Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

The Discipline Devil

Age: 37

1. Informant name- A. M.
2. Date of Performance- April 24, 2026
3. Age- 37
4. Ethnicity- Dominican and Puerto Rican
5. Career/Occupation- Caregiver
6. Hometown- New York City
7. Informant’s language- English

Story –

Growing up with a Dominican mother they have this thing that if you disrespect our parents the devil comes out . So when I was younger I was very slick out of the mouth. I’ve always been slick at the mouth so one night my mom, your grandmother, was telling me to go to sleep but I was just being spiteful and doing stupid shit. So that whole day, that whole night, I placed a figurine that your grandma used to have on a table in the middle. It was like a flower glass and I placed it on the floor.Your aunt was chasing me when I was terrorizing her and she stepped on it. So I got my ass whopped then I was sent to bed. Mommy kept telling me to go to sleep but I didn’t want to go to sleep. So I pretended I was sleeping and then they turned off all the lights. When I looked to the side all I saw was a shadow. It looked like a demon dancing, really tall, about like 8 feet tall, long nails, a long tail, just like dancing. I just saw the shadow so I closed my eyes and covered myself from head to top and I went to sleep. After that I ain’t seen nothing else.

Context- 

My mother was telling me a story about her childhood where she was scared of the devil because of stories she was told by her immigrant mother.

Their thoughts-

At that moment she really believed it and was really scared. Now she doesn’t know if it was real or not and just regards it as a moment in her childhood. The moment itself was real for her but they explain the action behind it is up in the air.

My thoughts-

I think that because she’s already had this idea in her head that the devil was gonna come out if she had it tricked her brain into seeing something that wasn’t there. At night I know that something’s my Brian tricks me into seeing things that aren’t there and I think that the same thing may have happened to my mom.

The Secret Girlfriend Dream

Age: 20

Informant: “The craziest paranormal thing that’s ever happened to me is my sister predicting that I have a girlfriend in Qatar. Like months before I told any of my family. She dreamt that I had a secret girlfriend in Qatar in like September”

Interviewer: What happened in the dream?

Informant: “The ghost of my dead grandfather told her. It was strange since he died a long time ago. 

Interviewer: How did you find out about this dream?

Informant: “It’s crazy. She knows everything. Really this last time was the craziest by far. She’s predicted other things, but I don’t remember exactly what. 4 months after her dream I came home to tell my family that I had a girlfriend in Qatar. They were shocked too. They were like ‘your sister had that dream months ago, and we didn’t really care because it was a dream.’ I wonder what other things she knows about me.”


Context: The informant has a girlfriend who currently studies in Qatar that he had held off sharing with his family until this point. This story was told to the interviewer because the informant was truly shocked by the events. 

Their Thoughts: The informant reflects a partial belief, as the experience challenges his sense of control over personal information. This story is a memorate, since it’s a firsthand account of lived experience. 
My Thoughts: This narrative fits within similar narratives of dream revelation and communication with the dead. The informant’s sister’s dream functions as a form of supernatural knowledge acquisition, where hidden or private information is revealed without normal means. The appearance of the deceased grandfather aligns with a belief in spirits acting as intermediaries. Instead of predicting a future event through precognition, the dream reveals an already existing but concealed reality. The sister is framed as having a special intuitive ability, even without consistent evidence. This is often shown throughout ghost stories as a clairvoyant. The specificity of the detail makes this a strong ghost story, as the perceived legitimacy of the supernatural explanation is strengthened.

The Jinn among the Trees

Age: 17

Q: Before we begin, who and where did you first hear about this story and the general context?

A: It happened in Bangladesh and I learned it from my brother. 


Story: This happened in Bangladesh and I was told it from my brother but basically they were staying right next to this deep forest. And if you go there, a lot of kids love to play around and hangout, and it’s like a bunch of trees in the surrounding area. The thing is though, most people don’t really like to go there because they believe there’s Jinns. So for this specific story it was maybe around, like, 7:30-ish at night, and some of the kids were playing out there and just messing around. And because it was getting late, they thought they saw, like, this tall figure. So then they decided to, like, leave, because they were getting spooked down. Like, everyone knew there were Jinns already there, but they realized too late. And one of the kids apparently ended up getting the jinn stuck to him. So then that kid became possessed and took him and immediately the kids screamed and ran to the parents. But as they did so, the possessed kid started to act super weird talking about having a past life and how he was a soldier and some other nonsense. When the parents found out they immediately went to find an exorcist, but I don’t know what happened after. 

Q: And what do you think about this story?

A: Well I think that if I was in that little kid’s position I’d definitely be scared y’know? 

Interviewer’s thoughts on the story: I think this is a very interesting story. Especially because looking at the conversation, Jinns which are heavily present in islamic stories is the first thing to be thought of as the causation for the behavior and also as a cautionary for the unknown. As jinns have a will similar to humans, they can be both ‘evil’ or ‘good’ natured allowing them to freely express themselves. Yet as a result, most Bengali people tend to focus inherently on the idea that they can be ill-natured and cause possession, enforcing this idea to avoid the unknown much like in the forest. 

Don’t Touch the Cross

Age: 18

Context: The following story was told on April 28th, 2026, in my dorm room to me by the informant, who is one of my close friends (I apologize for the amount of “likes”).

NB: “Okay. Um, in my house, there’s a cross from my grandpa’s grave that’s hung up on a door frame leading up to the stairwell. My mom and my grandma always told us never to touch it, never to disrespect it, or play with it because we used to throw like balls in the house, like just to entertain ourselves. And, um, they were, like, for real, like, listen, you can mess up everything else. You can knock over vases, whatnot. But one thing you cannot do is touch that cross and we’re like, okay. So when I was four, my oldest sister, I think she was about like 17 at the time. Thought it would be funny to take the cross off the door frame for a bit.”

Me: “Why would she do that?”

NB: “No, actually, it’s just like, she was like rebellious and like she just like didn’t believe in that stuff. So she just wanted to mess around and stuff. Um, and then somehow she lost it, and we couldn’t find it for about a week. But during that week, just horrible things happened. Everyone in my family who lived there at the time got really sick. My parents, my sister and I got into a really bad car accident. It was totaled, and my dad had to go to physical therapy after because he was in a lot of pain. My oldest sister got cheated on and dumped that week. There was a lot of bad energy in that house, I would say. It felt much gloomier and dark. Everyone was just really depressed and everyone had trouble sleeping, and for some reason at night, there was a lot of noise around our house. I don’t know if it was just…”

Me: “Wait, sorry, whose cross was it?”

NB: “It was my real grandpa’s. Not my Step Grandpa. Yeah, it was my real grandpa’s cross that was on his grave.”

Me: “And he also lived in the house?”

NB: “Yeah, he also did. I think he was like a part of like building that house or something before he passed away.”

Me: “Oh, [redacted]”

NB: “Um, and yeah, everyone just had trouble sleeping because, um, I remember the wind being like really powerful. I remember. But this is like a common thing in my house. We, uh, most of us have like experienced hearing whispers and hearing like children running and stuff like that. But we never understood why, because no, I don’t think anyone lived in that house previous to us, so… and it wasn’t our neighbors, because we live in a duplex and like, we know when our neighbors are like making noise and stuff, like the difference between our neighbors making noise and then us like hearing stuff going on and like, we’ve established that…that week especially, like, there was just so much going on that, like, there is no way It was our neighbors. And eventually, my mom found the cross when she was cleaning, hung it back up, and it was kind of weird how, like, everything just went back to normal. Yeah, my dad’s pain went away pretty quickly. Um, we all got better, like, from our sicknesses overnight. We were in so much better moods, and I just really don’t know what happened. It’s kind of blurry. I’m pretty sure there’s probably more that happened, but I was like so young at the time that I just don’t remember everything to the fullest, but that’s, yeah, one of my earliest memories.”

Me: “So, what do you think? Like, do you think it was, like, your grandpa’s, like, spirit, or it was, like, another spirit? like bad karma?”

NB: “Well mind you, like, that cross was at the funeral at his, like, grave for, like, a while. I’m thinking that maybe other spirits like latched onto it. Maybe bad spirits latch onto it, and just like, I don’t know why we took it. I don’t know why we have it in our house. I don’t know why we decided to hang it up. But, um, because of that, we just can’t take it down. It’s like kind of like Annabelle, like we can’t.”

Me: “Yeah, you can’t”

NB: “We actually can’t mess with it. So now it’s just hanging and yeah. I don’t know. Maybe that’s another reason why I have like weird stuff going on in my house and like paranormal stuff going on, but, um, yeah, it’s really weird.”

Personal thoughts and analysis: This was probably my favorite story im submitting because it’s either supernatural or the most insane coincidence of all time. Both are equally fascinating to me. Initially I interpreted it as the informants Grandpa maybe being a vengeful spirit so it was interesting to hear the informants take that a spirit may have latched onto the cross itself which makes more sense because both sides of the informants family were affected. The story follows a typical trope in ghost stories of some sort of family curse and it was interesting to see a twist on that, that the family curse in this case may be coming from outside the family. I also think it’s interesting that the informant comes from a multi-religious background and so it might have something to do with religious tensions between their families. Im also curious as to how the informants mom and grandma knew that the cross shouldn’t have been messed with. Overall a very interesting story.

The Nun

Age: 19

Context: The following story was told on April 28th, 2026, in my dorm room to me by the informant, who is my friend and freshman year roommate. The informant and I were discussing a completely different story when she brought up that her high school was haunted by a very sad nun…I immediately pressed record.

LC: “There’s a book called California’s Most Haunted Places.”

Me: “Oh, and your high schools in it?”

LC: “And my high school’s in it.”

Me: “Oh, great.”

LC: “So, yeah. Like, sometimes you’ll hear, like, creaking from where, like, she, hung herself.”

Me: “This is so crazy…Ok what high school did you go to?”

LC: “Notre Dame.”

Me: “Notre Dame. In San Jose.”

LC: “Like, dead serious. Someone look it up. There’s a story. This nun like hung herself.”

Me: “So, did you have any, like..this is something that happened to your friend or, like, did you have any personal experiences?”

LC: “Okay, so for me, in that building, there’s a basement that I had to go into, and I hated that basement. It’s a…it’s straight up a vintage old basement. It’s an old cobblestone basement that has one little light that hangs from the top. Like, have you seen, um, A Quiet Place?”

Me: “Yeah.”

LC: “It looks like that. And the stairs are like wooden and creaky. So, I went in there and I had to pull the light, and there was, like, someone that looked like they were wearing a full nun outfit. just in the corner.”

Me: ” And at this point, there’s no more nuns at your school?”

LC: “Most of the women, like the women that worked at my school were nuns, but they didn’t wear the whole thing… they’re like the modern nuns. like they’re hip or whatever.”

Me: *laughs* “Okay.”

LC: “Um, but yeah, it was like a nun wearing like the full outfit and everything. And, um, I don’t remember what her name is. Like, it was like sister…her name began with an M. And I remember like the faculty and staff saying, oh, like, oh, sister, whatever her name is, is visiting again.

Me: “Oh. Was she, like, a nice, or sad spirit, or like?”

LC: “I think she’s just sad. Yeah. Um, because, yeah, like, apparently, like, a priest seduced her and, like, she got pregnant and, yeah, she hung herself because, like, she was sent there. Um, I can’t even remember what for. Like, I think because her family, like, couldn’t afford to send her to, like to school, so she went to the convent. Um, and she knew that she couldn’t go back to her family because it would be dishonorable. So, she thought that the only way to go was to, like, commit suicide. So, yeah, there’s that one, and then, my elementary and high school are connected, because it was, like, this one big giant convent. And like a lot of the stories that happened at the high school happened at the elementary because it was like just one big thing. And what happened to my friend in 5th grade is that she went to the bathroom, and it was a sunny day in February or March, and when she went to the bathroom, she, like, came out, went to go wash her hands. The door slammed shut because the bathroom door was, like, propped open with, like, this little, like, wooden block. The door slammed shut. It wouldn’t open. And because it was, like, someone was pressed against it. So she pushed it open, and when she looked outside, it was pouring rain, and the woman that looked like the nun was like outside, like crying, and her eyes were like jet black and like, and then she freaked out, closed the door, was sobbing, opened the door again, and it was like normal, sunny, like 78 degrees outside. Like, she came to class crying because she’s like, I saw her, I saw her, this creepy lady, and we’re like…”

Me: “So a lot of these stories…so the time that you maybe saw the nun, how old were you?”

LC: “14.”

Me: “Okay, so a little bit older, but mostly your stories, you know, involve a child. So what do you think about that? Do you think children are like more vulnerable to spirits or you think like they can see things that, you know, maybe…”

LC: “Yeah, I think the children, like, that’s like in every single horror story, though. Like, children are the most vulnerable. Because, like, you know how people say, like, when you’re a child, you have your 6th sense and that it’s, like, the most receptive. And, like, you haven’t been corrupted by the world to have it, like, removed or, like, worn down. Um, Like, I guess to an extent, that makes sense, but if we’re following that logic that children are just more receptive to everything around them, and children are known for being, like, brutally honest, then I would say, yes, it’s like, that aspect, that’s consistent with children being, like, the main receivers in all these stories, would support that idea, but also, I feel like, I don’t know, it’s a little strange because people who experience those, like, paranormal activities usually have some sort of belief in the paranormal. Right. But I don’t know if that’s because of the fact that, since they believe it, it’s confirmation bias. Or if it’s just because they’re more open to the idea that that’s a possibility and that they would prefer that outlandish, I guess, experience to be true in comparison to that of a more scientifically backed explanation.”

Me: “Right, makes sense. And both can be true.”

LC: “Both can be true.”

Me: “Good stuff.”

Personal thoughts and analysis: This story was super interesting, and I think it goes into religious guilt and trauma, which intrigued me, so I decided to look more into it. I was able to corroborate that there is a legend of a pregnant nun who hung herself at Notre Dame High School in San Jose, but I couldn’t find any confirmed reports of the occurrence. I think because it’s been local lore for so long that it’s likely a lot of the accounts are just scared kids whose eyes were playing tricks on them, but it is very interesting nonetheless. I also thought the weather aspect of the spirit, somehow being able to change the weather, was very unique and not a typical element in ghost stories, which almost made me believe the informant a bit more.