25 People On The Most Scream-Inducing Experience They Have Suffered Through

These stories from Ask Reddit are going to make it hard to sleep tonight.

Unsplash / Mathew MacQuarrie

1. A severed hand waved at me from my wardrobe

“When I was a kid, I once woke up in the middle of the night. Complete silence. I looked around the room and behind a wardrobe I saw a small hand waving at me.

It was like a kids hand, it was dark but I remember seeing it so clearly, I could see each finger. I started crying and screaming and my parents had to check my room few times before I would fall asleep.” — Andysaurus_Rexx

2. My girlfriend had gotten possessed in her sleep

“About 10 years ago, I had just started dating this girl I’d had a massive crush on. We were fresh out of high school, and her parents went out of town for a weekend. I was going to finally sleep in her bed with her, and I was amped.

I have a bit of trouble sleeping in a new place, so I was awake after she’d already knocked out. I tried to keep my eyes closed and let sleep come. Just I started to drift off, I heard a sound like scratching on wood, quick and getting faster. I opened my eyes and oriented myself again. It wasn’t scratching. It was whispering. And it was getting louder.

My girlfriend was rapidly whispering, ‘She is the devil in disguise she is the devil in disguise…’ I turned my head to look at her, and her eyes were wide open, looking directly at me, but glossed over, like she was looking through me. The whispering continued until she stopped mid sentence: ‘She is the devil in disguise she is the dev— He can’t help you.’

She closed her eyes and went rolled over, leaving me with a very ‘What the fuck…?’ feeling. I asked her about it in the morning, and she said she used to talk in her sleep a lot as a kid.

I still have no idea if she was messing with me or if she just had odd sleep habits.” — drewxdeficit

3. A teenage girl hung herself inside of the woods

“When I was growing up my friend told me a story that once when he was studying with his window open and said it was about 8pm he heard a faint scream in the distance that sounded like, ‘She’s dead’ coming from the woods near his house. Turns out next morning at school they told us a teenage girl hanged herself in the woods and that her friends had found her body last night while searching for her and that scream was her friend. Creepy shit.” — TheCheekiestChappy

4. He found a shed with a murderer hidden inside

“My grandfather used to go for long walks in the woods. One day, he got lost in the maze of trails and wound up on one he wasn’t familiar with. As he was walking along, he found a shed and a man working inside. The two of them chatted for a bit and he asked the way back to the main trail and was on his way.

Every so often, from then on, he’d make it a point to go visit his friend at his shed. They’d chat for a bit but never for too long. He learned that the man’s wife had passed away and that he was the single father of a teenage girl.

Anyway, one morning as he was heading out, he saw smoke above the tree line. Deciding to see what was going on, he walked that way until he realized it was the man’s shed. He looked inside and saw two figures there. The man and a young girl. He ran home and called 911.

He didn’t find out until later that the man was suspected of murdering his wife after she found out he’d been sexually abusing their daughter. The man had murdered his daughter and committed suicide and the fire was started in the struggle.

I learned this story while he and I were walking through the woods. I asked him what was wrong when we came upon a clearing and he immediately started tearing up.” — Certified_Megadong

5. Four different families heard something hiding in their house

“I know four different people who don’t know each other who have told me in different occasions that they’ve seen people walking around their house, then hiding, and then disappearing. Of course the first instinct is not ‘Shit there’s a ghost,’ the first instinct is ‘there’s someone in my house.’ So naturally it’s when you can’t find them that the fear sets in. Those four people, and me, all live in the same neighborhood.” — Sklain

6. My ex-wife had the ability to see ghosts

“My ex-wife admitted to me while we were still together that she occasionally saw ghosts. She always has. She is absolutely not the kind of person to make bullshit up, and she actually intended to never tell me. I accidentally discovered a text message with her best friend where her friend asked her if she ever planned on telling me about it; I showed it to her and she confessed.

She told me about several times that she saw them, but the one that stands out in my memory the most was when she went to a symphony concert with her mom. Shortly before they were about to start playing, a boy walked onto the stage, went right up to the conductor’s stand and knocked the score off onto the floor. The conductor looked confused, picked it up, and put it back on his stand. The boy turned around and walked back off the stage. No one else saw the boy, including her mom who was looking the whole time. She also told me about a time she went to see a psychic with a friend just for fun while in high school. Shortly after they sat down with her, the woman looked right at my ex and said out of nowhere, ‘You can see them, can’t you?’ She said it freaked her out, but she claimed to not know what the psychic was talking about.

I still think about all this from time to time, and I still have no idea how to feel about it.” — WraithSama

7. A murderer stood on my front lawn with a gun in his hand

“I was about 6, staying at my grandpa’s house while my parents went away for work. It was about 11:00 PM, I was asleep, but I woke up to pee when I decide to get a snack. I walk over to the kitchen, open the fridge, turn around, and I see man walking with a limp and a gun.

Now it’s dark, but there’s an orange porch light casting a scary glow over the man. I didn’t live in a city, I lived out in the woods, alone, no neighbors.

The man limped towards me, I run and tell me grandpa, he calls the police, grabs his gun, and yells at the man to leave or else he’d shoot, well the man didn’t understand and my grandpa gave him one more warning and then shot him.

I had no idea what happened but apparently the man was shot before my grandpa shot him, and that’s why he was limping. Apparently he robbed a local store and killed the owner. I don’t remember all the details, but hearing the news was horrifying.

A murderer was on my front lawn with a gun in his hand. I have no idea what would’ve happened if I didn’t wake my grandpa, or if I didn’t wake up to get a snack. The timing was perfect. I was scared to death of sleeping for weeks after that.” — congoLIPSSSSS

8. My son was attacked by a ghost who left a mark

“When my son was about 3 or 4 he screamed/cried because someone hit him. He had a welted handprint on his stomach that was much bigger than my own hand. He and I were the only ones home. He had been seeing/ talking about ‘dead’ people since learning to talk and that was a period of time that was heavy with that sort of activity. It was awful.” — Turd_Burgle_E

9. A stranger threatened me over a walkie talkie

“I was home alone one time and one of my little brothers walkie talkies makes a beep sound. It wasn’t turned on so it couldn’t have been a low battery warning or something like that.

I look over at it cause it startled me and then , with it still being turned off, it says, ‘Hello?’

I walked over to it, turned it on and said, ‘Hi.’

It responded by saying, ‘I’m inside.’

I left the house and didn’t go back till later that day.” — Fluffy_Daedra

10. I saw a man’s silhouette through my curtains

“Years ago when I was a kid I was staying at my aunts house with my cousin. They lived in a bungalow just off a fairly busy road, so when cars passed at night the lights would sweep through the room. I remember one night it was particularly wild out and I couldn’t sleep. I felt immensely scared. A car drove by and I saw a man’s silhouette against the curtains, as if he were facing the window. I was petrified. Now I brush it off as my imagination but I was so sure. I remember being rooted to the bed and staring at the curtains all night. However there were no more cars passing. It’s a large part of why I feel uncomfortable sleeping in bungalows, I feel so exposed.” — OhDuvv

11. A black mass slid through her bedroom door

“This happened to me a little over ten years ago.

My friend and I would stay over each other’s house since we attended the same school and would take turns driving to get there. One of the nights I stayed at her place, we were getting ready to sleep. The lights were off and her windows were still boarded up from the hurricane that had hit. We were just talking, nothing special, when I looked over and saw this black mass gliding from her bedroom door, past us, and into the closet. The moment it came into view, I was filled with this deep sense that made my eyes water. I whispered to ask her if she had seen it too and she had. Needless to say, sleep did not come easily that night.

Another time, this was more recent, a friend and I were walking down a pier late at night. We got about half way down when we noticed a tall figure standing very still all the way at the end and facing us dressed all in black. We had both stopped at the exact same time and kind of got the same ‘wrong’ feeling, so we turned around and quickly went the opposite direction. Even after we got into the car and drove away, there was still that ‘instinct’ of something being very wrong.” — Samizara

12. I heard something whistling a children’s song

“I once heard someone scream help from outside and running footsteps. Looked outside and saw no one. It was freaky as hell.

Another time I was home alone in my room with nothing on and not listening to anything when I suddenly hear a whistle inside my room (which I was in) that sounded like ring-a-round the rosy. It didn’t sound breathy or anything; looked everywhere, but found nothing that would have made that sound. I was scared all day until my family got home around 4pm (it happened in the morning).” — redmoon_3

13. A bear tried to rip me in half

“Worked night shift in a lead mine in Alaska for about three years. One night a grizzly bear tried to break into the building I was working in. I was the only person in the building, it’s three in the morning, and a bear the size of a car is making unholy noises as it tries to rip the door in half. I sent an emergency radio callout and then locked myself in the bathroom. Bear left quick after they shot it with a few whizzbangs so overall the night didn’t turn out that bad.

Another time, a smaller bear ran onto the mine site being chased by a larger one, and got disemboweled right there in front of god and everyone. I wasn’t actually present for that but I saw the pictures.

Another another time, someone accidentally fed a deer into the ore hopper. It screamed pretty loud before hitting the SAG mill. Guys running the process lines bitched about it all night cause the carbon spike fucked with their calibrations.” — damnisuckatreddit

14. Mysterious figures entered my room one by one

“When I was a kid I lived in florida, in a home that had no AC in the middle of the summer. I woke up randomly around 3am freezing cold. I was really confused and sat up in my bed. My room was situated to where if I sat up and looked straight ahead the entrance was right in front of me, which led to a little hall with a window on it. The door for the entrance also had this glass window on it.

Anyways after sitting there for a few moments I had noticed the moon was shining really bright through the window and then my door cracked open about 2 feet. So, scared shitless I did the most sensible thing and called out if anyone was there and shortly after I see a small shadowy figure pop out about halfway behind the door peering into my room. Now I had 3 younger sisters at the time, and it wasn’t unusual for them to come to my room and sleep in my bed if they got scared or something, and this shadow was about the youngest ones height. So I called out my sisters name asking if everything was okay and if she wanted to come in to sleep. The figure ducked behind the door and came back out a few times, except now it was bigger, about as tall as my next sister. I repeated the same actions thinking my mind must be playing tricks on me, called her name and the figure did the same thing, coming back out as big as my eldest sister. At this point I was kind of getting scared, and repeated the process, except the next time it came back as tall as my dad. I called out to him and the next thing I know it’s come back and now is as tall as the door itself, except this time it wouldn’t hide behind the door anymore, it just continued to stare at me for what seemed like forever. The room kept getting colder and eventually I just passed out sitting up.

Easily the weirdest and scariest thing to ever happen to me, I’ve had lots of other weird crap happen at that house, fully believed it was haunted since there had been a few people that died there, and even were murdered. I also don’t think it was sleep paralysis or anything since I was able to move and speak.” — Darkearth10

15. Our neighbor was gunned down in front of her daughter

“When I was 10 years old i heard a woman screaming in the distance, I woke my brothers up to tell them and they dismissed as me being scared, then the screams got louder and louder. We wake our parents up and turns out a neighbor just got gunned down in front of her daughters outside his house.” — Torres097

16. There were shadow people inside of my house

“Shadow person walked from my closet, through the bedroom, and into the bathroom. In the middle of the afternoon. It’s happened several times. One time I had a coffee cup thrown at my head.” — 12lawliet12

17. A hand reached into the igloo we were building

“When I was around 12, me, my cousin and my brother were building a snow igloo in my grandma’s backyard. We had the whole dome complete, and were working on the inside making the walls smooth, when I accidentally smoothed it a little too much and a little hole to the outside formed.

Instantly, a little hand shot through that hole and started reaching around, trying to grab something. At first, none of us in the igloo really freaked out, since we though it was my little sister trying to break our fort. After grasping around for about 10 seconds, the hand pulled itself back out of the hole. However, when went out to scold my sister, there was no one there, and there were no footsteps out there apart from out own.

Lots of scary shit has happened in that backyard, but this one definitely takes the cake.” — Sneakos1

18. I could hear strangers talking inside of my home

“A long ass time ago, back when I was in high school(freshman or sophomore). My mom was out of town for some reason. My younger brother and two sisters were staying with my grandparents. I was home alone.

Monday morning, I’m up waiting for my grandpa to pick me up and give me a ride to school.

We lived in an old, historic two story house. I’m sitting down stairs in the living room watching tv. All of a sudden I hear a man and a woman talking upstairs. Sounds like they are in my mom’s room.

I turned off the TV to hear better. I could distinctly hear a man and woman talking to each other. I could not hear individual words, just mumbling.

I got up off the couch and started walking toward the stairs, as I am walking across the room, I hear a small child speak. Again, no individual words, but the sound of muffled voices talking.

Pretty freaked out, the voice are definitely happening. As I approach the bottom stair, something up stairs in my moms room hits the floor. Like a semi loud THUD. To me it seemed like someone pulled a dresser drawer to far out and it came out and hit the floor.

The voices stopped immediately and I ran the fuck out side and waited for my grandpa. Middle of winter, no coat… did not care.” — Chknbone

19. I swear that I saw multiple UFOs in the sky

“I saw a UFO… 5 of them to be precise. I wouldn’t say it was scary, but I definitely wanted to get off that road and back home ASAP. I’m a fan of science fiction and such, but never really believed the stories. Well, I know what I saw (well… don’t know) and I’m comfortable with nobody believing me. There’s stuff out there, I saw it, and it absolutely defied our understanding of physics.” — adifferentmike

20. A stranger stood in my driveway in the middle of the night

“I used to live in a cabin with a half mile driveway that bordered a forest. I was by myself one night and had gone to bed. At about 3am my eyes opened for some reason. I laid there listening and thought it must have been nothing. I got up to go to the bathroom (didn’t turn on any lights, it was bright full moon out). As I walk past a window I see a guy standing in my driveway. He’s just standing there milling around. I knew it wasn’t a ghost but I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life. What if he tried to come into the house? I’m all alone, no weapons, far from any neighbors…

He eventually left but i locked that place down like Fort Knox after that.” — BillBrasky_

21. I heard someone calling out for help

“A long time ago I was sleeping in my room and left my speaker on. They was old time speakers connected to record player, but they was big so I also ran a wire to my TV for playing my Xbox 360 on. I never used to radio channel (mainly cause the antenna was broke and wouldn’t get anything) and sometimes the record when I felt like playing some old music but mainly for gaming.

Anyways I usually turn them off when I’m done but that night I left them on cause they didn’t make any noise if my TV was off. In the middle of the night I was awoke to a sound (I am an extremely light sleeper), and as I sat up it took a minute for me to realize what it was. In a faint but constant voice coming from both my speakers was ‘help, help, help, help, help, help, help’ over and over repeating. I instantly jumped out of bed and turned off the speakers. Which then as being old school tube speakers it faded out then stopped. As I stood there heart pounding like what the fuck just happened. I never left them on when I went to sleep again.” — R_Davidson

22. He threatened to kill me in his sleep

“I spent a couple weeks in the mental ward at the hospital. My first night there, my roommate, who was the nicest guy I’ve ever met, suddenly screamed, ‘I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU, BITCH!’ in his sleep.” — beast_nuts

23. Something unseen woke me up in the middle of the night

“I don’t believe in ghosts, but there was SOMETHING that awoke me in the middle of the night when my family and I were in our cabin in the mountains, far, far from civilization.

I didn’t see anything, but I woke up with a start, couldn’t move, held my breath out of fear. Sleep paralysis, right?

Suddenly I heard my mother (from the adjacent room) whisper my name, as if trying to get my attention. I’m too paralyzed to reply. I eventually fall asleep.

The following morning my mother said she saw me sleep walking. My sister said she, too, awoke with a start, and she’d also seen someone in our bedroom. I don’t sleep walk. I’d been in my bed the entire time.” — Mwuuh

24. There were spiders and roaches covering the entire house

“I’m going to mostly discuss the creepiness of the house and not the situation with the children because I don’t feel like talking about it..

Back when I was investigating for CPS, got a call for something completely unrelated to the house being a complete shithole, so I was a tad unprepared when I got to this house. With me was a rookie cop who had never been on a CPS call before, and my investigation partner.

Talking to the mother and there are roaches crawling everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE, at least 100 roaches crawling across the floor, at 3 PM in broad daylight in the middle of summer, completely unfazed by people. I look at my partner, and notice a roach crawling up her chest towards her chin, tell her not to move and grab it off her, she freaks out because there are more on her and so she steps out of the house (it was my investigation but THANKS, partner!) leaving me and the cop. The homeowner only responded with ‘oh they like to do that.’ Hundreds of dead roaches on the counter tops and in the refrigerator and freezers.

But that isn’t really creepy, that is a situation Ive seen many times in my travels. We head up stairs because Ive seen just about enough of the living room and kitchen, there are a line of roaches dutifully marching upstairs so we follow them, where they march into the spider domains.

Yes, this house was in a constant state of warfare. Whilst the roaches had claimed ground level for themselves, the spider legions had a firm hold on the 2nd level. The 2nd floor is mercifully (or not) darker than the first floor, so I can’t really see much of what is going on. The two bedrooms of the house were up there. Each room consisted of a pile of clothing on the floor, dog shit everywhere, and the walls moved as only walls covered by hundreds of spiders can move. In the corners I can see where lines of roaches are coming out of their path from the 1st floor, only to be met by spider resistance, and while I’m sure the battle would have been interesting to observe, we backed out of those rooms and moved on.

I asked the homeowner what was behind one closed door and she informed me it was their bathroom. I started to open the door and noticed a little resistance, so I pushed harder and opened it about 2/3 of the way… You know how in some horror movies people run down dark halls in abandoned houses or tunnels and there are cobwebs going across the ENTIRE hall. This bathroom was just layer after layer of spider webs, going across the bathroom. I thought that was just a movie thing but faced with the realization that a massive spiderweb was the resistance I felt pushing the door open, I then slammed the door shut.

There was one more closed door, and per our protocol of having to inspect the entire house, I asked what it was. The homeowner informed me it was a linen closet, ‘where they keep towels and stuff.’ I opened the linen closet, but sadly, was not met with linens. Instead there was just a big clump of spiders which started to fall out of the closet and which I quickly slammed the door on.

I was pretty freaked out at this point. I don’t hate spiders or other bugs, I don’t scream or panic when I see them, but I was pretty much at my breaking point of ‘too many spiders.’ I backed away from the closet only to be told to ‘STOP!’ and ‘don’t turn around’ by the police officer. Sadly I did turn around and in a dark corner I hadn’t looked too closely at there was again a massive web with hundreds of spiders in it.

At this point I had just had enough and walked out of the house and we made our plans on what to do about it from the driveway. After about 8 hours of fallout from this investigation I got home about midnight, stripped naked in the garage, threw my clothing away, and took a nice hot shower.

The kids were made safe during the course of this investigation.” — Cerion3025

25. A homeless man was living inside of my house

“When I was about 22, I had my first apartment and my boyfriend (now husband) would stay the night. I had a roommate on the other side of the apartment, and we each had a pet. She had a little yappy dog and I had a very spooked cat.

My boyfriend and I were smashed up in our twin bed, and I remember hearing the sound of my door opening, but when I looked up, it appeared closed. I went back to this half-state of sleep and thought I was dreaming of a man looking down at us. I was mostly nude ahem and it was a warm night, so I was barely under the covers. In my dream, the man turns and walks back out of my room, but steps on my cat’s tail, making her scream.

I sat up. The door was shut. Everything was as it should be, but my cat was in my lap, poofed and shaking. My boyfriend woke up, and I was unable to really explain how a dream hurt my cat.

I walked across the hall to use the restroom and wash my face. It was sometime around 4:30am. As I was walking back to my room, I saw a man’s silhouette against the window and I covered myself and screamed loudly. The silhouette jumped behind the couch and I ran into my room and locked the door, hysterically screaming there was a man in our apartment!

My boyfriend pulls on his pants and a shirt and leaps into action. He runs out and confronts the guy and I start to call the police. My roommate stumbles out of her bedroom and groggily tells me to stop.

She had been at the bar across the road and saw a homeless guy on her drunk walk home and thought it would be a good idea to let him sleep on our couch. She didn’t know his name. We never got his name, but for whatever reason, he let himself into my bedroom, he stood over my bed and stared at my boobs while I was sleeping.

We made him leave and my roommate cried and said we were mean.

I did not renew my lease with her.” — SongLyricsHere Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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