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Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I really hope you enjoy this episode. And if you'd like to hear more stories like these with a different background sound, please check the description to check out my other two podcasts. And if you want to get rid of all of the ads, you can subscribe for just $2.99 a month. Last thing, I really appreciate you being here and I'd really love if you would follow the podcast and come back again soon. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy. I want to start this story off by saying that for the sake of confidentiality, all real names will be replaced with fake ones Me and my friends had a phase when we were around 18 years old where we were fascinated with the idea of exploring abandoned locations, usually disregarding how dangerous or risky the area is. Since I live in one of the more suburban and unpopular areas of Australia, oftentimes it would be difficult to find new and exciting places to investigate. So you can imagine when we caught wind of an abandoned apartment complex in the city, we immediately jumped on the idea of paying the place a visit. We decided to go on the same night we planned on visiting a club, so by the time we arrived at the place, me and my friends were mostly buzzed or intoxicated. Looking back on that, it was a really dumb idea, but we were dumb new adults. This would be a good time to introduce my friends. We have Don, a well built guy who was the leader of most of our expeditions, Connor, who like myself loved exploring and usually followed what Don would say. And then we have Beth, Kate, Jill and Brooke, who only really came for the club but still decided to tag along for the ride. Upon arrival we were met with a large fence surrounding the perimeter. It was at this point where Kate volunteered to be on lookout for security from the outside, since this place did still seem to be decently monitored. With some struggle the rest of us managed to hop the fence and we were greeted with the large U shaped building standing at around 20 stories tall. As per usual, Don took the lead and fearlessly opened the door to one of the stairwells, myself and Connor following eagerly behind with the girls hesitantly close behind us. Throughout most of our exploration we would open doors and look through the rooms. Most of the time we would find many plates and other objects left by previous owners on the stained, rugged floors or broken kitchen tops. As we began traversing further up the complex, we discovered the stairways were weirdly blocked off, so we would have to constantly move between stairwells in order to get to higher floors. As we were on roughly the 15th floor. I began to get bored from the repetitiveness of the similarity of the rooms. So while in a somewhat drunken state, I thought it would be a good idea to randomly try and kick in one of the sliding glass doors. I know in hindsight this was a really dumb idea, but you don't exactly consider the consequences in the state and mindset that I was in. Either way, my pathetic attempt at this kick failed and I was promptly scalded by the others for the noise it made. In the middle of laughing it off, I noticed Jill's face go pale before she began hushing us while pointing upwards. Did any of you hear that noise? I think there's someone above us. She quietly exclaimed. This was enough to set both Beth and Brooke off, wanting to leave immediately. Dawn, however, had a different idea. Then let's go. Hurry. He said while brushing past us to the door. Dawn has always been like this, disregarding safety before exploration. We didn't even have time to say no. However, we all had to follow him as we all didn't want him to possibly get hurt or for us five to be left alone without dawn to guide us. Reluctantly, we all quietly chased after Don, who by this point began peeking through the doors and windows to each room on the floor above. We were about halfway through the hallway when we saw security flashlights on the bottom floor along with K. Gates message alerting what we were seeing. Crap. The sound of the kick must have been too loud and now the bottom level is on high alert. Simultaneously as this is happening, we hear a large thud in one of the rooms right next to where we are standing. Dawn froze. I guess he must have initially thought that Jill was joking and tried to play it off as such to freak out the rest of us. Yet I had never seen him so reluctant on an exploration before. We all heard it this time. As we approached the door, we continued to hear slight shuffling from the room. This was enough to send Jill, Beth and Brooke to the other end of the walkway, begging us to leave. But myself, Don and Connor all knew that for the sake of conclusions, we all needed to see what was behind that door. Don began to approach the door, turned the knob and pushed the door wide open. I then used my phone to illuminate the room. What we saw next is permanently ingrained in my mind. We saw an older looking man, gray beard with minimal hair cuts all along his right arm holding a reflective object resembling a shard of glass or a knife, with the most crooked and twisted smile on his face. The crimson red liquid was splattered all over the carpet and next thing I know Don and Connor have already began fleeing the scene. I too followed closely after them. It was hard to tell if he was chasing us, but assuming the worst, we nearly fell down the flight of stairs desperately trying to get away. Once exiting through the first floor, we were quickly detained by the security staff, clearly seeing the distress on each of our faces as we tried to communicate the situation we had just witnessed. Long story short, the cops were called to investigate the building and find the man and roughly half an hour later they came out with the man in cuffs. He looked filthy and evil as he gave us one last glance grin before entering the police car. One cop who had been up there told us that it was a good thing we got away from there as his intentions were very clearly awful. Safe to say that we didn't go to any more clubs that night. The next morning I woke up and checked my phone to be introduced with a flood of messages on our group chats. I scrolled up to the beginning to see that Connor had sent a news article published this morning stating that a homeless man had been murdered and his body was discovered within the apartment complex that night. This sent chills down my spine as I recalled that image of him and the amount of blood pooled on the ground and down his arm and worst of all, that insane crooked smile. Since this event two years ago, none of us have been exploring abandoned places and in all honesty, I think it's going to stay that way for a really, really long time. I have had three sleep paralysis instances in total that I can remember. The first time was in 2018 when I had just moved back to Australia from America and I was on a really uncomfortable inflatable mattress. All I can remember was waking up, only barely being able to move and really struggling to sit up as this was happening. My vision in front of me was mostly blacked out, but I could still somewhat see around me. I quickly broke from it and was terrified as I had heard of sleep paralysis before and knew about the horrors people have faced as a result of it. Safe to say I considered myself lucky. The second time was in 2020. I had woken up in the morning and could not move at all, not even slightly. The instance was a lot more severe and terrifying for me as all I could think about while locked out of my body was there better not be a shadow with this. I attempted to yell and scream but all that came out my mouth were groans. Thankfully, I eventually snapped out of it before the sleep paralysis could escalate further or my worst fear of seeing a shadow person or apparition came true. That brings us to the third and most traumatizing and terrifying encounter I had with sleep paralysis. It was during 2021 and in the midst of a stressful time for me due to university exams. This may have been something that contributed towards it, but then again, who knows? This time was very different from the previous two. I vividly remember dreaming of being in an unfamiliar house that when describing it to people I usually connect it to having a very similar appearance to the house from the Amazing World of Gumball. I know weird connection to make, but that was my first thought when thinking over the appearance of the house. I remember in the dream approaching some photos on a wall in some living room space. They were photos of my family, group photos and individual photos all scattered the walls. I was looking through them until I saw an unfamiliar face. It was a standalone photo of a woman who appeared to be in her 30s, wearing a white Victorian old style dress all on her own, staring into my soul. Upon seeing this I was especially creeped out, so I turned my head to the left and stopped right in my tracks. There she was. The exact same woman from the photo, just standing in the living room of this house facing away from me. In my dream, I let out some sort of loud reaction and all of a sudden her face snapped sideways where her eyes were meeting mine. At which point I awoke instantly. However, to my horror, I quickly discovered I was experiencing sleep paralysis yet again. This time however, I looked slightly to my side to see the woman yet again, but actually standing on the other side of my room. Words cannot describe the level of pure fear and terror I experienced at that moment. As I began to try and scream and yell, the only noise that came out of my mouth yet again was some weird groan not loud enough for anyone to hear. Things only escalated when the woman began to slowly approach my bed while slightly kneeling down to meet her face with mine. All while she had a finger over her mouth, smiling at the same time as if to hush me. For my desperate attempts at screaming out for help as well as mocking me for doing so, this felt like pure hell. The terror of this was almost unbearable for me. I remember looking towards the roof of my room and seeing multiple white glowing apparitions moving in and out of my ceiling, all while this woman is constantly saying shh to me. Next thing I know it was all gone. I could finally move again and I had never been more grateful to fully wake up in my entire life. I don't know if anything from what I experienced had any deeper meaning. I seriously doubt it too. Since all this, I have never been able to identify the woman with anyone I know or anyone from my family that I never met but still have photos of. I hope I never need to give an update with a fourth experience of this horrible phenomenon. I just want to start by saying that I live in Northern Ontario near a very small village that I'll leave the name out of for privacy reasons. My friend and I, both 14 at the time, who I'll call Steph wanted to hang out once school was out. At some point during summer break she messaged my mom through her mom's cell since we both didn't have phones at the time asking if I wanted to hang out. I thought it would be fun and agreed to meet up with her. She lived a little ways out of town, but we made plans to walk the 20 minutes to get to town and hang out there. I arrive at around 2 and we began our trek. Most people are always saying how small and innocent their area is and how nothing happens, but this town is quite the opposite. It's actually a hotspot for trafficking, drugs, drug busts, assault, you name it. Regardless, our tiny 14 year old brains thought since we had never actually witnessed any of that, we should be safe to walk around town by ourselves. Right? Wrong. We were so wrong and you will soon find out why. We finally reached our destination and found a convenience store where we could buy some candy and sit on the curb. You know, regular kid stuff. Another friend of mine lived in town and Steph decided it would be a perfect opportunity to show me where he lived. We are weaving our way through the back roads when we get to this really sketchy run down street. We pass an auto shop with the garage door wide open and see a man working on a vehicle. I nod politely and we continue on our way down the street, passing by all of the seemingly empty houses because it's the 21st century and no one goes outside anymore. We come across a house with an old disheveled looking man in the yard. He looks to be around 50 or 60 with completely white hair, a very long and equally white beard. We only noticed him because of how odd he was sitting like he was sitting normally in a lawn chair, but the back of the chair was on the ground and his legs straight in the air. Just then he spotted us and called towards us. Can you come help me? In a loud demanding tone. We stopped and looked at each other and I moved to go over to him. When Steph put an arm in front of me, I look at her and say, I think he fell over. We should help him, and she tells me there's no way at our size we could lift him up. The man starts screaming at us to get over there, and it no longer sounds like he wants help. My heart starts racing and I look around frantically because I want to help him, but my gut feeling says this situation is very off. Why can't he just roll over onto the grass and get up? There's no wheelchair or walking stick in sight, so I'm doubting he's paralyzed. He's continuing to scream at us, saying, get over here. Now I suddenly remember the man in the garage just a few meters down the street, and I tell Steph, if he really needs help, we should go get that man. She agrees and we tell the old man that we're getting help and we'll be back in a minute. We race down the street as fast as we can and stumble into the garage, huffing painfully and trying to get out the words. There's a man down the street. He might be hurt. It looks like he fell without question. The man in the shop follows us to the property. We halt in front of the house, confused, and he looks at us with question on his face. The yard is empty, the chair is gone, and the old man is nowhere in sight. We were gone for not even a minute. Even if he did get help in that time, they wouldn't have had time to disappear so quickly. We told the mechanic guy that he was just here here screaming at us to help him. He explains that maybe the guy got up himself and just walked inside, and though I doubted that theory, I nodded my head in agreement. He later gave us some water bottles and we thanked him and went on our way. I still think about it to this day, and every time I just become extremely perplexed with the whole situation. Where did he go? I still live near that town seven years later, and I go to town at least three times a week, yet I have never once seen him. Maybe he really did just get up himself, but the tone in his voice is what put me off. And why would someone happen to have a lawn chair directly in the center of their yard facing their house? It makes no sense, but nonetheless, I hope I never see him again. Ever since I was little, and despite occasional insomnia, I have always been a deep sleeper and difficult to rouse. This has also been accompanied by my vivid dreams. I have never been able to harness the ability to lucid dream as when I realize it is one, I become too excited and inevitably wake up completely or just enough that I am not experiencing the dream but watching it as if it is a movie. That being said, I have never truly tried to learn how to lucid dream. This is because I heard lucid dreaming can cause sleep paralysis and to me my dreams are enough of an adventure as it is. And the terrors that come from sleep paralysis are just not worth it to me. I already suffer from night terrors and anxiety dreams, so the idea of having one of those while mostly awake and aware of my surroundings sounds like, well, you guessed it, a nightmare. Occasionally when I am drifting off to sleep, especially during naps, my body will be asleep but my mind is partially aware and awake. This allows me to perceive the sounds around me or even conversations people are having while unrelated. This is also when I am the most active with my sleep talking. If you engage me directly on the even rarer occasion, I can be having a dream and narrate to people around me what I am seeing So I live with my husband and ever since my work schedule changed a few years ago, I have struggled to wake up earlier than 9 or 10am Occasionally when my husband leaves for work, I'll get up and let the dogs out to pee, let them back in and go back to bed in my sleepy haze. I sometimes forget to lock the door before going back to bed. If I'm not sure, close your eyes,