14. I found an eerie mask in my garbage can

I used to live in a rented house that, along with my neighbors, sat across the street from a fairly bustling city park. At night, when the park was deserted, I would walk out my front door and sit on my porch and look at the trees and the stars. One night, around 1am, I opened the front door and started to sit down. That’s when I saw a man standing in the deserted park. He was directly in front of my house. The man was dressed all in black and was wearing a Halloween skull mask. The mask seemed fairly intricate but was most definitely a store bought cheapo. The sight of this guy sent a chill down my spine. He didn’t move at all–although I know he saw me. The entire neighborhood was silent and still and we just paused there holding our ground. We watched each other for a long time and then he sauntered away. I ended up calling the cops because I figured this guy was casing the neighborhood. Cops came, took my statement. Nothing ever came of it. Couple of months later, I’m doing some yard work around the side of my house. I’m pulling a huge tangle of weeds out from a thicket underneath my kitchen window. I see something that looks like trash, pick it up: it’s the mask I saw that night.

15. I put my hands on a ghost

One night I was home alone with my dog, just watching tv. My dog likes to do this thing where he gets up and makes a lap around the living room, and then settles back down on his bed. At around 1 am he decides it’s time for another lap. All is well, then I hear him let out a deep, long growl. The type that says “do not fuck with me, just go away.” I look over and he is staring down the hallwall, completely still. At this point I think, oh shit there’s an animal in my house. I get up to take a look and as I’m walking over, he let’s out another, even more aggressive growl. This one stopped me in my tracks, and I got chills down my spine. When I got over to him, I put a hand on his back and he didn’t even acknowledge me. I looked down the hallway and saw nothing. The light from the living room wasn’t enough to see well at the end of the hallway, so I took one step down the hall to turn on a light. As soon as I stepped into the hallway, a picture fell from the dresser at the end of the hallway, and my dog let out a huge bark. I think I stood there for about five minutes, not daring to move. After a while, my dog walked back to his bed, so I pulled myself away. It’s the only paranormal type experience I have ever had.

16. I hallucinated because of a drug addiction

For me, it wasn’t paranormal, or anyone’s fault except my own. When I went cold turkey off a fuck-ton of Xanax and morphine, I hallucinated. The first few days were just chronic physical pain, but after 72+ hours of no sleep and little to no food/water, my body went whacky and I started hallucinating/dreaming/sleepwalking. I really don’t know what to call it because it was a combination of the three.

The worst one though was the night before I finally admitted myself to the hospital. I dreamed that there were a bunch of cops trying to get into my house, and I refused to come out. Eventually, my close friends and members of my family started showing up outside. They all begged me to come out, but I still refused. Eventually, they started killing themselves. I watched my mom shoot herself in the head, and my dad go crazy over it. Then my boyfriend decided to send his dog in my house to coax me out, and when I still refused, the cops shot the dog to death, driving my boyfriend insane. My aunts, uncles, grandparents, all of them one by one killed themselves in front of me, and I still wouldn’t come out. Eventually, after everyone was dead and days had passed, the cops broke down the door and shot me over and over again. I thought I was dead. I remember feeling at peace, and looking out the window seeing days, weeks, years pass. I felt like I was a ghost.

Then I woke up.

I immediately called my parents and confessed about my drug addiction, and that I was in trouble now. I admitted myself to the hospital that day, and although they had to strap me to the bed because I got out the bed and walked around the hospital naked (I don’t remember any of this, I was told about it after the fact), I came out of it and made a full recovery.