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I must've been about 3, couldn't have been any older. I just remember looking in my dark closet and in the top corner seeing a monster. It looked like a cartoon pine tree a bit, except it was SO incredibly blue - blue like the descriptions of that new colour they discovered recently, that blueish teal that's bluer than anything you've ever seen. No shading or anything, like if you went into MS paint and cut out a Christmas tree shape from a screen full of that shade and slapped it in the upper right corner of my closet, peeking behind the door. It had these big sesame street eyes and big cartoon teeth, and it was so angry - I think it might've been laughing at me. I stared at it for so long, and when I could finally get up and move I was so slow, even though I was running at full speed down the stairs to my mind it registered at a snails pace.
As soon as I hit the bottom step, though, everything went back to normal, the laughing was gone, and my mom was looking at me with concern. The lights of the dining room were so yellow, and I still associate that with safety now, same as the smell my mom's lotion. I sat on her lap for a while, and the memory ends there. Don't recommend the sleep paralysis, but I do recommend warm vanilla sugar from bath and body works if you need some nostalgic comfort scents or something to chase away the MS paint demons
Jul 16, 2025

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Whatever this is is both horrifying and incredible. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone talk about memories involving any "monsters" or scary things they seemingly made up. I guess I supposed we all forgot the details of those things with age. Thank you so much for sharing. Your descriptions really drew me in. That's good writing!
Jul 16, 2025
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Wow….
Jul 16, 2025
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whether they involve ghosts or time warping or crop circles, I love to listen to people’s stories about their brushes with the unknown….this is one that happened when I was around seven years old, and recall so vividly it plays like a movie in my mind:
One morning, when my sister and I were very small, my family took us to Santa Fe to visit our uncle. We stayed in a gorgeous old adobe hacienda-style home, with my sister and I sharing a room. One early morning, our first one there, my sister (around four years old at the time) woke all of us up when she ran out of the bathroom absolutely hysterical, screaming that a man was in the bathroom. My parents, jumping to the conclusion that there must’ve been a peeping Tom in the tiny stained glass window adjacent to the toilet, scoured the area for anyone, or any sign of anyone. of course, they found nothing.
Later, when she was calmer and more intelligible, my sister told us a tall man wearing a coat and hat had appeared directly in front of her out of thin air, and she’d had to run around him to escape the bathroom. That evening, when my parents described the incident to my uncle (an architect whose boss graciously allowed us to stay in that house), he told us that while his boss had made jokes about the place being haunted, he never would’ve guessed it was true.
if you have a creepy story you’ve been itching to tell, help us set the Halloween mood at Gilded and send it over! We want to read it for our upcoming Halloween special. Our hearts (and Google form) are open to you ❤️🎃
Sep 21, 2024
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When I was younger, I was terrified of matadors and the people who threw the tassels into the bull. And so, when I would get my night terrors, I would sleep ram into things thinking they were matadors. This was fine if it was a blanket or a stuffed animal, but the final time it was a locked door. Now, I have scars running through my eyebrow from trying to run down a doorknob in my sleep 😅🥲
Feb 24, 2025

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