A few years ago, on my brother's birthday, as soon as he blew out the candles on his cake, our old radio turned on and started playing classical music. For our radio to turn on, we have to click a button, then manually twist two other ones. We were all at the table and the lights weren't on because we turn them off for the candles to stand out.

My mother was an extremely active and healthy woman. One night I had a dream that we were in the hospital with all these doctors and she was diagnosed with a cancer in the throat. I remember the sound was muffled in my dream but they kept pointing to my mothers throat. The dream was too vivid and when I woke up I immediately messaged my mother to go to the doctor. She brushed me off and thought it was funny. About 8 months later she went to the doctor for a cold that wouldn't go away and was diagnosed with an aggressive form of thyroid cancer and unfortunately passed away within a month. I still sometimes look at that message and wish I was more persistent.

A few years ago, the day before my birthday, I had a really weird dream. I was in my mother's kitchen with my mother (duh), only there were no walls and just a dark expanse all around. I walked up to her and asked, "So, how did he die?" She replied, "He woke up dead." I woke up at that point, around 4:30 AM according to my phone, and wrote this down in my dream journal beside my bed, which I was keeping at the time in an attempt to spur lucid dreaming (it was not successful; my first lucid dream occurred entirely by accident two months ago). A few hours later, maybe after 8 (after the sun was up, certainly), my brother called me, crying, to say that our uncle "S" was dead. Apparently, my aunt "S" woke up around 6:00 to wake him up for work as usual, only to find him blue-faced and cold in the bed next to her, choked on his vomit. This was a completely unexpected death; he had no medical conditions that would have worried my aunt, his sisters, or his mother, never mind the rest of the family. Even the autopsy came back inconclusive; they couldn't find any reason--medical, neurological, or chemical--as to why he suddenly puked in his sleep and didn't wake up from it...though my aunt did say that the coroners estimated he'd been dead 1-2 hours by the time she got up, right around the time I woke up from the "woke up dead" dream.

For several years I experienced what is commonly called 'sleep paralysis' the first experience was one of the most terrifying. I was taking a nap on Christmas Day, I had the common experience of a visceral buzzing in my ear/head, and a feeling of terrible evil coming upon me. I awoke, but couldn't open my eyes or move a muscle. I then felt someone grab onto my feet, and start crawling up my body, I felt completely overcome with evil, finally I pushed it all back and opened my eyes, and found myself alone. Similar experiences happened for years, each was terrifying, but almost became commonplace. I discovered that it was sleep paralysis, and someone said the best way to deal with it was to 'give in to it' and not to fight it. One day, I was taking a nap on my bed in the basement, my brother was a couple rooms down in our entertainment room. I felt that familiar visceral buzzing, my eyes opened, but I couldn't move; I decided to 'let go' this time and I gave in to it. As soon as I had done that, my body started to sit up, I saw my arm rising, and one thought dominated my mind. I had to kill my brother. I was halfway up, and panic set in and I pushed back as hard as I could, and eventually woke up panting and terrified. I never gave in to it again. It's lessened over the past few years, but every year or so it will come back.

When I was 10 my great grandfather passed away. My great grandmother wasn't used to being in the house alone so my dad and I put an extra light fixture in the hallway for her. After we finished I took an extension cord back down to the basement. I tossed it onto the table and began walking up the stairs. As I was climbing the steps I glanced to my right, beneath the wall I saw a pair of legs dressed in slacks walking by the table I just left. I bolted, ran past my gma and dad on my way out of the house. It was only the 3 of us there.

I went to a graveyard at about midnight with a group of friends to visit an old friend who died in a car accident. While we were standing around his grave, telling good stories about him, I hear a faint voice of an elderly woman. One of my friends says out loud "Oh shit, wtf?" I stand up and look toward the source. I saw a very old woman, literally dressed in a white tattered night gown about 100ft away. She started talking to us. "Sir?? Get over here now, I need help!" We stood still. No one said a thing. The part that weirded me out was that she used the singular word "Sir" when clearly there was five of us. She started walking closer and started speaking again but even louder. "Boys, I need your help NOW." Note the plurality. Then, she literally started RUNNING toward us, screaming nonsense. We were all scared out of our minds so we ran back to the car, with this old woman close behind. We reached the car, which was a 2-door, and everyone got in before me. Including the driver, so the driver's seat was blocking my entrance to the back seat. I yelled as I approached the car and he got out and let me in. Doors slammed and we flew down the small graveyard roads to the opposite side, where the exit was. This is where shit got WEIRD. We get to the other side of the graveyard in like 10 seconds. We're speeding toward the exit, and we approach a curved road that was well lit. AND THE OLD LADY RAN ONTO THE ROAD! No way she RAN over there that fast. I see her trying to chase us down and finally she lets out the most terrifying scream I've ever heard. Sounded like she was being murdered slowly and painfully. We fled the scene just seconds after and never returned. Four other friends of mine can testify as witnesses to that night. By far the most terrifying experience in my life.

Short non-Pulitzer version: Got lost with girlfriend at night in Waco, Texas. Roads were deserted. No people. No cars. Then saw one lone person standing on the corner as I made a turn. I heard a friendly male voice in the vehicle, as if sitting in the back seat, say to me, "You're going the wrong way." I noticed I was, indeed, going the wrong way on a one way street so I did a U-turn. The road took me directly to the main highway. Asked my girlfriend a bit later if she heard the voice too and she burst into tears because she had been so freaked out by it she thought she was going insane or something.

This is in my mom's life, not mine. Once when she was a kid, she was waiting with her younger sister at the bus stop when she felt a strong craving for a candy bar. She is normally extremely cautious and responsible, but this one time she felt such as strong urge for candy that she decided to run to the nearest convenience store with her sister and get some. By the time they got back to the stop, a driver had lost control of the bus and mowed down a bunch of people there.

I was either 13 or 14, home alone one evening before my parents got home from work. In my room watching tv when i hear the blinds from our patio door in the kitchen slightly move. I freak out and go take a look and notice them just stopping as i arrive. I am weirded out but in my head i explain it as a current that passed in the house since our heating is on. As im heading back to the room i hear a sharp thump sound as if something has fallen. Im freaking out as i now think there is someone in the house but i know there is no way they could have been in the kitchen and then my room without me noticing. I peak inside and see my baseball player statue that has a flat base laying sideways on my dresser. Somehow it got knocked over. I freakin run downstairs put the tv on full blast as i didnt want to hear anything else and wait terrified for my parents to get home.

Once when I was younger, I was at my Grandma's house probably back in like '93. I was drawing at the kitchen table when a marble rolled along the floor, I didn't think much of it because it could've been the old floors. But then, it rolled twice around all 4 legs of the chair in perfect fucking circles, and rolled off. I was just in shock for a few moments, then went back to drawing.

When my father died in the hospital, my mom and I got home and looked at the family clock (one of those old French mechanical ones with weights). The clock had stopped exactly at the time of my father's passing. Now, nothing was wrong with the clock. The weights were up and everything should have been working. It just stopped ticking at exactly 8:35. I'm not generally a religious person, but that was definitely odd and got me thinking. Exactly one year later, on the first anniversary of my father's death, the clock stopped again at five past half nine. Same story this year. I feel as if the clock has some connection with my father.

When I was younger my parents got me a bunk bed so I could have friends come over and spend the night. You know try to be the cool kid in elementary school who invited all his friends over. Well it was a trick eventually soon after my uncle moved in with us and he crashed on the bottom bunk while I slept on the top. My uncle also happened to be bartending at the time so he often came home really late like 2am for example. Sometimes a bit intoxicated sometimes not. Well one night after he comes home and wakes me up from all the noise he makes I tell him goodnight then roll over and try to fall back asleep. After falling back asleep maybe 30 minutes later I feel the most unbelievable strong grasp on my arm. Imagine a full grown man taking his hand and wrapping it around your entire forearm. That's what it felt like for maybe a good 2 seconds then gone. Of course it woke me up freaking out. I look down thinking it was my uncle fucking with me. He was passed out on his stomach. To this day I don't know what caused it. I know for a fact it woke me up so could of been some werid dream were the feelings transferred over into the real world a little bit.

I ordered a really cool stereo by mail. My older brother said he'd assemble it when it arrived (he was living in his own place at the time). I told him all I wanted to hear on that stereo was Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin. Came home one day from work one day and heard that song wailing through the streets from two blocks away and I knew my stereo had arrived. Years later, after my brother passed away, I decided to unbox and use his very expensive stereo system. Realized I couldn't put it together so I hired a guy to do it for $50. While he was putting it together I was telling him about my Heartbreaker-old-stereo story. He finally said ok, when I put this last wire in it should work. As you can guess...the song that came blasting out of those awesome Bose speakers was...Heartbreaker. That guy freaked out and FLEW out of my house. FLEW. Didn't take his money. Didn't say goodbye, just gone. I still miss my brother some 30 years later. I have other stories