May or may not have been scratched by a hellhound-
For context I went on a ghost tour and apparently theres a dog-like spirit/hellhound type thing called the Barghest in the Shambles Market that scratches people and there was a walking portion of the tour and now I'm freaking the fuck out because I didn't notice until I got off the bus because my back was itchy and I asked my sister to check if I had a bug bite or something and is have scratch marks on my back. The thing is, I'm a chronic nail biter and am physically incapable of leaving scratches like this.
Low key freaking out bc idk what to make of this, but its all good. I'm sure I'll be alright. The conductor on the ghost tour seemed super casual about it, sooooo...
Totally not freaking out at all bc I don't even really believe in the paranormal that much.
Have you ever had a paranormal experience outside of/before working with The Dread Powers? Alternatively, have you ever seen a Fear manifest?
Both!! Full disclosure, I am both very psychically sensitive, and someone who seeks out the paranormal.
A few very intense experiences I've had include:
• the door of the freezer in the morgue I used to work at just being pounded on relentlessly, like a person trying to be let out, but it would stop momentarily if you opened the door
• hearing a woman sob over a spirit box, giving us her name, and later finding her death records, which confirmed she died in the abandoned hospital we were doing a paranormal investigation at
• owning multiple (extremely friendly) haunted dolls with child spirits, finding them moved in the morning after not touching them. My cat looking at them strangely like he would a human visitor, them throwing themselves off of shelves when they want attention
However I do also believe I encountered part of the stranger or the hunt or something in real life once. Buckle up, this story gets long.
So back in like 2020, me and some friends wanted to do something spooky. We were young, dumb, and brand new adults with very little experience fucking around and finding out. We initially wanted to go to the cemetery at night, but one of the girls in the group was very scared and anxious about death, and we didn't want to put her into a panicked state obviously, so we opted to read cards in the woods instead.
So we drove out to the park, which faced a large section of woods. The high beams of the car were on when we parked, which will become important later.
We get to the park and I begin to read and we're just having a good fun time, but I keep seeing this strange light in the distance, and it's getting closer. I could hear footsteps, and my first thought was that it was a person, and that made me nervous, especially because we were not supposed to be in that particular park at that hour.
I'm not easily scared, so when I am, my friends tend to know it's some serious business. I calmly but firmly told everyone to get up and get in the car now, and I began to pick up the items.
As one of my friends starts the vehicle, the high beams of their car turn on and illuminate the forest, and I see it. It's a humanoid creature, standing on its back legs like it's imitating a person very poorly. Once it sees that I'm looking at it, it gets on all fours and begins to sprint at me. I obviously panic and run to the car, screaming at my friend to drive, and we peeled out so hard that her tires squealed.
We all cleansed intensely, and two of the friends left, while one stayed over because I was so rocked by it. It's energy was so horrific that I wanted no part.
It somehow gets worse.
I go out into my yard the next day, and not only is there a dead deer that's been gutted and mutilated but NOT eaten, but multiple dead squirrels that were left punctured on tree branches or hanging up in the trees. Three in total. I cleansed and protected my whole property. I am also fortunate enough to live very close to a Buddhist monastery, and after explaining, they were generous enough to do a blessing on the property for free.
That thing looked like the Rake. I didn't even know fear like that was an emotion you could feel. Pure animalistic terror of knowing that you are being hunted. It was the single scariest moment of my life, but in a weird way I really cherish it. It brought me closer to my gods
Random Jo lore, but I attended college for a year in Louisville, KY. For context, I was born and raised in California, and got a scholarship. Out of desperation to get away from my mother, I moved to Louisville. Anyway, while I was there, I had a lot of strange paranormal experiences I can't really explain, but since I love spooky stories, I figured I'd share them.
The first one happened in my dorm building. My partner at the time and I were coming home from dinner with their parents and had a near car accident that would've been absolutely devastating. When we got back to the dorm, the building was empty. Since it was after dark, there was supposed to be a security guard at the front desk, but the lights were completely off. Our suite had six bedrooms in it, and when we got inside, no one was home, and all the lights were off. I remember this eerie feeling that something was off, like when you're dreaming of something that happened already, but minor details have changed. Uncanny valley type thing, you know?
We were supposed to hang out with some of our roommates, so we knocked on their doors and checked the empty rooms, but no one was there. No one was in the hallway either. It was super creepy, and neither of our phones had a cell signal. Anyway, I can't remember how long we were looking for literally anyone, but we wandered the building for a solid second until the security guard came hauling ass back into the dorms, saying there was an incident out front. No idea what the incident was, but suddenly, all the lights were on again, and our roommate, whose bedroom was empty, came out of her room, wondering when we got home.
My university's primary liberal arts building was converted from a mansion—the Tompkins-Buchanan House—and after the previous owners, who hosted mummy unwrapping parties (which entail exactly what you think), went bankrupt, it was a convent. It was a running joke/wives' tale that the Mansion was haunted after dark, and many of the night security personnel reported all kinds of creepy phenomena, like children's voices, screams in the basement, etc. I myself, walking by after hours, saw lights turning on and off and shadows running up and down the stairs with no people creating them. Rumor has it the spooky stuff is why the security turnover rate was so high. The chapel on the second floor was also... an unsettling place. I'm not sure why, but it wasn't a room I was particularly inclined to set foot in, mostly because it was always freezing cold and the hair on the back of my neck would stand on end.
I'm not sure if the mansion had any effect on the campus-wide supernatural happenings, but many of my friends also experienced strange paranormal happenings, many of which occurred outside of the Mansion building.
Old Louisville has the largest preservation of historical Victorian homes in the US, and deep roots to slavery, Appalachia, and witchcraft. It's a powerful place, for sure.
My next paranormal experiences are dream-based, but still pretty eerie.
I had no idea other people dreamed of Mall World, but backrooms/liminal spaces have been a feature of my nightmares since I was a kid.
Now, I often have dreams of things before they happen (IE: my best friend sleeping with my boyfriend six months before it happened, or who my ex-spouse would cheat on me with before they even met), but I generally don't put too much stock in it because I also have dreams where I turn into a chicken nugget or marry Harry Styles, and neither of those things will happen.
Anyway, the Jefferson Mall in Louisville was a place where one of my best friends worked, and since she was a shift lead at the Hot Topic there, she had keys to the employee tunnels/back rooms. One time, she left something at work and we went through the tunnels at J-Mall to get it. They were super creepy little backrooms. No, thank you.
The second story goes something like this. My Grammy had just passed away, and I was grieving. It was a Sunday night/Monday morning. I dreamt I was in the parking lot of J-Mall, but it was completely empty, and all the windows were boarded up. Suddenly, Grammy's car appeared, and she was listening to music, wearing her usual sundress and looking like she was ready to pick me up from school, as she had every Monday since I was very, very young. Anyway, she got out of the car and smiled at me. I told her I had to run inside, and she hugged me and said, "Something very bad will happen to you if you walk inside that building. Stay with me a little while, until you wake up."
I remember that was the moment I realized I was dreaming, and I started to cry because I knew I'd wake up, and she'd still be gone. Grammy just wiped my tears, hugged me tighter, and told me to stay so she could protect me before I woke up.
Here's a picture of Grammy, for reference.
My third story is TikTok famous on a very small scale. But since the video does very little to explain the full story, I'm going to tell you everything. I lived in an apartment complex at the end of a cul-de-sac. Just before the complex was a strip mall with a cigarette store, a gas station, and a couple of empty suites. A couple of weeks before this happened, a bar called "Hole in the Wall" opened at the end of the strip mall. My apartment complex and this bar just happened to be in the precise middle of two rival gang territories. A bit of a no man's land, if you will.
I fell asleep on the small couch in my apartment, and the TV was on. I dreamt of my great-grandmother, Ray Ray, who passed when I was two (almost three) years old. She was so excited to have great-grandchildren and loved me very much, and I've always been sad that she didn't live long enough to watch me grow into a person.
Anyway, I'd never dreamt of her before and haven't since, but I was walking up the porch steps to her house, and when she opened the door, she looked at me, put her hands on my shoulders, and said, "You need to lock your front door, young lady." I was confused, and then she squeezed once, and I woke up on the sofa, disoriented. It was just after midnight. As it turned out, my front door was unlocked, and there was also a breezeway leading from it to the stairwell. One of my neighbor's sons was always leaving the door open when he stepped out to smoke, so I closed it firmly, put the security bar and deadbolt jam on the front door, and locked up.
I say this without any exaggeration — not ten minutes later, there was a shooting at the bar, and I heard screams and people running as police sirens started up. Some of the gang members hauled ass into the complex to hide, and were trying the breezeway doors looking for somewhere to duck into. I heard them yank on the outer door in front of my place. My door.
Needless to say, I always checked the locks after that. The bar closed very quickly. If anything ever opened up in that space, it happened after I moved out.
Since I moved back to California, I haven't experienced anything quite like it. I can say with absolute certainty that Louisville is one of the most haunted places in America (especially because it also houses Waverly Hills Sanatorium). Everything they say about Appalachia and the Old South is true. The ghost stories are real.
I have no idea if anyone is actually going to read this post or if it's just going to be buried, but I figured I'd share. Be well, stay safe, and remember to lock your front door.
you want to hear all the paranormal experiences I've had and tell you about the ghost that lives in my house so you get scared and get closer to me and cuddle and pretend that wasn't my plan this whole time? *send*
I just got the weirdest feeling and I have no one to share it with so here we go. I work at my mentors metaphysical shop. Its a little haunted but arent they all? Other relevant information, Im a practicing witch. So im at home, no where near the shop, and I hear the EXACT sound of the fucking doorbell at the shop. The doorbell at my home does not sound anything like it and no one else hears anything. Then I got the most vivid mental image of a dark figure (not quite shadow figure more person in a dark room wearing all black) walking into the shop. Then the strongest urge to text my boss and ask them if they can see anything on the cameras. Im unsure of what the hell to do now bc Im not going to freak my boss out over likely nothing but Im also going to feel so guilty if I go in tomorrow and something DID happen.
