Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

The Face that was Later Called Grandmother

Age: 19

Context:

One evening, while in front of a campfire at my high school, my friend and I began talking about strange experiences we have had. She suddenly recalled something that had happened to her as a child that had haunted her ever since. It was a moment of confused fear, imagination, and something she still can’t fully explain. This is the story she told me.

The Story:

When she was around six years old, she lived with her parents and two siblings. One spring day, her family was hosting a gathering with relatives. While the adults were occupied, she and her siblings were playing roughly, and their energy escalated into play-fighting.

At one point, she swung at her sister — not hard, but enough for her mother to step in. As a punishment, her mother placed her in time-out in the front foyer, a quiet space near the door where guests would remove their shoes.

A few minutes into sitting alone, she began to feel restless. She turned her attention to the nearby window and looked outside. In that moment, she describes what she saw “not as a typical ghost,” but rather as “a presence that was spying” on her. 

She could not make out a full face or body, but she distinctly remembers the expression: “feminine, stern, and filled with anger.” It was intensely disapproving. The feeling it gave her was immediate and overwhelming.

In that moment, her sense of guilt deepened. What had just been childish misbehavior suddenly felt much more serious, as if she were being judged.

Terrified, she ran away from the window and out of the foyer, breaking her time-out, which led to her mother making her stay in time-out for even longer.

Years later, while reflecting on the experience by the campfire, she came to associate the presence with her grandmother. However, this interpretation was not present at the time it occurred. In the moment, the figure felt unfamiliar and unrecognizable; it is only in retrospect that her memory has recontextualized it as resembling her grandmother.

Informant’s Thoughts:

What unsettles her most is how her interpretation of the event changed over time. As a child, the presence felt completely foreign and threatening. But as she grew older, she began to associate it with someone familiar and close to her—her grandmother.

This shift raises questions about memory itself: did she actually perceive something external, or was the experience gradually reshaped by her mind in order to give it meaning and familiarity in retrospect?

My Thoughts:

I think my friend’s story is definitely connected to spirits that haunt us after making immoral decisions. My friend felt feelings of deep shame for attempting to hurt her sister. I think it’s also interesting that she got in even more trouble as a result of running away from the presence.

What makes this story compelling isn’t just the possibility of a supernatural presence but how closely it ties to guilt. In that moment, my friend had just done something she knew was wrong. The appearance of a disapproving figure, whether real or imagined, seemed to reflect her internal emotions.

Rather than a traditional ghost story, this feels more like a psychological haunting. The “presence” may not have been a spirit punishing her but a manifestation of her own conscience, shaped by childhood fear and authority.

At the same time, the later association with her grandmother adds another layer of unease. It suggests how memory is not fixed but something we reinterpret as we grow older. The blending of emotion, family, and imagination into something that feels real.

What lingers is not the image itself but the uncertainty: was she being watched, or was she learning right from wrong? 

The Nightmare that Growled Back

Age: 34

Context:

One day, as I was leaving my dorm room to walk to class, the maintenance worker for my hallway stopped me to share that a vacuum that had been standing perfectly upright suddenly fell. He said, “It took force to get that down,” however, there was no physical force apparent. I stopped and listened to what he had to say about what he had just seen and then began talking about encounters that he had while living with his mother and grandmother. This is one story he told me. 

The Story:

About fifteen years ago, he lived in a Los Angeles home with his mother and grandmother. There wasn’t one specific moment, but rather a collection of strange experiences that impacted everyone in the household. He said, “Nobody was talking about it until things started getting more physical and hands-on.”

He described a series of nightmares that grew more intense over time. At first, they were recurring dreams of being chased, and he would wake up in a panic. As time went on, however, the dreams began to resemble sleep paralysis. “I would be in heavy, heavy sleep and couldn’t wake up because I felt like an energy was holding me down.”

One specific dream he shared involved him running through a parking lot, trying to escape someone who was chasing him with a knife. He couldn’t wake up while it was happening, and when he finally did, he was exhausted and out of breath, as if he had actually been running.

The dreams continued to worsen and feel more and more real: “I was waking up heavy, sweating, and gasping for air. We all started sharing similar stories, and we all started talking about what we were feeling or how it was feeling.”

Both his mother and grandmother shared experiences of “feeling like somebody was sitting on their chest and wouldn’t let them go. It was the feeling like you wanted to scream and yell, but something was holding you from it.”

One night in particular has remained with him until this day. It happened in the middle of the night. He shared that his grandmother would frequently come in and out of the rooms, so initially, he wasn’t afraid. He described that he was staring at a shadow that was short just like his grandmother.  

Another thing that he and his grandmother used to do was jokingly growl at each other. He said that as the shadow began walking away to leave the room, he began growling at it. 

“When I growled, it immediately turned around 360 degrees, but the way it looked towards me, I immediately knew that that wasn’t her anymore.”

It stood over him and began growling back at him louder and louder. “That was the for real moment that I felt that black presence, that black shadow was staring at me, and it was growling at me. That was one of the most physical moments that I had ever felt.”

After this night, he called his family friend who was an exorcist. With a broom, the exorcist fought with the presence in each corner of the house. After he retrieved the spirit, he found it was an old man and placed it in a box to bring to release it at a cemetery. 

Afterward, he, his mother, and his grandmother were cleansed with sage, white roses, and various mists.

Even now, he says it’s eerie to think about. Both his mother and grandmother have since passed away, and he hasn’t shared this story with many people in a long time.

Informant’s Thoughts:

He doesn’t find the story unsettling just because of the shadow itself, but because of the shared, physically impacting experiences that all of his family members had that were unspoken at first. What stays with him is the identical sensations and the way something unseen seemed to move through all of them at once. Now that his mother and grandmother have passed, there’s no one left who remembers those nights the way he does. No one to confirm what happened or to question it. 

His experience also strengthened his belief in ghostly presences, and he has become more attentive. When something reminiscent of those experiences occurs in everyday life, such as the broom story in the dorm, he is more skeptical, whereas prior to this experience, he never thought twice about spooky presences. 

My Thoughts:

To me, it is very interesting that the exorcist discovered that the presence was that of an old man. It makes me wonder if the man had lived in the house before Alex and his family moved in. If so, what happened to him?

I’m struck by how all of these experiences occurred during sleep at night. Sleep paralysis is most common among children and young adults, which is interesting because all three people living in the home were full-grown adults. This makes me further consider the possibility that the presence was real. It could also suggest a kind of generational haunting, potentially significant in the way it connects us to our ancestors.

This story lingered with me long after he told it, partly because of coincidence—when I heard it, I was on my way to my ghost stories class.

The Humming Step-Grandpa

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.

Me: “Okay, so just go ahead and just tell the story like how you normally would.”

NB: “Okay, so this was the day of my step-grandfather’s funeral. I will never forget this day. This, I have no explanation for this. Still, no one knows. It’s like a complete mystery. We don’t know what was going on. But anyway, basically what had happened was my grandma had went to the church already with my uncle to take care of like a few things before the funeral actually happened. My mom was putting on her makeup in her room, and when we woke up, my dad wasn’t in the room, but, um, we just assumed that he was in the bathroom because the bathroom was closed. And my sister and I were just, like, talking and whatever, and we were like, oh my god, like dad’s taking, like, forever in the bathroom, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we knocked on the bathroom door, and then we heard humming, and we were just like, really?”

Me: “And this was in your house that you still live in?”

NB: “Yes.”

Me: “And you’ve lived in this house like your whole life?”

NB: “Yeah, my entire life. And yeah, it has a lot of history. Like every single one of my family members has grew up there, including my mom. So, yeah. And we’ve never moved. But it has a lot of history, but anyway, basically, we knocked on the door. Um, we heard humming, and one thing about my dad is he’s not a sing-songy person, like, he’s not someone who hums, and, like, that was just really unusual for him. And when we heard it, it was like weird because it was like in a much deeper voice. It genuinely sounded like my step-grandpa, and we were like weirded out by it because we were just like, dad doesn’t do that. Like, it’s very odd. And basically, we went back in the room and we were just waiting because we were like, oh, dad’s taking forever. And my mom was like, oh, what’s going on? And we’re like, ugh, like dad is taking forever. But she looked at us like, what are you talking about? Like, what do you mean dad? And we were like, I don’t know. And then my dad came home with breakfast. And we were just like, what the, like, what? You weren’t in the bathroom? Like, what happened? And, um, he was just like, no, like, I wasn’t in the bathroom. I was getting breakfast, and we were talking to our mom, and my mom was like, oh, like, maybe your step-grandfather was just, like, getting ready for his funeral or something in the bathroom, and we were like, what?”

Me: “So did he live in the house prior?”

NB: “Yeah he did. Okay. We all lived in that house together, just like one big Brady bunch, like genuinely, but it was…it was weird, and I still, like to this day, I’m like weirded out because we we’re the only ones home, and, like, I don’t know. Like, there’s no explanation for who was in the bathroom, but yeah.”

Me: “So like, overall, like, what do you make of it? Like, you think…do you think it, like, was his spirit or you just, you don’t know what to think?”

NB: “I just think that maybe, because I do believe in like the paranormal and stuff, I think maybe, yeah, if… I mean, if I died, I’d want to get ready in my house too. So I think that, yeah, it’s valid if he just wanted to get ready one last time before he was buried. Um, but yeah, and that day when I woke up, the house just like felt very off. I’m very like into like energies and like sensing tensions and stuff and that day was just really gloomy and it was just really sad. And then I remember as soon as we buried him, like the sun came out. So it was very, very strange and yeah, half of me just doesn’t know what to make of it. But then another part of me is like, maybe that was him, like, possibly.”

Personal thoughts and analysis: This story was very interesting to hear, as unlike some ghost stories, this one doesn’t really have a logical explanation, and as a skeptic, it has me very conflicted. I believe the informant and their siblings’ account, which conflicts with my views on the dead interacting with the living. The only explanation I can think of is perhaps some sort of appliance was on that sounded like a hum; however, this appliance sounding like the informant’s step-grandpa on the day of his funeral would be a very interesting coincidence. Overall, if it was the spirit of the informants’ step-grandpa just getting ready for the day one last time before he was put to rest, there is something very wholesome about that.

The Baby Thief

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.

NB: “Okay, so basically, my mom has explained to us over and over again that each time she’s had one of us, she’s been visited by, like, an evil, dark presence in the middle of the night when she’s, like, half asleep, trying to take us from her. And every time that the evil spirit like comes, she like senses it. She’s like half asleep. I personally think it’s just sleep paralysis. But it’s just weird and too much of a coincidence that this has only happened to her each time she’s brought us home from the hospital. It happened to my oldest sister, I believe, and then my other sister, me, and then my brother. She recalls it every single time, where this evil spirit will basically visit her in the middle of the night of our first time, like, coming to the house, and she just has to say no, like, not yet. Like… Not yet. Basically, like..”

Me: “Is it, like, the devil or like?”

NB: “I think it’s like trying to take us while we’re young. Like, kind of trying to take us from her or something. Like, kind of maybe trying to, like, kill us, maybe. I don’t know? It’s really weird. And, um, yeah, she kind of explains that it’s a really weird energy. She gets the same feeling every time that it happened, and she doesn’t know how to explain it. And she just, yeah, she kind of just, like, says that its an evil, dark spirit or whatever. She said that she sees like kind of like a cloud of black like mist. So it’s not like a… And, like, it’s not like a figure. No, like a cloud of black in the shape of like a… Like, kind of like, um, I don’t even know how to describe it, like, just, like, it’s not smoky, maybe not. Yeah, like, it’s, like, really weird, and it’s just, like, moving close to us and, like, trying to approach us.

Me: “So it doesn’t like talk and say like, I’m going to take your baby…

NB: “No, she just kind of has like an energy and like feels it. And then she’ll wake up the next morning and she’ll just like go back to normal.

Me: “So do you know, like, what does she think it is? Like, does she think it’s, like, a demon or, like, just like what?”

NB: “Well, my mom is like a really spiritual person because she has a lot of like dreams that she believes are kind of like almost premonitions. She, like… one of her dreams predicted my grandfather’s death. So, um, I think that she kind of, like, had, like, she can, like, sense that energy, and I think she thinks of it more like, yeah, maybe a demon. But my mom isn’t, like, religious or anything. So I think she just senses, like, maybe it’s, like, I think one time she said maybe it’s, like, the angel of death or something. Like, trying to take us too soon, or maybe it is a demon, like, trying to latch onto our innocence or something. Yeah, very, very strange…”

Personal thoughts and analysis: I thought this story was very interesting, not only because of the story itself, but also the informant’s reaction. The informant is a supernatural believer, but their first thought was to dismiss their mother’s belief and write it off as sleep paralysis, almost like they were too scared to consider it truly being a supernatural entity that attempted to abduct the informant at their most vulnerable state. Initially, as the informant described the entity, I thought of a kind of demon Papa Legba esc figure, so it was interesting to hear the informant’s mom’s perspective that it might have been some sort of grim reaper figure. However, overall, I think I would tend to agree with the informant that this was some kind of postpartum sleep paralysis, but it is an interesting coincidence nonetheless.

Hotel Ghost

Age: 51

Context:

This story was told to me by my father, whom I’ll refer to as SS. He had arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh, ahead of my mother and me, relocating for a new job posting. During those first weeks alone in the city, he stayed at the Westin Hotel, a polished 5-star hotel, definitely not where things go wrong. He told me and my mom this story when we arrived in Dhaka, and I was quite young when I first heard it so I was super scared, but now I think about it as a strange incidence that happened to my dad.

The Story:

My father is a still sleeper. He doesn’t toss and turn, and has never once sleepwalked in his life. So on the first morning in his hotel room at the Westin, when he woke up on the floor, at the foot of the bed, not in it, he assumed some mundane explanation, that he must have been more exhausted than he thought. He climbed back into bed and didn’t mention it to anyone.

The second morning, it happened again. He was on the floor, same position, and same spot: at the foot of the bed, as if he had chosen to sleep there himself. By the third morning, when he opened his eyes and found himself looking up at the ceiling from the floor once more, the mundane explanations had run out. He went down to the front desk and asked to speak with the manager. He explained, carefully and plainly, what had been happening: that he woke each morning not in his bed but on the floor, in the same spot, with no memory of moving. 

SS told me the manager’s face changed the moment he finished speaking, the color drained from it. The man looked down at the desk between them, and there was a long pause, the kind that is not about finding the right words, but about deciding how many of them to share. He did not ask clarifying questions, or suggest a medical explanation or a mattress issue. He simply said that he was very sorry, and that he would arrange another room immediately.

The new room was not just different, it was significantly larger: a suite, upgraded well beyond what my father had booked, at no additional charge. The manager was apologetic, overly warm, eager to move past the conversation. He said something vague about wanting to ensure a comfortable stay, and then he closed the matter entirely.

My father said the man looked like he clearly knew something, and had decided, perhaps out of professionalism or policy or something harder to name, not to say what it was. Thankfully, SS never woke up on the floor again.

Informant’s Thoughts (SS):

My father says he isn’t certain there’s a definitive answer to how he ended up on the floor, or at least not one he could say out loud without feeling foolish. What he keeps returning to is the manager’s face. 

He says a person can dismiss their own experience, rationalize it, file it away. But you cannot rationalize someone else’s recognition. That man knew. Whatever was in that room, whatever had been happening there, the manager already knew, and chose to move him without a word.

His own theory is that someone had died in that room. And that whoever it was had never quite left. That the bed, in some sense, still belonged to them. That each night, my father was simply being removed from a space that was no longer his to occupy, displaced, without violence or malice, the way you might move something that has been left in your chair. Not haunted in the dramatic sense, just claimed perhaps by someone who didn’t know, or accept, that they were gone.

My Thoughts:

To me, what makes my father’s story haunting isn’t the strangeness of waking up on the floor, it’s the repetition. Three nights, the same spot, the same position. Whatever was happening, it had a pattern. 

I’m struck by how ordinary the setting is. Not a crumbling old house or a jungle road at night, a five-star hotel room, somewhere my father was supposed to feel safe and far from home at the same time.

What convinces me this may be more than a strange coincidence is the manager’s reaction. It suggests a history, a pattern beyond just my father’s three nights, perhaps other guests, other mornings, other quiet upgrades that were never explained. In South Asian cultures, there is a long tradition of spirits tied to specific places, not wandering, but rooted, attached to a room or a threshold or a particular patch of ground. The fact that whatever happened stopped the moment my father changed rooms feels consistent with that. It wasn’t following him, but belonged there.

This story stayed with me because when I first heard the story I was really scared especially cause this was a new country, and we were going to move there soon. Also, the slience around it makes it more spooky as my father never got an explanation.