son was constantly telling us what the friends baby was saying and wanted and he spoke to the baby more than anyone. The theory is that he was still in the cusp of being able to communicate with babies and adults but, it tripped us out for like 2 months until the baby started talking Babel. After that, the kid didn't understand what the baby was saying and would just tell us, "he's upset."
"She had no idea..."
My 4 year old daughter started not being able to sleep. She was complaining that "Simon" was coming to her room and yelling at her. It got to the point she wouldn't let us leave the room until we told him to go away and leave her alone.
My Catholic mom in law was getting worried and gave me a bag of blessed medals while I was at Walmart and saw her. I rolled my eyes and threw them in a drawer when I got home instead of burying them and saying prayers like she wanted.
My daughter stopped seeing Simon the same night. She had no idea about the medals (wasn't with me at Walmart and I put them in the drawer before she got home) so it creeped me out.
"The next morning..."
My kid has sliding mirrored doors on her closet. She goes to bed early but I check on her now and then. One night I was on my way to bed and I hear weird chanting coming from her room. I open the door to check on her and she's standing on the bed staring in the mirror. She looks at me and says "mirror me is the real me." I close the door and nope right out of there.
The next morning I ask her about what she was doing. She said "I was talking to Horrifying Me. She lives in the mirror and has no bones."
My husband's family is haunted so I guess it was just a matter of time but f**k that. Kids are so creepy.
"As an infant..."
My daughter had two moments. As an infant, whenever we laid her on the changing table, she would always squirm into whatever position would allow her to stare into one corner on the ceiling of the room. It was a plain white room and plain white ceiling, so nothing worth looking at. She would always stare and smile or laugh. As she got a little older she would point at it and say Hi. We never really worried because it always seemed to be a positive experience for her. Not a ghost, but just as eerie.
When she was 3, we were getting her ready to meet my Aunt Mary for the first time. We are not a church-going family, but she proudly told us that she already knows someone named Mary. We ask about her friend Mary and she smiles and tells us "She's God's mom," and tells how she hasn't talked to her in a long time. Of course she doesn't remember any if these conversations anymore, but they are burned in my memory.
"We took it home..."
My father bought a Native American medicine bag while he was in the western US. He brought it back and gave it to my son, who was 2 or 3 at the time.
We took it home and hung it on the door knob of my son's closet. Soon afterwards, my son started complaining of not being able to sleep because the bell on the bag would start ringing. Then "the spoonbills" would start coming out of the closet. He didn't seem particularly bothered by the spoonbills, but just irritated that they made the bell ring.
"My daughter was..."
My daughter was refusing to fall asleep so after a while I asked her why she wouldn't and she said "Because those people are watching us." or something similar and pointed to a corner of the room where there wasn't anything even vaguely human shaped.
We slept downstairs that night.
"I went in..."
I went in to my 3 year old son's room to find his vent covered with a blanket. I went to take it off and he started screaming and yelling that the "glowy" would escape... the next morning I found him sleeping on my bedroom floor because I let the glowy out.
"Last night..."
Last night me and my partner both heard a sound like 'yoo-hoo!' As in someone talking to a baby.
Our 17mo daughter started giggling like I've never heard and babbling away like she always does when she's 'talking'.
This isn't the first instance of something.... odd... happening in our house, but it sent goosebumps all over me.
"He laughs at this toy..."
My youngest son named his favorite toy (stuffed dinosaur plushie) after my dead sister. I've never spoken her name out loud before to him or around him. I've never brought him to her grave. He'd never know this name otherwise, it's a European name my parents gave my sister because it "sounded pretty". One day he took a small plastic gun from one of his army guys and put it in the hand of another toy, and chased the dinosaur around manically saying "boom BOOM BOOM you're so dead and your baby is too!" My sister was 6mo pregnant when her boyfriend killed her, her unborn died as well. He laughs at this toy A LOT. Like... too much for it just being a game. He talks to it all the time as if it's responding to him in real time.
"My parents' first child..."
My 3 year old daughter asked "How did your sister die?"
My parents' first child died at 2 weeks due to complications. She was born the day before my mom's birthday and neither parent EVER talked about her because it was just too painful.
There is no way my daughter could have ever overheard that not only I had a sister, but that she died as well.
A month later daughter tells me "Mommy is going to give me a baby brother in the Spring. Wife and I found out we were pregnant 2 weeks later... we had a son in March.
"I read one part..."
Last night I was reading my son a book before bed. (15 months old) I read one part and tickled him and he said "hi" and waved towards his crib. At that moment the mobile started playing music.
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People Break Down Which Things About The Early Days Of The Internet Most Folks Have Forgotten
Oh the beginning of the interwebs.
We really thought it wouldn't be much of a fuss.
We definitely did not see what was to come.
Maybe it should've stayed simple.
We'll never know.
Computers rule the world now.
The internet is God.
Let's see where we are in another twenty years.
Those were the days.
Redditor EzucraAaAa wanted to wax nostalgic about the good old days of technology and its humble beginnings.They asked:
"Redditors, what's something the internet was crazy about but is now forgotten?"
I miss the simplicity of not having a thousand apps. I'm simple.
Ah Memories...
"Search engines before Google existed. Alta Vista, Lycos, Web Crawler..."
deenali
Bad Downloads
"Downloading custom cursors for your computer. I gave my family computer so many viruses back in the '00s trying to click things with a lightsaber."
TW1103
"Amazing. I had totally forgotten about all the virusy stuff I downloaded to my home computer, purely so the cursor would disappear and reappear. My parents had zero knowhow with computers either, so likely had no idea wtf I was downloading. Cursors were cool though, despite all the malware."
AdderWibble
Collections
"During the early days of the web, when most websites weren't plastered with advertising... Website view counters."
over_clox
"Back in the day of counters, one day I went to my website and the counter was in the thousands. I just thought it malfunctioned and ignored it. Years later I learned that my website, which had a MIDI collection, was published in a newspaper in another country. I couldn't say for sure if that was true and whether it aligned with the counter change."
pupeno
The Look
"Yea the internet was simpler too, layout style I mean. I like old style HTML webpage layouts. I personally don’t like hyper modern logos and designs on interfaces. Something about old slightly pixelated designs about them home screens and app logos really made them satisfying. I’ve even went as far as seeing if I could install some extensions that could change the layout of sites, make them feel older, give them that 2000’s html look."
Original_Ad_1103
Found It
"Stumbleupon.com"
idont*uckwithstupid
"I used to waste so much time with stumble upon."
lilbroccoli13
What a strange and crazy place the internet was.
notification
"Poking on Facebook."
lamspartacus
"I had a friend that poked me and I never noticed the notification. He died. I now have this unreturned poke as a reminder that I’ll never be able to poke them back."
Klaus0225
Playtime
"Flash games."
mc_mike810
"Many flash games are not dead. BEHOLD! The flashpoint project. They have saved thousands of the old flash games in a playable format. Go forth and relive your childhood Also paging u/The_Middler_is_Here"
Jayccob
"Rip flash games... A neat alternative I've found a lot of games on is an application called Flashpoint. Check it out!"
Warlordninja100
I will find you...
"There was a rhythm game that I don't remember the name of that me and some friends would challenge each other in, and it had the song Guitar vs Piano 2 which introduced me to Envy, who was a pretty big newgrounds artist at the time. I wanna go check out their stuff again now, I'd completely forgot about them till now."
Silvervirage
GroupMeet
"Forums. There used to be so many, incredibly active and dedicated forums."
FromJavatoCeylon
"A lot of the forums I visited were ruined by photobucket when they decided they wanted paid a lot of money from their users. So many build threads and tutorials ruined."
jus_like_at
"IMDb had the best message boards back in the day. Chatting with your internet friends around the globe about every nuance in your fave movie. Man I miss that. Reddit is close, but nothing beats the olden days."
FeFiFoMums
Fun
"Do you guys remember those egg things that hatched little creatures after a while? You'd put one on your website and then the artist would update the source url with images of it hatching? There were all kinds of little fun things like that."
Sapiencia6
And those were the.... DAAAYYYYSSSS!!!!
Not all television and movies are loved by all.
A story and its characters have to appeal to you in order for you to be engaged.
It can take next to nothing for us to lose interest and let the screen go black.
Redditor BarooTangClan wanted to compare notes on all the entertainment we've said "that's enough" to.
"What will make you instantly stop watching a movie or show and why?"
I hate bad acting, writing, storytelling... I hate bad anything.
Stop Jumping
"Fight scenes with a million visual cuts. Gives me motion sickness. Contrast the absolutely masterful work in John Wick. long cuts, realistic use of weapons (mostly), 100% skill."
StabbyPants
Louder
"When the actors whisper the whole movie and you have to crank the volume to hear what's being said - but the soundtrack or some other misc noise starts blaring at a higher volume directly after."
Blaze*itch
"I basically had to watch Stranger Things up in my attic with the windows and doors closed. I was worried the neighbors would think something was wrong or be annoyed if I watched it downstairs in my single family home. It was ridiculous."
ForecastForFourCats
"spice things up"
"Love triangles out of no where in a second or third season to 'spice things up' because studio writers are hacks and their idea of relationship drama is 'potential infidelity' at all times. It's the most tired trope on the go**amn planet and the second I see it rear its head I dip right the hell out."
amalgamas
"The whole concept of a love triangle to begin with an incredibly juvenile. Any healthy functioning adult who found themselves in a love triangle would soon choose to find themselves single."
Ouch_i_fell_down
Save your lips...
"When couples in a movie/show have a fight and one of them instantly goes to a friend and end up kissing her/him after talking for 5 minutes. I cringe so hard i turn it off and never watch it again."
Dry-Mycologist3966
"This pissed me off so much in Manifest. Girl is desperate to get back her ex-fiancé, he finally breaks up with his wife to get back with her and she's like 'nah, it's not fair to your wife, let me do this other dude I just met through a calling and be pissed at you for being jealous.' Michaela was the worst and everyone acted as if she were a saint the entire time."
gingerisla
Talk to Me
"Shows where a single polite conversation could fix everything."
Horror_Librarian_133
We are going overboard with the witty repartee. Talk normal...
Shut Up
"Annoying main character, especially if it's a kid."
abananation
"Kids who have a quippy, sassy retort to everything, and everyone just kind of crumbles before their wit."
CarpetPure7924
Speak Good
"Shows where kids in high school talk like they are 30 years olds who have done everything, been everywhere, know it all and use a ridiculously flowery and extensive vocabulary in every conversation. Like, have any of these writers ever been to high school? Literally no one talks like that. Even worse is when, in addition to this, all the adults talk normal or are just plain stupid, like so weird parallel universe."
StretchArmstrong74
Nonsense
"If the movie is too dark. Not graphic, just literally dark. I lose all sense of intensity in dark scenes and I'm not straining my damn eyes trying to figure out what the hell is going on."
TheShadowOfKaos
"I've seen about 10 percent of all DC movies recently. I've seen all of the individual films in full, just actually saw 10% of each of them."
Mortlach78
"Movies in the late 80s had a lot of dark but you could see the depth because of different shooting techniques. Now you cant see crap because its a CGI fest drowned in black color so you can't see crap because you have no depth in a scene. Compare night scenes in dark alleys in 80's movies and movies now. Utter crap show in the new ones."
Bombzey
Pay Attention Storytellers
"Bad editing would be a big one. A lot of modern horror movies can't help but edit the movies like they're trailers, with added noises to scare the audience because they are afraid the script alone isn't enough to keep people watching."
ThisIsCreation
"I remember this is where the first transformers movie lost me. When the transformers are fighting at the end, it's all a big, jumbled mess of metal and I can barely tell what's going on or who is who."
1840_NO
Drama
"When they go straight to relationship drama right away when it wasn't the selling point of the show."
LightInthewater
Do better, Hollywood. It's not that hard.
I fear death.
I wake up in cold sweats dreaming about it.
I think about it in my waking hours.
It's an obsession and clearly, I'm not alone.
But there are more preferred ways to exit.
All we can do is hope to be lucky enough to skip the mercilessly awful.
Please just let me go quick and in my sleep.
RedditorCallMehRiverwanted to hear about all the ways none of us what to leave this life.
"What Do You Think Would Be The Worst Death Imaginable?"
My list of the worst deaths is long. My imagination runs amok.
Trapped
"For me? Being trapped in a small tube or cave (like the ones you have to wiggle through) and getting stuck to where you can’t move your arms. And all you can do is wait to die. I’m getting chills just thinking about it."
Stuck
"The more I hear about cavers that get stuck, the more I think that's a crap way to go."
- braydenmaine
"There’s a great YouTube channel called Ask a Mortician and this was her #1 worse way to die. I can’t remember the exact details or their names, but two well-known divers went into an underwater cave."
"One of them became entangled and died. Years later, his friend dives back down there to try and retrieve his body, the body itself is rotten and his head comes off and the other guy also becomes tangled and dies. Really sad."
- melancholybuzzard
A Long Process
"Believed to be in a coma but coherent through the whole 20 year process until they pull the plug."
weebeardedman
"Oh man this just reminded me of a story I read on here about a guy who lost the ability to move and speak but was completely conscious. Had to just lay there and be awake but trapped in a useless body. His family thought he was brain dead or something and he couldn’t communicate to them that he was 'all there.' Crazy"
habeeb51
Slow & Steady
"Being slowly impaled by a growing bamboo. It was a form of torture probably used by the japanese during WW2 against Allied prisoners."
JazzySocrate
"My uncle who served back in the day said that people would have the bamboo slipped under their fingernails because it would continue to grow still. It would just continue growing into the body."
Payness0826
Excruciating
"Rabies."
Santolmo
"The scariest part is that once you have symptoms, you 100% will die. A 100% mortality rate has to be a psychological torture in itself."
RonaldRawdog
"Not only that, you feel irrational fear. Your brain is literally being eaten apart by the virus and it fu*ks up everything on it. You can't drink water because it hurts you. You feel dizzy, present a fever, excessively salivate, everything hurts and it only gets worse. I'd rather take a bullet and die when the symptoms are still tolerable."
Santolmo
Why can't we all just go engulfed in calm and quiet?
Suspended
"Some pulpy sci-fi book I read a while back had one of the best deaths of this real piece of crap bad guy. Left to die in a drowning sea lab under the Antarctic ice, he freezes himself in a state of the art suspended animation pod with some kind cold fusion power source that would keep it running for millions of years."
"But he forgot to inject himself with the drug that would put him to sleep. So basically he is in suspended animation at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean while his mind is perfectly awake and conscious in a near unbreakable machine that won't run out of power for millions of years and nobody knows about it."
DubiousAlibi
No Cure
"As an RN I have always thought that the worst way to die (natural process) is ALS. Lou Gehrig's Disease."
randymn1963
"My mom and grandmother have Huntington's disease, which is essentially ALS, Alzheimer's, and Dementia combined into one really messed up genetic disease. I have a 50% chance of inheriting it and if I hit 40 and there's still no cure I can't promise I'll feel like continuing on with my life because that disease is absolutely freaking miserable."
DevTheDummy
Agony...
"Radiation poisoning."
binhan123ad
"The fact your chromosomes can be so destroyed your body basically lost it's genetic code and with it the ability to make any new cells. It's literally a 'dead man walking' and you slowly rot away in agony. Stuff is so unimaginably f**ked up."
yea_nah448
"What's also bad about radiation is that it affects your nerves and brain cells last, so you have everything in place to feel all the pain of the rest of your cells being destroyed."
nosmelc
Goo
"I want to believe anything that slowly kills you painfully to be the worst. Such as slowly being crushed or something where the pain is beyond compare and yet not enough to throw you into shock or unconsciousness."
Beardless_Man
"Alternatively, being rapidly crushed into goo would probably be the least painful. I'm talking one of those massive industrial hammers they use for large steel work. Basically smooshed before the nerve signals make it to the brain."
Bannon9k
Now I'll never sleep again without nightmares of death.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Foreigners Explain Which Stereotypically American Things They've Always Wanted To Try
Most Americans think nothing of their humdrum daily activities or amenities available to them.
However, others with a different perspective might romanticize the things that are otherwise commonplace ideas and concepts for US citizens, like going to a diner or riding the school bus.
One Redditor looked to foreigners to hear of their American desires to respond to the following:
"Non-Americans of Reddit: what is an American thing you have always wanted to try?"
The things depicted in film really captivated foreign audiences.
Casual Dining
"To visit a diner like in the movies. In the middle of the night, it’s raining and just a few people there with great music from a jukebox."
– TotalAd6225
Iconic Student Transport
"Ride a yellow school bus even if I'm too old. Growing up I always loved seeing them on TV."
– infiresemo
Just Like The Ones We Used To Know
"A white Christmas."
"Living in an Australian state where I've never even seen snow in our winter, let alone experiencing that classic Hallmark movie moment of waking up to a street full of it and sitting around a fireplace while opening gifts/preparing a feast."
"Guess it's not strictly American, but the imagery and trope is something I've only really seen from American Films."
– Stoibs
They may be ubiquitous for us, but they sure seem to be novel ideas to foreigners.
Let's Be Frank
"One of the hotdogs from those little street cart things."
– Who_is_lost
Kitchen Marvel
"A friend of mine from Indonesia said, 'the food chewer in the sink.'"
"Garbage disposal."
– Mnemonic22
American Pie
"Apple Pie made by white-haired grandma, placed near window, who says 'oh dear...' as I levitate towards it."
– MegaJoltik
Pre-Game Ritual
"Proper tailgating before a ball game, the kind where there's ribs and stuff."
– SpiralToNowhere
Fried Delicacies
"Deep fried foods at a state fair. I'm from Scotland and we love to deep fry everything and I wanna know if it's just as good or better."
– fenrisulfr94
There are places to see!
Places To See
"National parks."
– nhungoc1508
"America’s greatest invention!"
– nhungoc1508
Backpacking In Nature
"I always wanted to hike The Appalachian Trail if that counts. Or see Yellowstone."
– EphemeralRemedy
New Chapters
"Being able to start a whole new life 'elsewhere' without having to leave my country and going through an arduous immigration process."
– Gmtfoegy
My cousin told me she looks forward to visiting a Trader Joe's someday when she visits America for the first time.
Her bucket list option was hardly surprising. My parents used to bring treats from TJs as a novelty souvenir gift item, and my relatives ate it up. Literally.
Let's face it. The snacks at TJs rocks.
Even store locations in New York City would have ridiculously long lines during busy hours because the West-coast-based grocer was a novelty on the East Coast.