11 Real Life Stories that Give You the Biggest Chills

This is the perfect season for sharing creepy stories. While some people enjoy telling made-up tales, others share real-life experiences that can be even scarier than a Halloween movie. Sometimes, the true stories are the ones that scare you the most.

• When I was about 17, my friends wanted to do a ghost investigation at one of their houses. The girl who lived there and her sisters always talked about weird ghost stuff that happened. I was a skeptic, but had nothing better to do.
  About 4–5 hours in, I was sitting in a chair next to a closed door. The doorknob turned, the door opened halfway, then all the way, and then slammed shut. I then felt footsteps next to the chair. I am no longer fully a skeptic. © jado9814 / Reddit

• At the time I was around 14, I’d asked my dad to wake me up early that morning at about 5am because I had some work to get done. That morning, I was woken up, and I flung my legs over the side of my bed. I felt a tug on both of them, what I thought at the time was just my dad trying to get me to hurry up, I reached over to pick up my phone and turned it on, 3:30 am, and I looked over at the black figure I assumed was my dad and it was gone. © tom-evvans / Reddit

• I was staying at my grandparents’ for the summer when I was fourteen. It was 11 p.m., and I was thirsty. I go out to the kitchen and see who I thought was my granddad sitting at the table eating a sandwich. I say hello, grab a glass of water, and head back to my room.
  My grandfather comes out of his room and asks who I was talking to. I turn around, and no one was there. It freaked me out and still does to this day. © Lucanthethird / Reddit

• I currently live in a haunted house. I’ve heard voices, footsteps, lights have been turned on/off, one of the ghosts has a thing for silverware. But the strangest/scariest experience I had was the first night I spent in the house. I wasn’t finished moving in, there were boxes everywhere, I didn’t even have my mattress up there yet.
  I was bedding on an old futon mattress, watching a video on my phone, when I got the pins & needles feeling of my feet falling sleep. Except it wasn’t on my feet, it was on the top of my head in the shape of a hand. I said, “Good night”, turned off my light and tried to sleep. When I woke up my closet door was ajar, but other than that everything was otherwise untouched. I guess whoever my unseen roommate is, just wanted to check out who I was on my first night. © mrttenor / Reddit

• One time I wanted a Coke and when I went into the kitchen there was, I mean it, a knife balancing on its tip. Next to a full can of Coke. When I was home alone.
  Edit: To answer a few questions, yes, I drank the soda. To the skeptics who say I’m lying: This happened. If you don’t believe, give me a rational explanation as to how a soda can get from a refrigerator to the kitchen counter, along with a knife standing on its tip, which might be impossible. Provide me with a rational explanation as to how that happened in a locked house. © ArcOfRuin / Reddit

• Several years ago, when my son was young, I was sitting at the computer doing some work when I heard him wake up. He made a tiny whimper sound and the typical toddler, pathetic-sounding cry/moan, “mommmyyyyy.” So I jumped up to get him. Then I remembered my son was not home. He had been on a sleepover at my parents’. © Cellophaneflours / Reddit

• That morning, my girlfriend was still half-asleep so I get into the shower. While showering I'm 100% certain I can hear someone calling out my name. But I ignored it - there's that thing were you end up hearing your own name in white noise just b/c it's something you're so attuned to hear.
  The weird thing was it sounded very loud, but also very, very far away but also like the sound was coming from deep inside my own head. Like I was wearing headphones and hearing my own name called out in this tiny, tiny, panicked scream. Finished my shower and went about my day, never mentioning it to anyone.
  2 years later - we're sitting around in someone's dorm room and my girlfriend casually mentions, "Oh yeah, remember that first night I stayed in your room? And then you went to go to the shower? I was freaking out because it was so dark in your room and I started having a panic attack and started screaming your name in my head while you were in the shower." © sfinebyme / Reddit

• I got lost in the woods in North Carolina during a game of paintball. It was broad daylight, but the woods were really thick, and every tree looked exactly the same. It probably only lasted 1–2 minutes, but it felt like I was screaming “help” for hours.
  The worst part? Turns out, I wasn’t even lost. I was maybe 10 feet from everyone else, and they all heard me screaming “help,” but they thought I was acting as a decoy... © reincarN8ed / Reddit

• Me, my ex and her 2 kids were all sitting around dinner one night and somebody started talking about how bad their dreams had been, and everybody else chimed in about how bad theirs had been too. A few days pass and one night I’m sleeping and I have this particularly vivid dream about me fighting a demon. I don’t remember what I was saying in my dream. This wakes up my ex who was sleeping next to me. And she goes, “You’re talking in your sleep.” And I go, “I know.” And she asks, “Why?” To which I respond, “Because spells are more powerful when you say them out loud.” right as I roll over and go back to snoring. Freaks her out a little bit. But after that, no more spooky dreams for the household. © armorphoenix / Reddit

• We’ve had little things happen during the 2.5 years we’ve lived here. Mostly sounds, like knocking, and always toward the front of the house and in the hallway to the kids’ rooms.
  However, one time I heard footsteps late at night that went from my wife’s side of the bed to the other side of the room, then just stopped. In the morning, my wife’s phone was where the footsteps had gone. She was confused as to why she would have placed it there, and I just kept my mouth shut. © cartmancakes / Reddit

• I was sitting in a movie theater with my aunt when I saw a man walk up the aisle. He was tall, youngish, and wearing white. He almost had a sort of glow about him. He reached the top of the stairs, turned towards the wall, and disappeared.
  I was stunned. My jaw dropped. At that moment, my aunt turned to me and said, “You saw him too?!” © obscura87 / Reddit

Some life situations might seem unreal but could actually happen. And then, there are people whose real-life experiences feel just like scenes from a horror movie. Sometimes, reality can be stranger and scarier than fiction.