Intro

I dreamt I was being choked and woke up to find my own hands around my throat.

[deleted]

There was a small door that led to attic space in my bedroom (11 yrs old to 13) and it became habit that I would shut the door as I walked into my bedroom a couple times a week. I didn't think anything of it, just assumed my mom didn't close it all the way when she left it.

After a while I made the mistake of joking with her when she made a comment about me not picking up after myself, I said something like 'every night I have to close the attic door behind you, how about you shut it all the way when you're done?' She then informed me that she hasn't been in the attic in months. Asked my brother... nope. Asked my father... nope. So then I started to pay really close attention to it. Making sure it was closed in the morning, checking it after school, checking blaster dinner. Then head up to bed and... open.

After a couple months of wondering, studying, experimenting, I thought I'd see what happens if I just don't shut it. Opened the door before school and checked it after school, still ooen. Checked it after dinner, still open. Before bed, still open. Now I'm laying in bed, mind going crazy with the open door across the room. Decide to check it out so I roll over and focus on the black space into the attic... to see a face staring back at me. Bolt downstairs, wake parents, get ridiculed by brother, switch bedrooms w brother, move into new house about 6 months later (due to expanding household). New physics teacher and his wife bought our house.

I could've forgotten all about that event and chalked it up to me having an over-active mind. But then my senior year I discovered how awesome our physics teacher was. Became my favorite class and by far, my favorite teacher. End of senior year my friend and I took our VHS camcorder around town, doing mostly silly things, but then took it to my old house to see what they've done with the place. We got a very fun tour, I got to tell stories about all the projects my dad did that were still part of the house.

Then the wife leads us upstairs to show us the sewing room. I ask (jokingly), 'Notice anything strange in this room?' and her face goes blank. On camera, she asks what I mean and I try to shrug it off but end up saying something about the attic door. She confirmed that every time she comes up to sew, the attic door is open. She then tells us that the second day of being in the house, their dog (German Shepherd) had gone into the room but would not go back downstairs. He started barking and could not be consoled, and then jumped through the window, landing on the tin roof over the porch and then running off. The dog did not come back until the next day and has not stepped foot into the hallway that leads upstairs since.

I had the initial thought that I could show my parents and brother the story I had on film but I decided to just let it be.

A few extra details to satisfy the curious...

'Attic' is the space in this house that runs parallel (like a cape cod) to the second floor, not above it.

I was 11 and 12 when this was going on so I did not immediately science it all out.

When I told my family that I saw a face, it was just my brother that ridiculed me. My father definitely would've checked it out for actual humans because one of the first comments he made was about a family that recently had a coin collection stolen from their house across the street.

This event itself was easy to shrug off because I could chalk it up to a lot of other possibilities, like the ones mentioned below. It wasn't until 5 years later that it became freaky. The look on the wife's face before she told us about the dog was very telling. Like something they decided to never put much thought into... now my story added depth to their experience and their story added depth to mine.

This did not make me a believer in paranormal. I told the story as a collection of details, not as a confirmation of ghosts. What it did do was make me never be able to be a nonbeliever.

Secondly, I thought the blaster dinner comment was a reddit reference that was over my head, like most of them. But just reread my story. Nice.

Last details...

The face was expressionless. I did not see a body, just what appeared to be a dimly lit face staring at me.

The door was an actual door, just smaller (2'x4'), with a knob that has to be turned in order to open the door.

I do not have the VHS tape from 20-something years ago. I moved a lot after high school and the tapes did not make it through all the moves.

nocatsonmelmac

When I was in uni I lived by myself, it was a nice little studio unit behind a house in a fairly decent area. I would honestly think nothing of walking places at night, there was a 24 hour MacDonald's and a 7 eleven that I would walk to, often between 12am to 3am since I was a massive night owl.

Well one day after finishing an essay at about 2 in the morning I decided I was hungry but didn't really have anything easy to cook so I decided to walk down to the 7 eleven and grab a pie or something. However as soon as I opened my door I was overcome by a suffocating feeling of fear, my heart started pounding, I started shaking, the works. Telling myself that this was ridiculous I walked out to the street with the intent to still go but that was as far as I got. I was terrified for no reason that I could understand, but no less intensely despite that. I ran back inside and ate dry cereal.

Later the next day I heard about a group of drunk guys that were causing havoc down near the intersection at the 7 eleven, they'd beaten up someone from my uni. Even though I can't explain it, I'm convinced something bad would have happened to me that night if I had ignored that feeling and gone anyway.

vivian_lake

I was in first grade, hanging out at recess with a friend. He was shooting some hoops outside and I was playing DS, sitting on the pavement. I remember him asking me if he could make a shot from half way across the court. I told him he could try but he probably wouldn't make it while looking at my DS. Suddenly, my dad asks me what I mean, and when I look up I'm sitting on my living room carpet, talking to my dad, and it's dark out. I was sitting in the same position, playing the same game, same level, and same exact spot in the level. Everything continued normally that night, and I didn't tell anyone at the time, but looking back it is really freaky. I thought it was a dream for the longest time, but thinking about it it didn't really feel like a dream, and I don't really remember dreams that well.

RedGiant925

I posted this a long time ago but when I was younger my mom was dating this guy (who we will call JB) and after a few months he invited my mom, me, and my brother to go with him and his son (about my age) out to his lake house for the weekend. It was right on Lake Michigan but up in a more secluded area which was pretty awesome. Well we got up there and for one I already felt really creeped out. It was a smaller two (maybe 3 if you count the really big attic) story house that had the living room/dining room/kitchen on the first floor and had 2 bedrooms on the second floor.

His grandfather had helped to build the place with his (the grand fathers) dad and then he lived their for most of his life working as a tailor in the nearby town. We went up to the attic to get some beach toys because that's where JB kept all of that stuff so he didn't have to haul it every time he went out there. Well when we went up to the attic I noticed in the corner covered in some dust and cobwebs about 8 mannequins, some just upper torsos and some full body. Not to out of the ordinary considering a tailor had lived there.

Me and JB's son slept down in the living room on the couch since there were no more beds, and near midnightish I heard on of the stairs squeak a few times. Figuring it was my mom coming to check to make sure we were asleep I told his son to be quiet and quickly turned the TV off and hid under the covers. After not hearing any noise for a few minutes I looked out from under the covers and saw three of the mannequins moving around in the kitchen. Like their body parts weren't moving but they were sliding around the kitchen.

I swore I was dreaming but was so terribly frightened I hid back under the covers with a small yelp and then heard the dragging on the floor coming closer and peaked out seeing one of them just a few feet from the couch. I hid back under the covers and shut my eyes tight hoping it would go away.

The next morning I got up and tried not to think about it, really really hoping it was just a bad dream but when we went back up to the attic to put the beach stuff back the mannequins were in different spots and weren't covered in cob webs any more..... Don't believe me if you don't want to but it happened and I've been scared shitless of mannequins ever since.

Nexaz

When I was 6 years old, I had a cat named Buster. Buster was actually my step-dad's cat, but because I never had a cat before, I claimed him as my own. Suffice it to say, Buster didn't like being hugged and coddled all the time by a little child, so he hated me. He avoided me at all costs. He was also an outdoor cat, so he would often spend most days outside and then come in for the night.

One night, Buster didn't come back in the house. We usually fed him at night, so I was worried. Our area was also well-known for an abundance of coyotes. My parents were being a bit hush-hush about Buster's disappearance, but I didn't get the hint. That night, when I was drifting off to sleep, Buster jumped onto my bed. He lay down by my head and let me pet him until I fell asleep. Honestly, I was shocked because he had never done this before.

The next morning, I triumphantly walked downstairs and related to my parents that Buster now loved me because he slept in my bed during the night. My parents looked at me inquisitively and sat me down at the breakfast table to let me know that while they were outside the night before, they had found Buster's body in the alley behind our house. They thought he had been harassed by a coyote. But, he was dead, so he couldn't have slept in my bed that night.

To this day, I like to think that Buster just wanted to say goodbye and thank me for trying to love him in the only way a child knew how.

gutenmorgenbaltimore