Most of us love watching horror movies and criticizing the characters’ decisions. We’re convinced we’d never go down to the basement “just to check” what’s happening, and that we’d never say the classic horror movie lines or act recklessly. But when something creepy happens in real life, our impulses often take over, and we find ourselves doing the same things. Here are some true stories that will make you think twice about your own reactions to fear and uncertainty.

The Stories:

1.

I had an imaginary friend who lived in a massive antique dresser. Once, I told my dad about my dresser buddy, and he wanted to know his name. It was something like Peter, but he turned pale once he heard it. The next day, he and my uncle burned the dresser. Years later, I found out my uncle also had the same friend with the same name who lived in the same antique dresser. After a few months of the imaginary stuff, my uncle started having night terrors and couldn’t sleep because of Peter.

2.

I was helping my brother move into an apartment and had to bring my 2 daughters with me. My youngest was about 2. When she got to the kitchen, she froze. Her eyes were huge and within 10 seconds she was screaming loudly and running away from it, mumbling “the lady.” She told me later the lady had red eyes and was scary. If you knew my daughter you’d understand how unlike her all this was. To this day (7 years later!) she swears she did see her.

3.

I used to have breakfast with my mom every morning, and we used to tell each other our weird dreams. Once she told me that she had had a dream where she was in a truck with my dad, he falls asleep, she freaks out, tries to grab the wheel, and starts screaming for my dad to wake up. A few days after, my dad tells me that he almost had an accident while driving his truck at night after work. He fell asleep and would’ve crashed if it hadn’t been for a female scream he heard.

4.

I’d been living alone for less than a week. I got some Chinese take-out and was eating in front of the TV. I finished my meal and cracked open the fortune cookie. It read, “You will have a visitor tonight, lock your door.” There were no visitors that night, but the memory still haunts me.

5.

My family rented a cottage in a mountainous region. 2 bedrooms, so my brother and I took one and our dad took the other. I woke up in the middle of the night to 3 figures in the room, all standing in various places. I woke my brother up, and we screamed for our dad, but when he came into the room, he refused to look at the figures and told us to hide under the covers. His refusal to look where they were standing after begging him was scary.

6.

My parents went to South Carolina for a wedding. They stayed at an old bed and breakfast spot. Mom suddenly woke up, she had her cellphone on her nightstand and there was a notification on the phone, so it was blinking. She saw a “ghost” dressed in a formal dress, and it was fixated on the cellphone’s blinking light, and was walking toward it. My mom said, “It’s ok, it’s just a phone.” The ghost turned and made eye contact with my mom, then disappeared.

7.

My girlfriend and I were sleeping. I woke up to her saying, “What are you doing?” It sounded so coherent and urgent. She said she thought she saw someone at the end of the bed. Thinking it was just a dream, we went back to sleep. An hour later, I woke up and saw someone standing on the bed, with the sheets wrapped up around them. I immediately asked, “What are you doing?” My girlfriend then woke me up. I had the same dream and asked the exact same thing.

8.

When I was a baby, I had lots of stuffed animals in my room, visible from my crib. One night, after I had been put to bed, my mom and grandma heard me giggling on the baby monitor. They went up to check, when they entered my room, all of my stuffed animals were lined up in front of my crib. My mom, grandma, and I were the only ones home.

9.

My family and I were driving through Nevada. We stopped at a gas station. My dad got out to stretch while my mom went inside to pay for gas. Mom said that when she walked in, there were a few people inside. When she walked up to the counter, everyone turned to her and the lights went out. She ran outside, where my dad had seen everything. We sped off down the interstate. My mom says that’s one of her scariest encounters.

10.

When I was 14, for exactly an entire month, I would wake up every morning at 3:30 a.m. or 3:15 a.m. with the feeling I was being watched. One morning I woke up at 3:15 a.m. like normal but immediately felt someone tap on the back of my head. Then as the month ended, it was over.

11.

I was home alone because my parents took my little brother with them when they went out. He used to call me “Sissy” and I always called him “Bubby.” I heard the back door open and my brother shout, “Sissy!” so I responded back with, “Hey, Bubby!” I waited a minute and heard no response. As it turns out, they hadn’t gotten home yet. I was literally too scared to move and stayed put till they got home.

12.

When I was a kid, I went to watch cartoons in the living room if I couldn’t go back to sleep. One morning I noticed some movement. I looked up and saw a shadowy outline of a man walking toward me. Thinking it was my dad, I said something like, “Hey, dad, sorry if the TV was too loud.” No response. I start screaming, and my parents wake up. We moved out later. Cut to recently when my mom and I are hanging out and catching up. The blue house comes up, and I tell her that the place was creepy and weird stuff happened there when I was a kid. Moms response? “Oh! You must have seen the shadow man too.”

13.

When we got home from school, mom realized she had left her keys inside the house, so she knocked on the door for my grandma to let us in. We lived on the 8th floor. We knock and my grandma yells from the inside, “I’m coming!” so we wait… 5 minutes goes by. We knock and knock, and she keeps saying the same thing. Finally, the elevator opens behind us and out comes my grandma. The apartment had been empty the entire time.

14.

I was lying in bed watching snow out of the window. Suddenly, a man’s face popped up inches from it, staring at me. After a few seconds, I unfroze and ran into my mom’s room. She thought I was making it up and sent me back to my room. The next morning, there were footprints in the snow that went up to my window.

15.

When I was 8 and alone in my room, I felt like someone was there with me, watching. I was terrified, so I said, “Wanna play?” and then one of my toys flew off of the shelf and landed right at my feet. Never called mom louder.