^Well played.

This troper would just like to take a moment to thank all of the trolls who've made this article go from HighOctaneNightmareFuel to a CrowningMomentOfFunny. Ghosts, heh :)

This troper isn't really afraid of our two resident ghosts (they're almost certainly my grandparents on my father's side), but they have startled us before. Both me and my parents have had knocks on our doors with nobody there to do the knocking. We've smelt cigarette smoke (none of us smoke, but my father's father did), and a house guest saw my grandmother in the hallway to my room, bathroom and the guest room (description matched her). However, both the said guest and myself are creeped out by the forest behind our house (neither one of us knew the other one was creeped out by it). I've personally heard someone say "Hi" when everyone else was asleep (female voice, no women in the house at the time of hearing, as my mother was in NY and the guest was long gone).

This troper got this after having anesthesia for her wisdom teeth removal. When she woke up, she realized that she had no dreams or thoughts while under anesthesia. From there, she proceeded to have an existential freakout, worrying if she really existed (or if she'd stopped sometime during the operation). Or what if she'd died while under anesthesia and no one told her, her life was an illusion, and she was going to wake up one day to the shock of finding absolutely nothing (a deserted plane with her as the sole inhabitant), or a totally dark, empty house like in that Garfield comic? She seems to have these issues every time she has anesthesia.

This troper's city of 80,000 people once had a power outage that lasted for three or four days. One evening during the outage I had to drive across town. The power had come back on in part of the commercial district, and there was enough emergency power in the municipal system to keep the street lights running - but nothing was open, and the streets were empty. It was also dark out and there was a light fog; the overall effect was post-apocalyptic. The strip malls and shopping plazas stood half-lit and empty, low dark boxes clustered in the back of abandoned parking lots - mountains upon mountains edging a concrete plain. Just driving through was terrifying for absolutely no good reason.

this troper once decided to go out driving in the middle of the night, it was very unnerving to drive in a mostly empty road, it didn't help that I sometimes see things that are not really there, after that this troper promised himself to never drive after midnight.

This troper was playing Mass Effect and was messing around on one of the uncharted worlds at about 2 AM. Now, there's only a certain area you can really explore, with the rest of the area colored in red on the mini-map to let you know not to go there. So what does this troper do? Go straight to the off-limits area. As I was driving there I noticed it was really quiet, so I started to get pretty paranoid, wondering if anything was going to happen. As soon as I crossed the line, a Thresher Maw (read: giant worm-monster that comes out of the ground ''right under me'') pops out and I promptly have a mini-heart attack, drop my controller, and turn off the Xbox without saving it. It took awhile for my heart to stop racing.

A little earlier, this troper was in her attic with a flashlight, trying to see why the light switch wasn't working. Suddenly, a gust of wind rattled my windows very loudly, then went completely silent. Needless to say, I think I'll just check it in the morning.

Doesn't help that as I'm typing this, the wind keeps blowing the screen door around outside, and it's random creaking is almost enough to make me get up at shut the door. Almost.

Shit, the door just shut on it's own. I'm not going to sleep, apparently.

We run a self catering-house next to our own. After dinner once I thought I heard something. Later that night I tried going in to the house but the lock was broken. My dad went opened the house by going through the second floor window. I looked everywhere for this guy. He didn't appear making him more scary.

This troper found a poisonous spider in his bed. Goes to get the spray, comes back and it's gone. Troper sleeps on the couch.

One cold winter night, this troper felt a draft in the kitchen. The front door, located in the unlit adjoining room, had been opened. I gazed into the darkness, only to have my worst fears realized as the faint outline of the door became apparent. It suddenly occurred to me that, perhaps, in the still-unlit half of the house, someone might be there, who should not be there. It was a singularly terrifying experience, primarily for the fact that I had no idea whether or not anyone was there.

One of my hobbies is coming up with ideas for video games. One of my most recent ideas is for a haunted house in an RPG that is dedicated to this trope; instead of spooky music and halloween-themed monsters, there will be NO music and NO monsters... just the sound of the wind and your footsteps. To add to the tension, the wind will ''stop'' blowing once you get halfway through. Just when you're about to exit, you run into the boss (Who's FightWoosh music will start out a ''tad'' louder, just to get the gamer jumping). The boss? A dark-skinned man in a white business suit, with a red blindfold over his eyes and a rusty mace in his right hand, being held towards the floor. He never moves. Ever. He attacks by gliding across the floor into you, never so much as twitching. When he dies, he simply turns around and glides away while sinking into the floor. The kicker? This man will ''not be explained in any way at any part of the game''. Admit it, you just got the chills.

Not really, that actually sounds really cliche, and the lack of any walking animations for the bad guy, or explanation, just sounds really lazy. Not to mention it sounds like the biggest slender man ripoff in history.

I don't know, it sounded pretty good to this troper.

This troper can top that easily. You play a man who enters a very large house late at night to get help to fix his car and the door locks itself the moment he enters the house. You need to try to find a way out of it while trying to find clues as the why the house is so quiet. Maybe halfway through the game, you find a letter by one of the house owners who mentions a monstrous creature living in the basement and a secret passage out of the house through said basement...while also mentioning concerns about their younger daughter who seems to be acting very strangely. In the resultant cutscene, the character turns around...to find a terrifying ghost of a young woman standing behind him (bear in mind that this entire game will be first person). After defeating the ghost (don't ask how, I haven't decided that yet), you realise that you should check the attic (which you can't check before this point). The way into the attic, previously unreachable, is suddenly down for you to climb up. When you check through the attic, you find the dead bodies of the other family members and a kayake paddle. When you collect the paddle, the family members stand up and try to kill you (the paddle will come in handy). On further investigation through the attic, you will find a silver crucifix and a strange note about how the family members tried to hide from the ghost that possessed their daughter, but it trapped them inside the attic. You can probably guess what happens next if I tell you it is basically a repeat of the letter, except that the ghost is harder to defeat and will start coming through the floor to try to kill you. When you finally defeat it, you realise that the only way out is through the celler, which is suspiciously empty until you find what looks like the exit. it is actually the ghost again, who is determined to kill you this time by possessing you. However, the crucifix prevents you from being possessed, so she tries to kill you by summoning the celler monster: a giant maggot-like creature. After defeating it (and it can OneHitKill you by swallowing you, complete with first person view of your death), the ghost reveals it's real identity as the ghost of the murderer who owned the house centuries before the previous owners were even born. You finally must kill it before escaping out of the celler in a cutscene. True, it sounds a bit like AloneInTheDark, but who said you needed to be original?

This troper is extremely frightened by unattended memorials, especially ones on the site of what they're for. But there's nothing there, right? Nothing jumps out at you. There's nothing to distract you from the realisation of exactly where you are, what you're looking for. You're left alone in your own mind for a while, with knowledge of whatever horrible thing the place was built to ensure we wouldn't forget, and there's ''nothing at all'' to distract you from it...

This trope is why this troper cannot watch horror movies (or anything scary) at night. Her imagination is a very active one, so seeing anything remotely scary at night makes her mind go overtime to the point where she imagines things are going to jump out at her in the sleeping quiet of her home, even though she knows there's no conceivable way for anything like that to happen. Ever look up the list for Silent Hill monsters on a chilly early morning? It does wonders for keeping you awake and paranoid.

This troper has exactly the same problem, right down to the Silent Hill monsters. The fact that she is a night owl and is the one who goes to bed last does not help.

This troper has similar problems. I watched Nightmare on Elm Street, and I start dozing off, and suddenly feel something ''metal'' on my shoulder, and something like a chuckle. I wake up screaming. Nothing was there.

Same problem here. This is why I never watch Blink or MarbleHornets at night.

I once watched both of those at night, one after the other. Naturally, the fire alarm went off in the middle of Entry 23.

This troper, after seeing his first internet screamer, did not fail to notice the fact that the screamer background looked a lot like his dining room...

These days, this troper's uncle, who she knows almost nothing about, lives in her family basement. She almost never sees him, and he's very quiet. Very, very quiet. He comes out more often at night. It's very dark on the main floor at night, and her uncle never turns on the lights. Some of her other uncles have had trouble with the law. This troper doesn't go downstairs at night anymore.

Not to make light of your fears, but it wouldn't be more constructive to GET TO KNOW HIM, so you don't find him so scary anymore?

This troper enjoys going places she shouldn't (like the service hallways in malls), but the silent emptiness of said hallways is both part of the appeal and the reason she can't do it for very long.

This troper's house has so much junk (kitchenware, food containers, books, etc.) on the shelves and piled into Rubbermaid bins over the edge that it's not uncommon for objects to fall, leading to the occasional sound of a pot falling to the carpet or a few magazines sliding off the pile. Still, it's been enough to make him grab the nearest blunt object (an industrial-size paint stirrer that's basically a thick, solid wooden pole the size of his arm) and hold it close at hand.

ThisTroper holds that the creepiest thing is a place that is normally full of people, empty. Go to a school in the middle of the night, and try not to imagine all the things lurking in the shadows, and the silence.

Its this troper's job to close a store in a mall alone, and the worst time is right before closing. The place is always deserted, but you always know there is a very real chance someone is there. Once the place is closed the locked doors actually make it seem a lot more safe.

This Troper has learned, the hard way, that an empty hospital at night is one of the '''scariest places''' to be in. Her footsteps echoed through the hallway, almost deafening in the silence. Most of the place was dark and lights only turned on when she got close to the motion sensors. The television in a waiting room was blasting static. The worst thing? The reception desk was empty, even though she had a scheduled appointment. Needless to say, this troper ''bolted'' out of there.

Television? What's going on with that television?

This troper can attest to the fact that not much is creepier than going somewhere and finding out it's empty, when you expected otherwise

This troper once found a room in a building in Italy. It was stone, apparently old, and she got really bad vibes from it, so naturally, she decided to explore it. It was also extremely dark, even though it was well-lit outside the room and the door was open. In fact, it was so dark, that without anything to light the way, this troper had to take tiny, careful steps for fear of falling down an unseen staircase or drop. Good thing, too, as there did turn out to be one in the room. Anyway, this was very very slow, so it took her about twenty minutes to get around the room. Though nothing actually happened in there and the only things she found were stone benches, glass cases, and a big glass wall, it was one of the most frightening experiences this troper has ever had.

What was in the cases?

something tells me your not too genre savvy

This troper was walking in a wood near the edge of a field in France with her mother. They came across what appeared to be the coach house of the nearby château, in a semi-restored state. It was a weekend, no breeze or drafts whatsoever, late afternoon, twilight beginning to fall. Although there were a few signs of work in progress, everything was put away for the weekend: there were no lights, front door firmly closed, absolutely no sign of anyone else present. We walk around the outside of the building, gaze at the back of it for a bit, peer in the windows, go around to the front again. The front door was now ajar. The front. door. was. ajar. Even more strangely, this troper's old mother suddenly started enthusing like a little girl, insisting "we ought to go in, we ought to go in." I couldn't get us away from there fast enough.

Oh flaming heck. What did I read that for? What did I write that for?? And right before bedtime, too.

that probably saved your life, we have bad vibes for reasons.

This troper was once in her local shopping centre with a group of friends when an announcement came over the speakers, saying ''Please be aware there has been an incident in the centre. Please await further instructions.'' We hung around there for a while and it repeated itself every few minutes or so, but nothing else happened. Eventually we decided to go find my mum and get the heck out of there. We still don't know what it was all about.

Clearly someone prevented the zombie apocalypse via killing Zombie #1 before it could bite anyone.

A few years ago this troper and their family went on holiday to a cottage in Scotland. Said cottage was in the middle of nowhere, beyond remote (it was half an hour's drive to the nearest village) and in an incredibly bleak area (earning it the nickname 'The Land that Trees Forgot'). There were a couple of other cottages and a farm down the hill but we never saw the inhabitant, just evidence of their activities, eg we got up one morning and all the sheep were gone. The cottage was pokey, always dark, and was furnished mostly with apparently second hand stuff so that it looked like someone lived there and had just vanished or something. It was also very,very, quiet. This troper spent the entire week on edge.

More recently, this troper and family were driving back from somewhere at night when we stopped to get petrol. The petrol station was 24-hour and there was a car parked by the pumps, but there was nobody there. The car was empty, the area deserted and it was completly silent. We got out of there as fast as we could.

A year or so ago, my family left me alone for about a week, the first few days I was completely fine, about three days in, the sounds, just normal sounds, started to scare the hell out of me, I was sure the thump in the night was a thief, so much so that I eventually began carrying around a large butcher knife and, for some obtuse reason(that sounded good then)I wrapped myself in a blanket, I began talking to myself to fill in the silence. When my family eventually came back they found a dirty child, wrapped in a blanket, holding a rather large butcher knife, mumbling to himself and poised to attack the imaginary thief's.

This Troper and some friends were helping out at a Halloween Fair the city was hosting. The fair was being held in a field that was essentially barren. Only 2 houses were their, one of which was being used as the haunted house. The other was partially hidden behind a bunch of trees and looked deserted. Not that many people came to the fair, so this troper and her friends decided to go in the house. We went to the front door. Locked. We checked the windows. Locked. We went to the back door. Locked. We decided to give up and head back, and when we passed the front door, it was open. No car in the driveway or anywhere nearby. No lights on in the house. But the door that had been previously locked was now wide open. We rushed out of their as quickly as we could.

More recently, this troper decided that she would muster up her courage and go in the house. Once again, the front door was locked, but interestingly, the back door was not. She go in and the lights are on. That should have been a relief, but instead it frightened this troper, because the house was supposed to be deserted. And then, just as she's ready to go into the next room, this troper hear a faint noise that sounds vaguely like moaning. This troper decided she wasn't going to bother with this house. Haven't gone near it since.

What kind of moaning you could have stumbled on a burlesque house THAT would be awkward.

Now we know where the above-mentioned zombie came from.

This troper is currently staying at the dorms for the summer. Pretty much all of the summer students won't be here until later on in May. Now I'm accustomed to the random noises that the rest of the people make, but now since no one is here, not even someone at the front desk, This troper gets the foreboding sense that something bad will happen...

Have you ever been in a supermarket and found the background music has stopped? This Troper has.

It happened to this troper once. She was walking along in an aisle and the store was relatively empty. She suddenly stopped and realized that it was extremely silent and she ran to find her mom.

This troper was in a computer shop once when all the lights went out. Every single computer went blank, and an alarm started going off. {{It Got Worse}}. One of the workers switched on the intercom and said in a far too panicky voice, "There is no need to evacuate. Please remain calm. There is no need to evacuate. Please remain calm." Repeated over and over again, until, "There is no need to evacuate. Please remain-" This troper couldn't get out fast enough.

One night this troper (KurtmanJP) was lying in bed and he heard footsteps directly out his window. Keep in mind, his window is on the second story of a house and the footsteps sounded like they were on a hardwood floor. It almost sounded like they were pacing and stop then start right up after a couple minutes. Also keep in mind, my family has NO hardwood floors and that this happened at 4:40 in the morning till 6:15. Sometimes the footsteps would even return in broad daylight.

When this troper was young, his mother and sister went off to run some errands and his dad went down the street to talk to a neighbor, all of this without telling me. That was a set up for this...I was about seven years old and I walked out into my house to find the place empty and silent as a grave, when I stepped outside I could hear nothing (no wind,no birds,and no cars). To cap it off, the silence was finally broken...by a lone helicopter that buzzed shockingly low by my house. I was 7, and as far as I knew the world had ended.

Similarly, this troper's parents are both ER doctors, and would occasionally be called in for emergencies in the middle of the night. More than once as a young child, this troper woke to find the house completely deserted (except for her sister, who didn't count). It also didn't help that it was a fairly large house; sometimes her parents were just tucked away in the library or the TV room, and sometimes they were simply... gone. But you wouldn't know for certain until you searched every room in the house...

I grew up in a house with about two to four ghosts. There's something evil in the basement bedroom (I once saw the back half of something catlike and black disappearing through the bedroom wall into the next room as I came in, and the room gives off really bad vibes). I've seen a man in 19th-century clothing go down the basement stairs at least three times, and I think he may have passed me once while I was sitting on the stairs. My young cousins claimed to see a ghost on the back patio while they were over after dark once and I have heard tapping and scratching noises at the doors and windows that adjoin the patio. There's also something that wants to come in at the front door. The dog, every so often, will race up to the door barking her hysterical someone-rang-the-doorbell bark when there's nothing out there and it's well after dark. My room shares walls with the front hall and the outer wall, and when my bed was in that corner I used to have terrible nightmares about not being in time to keep someone else from letting an evil woman into the house. Once or twice I've heard people talking in another room when I was home alone or the only one awake (something even asked me a direct question on one occasion). The scariest thing, about it, though, is the incredible feeling of being watched by something unfriendly when I'm alone there after dark. Nothing happens, there's just this overwhelmingly evil feeling about the place. And it's actually mellowed a little with time; I remember coming home from school a few times and having to wait in the yard until someone else got back because I just couldn't stand to be alone in the house. My parents still live there. It's been a long time since I've actually seen anything there, but to this day I cannot stay alone at their house overnight.

Speaking of spookyhouse, I've been house/pet-sitting there the last couple weeks. Absolutely nothing happened, not even the uh-oh feeling I normally get when I'm there after dark. The dog developed the habit of running up to the door in from the garage in the middle of the night and lying there alert and waggy like she does when someone is about to come in through that door, but I'm not convinced she wasn't just pretending/hoping/had dreamed Mom and Dad were coming home. Then last night she woke me up around three in the morning doing her soft, muttering woof she makes when she sees something outside she wants to bark at. When I got up, she started doing her "oh boy, people are here!" bouncing and yapping routine. The front door had been ajar when I came in from playing with her in the yard earlier in the day, but I didn't think much of it, since I might have left it that way one of the times I went in or out. And as the night went on, it seemed increasingly unlikely that someone would come in when the house was empty and then hide for six or seven hours before they did anything. But then I heard some thumping and clanking in the guest bathroom, which has been out of the commission for years. There's an enormous hole in the wall of the bathtub/shower, the tub itself is full of construction junk, and there's no water to it. So it wasn't the pipes. What it sounded like was something moving around in the tub. I ended up putting on my sneakers and grabbing my keys so that I could run out to my car and get away if I needed to, and walking around with my phone in hand, wondering if "my dog is acting like there's someone in the house and I hear noises" was reason enough to call the police. Of course there wasn't anything there or in any of the closets in the adjacent rooms. And the stuff in the bathtub doesn't even look to have been touched. I still don't know what I heard last night.

Englewood Reserve in Englewood Ohio (a little north of Dayton) is built partly over property that used to belong to a pioneer family named Patty back around 1810. One of its main attractions is a waterfall named Patty Falls, and part of the park road follows "Patty's Road," a stretch of the original National Road. There's also the Pattys' old homestead nearby, though all that's left of it is the remains of the springhouse and a local legend about one of their daughters being hanged from a tree nearby. The real hanging tree--if such a thing actually happened--is probably long gone, since none of the trees near the springhouse are old enough to fit the bill. But it's still a really evil spot. Being more curious than wise, I went exploring alone there after I first heard the stories. Nothing leapt out at me, but there was a really ominous feeling about the place, as if something really bad would happen if I didn't leave soon. I took a few pictures, but I still felt very uneasy and unsafe until I deleted them from my camera and my computer. A few months later I started to wonder if it had all been in my head. After all, I'd started to go "oh no, this is so spooky!" when I took the wrong path off the road and ended up in the clearing where park maintenance dump the grass cuttings and chopped-up fallen trees before I found the actual Patty homestead. I thought the old springhouse would look really pretty in the three or four inches of snow that had just fallen, and I wasn't going to let any old ghost push ''me'' around. So I went back not long after that, and oh boy. Bad idea. Nothing actually ''happened'' but the same ominous feeling was a hundred times worse. What made it really weird was that apparently there'd been a camp-out or a program there (yeah, in the winter. I don't even know), because the trashcan at the side of the road was overflowing with garbage that looked like it was from a party or something. The path goes past the springhouse and then under the branches of a large tree as it goes into the woods beyond. As I got near the house, I suddenly had the feeling of being followed. I started to go up to the tree, but after the branches started jiggling pretty violently without a wind, I thought I ought to go. I turned back, walked a little ways, and paused for a minute. I don't even remember why I stopped. But in that moment, I distinctly heard a crunch like a footstep right behind me. When I turned around, there was a baggie of those rainbow-colored Goldfish crackers in the snow behind me. It had not been there when I went by the first time. I booked it out of there at that point and I haven't been back, since it just seems like asking for trouble.

Also, while hiking along a river path in the same park years ago, I distinctly heard the sounds of someone jogging--the same kind of breathing and running footsteps--and had a sensation of someone coming up fast behind me. I stopped on the path, stepped to the side, and even started to apologize because it sounded so real, but there wasn't anyone there when I turned around. I've since heard stories of people seeing a "zombie girl" who just stared straight ahead of her and didn't answer when they tried to talk to her and who vanished after a few moments on that same path. The girl or girls allegedly hanged at the Pattys' house are also still supposed to roam the park. I don't go there by myself anymore.

I used to have two cats. I now have one. The other passed away a few months ago at the age of twenty. The older cat was deaf as a stone his last few years and would wander around at night screaming at the top of his lungs until someone came to shut him up. The younger one has always wandered around calling for people when he gets lonely late at night, though it's more of a "Meow? Meow?" than the old bastard's "MWAAAIIIIAAOOOWWHHH!" Lately, though, there have been a few nights when Iheard a cat calling in one room and gone to look for the live kitty, only to find nothing there or have him wander in from someplace else. Also once or twice I've felt something hop up on the bed and settle down, only find nothing there when I turned on the light to make sure the cat wouldn't get kicked if I turned over (the younger cat, who was never cuddly, has taken to sleeping in the exact same spot and position on my bed as the older one did, which also creeps me out a little).

I have a similar story. When I was growing up, my family had two cats who were born a year before me. They both had orange-and-white fur. One cat died when I was 11, the other when I was 13. In the years since then I have too frequently been in my basement on my computer and glance to the side and see something that looks like an orange-and-white cat dash across the room.

Im pretty sure they take up the same spot because it seems like the most cat friendly spot because it smells like cat.

This troper's friend lives in a house that is connected to the college campus by a bike path going through the woods. The bike path has no lights. At all. A group of us were having fun on campus at night and walked back to his house at around 2AM. I could barely see the trees on the side of the road, not to mention that our college is one of the most dangerous campuses in the country. Absolutely nothing happened, but it was the most terrifying experience of my life.

ThisTroper's dad left the house unlocked for the five minutes he went to pick her up. He then dropped her off at the house and joked "Maybe I should check to see if anyone snuck in there while it was unlocked. Nah!" before driving off. I didn't feel at ease for the rest of the day, even after I'd checked all the rooms carrying some pepper spray.

This troper had a similar thought at work the other day. I'd left the store for two minutes to talk to the owner of the shop next door. As soon as I came back in, it occurred to me that anyone could have come in and hidden in the back while I was next door. It wasn't until after I'd checked all the dark corners that I could relax.

I've had that happen before. A few months ago I was home alone when I heard a weird noise. In a few moments I was in the kitchen with a large knife in each hand. It was nothing, but it freaked me out.

Also, another time I heard my dog climbing into the tub, which she does when she's scared. I went into the other room, grabbed my shotgun, and searched the house. Again, nothing, so I wonder why the dog got scared.

Did ''you'' get scared? Probably the same reason.

This Troper lives in a house with a black cat with a nasty habit of laying down in doorways. Nothing quite as scary as having your foot come down on warm flesh that wasn't there a minute ago.

Oh, yes. A lot of times this troper's Lhasa Apso got stepped on could be prevented if he didn't insist on lying on the floor in the dark.

This Troper occasionally does babysitting for people. A few months ago, when she was taking care of a two year old kid named Joshua while his parents were out for the night, she had just put the kid to bed and sat on the couch when she heard a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. She ran to Josh's room to make sure he was OK, then spent the next half-hour checking every window in the house and looking in every place that could be used for hiding while carrying a frying pan around. She even went out to the patio, where she found the patio table knocked over and smashed. She spent the next two hours in Joshua's bedroom, still holding the frying pan until the kid's parents arrived. While nothing bad ever happened, this was one of the most terrifying nights in this troper's life.

And now this troper has had a repeat incident. This time she was taking care of seven-year-old twins Roberta and Randy, and decided that she's just call for pizza rather than kill herself cooking for them (yeah, this troper realizes she is lazy). Ten minutes after she calls, she hears a loud bang on the door, and assumed it was the pizza guy. She opened the door, only to discover no one was there. She ended up answering the door with a bit less readily when the pizza guy actually did arrive.

This troper, because she has trouble sleeping, used to go for walks in the nearby woods when it was quite early in the morning. When it was the summer and everyone was walking their dogs, that's fine, but when it's grey and dark and there's not a sound to be heard except for trees making creaking noises? That's fricking terrifying.

This troper will be home alone at 11:00 at night. He will be in his room. The door will be closed. All the windows in the house will be closed. All of a sudden the door will push itself open. ''Push. Itself. Open.'' After that happens, he will then shove as much stuff in front of his door and wait until someone comes home before he goes to bed. Since the windows are closed, there is no way it could be a gust of wind. And this has happened too many times to count.

Not to make light of your weird experience, but have you considered that it might be your house settling? Changes in temperature at night can change the shape of the house enough to make loud knocking and thumping noises, and to cause doors not to shut, or to open spontaneously.

I lived in single in a dorm where that happened. It was pretty well accepted by everyone in the building that we had a ghost named Flick. My closet and room doors would burst open even when they were locked. Strangely enough, after I told the ghost that I didn't care what it did with the closet but I'd like it to please leave the door alone when I was out or asleep since I had a lot of expensive stuff I didn't want stolen, the closets burst open all the time but the front door pretty much stayed closed. Except for the time I locked myself out and the door was standing open when I came back from trying to find the RA to let me in.

There's a section of my parents' house that does that, too, although we know why. It's worst when my bedroom window and the window in my parents' bedroom are both open, because the breeze ''will'' slam both doors very, very loudly. However, it does it even with the windows closed; the change in air pressure whenever the heating or air conditioning comes on pushes the doors and has provided me with a lot of nervous moments when I'm alone there.

The Ridges at Ohio University in southeastern Ohio. Even though this troper maintains that 99.9999999999999998% of the "something ''is'' here and oh shit is it scary" stories about the Ridges are either blatant lies or have more to do with the fact that the people reporting them are drunk/high/bored college kids looking for a scare than with anything supernatural, the place has an incredibly eerie, weird, sad atmosphere. I went up there a few times while I was going to OU to take photos on the grounds since it really is a pretty place. Nothing ever happened, but I was never comfortable being within a hundred yards of the old TB ward or on the grounds later than an hour or so before sunset at all.

This troper is taking a Color Theory class that goes from 6:00 PM to 9:20 PM. The class is in a room that this troper has had classes in before, so it's not like it's the room that's scary or anything. But for some reason, whenever this troper goes to the sink to clean out her brushes and get new water, shadows will pass across the light behind her and the overwhelming sense that someone is approaching from behind her. The first few times it happened, she moved over to give whoever it was room to use the sink as well and turned to look over her shoulder. No one in the class was moving, no one ever was when she would look back. Now she just tries to ignore it; easier said than done let me tell you.

This troper's friend suffered this for ''a full month'' after moving into his first apartment.

This troper's house is a lot emptier now than it usually is. I get this all the time. It helps that I'm not terribly observant, so people can announce they're leaving the house, and go, and I'll be none the wiser. I've also got a very low tolerance for screamer-style horror pop-ups. Now, sometimes, I get the overriding feeling that something will pop up in a window, or I'll turn around and there'll be ''something'' there. For no reason. It'll just be there. This happens a lot with windows, stairwells, corners-- and some times, for no good reason at all. I can't walk past our fireplace now, because I have this creepy feeling I'll turn and there'll be a severed head in the grate.

Dude, this troper totally has the same thing. I can't have the blinds open at night and walking past the side door which has no curtains at night...* shivers* The scary thing is...one time there actually WOULD have been someone there if I'd gone-some dumbass kid had walked by it to go steal a flashlight(yeah, just a $1 flashlight for some reason) from our garage.

Holy shit, are you both clones of me or something?

This troper feels your pain. When she's on the computer at night... she'll get the feeling theres something behind her. MOMMY!!!!

It's a comparatively mundane use for DavidLynch, but this troper has been watching through TwinPeaks, and you know that recurring shot of the stairway leading up to the short darkened hallway over to Laura Palmer's room? He's now actively relieved his house doesn't even ''have'' an upstairs to have to walk up or even just by in the middle of the night. There ''is'' a frequently dark basement down a long flight of stairs that starts off with a corner you can't see around until you get down there, but somehow it's not the same thing (maybe the bin overflowing with old emptied beer cans immediately at the bottom adds NightmareRetardant somehow?). Oh, and the effect in general is probably also the reason that, as a child, he was creeped out by a painting in his parents' room that was just an empty-looking house surrounded by dead trees.

This troper's scariest experience at school was walking through the basement of her university campus alone at 1am. No one in the open classrooms, no one else walking the halls and the feeling that someone either was there or should be there. Needless to say she ran right quick out of that place!

Just a couple days ago this troper was downstairs and it was storming outside. She went upstairs to get a glass of something to drink having laughed at Video on Trial. When she came back the channel had changed on its own. Made scarier by the fact that she was the only one awake and she doesn't know if it was just to do with the storm or something else...

When this troper was eight or nine she attended summer camp on a very old private school's grounds. One of the buildings was supposedly haunted, so our counsellor decided a fun thing to do would be to ''tape the building's basement for a night and make us watch it''. This troper ''still'' has nightmares...

In 6th grade I spent 3 days at a camp (it was an school trip). And what camping trip would be complete without stories by the fire? Unfortunately we had a bunch of sadistic bastards as counselers, so they told the story of "Willie", an escaped psycho murderer who lived in the woods near the camp. No one used the bathroom the whole night for fear of getting attacked by the killer. The next day I had to do the scavenger hunt, which, since the counselers were sadistic assholes, followed a path into the middle of the woods... you know, the ones with the psycho killer in them. Obviously I didn't die, but there were 3 of us in the group, all scared of "Willie".

Waaaiiiiiit. This story sounds... familiar. Was the guy's full name Willie Martin? Because if that's the story, this troper was with you, and you forgot to mention that abandoned sweatshirt with the camp's logo that we found lying in the woods.

In Jamaica, we have the Rose Hall Great House, which was home to Annie Palmer, a supposed British husband-killing voodoo witch. It's [[strike:practically]] a mansion. Only one person tried to live there after Annie. It wasn't the mythology, the fact that Palmer is buried in the backyard, or the creepy-ass painting with a lady in a red dress whose eyes follow you that made him leave. It was a disappearing tea set. That reappeared in the bedroom and crashed to the floor. Furthermore, when this troper went on a tour of the house, this kid from another group jumped on Annie's bed. His group's van broke down.

It was late at evening (and already dark) and this troper was waiting for his relative at the train station. It's quiet, lights are dim and the train was late. Then, suddenly an ice cream truck jingle of all things starts playing around the area. Needless to say, the situation became much more eerie...

This Troper used to work the graveyard shift at a newspaper press room in order to get money for his first car. In the central valley of California, it can get VERY foggy. So foggy, in fact, that it's entirely possible to be walking home at three in the morning in a thick grey haze that obscures one's own feet, and muffles any sounds, leaving one to navigate by the changing color of the fog caused by the traffic lights, and to wonder what might be lurking less than five feet away... If there's even anything that exists any more at all.

This troper has several. Since this troper moved house he has had to walk down a now closed down road, which has now been half converted to a cycle path, with two huge farmers fields eitherside. The area that is a full cycle path has a fair bit of trees and bushes on both sides, so much to prevent the light from the streetlights from reaching the ground. During the summer the council had decided to turn off all the strretlights for that road, causing me to borrow a powerful torch (nicknamed the sun) from one of his friends until the lights are turned back on. The worse part is having to run the gauntlet, then realise that something big has been following you and not being able to see it, especially after a previous experience near there. The first week after the move, me and a few friends decided to go on a "death mooch". We were all carrying industrial flashlights, and just as we reached an abandoned water facility, my torch cuts out. As we are all very genre savvy, we all said that that was how horror movies start and how we should turn back. Through our own stupidity we go on further until we see a hunched over figure run through the gaps in the fence into the bushes. We turned and ran as fast as the wind, but then as we passed another big gap in the fence, something BIG barrels out of the gap behind us. We ran even faster, until reaching the safety of the metal gate closest to my house, it still kept coming closer, but stopped at a cycle path sign, but i swear whatever it was, it jumped, and it jumped far too far and high to be human.

Another much earlier one happened whilst me and a group of friends were walking around the town, when we heard crying, and a strange tinkling sound, almost like an ice cream truck, but so much worse. And the worst part was the sound followed us, everywhere. Needless to say this troper is now terrified of dark paths, disembodied crying and unexplainable noises.

This troper just suddenly realized he hasn't heard any noises apart from the hum of the computer for a long time now.

That's why I always have my TV on when I'm on the computer.

I was creeped out when you brought that to my attention, so I turned on some music.

I was too scared to walk across to my radio and turn it on. But as soon as I pressed the button, I was fine. {{Psychonauts}} Soundtrack Song 13: ''Under the Cover of Darkness'' ARGH, that makes it twice as bad now!

This troper always has some music playing for this very reason.

But if you do that, how are you supposed to hear the guy that's approaching you from behind right now?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK.

This troper went to the art museum once for a school project. She arrived exactly as it opened, and for half an hour was literally the only person in the entire museum. She took note of how creepy this was. As she was walking into a room on the third floor, she heard footsteps. Cue screaming. Turned out that a few other people had arrived by this time. Awkward.

This troper lives in a house that's bigger than necessary and often takes showers while being the only one in the house. Add visions of ''Psycho'' and stir. He has heard things that turned out to be nothings and has even swiped the curtain open and closed, expecting something to WHAM him upon it's reopening..

These moments are precicely the reason this troper tends to carry around heavy metal flashlights at night

The same for me, except I have "The Hammer of Thor!!!" (which is a 1 lb weight with a string looped through a hole in it, the name is ironic).

This troper as an odd phobia... of content advisory messages. Particularly if it is with no music, white text on a black background, and read sternly. The worst part is the two seconds or so of silence that follows. The worst is when it warns people with a "nervous disposition."

It could also probably have much to do with how the text slowly fades away, which now that I've mentioned it, seems rather creepy. I've seen some film with titles that exhibit this kind of element of fear, owing to an always black background with text colors (white, red, green or blue) that stand out of the black background and this might extend to outside movie titles. Favorite mention goes to ''AreYouAfraidOfTheDark?'''s title, which is understandably creepy, even in the intro itself. But special mention goes to a ''Christmas-themed'' budget film named ''Dear Santa'' of all things, whose title is written with red and green ink blobs in a way hippies would graffiti on walls but with a more three-dimensional appearance, winding up looking more like ''blood blots'' over nothingness (the link does not show the title in a way as mentioned, unfortunately. It looked more like this.).

This troper browses TVTropes late at night. My internet connection is very bad, and my computer is in the basement. It's two in the morning, all the lights are off, I click the link to NothingIsScarier ... and get a blank white page. I couldn't sleep that night.

This troper has a HUGE case of this: She already spooks quite easily and gets nervous at the slightest hint of scariness, but her apartment in particular is horrible for her nerves. A tendency for her maternal family to see ghosts, an interest in the paranormal, insomnia, and a bedroom with a ''sliding glass door''? You've got ParanoiaFuel. The fact that there's a solid 6-foot fence around the patio to keep intruders out is actually making it worse. Why? Because that makes it extremely hard to tell if sudden light at 11PM is from a late-parking car... or someone's ''flashlight''.

I had a couple of instances of this when I was out on vacation in San Fransico. My parental units had decided they would indulge one of my greatest ghost story fantasies and take me to the Winchester Mystery Mansion. My parents and brother were genrally bored with the place, and I was having the time of my life, but when we all left, we all agreed on one thing. There was something terrribly off about the house. I didn't see, hear or sense anything that would register in my mind as a ghost, but I definitely felt like someone or something was in that building and it was watching everything. Another instance was when we went to Alcatraz for a night tour. I had always heard about how bleak and haunted the prison was, so I expected there'd be something "off" about the structure too. Like with the Winchester Mansion, I had no signifigant experience other than the weather being particularly helpful in completing the prison's "never gonna get out" image, but I do remember being distinctly creeped out by the isolation cells. They were cold and dark and my imagination was working overtime when I went into one of them so my dad could take a photo of me. These aren't true examples of "nothing is scarier", I suppose, but they're close enough for me.

This troper has never had a real problem with hostile or not hostile ghosts, as he has faith in his deity to smite 'em if the need arises, but his house is ''very'' creaky (It's settled almost a foot in one corner), and he tends to stay up till 3:00AM watching marathons of Law and Order SVU. Queue massive freakouts whenever anything creaks.

This (german) troper noticed that dedicated shopping districts (with pedestrian zones) are surprisingly creepy when you go there very late at night/early in the morning (4 a.m. or so), when there is absolutely ''no one'' there. I mean...you know the place. You've been there like a hundred times. It's a place of buzzing activity, bright daylight, welcoming shops, people everywhere, and that's exactly how you've always experienced it, how it "should be"...except now it's ''not''. Absolutely nothing happens or moves. It's totally dark except for some scattered street lanterns. The shops you know so well are all closed, barred, have their shutters or heavy gratings down...and boy, is it SILENT. You're so used to this place being just...loud and noisy and active all the time, and now? NOW you're desperately trying to figure out if that "echo" of your own fricking footsteps is even actually this...or maybe ''someone following you''?!? Uh, it feels pretty much like being in an actual DarkWorld or something. For bonus points, go there when it's foggy. After playing/watching SilentHill.

This troper once had a hornet in the house. He opened the window to let it out, and then didn't see it again, and assumed it flew out. A couple of nights later, he's on the computer, and hears this loud buzzing sound. After a while of wondering what it was, he looks up, and sees the hornet is inside a bag not two feet away, at which point he leaps back several feet.

Take any Horror game. Any game at all. Turn the lights off, mute the sound, and play. Trust me, this troper was pissing himself with fear while playing Manhunt until he played it with the sound on.

This Troper has a few. First one happened a few nights ago. A policeman came to the door stating that there had been a burglary a few doors down and we should keep an eye out. Troper's mum then goes out for the evening and this troper has the house all to himself. After an uneventful evening Troper retires to bed with a book. As he reads he hears a funny sound that sounds like footsteps trying to be quiet. Fearing the worst, Troper puts on a dressing gown and heads downstairs. All goes quiet the second he opens the bedroom door. House is empty, but doesn't stop Troper lieing in bed all night with his eyes wide open.

Second incident happened a few years ago. Troper was sitting in his room with the door closed when there were three knocks on the door. Thinking it's his mother, Troper answers bedroom door to find no one there. A quick check on his mum shows she's asleep and couldn't be responsible. Mother says that it was just objects falling over, but objects falling in perfect rhythm against my door? No chance.

This troper is ''very'' familiar with NothingIsScarier. The worst offenders are glass surfaces (a window with nothing but shadow on the other side? A mirror where you can see ''just'' enough that it looks like there is space where there should be a wall, but not enough to look around the "room"? Reading about the TwilightZone or TheOuterLimits episode on TV Tropes with the... pig, black, female, with a specific adjective [I ''hate'' even thinking its name] doesn't help), particularly the front door window (ten inches high, four inches across with wooden bars on, just enough for some''thing'' to look through) and the back screen door (which tends to open on its own when the troper' sister forgets to block it after returning from school). Television sets are bad too, the CRT kind where the glass screen reflects ''just'' enough to not see anything useful. "Ghost" stories include seeing what appears to be the tail end of a grey tabby cat, only to see the ''actual'' tabby walk out from behind something on the other side of the room (We have a grey tabby and a black-white-and-bright-tan calico, and haven't had a cat die while we lived here. Cats staring at "nothing" territorially can also be unnerving), and someone or something humanoid walking out of the boiler room in what would eventually become the bedroom of this troper without opening the door, noticing him, and ceasing to have been there (it had no particular sense of malevolence, just a wrongness that the troper's dad said was probably what the troper calls a "Don't See Me spell"). Since, the troper usually feels a strong (observantly curious) watchfulness from that direction, which is scarier than if it was visible because as it is, the watchfulness could be anywhere from the boiler room to several inches behind, suddenly become visible, or (worst of all) be ''something else'', which wouldn't mind Mind Raping the troper For The Lulz if it got bored of watching (the Joker is a common "but it could be ____" image). Strangely enough, the effect stacks, because it's far scarier when the watchfulness goes away than when it is there (though it's perfectly fine when it's not there in the first place).

One time in bed at 11:00 or so at night, I hear an angry hiss from my cat, followed by her growling. I come downstairs to see what happened and maybe calm her down, and I find her growling out the back door, which is covered in windows. There was ''nothing'' visible out there. She would ''not'' stop growling as if there was something out there. ...This happened to be the day that I started the Meat Circus. Much sleeplessness ensued.

This troper has a primal, intense aversion to anything zombie related (finding the concept itself gross and horrifying). It also plays bad tricks on her imagination. At least twice I've had vivid, graphic, pee-your-pants-wake-up-praying nightmares about them. But I never see a zombie. Nothing ever happens. I just know that I am in an alternate universe where it WILL happen. (movie cut to fleeing people.) Any minute now, they will round the corner (cut to zombies) and my world (cut to blood), my sanity (cut to carnage), all I love (cut to death), will cease to be.

This troper wanted to read a chillingly scary story, as she rarely finds any. She read the story about the White Death on ScaryforKids.com. It was fairly late,about 11:00 pm, and the rest of her family was asleep. She goes into the eerily lit kitchen, already beginning to get scared when she hears knocking from the inside of the walls. She had to contain herself from screaming.

See above; that's about when the ambient temperature has changed significantly and a structure will reshape accordingly.

This troper was the only one awake in the house at 2 am when the smoke alarm went off for no reason whatsoever. She checked everywhere but there was nothing which could have caused it to do so. It went off twice this way before stopping just as inexplicably as it started. This troper could not sleep afterwards.

Check the batteries on your central unit, if they're connected. Sometimes a false alarm is an indication that your system is going to shut down.

One night when this troper and friends were hanging out somewhere rumored to be haunted (there's a long, extremely scary story with people claiming they have encountered ghosts there) and anyway, it was a place we were familiar with and had even slept at, but then suddenly banging noises are heard through the door... this troper was one of the only one GenreSavvy enough to know that it's best to leave the banging alone. So anyway, there's banging, and they go outside, and find banging coming from an old abandoned locked shed. They call out to the shed, "is anyone there?" And then? Dead silence. This troper could hear everything from inside. In that same building, several people have said they've heard knocking and voices. But if there is something truly there, whatever it may be, seems friendly enough... doesn't make me not pee my pants at night thinking about it though... I mean, there's a dark room without any lights and a lot of random stuff you could fall over, completely closed in, no lights or anything that people have had to go in alone and it's rumored things have been heard in there... still kind of scary the first time, you know? I've gotten pretty comfortable there though, if something were to happen it would've happened. I like thinking it's haunted, actually...

Also, another time: playing... I can't even type it, the game that says on the box you "can communicate with spirits" or something. Freaking terrifying. I feel unnaturally pulled towards all things supernatural, which scares me even more. Anyway, playing that game, in the mostly dark, where everything is silent.... wow. Just... wow. This troper asked for a name, but has always been too afraid to google it... for fear of it being real... or for fear of it being fake? I'd prefer to never know.

Ouija board. Those are called ouija boards.

What was the name?

This troper once heard some woman crying shortly after she got in bed. I stayed still waiting to hear the crying again. When I did, I turned on my bathroom light and opened my door expecting it to be my mother. Thing is, I heard her snoring as soon as I opened the door, so it couldn't have been her. I looked out my window to see if anyone was outside; nobody was there.

This troper has a horrible fear of bees, hornets and all the other yellow, buzzy, stingy insects. His great grandfather grows delicious little green grapes every summer, and always sends him a package of them because said grandfather is awesome. So troper is happy, gets a package, opens it up and, as was probably obvious, BEE IN MY GRAAAAPES. He is no longer capable of opening a bag of grapes without extreme caution and terror.

same here. I feel most uneasy outside in the summertime when there is no wind and it's not too hot or too cold, or the two weeks in the spring when blossoms are in full bloom. during that time, I most do my outdoors exercises and tasks at dusk, when the bees and such are asleep. sure enough, when I have to be outside during those times, I jump at every twitch and bolt everytime I hear a buzz.

On the supernatural end of things, both averted and played unfortunately straight. This troper believes in ghosts, and hears noises he cannot identify rather often...so often, in fact, he no longer pays any attention to them whatsoever. But if you turn off all the lights in the house, and walk towards the back of it, through a tiny little hallway...the feeling there is something behind you that should not be there is hard to shake. Made worse by the fact that assorted digital clocks, [=VCRs=] and so on provide some lighting everywhere else; the hallway is the only part of the house that is pitch black.

How to create instant horror. Take a reassuring statement, and add a single link and some italics.

"Nothing is out there. Nothing is hiding in the shadows. ''Nothing is coming to get you.''"

Someone links you a scary video on YouTube. Maybe it's music, maybe it's an excerpt from a horror movie, doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that you know it's gonna be scary. You click it and it starts loading... and loading... ''and loading...'' You can press pause and then do something else, but if you decide to "play by the rules" and wait and stare at it until it finishes loading, no pausing... it does somewhat amplify the effect from the video itself.

The silence after a screaming match with a loved one.

Back when this troper was still a small child, and her paternal grandparents still had their old house, she never wanted to go into the bedroom in the very back. Although she can't remember what it was of anymore, there was this painting hanging up across from the bed that just terrified her for some reason. The one time she had to sleep there, she ended up giving up and fleeing to where her parents were sleeping. Nothing ever happened, but there was just this overbearing feeling of ''something'' back there that just wasn't quite right. Now that she thinks about it, there was always something kind of odd about that place, but this troper was always too oblivious to every really notice it anywhere but that room at the time.

I can attest to the truth of the ''Rayman 2'' entry. First time I played through the Cave of Bad Dreams, I just rushed it as much as I could and kind of felt eerie when I thought I was being too slow. And there's also those buzzy black fly thingies. ARGH.

A variant: This troper is only truly scared in video games when he's fighting a foe that he knows is there, knows can kill him, but that he can't see. Espescially if they're invisible.

ThisTroper used to be terrified of the zombies in Half Life 2's Ravenholm level, because they would sneak up on you from nowhere, and the fast zombies were even worse since they were hard to shoot. After playing through the game several times, learning all their spawn points, and learning how to kite them, he's only really scared of the Antlion Guards, because they're like Tanks, they can run at least as fast as you, and they're almost too smart to be circlestrafed.

This troper is terrified when playing horror games and he can hear something running towards him but can't see where it's coming from. It's utterly terrifying pointing your weapon (if you HAVE one) at the best guess and hoping your right while rushing footsteps get louder and louder. It's almost a relief when the monster appears (Unless it's behind you of course...)

This troper was browsing the RealLife section when she came across a link to the Wikipedia article about the Bloop, but, regardless of fear of the unknown, that wasn't the scary page. No, the scary page was the index on unexplained sounds, including a reference to "the Julia" - with no description of the sound itself.

God I hate that page. Damn Bloop.

This troper found a copy of the Bloop at actual speed, made a poorly done Cthulhu montage and added in the parallels between the bloop's info and Cthulhu lore. here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdDXh4Ap49A .

This troper was recently part of a sci-fi rp. About halfway through, something invaded the station. Whatever it was, the AI on board went completely haywire. Constantly warning us to evacuate "everywhere" and informing us that it had lost control of all systems with constant stuttering and interrupting itself was unsettling enough. What was worse was when... Well, "R-r-r-reccomend immediate evvvaaaaaaccc-evacuation of everywhere". There was a period of silence, then someone asked the AI a question. No response. That was the moment we knew we were going to die.

This Troper lives on a farm in the country side. Sounds peaceful, doesn't it? Now, imagine that during the summer, all the adults go to work and you are left home alone. Sounds less peaceful, huh? Now imagine that in order to get to your grandmother's house, you must walk past a shady group of woods with the sounds twigs snapping as animals go by. Imagine walking toward grandmother's house, having to go underneath a tunnel of trees that cover the road and are so thick, almost no light gets through. Starting to get a little worse, huh? Now just imagine you heard that a lion got loose in the nearby area...''And that if anything bad happened to you, no one would be around to help or even know you were in trouble!''

This Troper's old house had the dining room separated from the main entrance to the house by a thin wall. In this wall was an archway so you could see the front door from the table. I used to swear that late at night there would always be something floating in the archway. It would be gone when I was close enough, only appearing at the edge of my vision. Other nights when I walked by the arch, I swear I would hear muffled laughter. I always would put it down to being tired but now I swear that there was something unwholesome in that room.

My friend recently got a house of her own, and she kept hearing footsteps coming from the attic, and doors slamming downstairs. One night she was woken by someone knocking on her bedroom door, and she searched the whole house and found nothing. A few months before I told her a scary story about someone finding out that the previous owner of the house was still living there, up in the attic, eating their food and using their stuff while they were out or asleep. I stayed there one night and was really freaked out.

This troper falls victim to this trope very frequently, even in situations that just really wouldn't call for it. Oh, the memories of running away in terror just because the room I was in happened to be ''too'' quiet.

Probably doesnt help that alot of supposedly abandoned places are used for illegal activities like i found out that someone was murdered in the upper levels of a parking lot when i assumed it was an engine backfiring

There is some construction going on at this troper's school, and in order to dust from all of the construction from getting into the school, some of the windows in the school are covered by some sort of protective sheets. Some of these windows include those that belong to the bathroom. One day I walked into one of the bathrooms to go and the windows were '''pitch black'''. The lights were on, but you could see literally '''nothing''' outside. You have no idea how quickly I wanted to get out of there.

Once, when I was a little kid, I had just settled into bed. I was facing the wall and my back was to the rest of room. I hadn't even been there a minute when suddenly I heard a voice whisper directly into my ear with perfect clerity, ''"You want you out."'' I looked to see what had said just to see nothing. Cue sleepless night with the lights on.

Then, about ten years later, something started throwing various items around the room (some of them landing on me on the bed) and banging things against the wall. I would turn the light on and '''nothing'''. Nothing was wrong...until I turned the light of again. One time, ''it began pulling my bedsheets off of me and then stopped when I turned the light on.'' Weird thing is when I let someone borrow the film PrettyWoman which I had in my room, the activity completely ceased permanently. It was returned, but I shelved it downstairs. Nothing else has ever happened in that room even after that. The hell? I know it sounds like this totally made up as a TakeThat against Julia Roberts or Richard Gere, but it is not. I frankly don't understand, either.

RealLife example of the third variant! This troper was at a sleepover type event held at the local zoo. After dark, we went around with night vision binoculars to see the animals, as some of them were still out on exhibit for this specific purpose. When we got to the cat house, one girl who did not have the binoculars at the time went up to the window leading into the leopard's outside enclosure and peered in. After a few seconds, she jumped back screaming. The leopard was just inches away from the glass, with his mouth open and his teeth showing, but you couldn't see him until your face was also inches from the glass.

This troper has a video-game example: WorldOfWarcraft. To her, the scariest part of the game is not Northrend; it's not Duskwood; it's not even the Forsaken zones. It's Deadwind Pass. If you stray ''just'' off the road--say, to go fishing in the river at the bottom of the ravine--it's completely quiet with no music, there are no enemies, and there is no color but gray. You keep expecting something to attack you, and maybe it would be less scary if something did. In the grand scheme of fight-or-flight, this troper bares her teeth and goes for the jugular--but if there's no jugular, she can't fully get hold of her fear.

This troper has had a computer (not always the same one, but there always is one) in his room for almost ten years. About two years ago, my then-current computer died, which turned out to be the reason I was suddenly so unsettled by my own bedroom--just the absence of that quiet hum made it so I couldn't sleep, and I had to set up an old computer to leave running all night while I ordered a new one and waited for it to ship.

This troper often had strange dreams, where he roamed his house at night and sighted black, shadow-like beings. Then, I "woke up". I try to move, only to find my body is paralyzed. My eyes move frantically and, by the a light from the window, I see that shadow again, glooming over me... Then I wake up. And there is another type of "dream", when this troper was falling asleep: It feels like jumping up and down in a elastic bed. Then something wakes me; it feels like I was floating and was just dropped flat on my bed. Recently, it was a different kind of dream, where I met two of my colleagues, playing with my umbrella. They end up hitting my stomach with the pointy end of it. I woke up in my bed, feeling as if someone had just hit my stomach with something. Also, when I was a child, I simply DREADED sleeping in my grandma's room with her. First, because she is a bitch and complains on everything. Second, because the room was nothing short of creepy in the dark; the ceiling, the dolls my cousin left in the room... Something about that room scares me to this day, because I just can't sleep in it.

A couple of months ago this troper was out shopping when she got a rather harrowing text message from her ex saying only the word "You". Literally seconds later, the phone's battery died. This wouldn't be so bad since accidentally hitting 'send' before finishing the message isn't an uncommon problem with certain cell phones. But this was a person who had a little bit of trouble accepting the fact that I was serious about the breakup, and wasn't exactly mentally unstable either. Not to mention that one word can sound quite threatening. Luckily he didn't send any other messages after that, but... damn.

It was 4:33AM when I finished reading the main article. I'm in the corner of my decently-sized bedroom, no other lights around except the weird orange-yellow glow coming from the window (light pollution from the nearby city, which cant be seen because the laptop monitor is in my face and the stark white page washes everything else out. My internet connection is dead because an hour earlier my router crapped out, which it does often. The only noise is from the mister/humidifier in the center of my room. I managed to make it through all the examples here with no major shocks, and when I get to the end I see the ellipses after the examples and smile. Clearly someone was clever enough to end the article on the same note that the content was on. I see the ellipses drop to two dots, then one, and a mass of blank text. Amused, I absentmindedly highlight the space underneath, I still don't know why. And it startled the crap out of me. Suddenly, and only then, the nothing around me was -that- much scarier. I immediately turned the computer off so I could see the light pollution and the tiny bit of light from the hallway coming around my door, and went to sleep.

For one of my classes, I was assigned a three page (double spaced) paper on a serial killer, which as per my usual got put off until the night before. I ended up being the last one awake, and for a while I was doing well, until about eleven when I noticed the hallway behind me was dark and suddenly got terrified. My scary score that I have for writing had come up on my itunes. I listened to showtunes the rest of the night.

Five words: Mall of America after hours.

I have not so great hearing, so whenever I'm home alone i usually have music running just to avoid this trope. when i was younger i would get so scared during the night that i was literally debilitated and unable to move after everyone else went to sleep, we lived in a hundred year old house that settled nightly, and was haunted and inhabited by Wicca practitioners. the later two problems were taken care of by my mom, she had no tolerance whatsoever for stuff like that, especially when it threatened her kids so she told it to go (the ghost and the crap left by the previous owners). it did. and that was that, the house was still insanely creepy mostly because the back half was unheated, filled with junk, and never used. still an insane amount of noises came from the back, to this day i can't stand silence.

This Troper once had a really frightening experience driving down her suburb's roads on an extremely foggy day. The previous night, she had foolishly decided to watch a bunch of SilentHill LetsPlay videos. She had to get to school early for something and it was very foggy out. There was nobody else around because it was so early - no other cars, no people walking down the streets, nothing. I was just waiting for the tell-tale siren to go off, because it really did feel like Silent Hill, and it really did scare the shit out of me.

This troper used to live in Texas (Dallas to be precise), and his mom would grow roses next to his room. Unfortunately, this was during a time that the city was hit by a crime wave. Sometimes at night, when the wind blew, the roses would stratch the windows, but it did it in such a way that it sounded like someone was carving the window with a knife, and I would always think that someone was trying to break in and I would barely sleep from the thought of a burglar trying to steal my stuff or kidnap me. Needless to say, I was quite glad when I moved rooms.

In the spring of 2010, I attended a nine o'clock performance of the comic opera ''The Elixir of Love''. The production left me in good spirits, and I was still in a good mood when I walked out of the auditorium. My joy soon turned to fear when I stepped onto the sidewalk. Everyone had vanished. Not one other person crossed my path as I continued toward campus, treading on asphalt and grass in the middle of the starless night. I had no flashlight and no protection, and mused that this feeling was probably what SurvivalHorror protagonists felt constantly. I knew fear on that night.

This troper has a mile and a half to walk home from school. One day, one of my friends who lives in the area told me that a girl my age had been raped on the route I take home. Coupled with this tropers phobia of dirty old men, you have a VERY long trip home. Anyway, it was getting dark, and I was walking along a deserted road I take to my house. It is silent apart from the wind and the hum of not one, but TWO police helcopters buzzing very nearby. Don't forgetthat this troper was alone, and is barely 5ft tall. Needless to say, this troper now gets the buss.

This trope has a cat that always comes for a cuddle before going to sleep at the foot of my bed. Occasionally she'll go stiff as a board mid-cuddle, her hackles will rise, and she ''always'' be staring at the ''same'' point in the air a few feet from my ceiling. Then she'll unfreeze, turn, and ''run the hell out my room''. This troper sleeps in a loft bed. The scary point in the air is just a bit more than an arm's distance from my pillow. I've never seen a thing, and believe me, I have looked. I've spent many long minutes staring at that point in the air, trying to figure out what my cat could have been seeing. Nothing.

Not too long ago I had sporadic bouts of sleep paralysis when waking. The first time this happened was ''the'' most terrifying experience I have ever had. I woke up normally and started to get up only to discover I couldn't move. At all. And only a few days earlier I had wondered what it must feel like to be completely paralyzed. I panicked, trying to thrash around and call out for help, but nothing would move, my mouth wouldn't open. I couldn't even make vocal noises. Now, I happened to be lying on my stomach like usual and facing towards the door. There is only about two feet of space between my bed and the back corner of my room behind me. I instantly became aware that there was...''something'' sitting there, in the corner behind me, just out of my peripheral vision. I could ''feel'' it there and I knew it was watching me, and I couldn't stop feeling like it was ''smiling at me''. With every ounce of strength I had, I screamed "In the name of Jesus Christ, GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" I immediately pulled myself up and spun around. Of course, there was nothing sitting in my corner. It wasn't until the third instance of paralysis that I actually looked it up and read that panic and even hallucinations of being observed are common symptoms. That did take the edge off and it's been months since my last paralysis...but I never had another panic attack like that first one, and I always found it interesting that I could speak and move only after calling out the name of Jesus.

I spent most of last summer at my grandma's house in Arizona. Because it's, ya know, in the middle of a desert, keeping the place cool is a pretty major concern. Due to the quirks of the A/C system and evaporative cooler and the location of the guest bedroom, to keep the room from being roasting hot at night I had to keep door onto the hall open and the window open a crack. Also, the curtains didn't keep out all the light from the neighbors' houses and my grandma feeds the local critters, so there's a lot of wildlife hanging around there. Oh, and because she doesn't have internet at her house, I'd usually wind up loading a bunch of reading material and videos on my computer at the public library, then I'd go through it when we got home. HPLovecraft and MarbleHornets just before bed? Bad idea. HPLovecraft + MarbleHornets + long, thin cactus shadows + pitch dark doorway onto the hall + sound of a whole herd of javelinas moving through the underbrush right under my window? ''Worse idea''.

This troper sometimes hears voices when he is in his house alone, but, when he goes to see who it is, there is no one there. Funnily enough, it only occurs when he is on stuff he shouldn't be on, which has led him to believe that ghosts know what he is watching and can...see...him......typing......this.........Oh, holy shit!

Recently, same troper has become paranoid that, whenever he goes to close the curtains or glance in a mirror (or even turn around) in the dark, he will see a horrible monster appear out of nowhere. It has never happened, but, dammit, it always makes him nervous to even do those in case it does happen. The real irony is that he doesn't watch horror movies, so it is PrimalFear going completely mad for him.

This troper lives in a very old, creaky house. At night she is usually in the computer room, which only has one lamp. There's a little alcove in said room, where THERE IS NO LIGHT AT ALL. NONE. Just a dark shadow. Needless to say, this troper is often very scared to turn around.

This troper has three different instances. The first, which scared me the most was one day when this troper had the day of from school. So her mom comes home to have lunch with her and then leaves to go back to work and she's all alone. Then her mom calls her and says that there was a burglar by a park near her house and tells her to lock every door and window and if she hears a knock, to make as much noise as possible. So this troper naturally texts all her friends, turns on the tv, gets out her computer, and grabs a pair of scissors to throw. (i can throw them completely accurately) And she just sits there until her sisters get home and...knock on the door. Needless to say, my sister wasn't happy that I was poised to throw a pair of scissors at her.

Another story from this troper, but about her dad. When he was in college, he had an apartment and he lived alone in it. One night his fire alarm goes off, he gets up and checks around, but nothings burning so he checks the alarm and its fine. So he goes back to sleep. Like two hours later, it does it again and he does the same thing, but this time he takes the batteries out and puts them on the counter, goes back to sleep. A little while later it rings again! He went to stay with his friend, and the next morning, his neighbor told him that the police shot a guy in that room!

When I was reading this, I had to turn on Scrubs because it was terrifying me. Particularly the ones that say that they read it and realize how quiet it is...

Two more things are when cats stare at nothing. Always creeps me out when I'm petting them late at night. And it's always the same spot in the hallway...

Last things is kind of dumb, but once again about smoke alarms. This troper has never liked the little flashing light on smoke alarms especially in the dark. It just gives me bad vibes.

The scariest experience of my life happened when I was three years old, and it was because of this trope. When I was very young, there were several rooms of the house where I was afraid of being left alone, one of them being the family room, which had one wall that was really just a sliding glass door that gave you a very good view of the back yard. At night, however, it was very difficult to see what was ''in'' the back yard. Now, we had a turntable, which was slightly outdated at the time, but we had some children's records my mother liked to put on for me. She'd put on a Charlotte Diamond album, and it made me feel better about being alone in the family room that night. Well, up until the song "Looking For Dracula" (which can be heard here). It's a rhythmically-spoken story about looking for Dracula, and, towards the end, it sounds like sounds like she's in hysterics and almost crying. It's the last song on that side of the album, and, as I didn't know how to turn over a record and didn't know where my parents were to get them to do that for me, I couldn't chase the fear away with a cheerier song. It was the silence following the song that scared me so. I wanted to look into the darkness outside, but I was terrified of whatever sorts of things my imagination could have conjured up. I could have left the room, yes, but I didn't know where my parents were (and, even now, I ''still'' haven't been able to find out where they were), and the thought of wandering the house through empty rooms, most of which with lights off, in search of them was too much for me. It probably doesn't sound like anything bad to you, but, when you're three and full of irrational fears, it's absolutely terrifying. It was the scariest thing I've ever been through (especially when my childhood was full of things like that), and it's probably responsible for a good part of who I am today.

I've had a single instance of Sleep Paralysis, which appropriately enough happened after I saw ANightmareOnElmStreet for the first time. Woke up from a nightmare and could not move for several seconds, and when I could, everything was stiff and tingly like I had a whole-body charlie horse. Freaked me the hell out. But probably one of the scariest memories I have comes now when I think back on it. I was maybe twelve years old, lying in bed, staring at my clock's lit-up numbers. It was like 11:30 at night. I ''blink'', and the clock reads 3:15 in the morning. There's a part of me that swears that something must have happened, even if it was just me falling asleep and waking back up.

This troper went back to her old high school to participate in an alumni chorus concert. As she wandered down the empty hallways (it was evening, and summer besides), she almost expected the Flood to jump out and attack!

While it may not compare to these other entries, this happens to me most of the time. I'll be coming back to my dorm, just about to unlock it, when I hear voices in my room--two or more people talking, laughing. Now, I know that this door has been locked for several hours and my roommate is gone, but I can't help but freak out and wonder how someone got into my room. I unlock the door, step inside and....there's no one there and the TV's not on. And the voices have stopped.

This troper was up in the mountains doing some geological mapping on a recently-made logging road on a normal summer day when all of a sudden the light dimmed as a low-flying cloud came in. The air became heavy and damp, all the normal animal noises (from insects to birds) abruptly stopped and, most discontertainly, the wind suddenly died which meant you couldn't even hear the rustle of leaves. And then my compass, which I had just opened up to take a measuresment, started going wonky. I ''immediately'' unclipped the safety strap on the big bush knife I alweays carried in the field because I'd seen the movies and knew those little Grey bastards were going to get a fight...and then the wind picked up, the cloud cleared, the sounds were normal, and the magnetite vein I'd just walked over was clearly visible in the sunlight.

This troper's wife used to work in a rather old library. There is a large, empty community room on the top floor, and at closing time, she had to walk across the room and turn the lights off, then walk all the way back across to the main door some fifty feet away completely in the dark. She was always terrified of having to lock up because she didn't know what could be in the darkness.

Don't look from underneath the covers. If you feel something staring at you, ''good God'', whatever you do, '''''don't look out from underneath the covers!''''' At least underneath the covers, you can pretend they don't see you...

In college, this troper rented a house with a cold war era bomb shelter in the basement. None of the lights worked down there, but I used the space for home brewing. One night, I woke up to a loud crash below me. I went down to check it out. The furnace was off and the battery of my flashlight was nearly dead. Deep down, I knew that a beer bottle had exploded, but between the dim light and the eerie silence, I was on edge enough to go back upstairs and get my roommate's cricket bat for "protection". The adrenaline kept me up for awhile after that.

This Troper used to take a night class in college. On the way to and from this class, my dad would drive on this road that at one point, was surrounded by trees on either side, and beyond the thin wall of trees are cornfields. Whenever we went through it, it felt like some''thing'' was about to jump out in front of the car. Needless to say, fog did NOT help the situation.

This Troper went to a small asian restaurant for a meal afterschool. There weren't too many people there. After I ordered my food, I got bored and looked for the washroom. It was downstairs, so I went down the stairs and I end up in a small room, which had two doors and a mirror in between. One door lead to the men's washroom, and other to the women's washroom. It was also VERY quiet and dimly lit. I open up the men's washroom door, and it was pitch black inside. The door was also hard to open... I then decided that I didn't have to go to the washroom at that time.

This trope is the reason why I am locked in my bedroom with all the lights on with my father's bayonet that he uses for Civil War reenactments.

Years ago, this troper was playing outside at a day-care center when there was word on an escaped convict in the area. One of the younger kids wanders off, one of the older, more responsible kids goes looking for him. Time passes, another older kid goes off to look, and another... as the remaining kids go into a downward spiral of paranoia, hiding in a patch of pine trees. They'd gone inside, and hadn't thought to bring word back. Though they never told us if the alert was real...

This troper once wandered around her school after classes out of curiosity. At first it was fine. Most of the corridors were familiar territory and the occasional teacher passed me by. Then I went into the "other" side of the school. My whole walk there was practically full of ParanoiaFuel. Dark corners, mysterious locked doors, the odd shattered window, dimly-lit hallways, and the strange way the corridors seem to tilt this way and that...

There's a window in my bathroom that's right next to the shower, and it's sort of opaqued so that nobody can really see you naked. At night, it's pitch black and you can't see a damn thing out of it, though thanks to the bathroom light, you can probably see IN it. Lately I've been having thoughts that something might come up to the window and scare the shit out of me (it doesn't help that I'm a Slenderfan). Thanks to this horrible paranoia, I've started to get up a half an hour early to take my showers in the morning, when there's at least enough light to see out.

This Troper was once so afraid due to this trope, that he decided to become the monster, as it were. I started stalking the town after dark dressed in black and camo, looking for people who were alone so I could induce paranoia by clearly being there but at the same time, being unseeable. By scaring others, I managed to alliviate my own fears (my logic was "if I'm the scariest thing around there's no reason for me to be scared myself."). I've since gotten therapy and no longer do this.

I was once in the kitchen around midnight, with the lights on. I was the only one awake, and there was not a sound anywhere, except for the wind gently blowing. As I walked back to the living room to get on the computer, I stopped by the back door. I looked outside. Except I didn't see outside. Not even the light from the kitchen shed any light on my backyard. I thought it was odd, sure, but I wasn't scared. Then my mind brought up all the scary things I had experienced, read, or watched, lately. It forced me to think. #QUOTE#''What if there's something blocking the light.''

If it wasn't obvious, I got the hell out of there.

There's a cabin right next to the lake my house was built on that was built in 1919. My family uses it as a shed. When I was little, I went in to get the badminton stuff and SOMETHING TOUCHED ME. Like an icy cold finger tapped my shoulder. I couldn't go back in there for a month. The really wierd thing is, I've done some research on the house lately. All I can find is that it's previous owners were a family with a 10-year-old daughter. They probably moved out when she was 10 or something, but I got the creeping suspicion that she'd drowned. It still gives me the chills.

This troper has always had a crippling fear of being alone, given that fact most of my school year ethier avoid or torment me and because I get up very early in the mornings - i get scared more easily than most think. Back in primary school, the Christmas Play would be held late at night during december. I remeber being frightened to hell of the school at night. The tall, cold stone walls that seemed to stretch on for miles. The pure dark atmosphere outside the massive windows. The almost inaudible voices of excited or tired parents in the dance hall. And the fact I always had to wear my jammies during the plays. What made it more frightening was that it seemed ''I was the only one who noticed any of it.'' When I was eight I told my teacher of said fears....she told me to stop overeacting and made me stay in the darkest area of the stage until my cue. What was worse was that I couldn't see my mom in the crowd so I thought I was there alone.

Even now I can't stay up later than my sisters. 11 o clock at night? Parents are out? Tv bill payed? Mountains of movies? AWWWW YEEEAAAAHHH! What? Both sisters going to bed early? BED-TIME! Up early in morning? Snacks everywhere? Folks aren't up yet? Cartoons you couldn't get before? AWWWW YESSS! Ridiculously dark and quite with the occasional sound of pipes cooling down? BACK TO BED.

My siste's friend told me about "The Nothing", The Nothing is a monster that only exists in your mind, and it differs from person to person, so she said whenever you are looking down an empty hallway, the nothing is secretly there, making it scary.

I was home alone (my dog doesn't count) one day. It was a perfectly normal, sunny day like any other. I decided to take a break from whatever internet-based activity I was doing and look out at the back yard through the sliding glass door. And then I heard what sounded like a long, drawn out ''sigh'' from right behind me. Nobody else was in the room. Needless to say, I kept a heavy object by my side just in case anything needed to be bludgeoned until someone else came home.

The first time I was playing {{Portal}}, I thought the companion cube was going to start talking. Of course, there was only silence. (Eventually I thought I heard it talk...)

I'm pretty sure this goes in Troper Tales...A few years back, I was watching On Demand and noticed they had a selection of student films--films made by ''high-school'' students. One of them...Oh god. The short film followed a high school boy who was staying home alone one day--used a lot of shots of him just going about the day, no one else around...complete silence in the house...Then he gets a phonecall from a man who claims he can see the boy's future, and it will be a good one if he just follows these simple instructions. (The kid believed him because he got a fax from that man earlier that said '''"It looks like your mother's going to be late."''' Just then his mom called saying she wouldn't be home til ten at night.) At first nothing much happened; the kid just did simple things that seemed insignificant, then got calls saying he did great, his future was getting clearer now. "Now you're going to meet a man, and I want you to help him, okay?" The kid later sees a man walking around on his lawn, in the middle of the night, and invites him inside. As he takes the man inside and directs him to the livig room, the kid takes his phone out to call the other man, saying he helped him, so now what? Silence...and then the voice got all nervous and said "You shouldn't have let him inside. ''I can't see your future anymore.''" And then hung up. The kid sets the phone down, sloooowly looks out into the hall and--Cut to black, with the director's voice saying "We're sorry. We were unable to think of a suitable ending. Please, everyone, use your imaginations." For some reason, ''that alone'' scared the everloving crap out of me.

Anderling takes the underground to school every day. A couple of weeks back, the intercom said that due to an "accident" at station Alexander, there would be a delay. I live right near that station (I get off only two stops earlier), so I started wondering what had happened and decided to go and see. When I got there, there weren't any ambulances or police officers or whatever. There wasn't anyone there, either, despite it being the middle of the day and an important transfer point for the train and the schedule was still erratic so there wasn't going to be another carriage for half an hour. I ran and refused to go near the place for a few days.

This Troper reads this page and the main page in the night, 12 A.M and later, everyone else in the house asleep, all lights off including my bedroom light, sometimes mildly blowing wind and I live nearby a cemetery for war heroes. Cue scratching noises on the wall right behind me...

This troper once had a group of friends who would occasionally go wandering out at night. One of our favorite haunts was a little old cellar, quite large, the woman who owned it never seemed to be home. There were rumors of all sorts of hellish noises coming out of that cellar, people would disappear near there, and when we went there, all we saw was darkness. Inside, outside, the world seemed to become darker near that cellar. Now, me and my friends thought we were pretty brave, but when we went in there...yikes. Chains hung from the ceilings, the walls, and occasionally, we would hear something ''walking'', rattling with chains. A chill ran down our spines every step. Further and further in, the thing just plain became eldritch looking. There were odd drawings on the walls, and nobody was around. Nobody. And the walking whatever with the chains...ugh. When the rattling got closer and closer, we were on edge. We found something down there, a little red stone on the ground, and then there was a moaning sound from outta nowhere. More chain rattling. We ran for it. We never went that far in again.

After finding a room full of dirt in the basement, appropriately called the dirt room, my mother and I explored it. There was no light in there, save for the flashlight my mom had. There was nothing in there, save for some rocks, some supplies for building, and...but after months of watching Marble Hornets, I kept jumping in and out of the door, just to make sure that, if anyone did come (not mentioning any names), I could get out easily.