1. When I was in the US Navy we had this dude who thought he was a wolf in a human body. He would howl at the moon and just be generally strange. I knew someone that had served with him before me at a different command who said he had to be forced by medical to shower. When asked why he wasn’t showing he told them it would wash away his scent and he wouldn’t be able to attract a mate. I don’t know what happened to him.

2. Someone I used to be friends with identified as a Lynx. I was weirded out but she was my friend so I dealt with it. Soon she started to say I was “sitting on her tail” and she was fully convinced she turned into a cat at night. Last I heard of her she was drawing furry porn for 100 dollars a piece.

3. Knew a guy that swore that he was a reincarnated Kitsune spirit. He and I got into an argument one day and he swore that he would destroy my life, because “Kitsunes never let go of grudges”. (Mythologically, Kitsunes were described as being especially capricious.) He ended up telling a bunch of lies about me to everyone he could, gaslit another friend into cutting off contact with me, and occasionally I’ll run into someone online that fell for one of the many stories he made up about me.

4. I actually went to high school with a lot of people like this who eventually grew out of it. I remember one girl specifically because based on her Facebook, she has not grown out of it. She claimed she had multiple personalities, her main two being herself and the other being a 200 year old British vampire. We live in the US and she would put on a British accent and everything. It seems she has found a partner just like her though and they’re planning a pretty extravagant vampire wedding. Good on them.

5. I met a girl at a very young age while going to church. Her family was deeply religious, but in a messed up way. So we dated off and on, and after high school hit it off pretty strong. She honestly believed she was a fairy. She would get faced with the reality of not being a fairy and completely shut down, sometimes even attempting suicide.

Found out later she has really bad Schizophrenia and had to get away from her after she discovered drugs and I couldn’t help her anymore.

6. My best friend in high school and my first two years of college genuinely believed that she could not only speak to forestry, but that she was a wingless fairy. She would often times, when we went walking her dogs, lean to trees and translate for me what the rustling of nature spoke of. She also would scribble in her books what she called “new alchemy”, violently scribbled circles and vague shapes she believed held magical and fae magik through her own powers.

We had a falling out after a few years, after she moved to the other side of the country to be with her grandmother. We started talking about a few months ago and I found out she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. She is currently on two types of medication and she told me her walks are depressingly quiet now.

7. My ex-boyfriend was certain he was a vampire. He kept going to churches, cemeteries, all those kind of places. I failed at bringing him back to reality. He died of cancer in January this year.

8. I had a friend who believed that she was a vampire and would try to bite at my wrists and neck very often. It got to the point we’re she would bring pig’s blood to school and openly drink it out of a cup as if it were juice, scroll forward 2 days I’m visiting her in a mental hospital.

9. He claimed to have an “invisible tail” and had a dream in which a great mother wolf revealed to him that he had the soul of a wolf. So he did what any sane person would do and started buying furs to masturbate onto (he showed me Ebay links via Facebook and explained that it’s one of the only two ways that he can get off), as well as started fucking dogs (or so he claimed). Last I heard, he’s in Alaska working with sled dogs all the while he’s engaged to a woman who he refuses to have sex with because human sex is disgusting to him.

I need a drink just fucking writing that.

10. When I was in uni one of my housemates had his mate come over and hang with us one night. At the time we were all into tabletop RPG and stuff so when I started chatting to him and he mentioned he’s a Half-Angel, Half-Demon Demon Hunter I initially didn’t bat an eye at it. I was like “That’s cool, I’m a telekinetic spirit medium myself” and we chatted happily about it for maybe ten minutes before I began to clock on that he wasn’t talking about RPG.

I gotta admit, when I did figure it out I was not diplomatic. Not aggressive or anything, but not diplomatic. I may have laughed at him.

11. She cheated on her boyfriend occasionally, but would claim that it’s not cheating because she would only do it during full moons so it was her werewolf half doing it and not her.

12. Currently serving with a man who genuinely believes that he is a werewolf. Lived in a 6’ square cabin deep in Wyoming for years. This dude is off his rocker. We’re talking howling at a full moon, sleeps underneath his bed every night, once scratched a dude during an altercation.

You’re welcome for his service America.

13. I met a woman who said she could communicate with trees. She really believed it. But I didn’t see any reason to confront her about it. It seemed to bring her solace and really just amounted to her hugging trees on her own property and connecting with them. No harm done and it had a positive impact on her. Maybe it was just her way of telling herself something in a way she could handle.

Anyway, sometimes the voices in your head can be good friends.

14. I have a friend who strongly believes that he’s an “incarnation of the multiverse’s most powerful being.” He says that marijuana, LSD and hallucinogens take you to alternate realities and are the key to comprehending the world. He claims to have been John Lennon, among other people, and once spent an entire week asking me, “How can you just be human without thinking about reality?” He says that he can see auras, has an elemental connection to fire, and sometimes blurts out in the middle of class that someone has a cool aura or something. He also says that, when you dream, you’re actually accessing other dimensions, and, sometimes, you can access this dimension and see yourself sleeping. And, when you die, you become a literal god and get control over your own universe. We’re good friends, despite the weirdness, and I’m pretty sure he’ll outgrow it.

15. My ex still believes that he shares his body with the spirit of a Young female girl. Sometimes the girl would “take over” and he would talk in high pitch girly voice and act like a girl. Last I know he is catfishing dudes in video games to believe he is a girls and have online relationships.

16. Knew a guy who believed he was a vampire, just not on this plane of existence. He believed that he could astral project into said plane where he’d psychically feed off people from this plane. He met a homeschooled girl and convinced her that she was like them. He claimed that she got pregnant in the other plane and then ate her young once it was born. Nice guy, just weird.

17. Used to work with a guy that swore he was an alien.

Claimed that his mother was a virgin, had been abducted by an alien aircraft and impregnated.

I remember being told this by another coworker and thought it was all a farce.

After working with this individual for nearly 10 years I can assure you that he legit believed what he was telling people.

Would walk around making weird noises and fart sounds for 8 hours annoying the hell out of everyone around him.

The fact that he was double jointed made it even more convincing to himself.

Weird fucker.

18. My brother. He believed (believes?) he is a dragon. And he’s also a furry. And he also believes he can see people’s auras. He was/is such a socially awkward person, and I think in some weird way this is how he found community. Apparently there is a whole bunch of people who think they are dragons! Who knew. Now that he’s in his 30s, he’s grown out of it – or at least he doesn’t talk about it or insist that people call him by his “dragon name” anymore.

19. I knew a kid when I was young, around 9-10, who was a few years older than me. He was a neighbor of my best friend and absolutely believed he was a werewolf. He had a necklace that he wore to “keep him from turning”. He was a cool kid and we had fun playing video games/playing outside.

I feel bad because we always thought the werewolf stuff was silly and we would tease him about it. One day we were play sword fighting in the back yard of my friend’s house and I pulled the necklace off and broke it. He lost it and bolted to the gate to run home.

20. I dated her. We were still at school (I was 16 she was 15), and she was my first ever girlfriend. It was around the time Twilight was a HUGE fucking deal.

So, she decided to tell me after seeing each other for about a month or so that she had ‘multiple personalities’ and one was called Violet and she was a vampire. If I had a cut, she’d try and lick it, and she also gave me a love bite on my neck so bad it was black and hurt like fuck, but she didn’t stop because ‘Violet doesn’t know when to.’ Not long after this she then told me that I was a werewolf (?!) because my eyes changed color from Hazel to yellow (?!) and she wanted me to scratch her with my ‘wolf claws’. Obviously this was news to me because I’m pretty sure I’m not a werewolf.

Why I didn’t nope the fuck out of there at that point idk but she then went on to tell me that she couldn’t see ghosts but could ‘talk’ to them and would proceed to have conversations with ghosts of dead relatives of people we knew. Needless to say, I then left, and how that whole experience didn’t put me off dating forever I’ll never know.

21. Dude thought he was a vampire.

I caught him (we briefly fucked) right at the beginning of that belief, as he defended himself biting through the skin on my neck by saying it was “natural.” Thus ended the boinking and my neck hurt for a while.

He went through several years of weird blood drinking stuff with a group. Did bloodletting too, into vials, for shots.

22. I had a woman call my office once trying to return a weapon to the military. Apparently she was the weapon.

23. Oh yeah, tons. A large number of people think they’re vampires in New Orleans. Many of them drink blood.

Me: How old are you you?

Him: 473.

He’s a very successful vampire tour guide.

24. One time I met a guy by playing online games. He always said something that he is god and so. I thought it’s a joke. One day we met and he truly believed he is a god. He said there are more gods on earth and we don’t know it. I ask some silly question if he can gave me some proof like teleporting or something. He said that wouldn’t work because a human brain wouldn’t understand that and then my head will explode. He also said he is a few hundred years old. It was a little bit funny because after the coffee he ask if I could drive him to the train station. Why has god no car?

The next day I had terrible headache, I told him that and he said that was him, because I didn’t believed he was a god. I blocked him.

25. Met a girl in psych who believed she could communicate with dead people and tell people’s future. One girl in there had just been through a bereavement and the other girl ‘communicated’ with the dead person so they could talk one last time. We were too scared to confront her and tell her this was a totally fucked up thing to do to someone who was grieving.

I thought she was bat shit crazy but she got let out of that place two months before I did. Make of that what you will.

26. Years before we had Goths and New Age ‘enlightenment’, I used to manage an occult bookstore and I met wannabe vampires, werewolves, fae, and others. Sometimes it was like being in charge of a Dark Shadows convention. I used to date one of the store’s patrons: a six foot Amazon from Texas who claimed she was a vampire. She wasn’t too crazy, but towards the end of the relationship she was getting too bitey.

27. My friend thought he was Deadpool with all the powers and all.

He once fell off his bike and broke his arm and he thought it would heal straight away and he refused to go to the hospital as a result.

He now has a really crooked arm.

28. They had really severe childhood abuse/trauma to contend with, and coped with it by believing they were psychic. (We met in like junior high when they still believed this.)

Eventually, they realized that they weren’t entirely wrong — just a little bit misdirected. They’re a deeply empathic person who, thanks to their abusive history, is very good at reading facial expressions, body language, etc. They’re actually a really wonderful person, and ended up becoming a social worker and volunteer at a domestic violence shelter, where all of the qualities that made them a good “psychic” make them GREAT at helping others who are going through a difficult time.

29. I met a guy who was supposedly pretty close to the level in Scientology where you’re supposed to develop powers like telepathy and stuff. Not sure what became of him. You’d think that once people reached this level and didn’t have powers they’d quit, but brainwashing.

30. Way back in the 80s, while I was till in elementary school, there was this kid who, everyday, swore he was a ninja.

He couldn’t show us any of his moves or weapons, as his Sensei had forbidden it. But that didn’t stop him for making his outlandish claims, like the nunchucks and ninja stars he had hidden in backpack or how he had fought and killed an entire gang. Et cetera.

One day, he claimed he could spin so fast he could turn invisible. Several classmates demanded he prove it during free-time and for whatever reason, he finally relented.

He started spinning in circles, but we could still see him. So he kept spinning. Until he threw up.