7. My daughter’s glider was possessed

My 21 month old daughter has never been a good sleeper. No matter what we try, she rarely sleeps through the night. We’ve set up two night lights, a regular one across the room and behind her little dresser and a red one by her bed. She’s in the ballpark of where a fear of the dark and imagination can manifest and we were trying to get ahead of it.

The last couple of weeks, she’s been waking up and acting completely frantic, crying in a way that she doesn’t normally cry. If I try to leave her alone, she doesn’t just cry no…she sounds absolutely terrified and it’s not her normal “scared” cry.

Three nights ago, I was woken up by the sound of a pig snort at two different times. You might say that I woke myself up snoring, but my wife and I do not snore unless we are congested, and that’s not the case at the moment. It was an odd thing, but I simply went back to sleep. I point this out because my daughter has started making pig snorts. She has a little stuffed pig, but we haven’t been teaching her that noise.

Two nights ago, we were woken up around 12a by her cries on the monitor. I went into her room. The red light that was on when we put her to sleep was unplugged from the wall. I tried to get her back down but she wasn’t having it. She kept looking over my shoulder. The door to her room is across the room and was behind my back but she wasn’t looking at it…rather she was looking at the glider (a kind of rocking chair) in her room.

I looked back at it and, for the briefest of moments, I swore that I saw a shadow move from the light of her normal night light back into the shadows.

“It’s 2a and my mind is playing tricks on me,” I said to myself, half out loud.

I said it out loud because of the feeling slowly washing over me…the feeling that something was there…unseen eyes watching me. I made me uncomfortable…powerless. I haven’t really felt that feeling since living with a friend of mine and encountering an aggressive entity that resided there.

I tried to play it off and asked my daughter, “Is there someone here?”

“Uh huh.” It’s one of the few things that she will clearly says.

“Where are they?” There was no one in the room with us.

She pointed at the corner, where the glider is. We keep it locked because we rarely use it, so I knew it wouldn’t be moving. I still looked in that direction.

“There’s no one there, sweetie. Are you sure?” I was hoping she’d shake her head no.

“Uh huh.” “Okie doke. Put her head down on daddy’s shoulder.”

I was patting her back, half to comfort her and half to comfort me. She patted my shoulder back. She put her head down and we swayed for a few minutes, but she wasn’t closing her eyes. She was watching the glider.

I waited a few more minutes and asked, “Is someone still here?”

“Uh huh”.

“Where are they?”

She pointed to the same place. This time, something caught my eye that I’d completely overlooked before. Her stuffed pig was on the floor next to the glider. She looked absolutely terrified.

She slept with us that night.

Last night, she cried, but wasn’t pacing in her crib. I went in to check on her and the red light was again unplugged. I rubbed her back and told her everything would be OK. She fell back asleep. She does make the cutest, content noises when she’s sleeping well. Well, I thought she was sleeping well.

I went to leave the room and she’d start crying. She was fidgeting, which was abnormal for her. She’s normally a fairly still sleeper, like I am. She was sleeping on her stomach, which was normal but she was keeping her hands tucked under her body. Normally she sleeps with them out, like a typical toddler/baby sleeps when on their belly. I moved her arm out and she quickly tucked it back in.

We did this back and forth thing with me rubbing her back, walking away, and her waking up for about 20 minutes. I started to walk away for the last time, so certain she was asleep.

“Dada?”

I turned to see her pointing at the glider, which was illuminated by the night light. Nothing was there, but the lever was in the unlocked position. I started to get light headed and my chest started to tighten. My legs felt like lead. I started to hear a distinct buzzing sound in my head. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was something that I have no idea about.

I willed myself to move, grabbed my daughter, and took her into our room.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep last night.*

We ended up selling the glider to clear up some space in her room. Once we sold that, however, my daughter started sleeping in her room. After most of her life sleeping in our bed and then on a pallet on our floor, it took 3 nights for her to sleep in her room.

Was it all the glider? Probably not, but that’s a strange bit of coincidence.

8. My little cousins saw the ghost of my grandfather

My uncle called my mom one morning and told her this:

I have 4 little cousins in who never got to meet my grandfather – he passed before they were born. One morning, they ran downstairs for breakfast as they usually do. As my uncle was getting their food ready, one pointed to the fridge and said “that’s him!” My uncle, not thinking much of it, said “who?” and looked over. They were pointing at a picture of my grandfather that they never got to meet. My cousin responded “The man that comes and talks to us at night until we fall asleep sometimes!”

Not HORRIFYING, but still….eerie.