Story 1
For weeks, I kept getting strange wrong-number calls. They were always at odd hours, but the most memorable came around 11 p.m. I’d been asleep, so at first the sounds barely registered. When I focused, it wasn’t static or chatter—it was a low, mournful harmony, like a barbershop quartet singing in slow motion. No lyrics, just a drawn-out “ooooooh” sliding up and down the scale in a minor key.
It was so depressing and eerie that my stomach turned. I hung up, but the sound stayed in my head like a bad dream. When I checked my call log, the number was restricted. Even now, years later, I can still hum the tune perfectly. It didn’t sound human.
Story 2
I once lost two hours of my life, and I still can’t explain it. I was getting ready for college, and my dad was there too because he was dropping me off. We were watching the morning news when the screen froze.
We fiddled with the TV, turned it off and on—and suddenly it was two hours later. Neither of us remembered falling asleep. Neither of us felt groggy. We both just stared at the clock in shock.
Was it a shared blackout? A glitch in reality? Or something stranger—like slipping briefly into another dimension? I’ll never know, but I’ll never forget it.
Story 3
I once stepped into an elevator alone in my office building late at night. The doors closed and the lights flickered. For a second everything was pitch black. When the lights came back, the panel showed a floor that didn’t exist—“B3.”
The doors opened to a dim hallway I’d never seen before. I panicked, hit “close,” and the doors shut. When they opened again, I was back in the lobby. I ran out of the building without looking back.
I’ve never seen “B3” on that panel since.
Story 4
My five-year-old stepson sometimes talks about his “other life.” He’ll mention a different name, different parents, and places we’ve never been.
Once he told me he used to live in California, in a city that started with “T” and ended with “A.” We live on the East Coast and have never taken him to California. He describes driving a red sports car on the beach, missing his kitten named Clover, and how sad it made him when she escaped his apartment.
He’s too young to know any of these details, and we’ve never talked about them. Each time he tells me another piece, it feels like I’m peeking into someone else’s memories through my child.
Story 5
One night, sitting at my desk, I opened Google to type something. In my head, I knew exactly what I wanted to write. But when I put my fingers on the keyboard, only gibberish came out.
I tried three times. Every attempt looked like random letters, not even words. It felt like my brain and hands weren’t connected. After a few minutes of sheer panic, I got up, took a walk, came back—and could type normally again.
I still don’t know what happened. Was it stress? A mini seizure? Or something else entirely?
Story 6
I was driving home late at night on a deserted country road. My GPS suddenly rerouted me down a narrow lane lined with trees. I’d never seen it before, though I’d driven the route a hundred times.
I followed it for five minutes before realizing my GPS screen had frozen. When I stopped and looked around, the road behind me was gone—just dense forest. I reversed, and somehow ended up back on the main highway.
When I checked later, that lane didn’t exist on any map.
Story 7
Last year, I was sitting in my room with the light on. It was late, so I decided to get up and switch it off. I stood, took two steps—and instantly found myself back on my bed, the light already off.
I never reached the switch. I never touched anything. But the light was off and my heart was hammering.
Story 8
At 22, while in culinary school, I woke up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready for a baking class. I distinctly thought, “I need to grab my chef’s coat from the closet.” The next second, it was neatly folded on my bed. I had no memory of taking it out.
At 25, waiting tables, I held an empty glass under an iced tea carafe. The next second, I was holding a full glass with condensation already forming. My coworker asked if I was okay.
Maybe they were seizure events. Maybe not. But they’re the only two memory lapses of my life—and they terrify me.
Story 9
As a kid, I had an imaginary friend named Daniel. He’d sit at the edge of my bed and tell me stories. My parents thought it was cute—until one night they overheard a man’s deep voice coming from my room while I was asleep.
They burst in, but there was no one there. I woke up crying. They never heard the voice again, but I still remember Daniel’s stories. Some of them came true.
Story 10
My bedroom was in the basement of an old house with creaky stairs. One night, lying on my bed with my back to the door, I felt the mattress dip as if someone had sat down.
Every hair on my body stood on end. Slowly, I turned—no one was there. But the dip was still there. Then it lifted, as if whoever—or whatever—had gotten up.
I bolted up the stairs, and the whole way, I felt someone right behind me. Even thinking about it now makes my chest tighten.
Story 11
When I lived with my parents, I often stayed up late on the internet—sometimes until 5 or 6 a.m. One night, the locked back door suddenly flew open with a loud bang, followed by a deep, guttural growl.
The cats ran toward the door but stopped, staring. Nothing was there. My parents’ house had always been strange, but that night convinced me it was haunted.
Story 12
I was walking home one evening when a woman passed me on the sidewalk. She smiled and said, “Don’t go home yet.”
I laughed nervously and kept walking. When I got home, the front window was shattered. Someone had broken in.
I called the police and waited outside. I never saw the woman again.
Story 13
At 3 a.m., I woke up to 12 missed calls from my mom and a text saying, “I got robbed! Come fast!” I sped to her house.
When I got there, she said she hadn’t texted me. She showed me her phone—there was the draft she’d written but never sent. The text read: “Honey, be careful! Your town is in danger. There have been robberies near your house.”
I stayed with her for an hour, then drove home. My front door was open. Inside, my house was ransacked.
To this day, I don’t know who sent that text—or why they wanted me gone.
Story 14
In the house I grew up in, every few weeks I’d see a woman in white walk slowly down the hallway. I always brushed it off as imagination and never told anyone.
Years later, after my brother and I had both moved out, he casually asked, “Did you ever see the woman in white?”
I froze. He described her exactly as I remembered. We still don’t talk about it.
Story 15
I once stayed overnight at a friend’s cabin deep in the woods. Around 2 a.m., I woke to the sound of someone whispering my name outside the window.
Everyone else was asleep. When I peeked out, no one was there. The next morning, we found human footprints circling the cabin—bare feet, in the snow.
We never went back.
