11+ Eerie True Stories That May Make You Sleep With the Lights On

Sometimes, real life can be stranger—and scarier—than anything from a novel or movie. In this collection, you’ll read about real events that are so creepy, unsettling, or just plain bizarre that they could easily be the start of a horror story. From unexplained happenings to eerie coincidences, these tales will send a chill down your spine and make you question what’s possible in the world around us.

I used to have recurring dreams at my sister’s house about a little girl with dark hair and pale skin (which are traits my sister has, by the way) telling me that she was staying there because my sister reminded her of her mother.
Months later, my niece (only two at the time) stopped in the middle of the steps and plainly said to me, “Her mom died here.” © astro-ponies / Reddit

• I was babysitting for my sister. At 3 a.m., her baby monitor lit up. I checked—her baby was asleep. Then a voice whispered through the speaker: “He’s not okay.”
  I called my sister in a panic. She yelled, “Take my son and run to the car. Lock it and call 911!”
  Turns out, she had also been hearing noises on the baby monitor, and it was freaking her out as well. Just then, as she was talking to me, I froze when I saw a shadow of a man pass by the window outside my nephew’s room. I walked closer and saw that the window was open—one we always make sure to keep shut.
  I grabbed my nephew and ran to the car. When the police arrived, they searched the area but didn’t find anything. They told us that this specific brand of baby monitor is known for making “weird sounds,” and others had reported similar complaints in recent months.
  We replaced the monitor, and the sounds stopped. But I know what I saw. That shadow, that open window—it still gives me chills.

• My brother and I are twins. When I was very little, my father took me to get a haircut and left my brother at home with my mother. Apparently, sometime after we left the house, I kept pulling my dad’s hand and said, “Bob hurt” over and over.
  My father thought it was weird, so he called home. Nobody answered, so he got a little suspicious and took me right home. Coming home to an empty house (in the days before cell phones), we just waited. Later, my mother came home with my brother, and we found out that he had fallen and had to get stitches. © stikkit2em / Reddit

• When I was younger and visiting a theme park, I ran into a guy who looked just like me. He warned me that I would lose my money that day and told me to watch my pockets. Later that day, I noticed my money had fallen out of my pocket, but luckily it was on the ground nearby. I wouldn’t have noticed if that guy’s comment hadn’t stuck in my mind. © KGhaleon / Reddit

• When I was 9 years old, my older sister and I were drawing while nobody else was home, and suddenly we heard our piano keyboard playing upstairs. We listened and recognized the song—it was Fur Elise.
  My sister and I, we slowly went up the stairs. When we were halfway up, the music stopped for about 2 seconds, then started again. Just as we were about to enter the room, it stopped completely.
  There was nobody there. We looked around, and my sister noticed that the keyboard wasn’t even on—it had a physical switch. © XxPhantomsxX / Reddit

• My boyfriend told me that when he was a kid, he used to hear whispers and have conversations in one of the rooms at night. Intrigued, he entered the room out of curiosity, and someone tapped him on the back so hard that he fell unconscious. When he woke up, there was a big mark on his back, resembling a scratch from large paws, and it’s still there today. It’s really creepy. © ruri7218 / Reddit

• I remember one thing that genuinely freaked me out when I was 12. I had awoken and gone to the kitchen to fix myself some breakfast. When I got there, I heard my dad’s snoring coming from the couch in the living room.
  I thought it was strange for him to be sleeping since it was 10 AM, and he typically woke up early. But I figured he was taking a nap. As I walked toward there, the snoring got louder and louder to the point where it sounded exaggerated.
  Just as I popped my head over the couch to say hi, the sound just stopped. Nobody was on the couch. I called out to my family and nobody answered. They had gone out to get lunch.
  I still can’t explain it to this day. © odd110 / Reddit

• When I was a kid, I had a dream where I was answering the questions on my math test. It was extremely vivid; I could see the questions and the work I was doing. The next day, we had that math test, and it was the exact same as in my dream. © Nickynui / Reddit

• When I was about 15, I was home alone at night with my three dogs. They were usually very lazy at night, just lounging in their dog beds until bedtime. But that night, they all suddenly became very agitated. They ran into different rooms, growling and barking at empty corners—a behavior they’d never shown before or since.
  I checked the entire house but found nothing. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but that night I slept in my parents’ bedroom with the door locked and all three dogs on the bed with me. © letsgoooo90091 / Reddit

• I was 8 years old. I was awakened in the middle of the night, needing to go to the bathroom. On my way down the hallway, with the lights off, I saw faintly the vacuum cleaner lying on the floor, so I stepped over it and went into the bathroom. I turned on the light and shut the door.
  When I finished and opened the bathroom door, the light shone down the hallway, but there was no vacuum cleaner there. So, anyway, ghost vacuum cleaner. © Unknown author / Reddit

• When I was a kid, I had a lava lamp. When it was on, it would get really hot. Since it was yellow, I used it for drawing at night.
  So, I was sitting there, drawing, when all of a sudden the lamp turned itself off. I started panicking because I’m really afraid of the dark, and I started calling my mum for help. She came into my room, and when I explained the situation, she said the lamp was never turned on; I had been sitting in the dark the whole time.
  I touched the lamp, and it was cold... © Unknown author / Reddit

• I had a dream once and within the next month, everything from that dream happened in real life. For example, in the dream, my wife re-arranged our room which is weird because she hates rearranging stuff and then the next week she arranged it exactly like a dream. In the dream, I also got promoted, and then less than a week later I did in real life. © Unknown author / Reddit

• I woke up one night around 1am, heard the shower was on... I first thought it was my brother, he works night shifts, so thought he had come home late and was in the shower... It went on for about half an hour until I got up and went to see what he was doing...
  No one was in the shower, my brother wasn’t home yet, I was the only one in the house. Still to this day, I have no idea how it turned on or who did it. © designerlogic / Reddit

• A few years back, I woke up in the middle of the night several times, and it felt like something was walking on my bed at the foot of the bed. My wife was sleeping next to me, so it wasn’t her.
  The odd thing is I mentioned it to my wife a few weeks after it happened, and she turned white as a ghost and said she had experienced the exact same thing a few times but didn’t want to mention it to me because she thought I would think she was crazy.
  We still can’t explain it. It hasn’t happened in a really long time, but it was an unnerving experience. © 1980pzx / Reddit

• My mum worked as a cleaner in a house on the grounds of a 13th-century castle. Sometimes my brother, dad, and I would go help her, especially late at night.
  One evening, the old clock that never worked started ticking. Then, a door that never closed on its own shut itself. When we were driving out of the place, we saw a figure wearing old, wet clothes walking through a brick wall. My whole family saw her.
  Mum just stopped the car, and we all looked at each other. I don’t know if it was a ghost or just a trick of the car headlights and being tired. © weirdemosrus / Reddit

Greta excluded her daughter-in-law’s three children from a family gathering—because they aren’t biologically related to her. What happened next escalated fast. Read the full story here.