People Share the Most Deeply Terrifying Experience of Their Entire Life
We’ve all experienced scary things in our lives. Whether it was a moment of fear where our heart caught in our throat because of something unexpected, or the shock we get from seeing an unknown face in our window.
Fear reaches for us deep down and doesn’t let go. We learn to fear when we’re young; as a kid we're taught not to talk to strangers, aware that there are people out there who could take us.
As an adult this fear can evolve into distrust and paranoia. Often these terrifying experiences leave their mark on us.
These Redditors share their own terrifying experiences. The ones that keep them up at night. The memories revisited in times of confusion and uncertainty.
33. Gut Instinct
I was playing with my friend at a playground near my house. It was around dusk and we had been there for about an hour, when we both stopped and immediately sprinted back to my house without saying a word to each other.
Turns out we had both had the same dark, terrible feeling in our gut and knew we had to get out of there.
The next morning we went back and found a cat head in the playground, just the skull and fur, nothing else, no brain or eyes or anything. We think it might have been a mountain lion as they are prevalent in our area.
It's hard to explain that awful gut feeling, but I've never been so scared without being in any noticeable danger in my life.
32. Demon Doll
This is pretty silly actually. When I was a kid, I had a Barbie that came with a little baby. This baby unsettled me for some reason, something about its face was spooky.
One day, I stopped playing and started to walk out of my bedroom, but something compelled me to go back to turn the baby's face away from me first.
I went to the bathroom, came back, and the baby's face had somehow turned back to its original position, facing me. Understandably, I had an absolute fit.
I cried to my mom and she told me that she had gone in my room and moved the doll, but later admitted that she lied to stop my hysterics. We hid the blasted thing, but it would reemerge every couple of years.
I think it's funny now, but I still wonder.
youtube
31. The Moo Heard Around the Farm
7-8 years old me visited my grandparents in the countryside. According to my grandmother, she woke up in the middle of the night to her cows' abnormal mooing, went outside to check and saw me walking into the fish pond.
I did not wake up upon entering the water, she barely pulled me out of the water before I fell into the deep part of the pond.
I was shaking uncontrollably, she had to carry me inside, it took half an hour to wake me up. When asked what happened, apparently half conscious me answered "I was following the pony."
30. Friendship Beyond the Boundaries of Human Existence
When I was in high school, to earn extra money, I went and cleaned my dad's boss' office building on the weekends. Most of the time it was just me in there. Occasionally, someone would be in there working. It was never full though.
Usually, if anyone was there, it was this one dude. I still don't know what he did there, but his office was WAY in the back of the building, almost in what I would call a closet.
This was a construction company, and they had this big office with a giant table in it where they could spread out blueprints and go over them together. This guy's office was in a closet behind this office.
I worked there for years, and as I did, I kinda got to know this guy. I eventually bought myself a Jeep Wrangler when I turned 16, and he was a Jeep guy himself, so we would always BS about Jeep stuff. Honestly a really cool dude.
The one thing that always stuck out to me about this guy, is he had this "tic"... Nothing weird, but noticeable.
When he was standing and talking to you, he always stood with his left side facing you, with his left hand in his pocket and he would jingle his change in his pocket...
Well, the guy eventually died in the office one day. Not while I was there, during the work week. I remember my dad telling me about it and offering to let me go to the funeral, which I did.
A few weeks later, I'm in there cleaning. I'm not in the blueprint room, but in a room across the hall and I hear the front door open. They had a sensor on the door that made a loud "DING" noise when someone opened it. So, I heard "DING!"
and could hear footsteps walking in. So, I'm sitting at this desk, dusting all this person's knick-knacks and I hear that guy's voice say "Hey, Gibby, how's the Jeep running?"
I'm kinda shocked and just staring at this person in the doorway, left side facing me, and jingling change in his pocket. I'm pretty much frozen in the chair just staring at him, and he kinda laughs a little.
It seemed like he was about to walk away, and I kinda shuddered a second once everything registered in my brain. So, I blinked and when I looked back at the door, he was gone. I walked around the entire office and no one was there.
From that day on, any time I went into his office, I said out loud "Hey,
Dad has since retired from work, and I don't get to go up to that office anymore. But, on the off chance I do, I like to walk in that office (it's their gym now) and say hello.
fine art america