Have you ever felt evil or that something was deeply wrong?

[crochetmonkey74]

Inspired by an experience I had recently that has really rattled me. It's very outing as I've talked to everyone in my real life about it, it bothered me so much so I'll keep it brief.
I met some people I hadn't met before to buy an item from FB marketplace. Its a fairly rare item, and an expensive one so I went off to see if it was the right thing. The house was beautiful, it was a very large manor house that has been turned into huge expensive period flats,the grounds were amazing and the people were nice but a few odd things happened that were boundary testing and also some oddly timed things happened. While I was there I felt OK, it was a beautiful place, very quiet and entrancing but as I drove away I had this overwhelming sense of relief that I was leaving, and I was scanning my brain for any information I'd told them about myself in case they could find me. I am not a scared person or one prone to flights of fancy , this has never happened to me before. I had a physical reaction to the street they live on when I drove past some days later. My brain said "I'm never going up there again" and I keep having that feeling of having been in a bubble, it bursting and me being glad to be away from it. A weird story I know. Anyone had similar? I just know there was something deeply wrong there. I even asked my lovely neighbour to send a prayer up for me to protect me , and I would consider myself a non believer!

When I was a child about 9 I was stood in front of a shop struggling to get the top off my drink bottle, being a rather open trusting sort I politely asked a passing man (who was a young adult) if they could help me get it off, which they duly did and then walked on.
But, the feeling of pure evil that person gave off when they looked at me washed over me like a cold bath giving me a lump of fear in the pit of my tummy, and I was full of gratitude when they carried on leaving me behind.
Obviously my request was perhaps a little presumptuous, but I grew up in a friendly community and it wasn't weird to me at that time... but the feeling that person gave me has stayed with me for years and I often think of it when I hear about countries with poor human rights and think of people imprisoned and in the hands of evil people who 'enjoy their work'. I just knew if I had been in his control there would have been no mercy for whatever ill-wishes he had.

Yes a man walking towards me in the street when I was a teenager. Something in my mind told me to run. I ran to the nearest shop, the man waited outside for me and I was taken home out the back by the shop owner. The man was arrested for serial rape several months later

god how hideous; your poor friend.

It gave the sense of a cult, trying to hook you.

Probably into pyramid selling schemes. They are weirdos.

I looked round a house once and had the most awful feeling. It was so bad I had to leave and had to delete the photos I'd taken off my phone. It was so strange because the area couldn't have been more sunny, leafy and nice and the people showing us round including the owner seemed really nice! And the house was lovely from the outside. I can't shake the feeling something really terrible happened there.

They do sound like weirdos, OP. I know exactly what you mean about how you can feel you're imagining or overthinking things said politely/casually/among normality, and how impossible it can thus be to challenge them.

Mine isn't the same, but years ago DP and I went to look at a flat for rent. Nice little place, and I was thinking I was quite keen, until I got to one room (the bedroom, IIRC). Walked in and the hairs on my neck stood up. You had to walk through this room to get to the bathroom, so I did, but my instincts were all screaming at me to turn and run. On the way back through it from the bathroom I seriously had to steel myself, and dashed through it.

You said boundary testing?

FOJN yes possibly
My dog also growls as we walk through the fields and sees a man walking without a dog (even before I have seen it). Men with dogs are fine! Maybe because in the past I have thought ‘why is that man walking through the fields on their own?’

I had something similar happen when we were looking for a house to buy.
We were viewing a really nice house, it looked great from the outside, I was so excited about it.
But inside it gave me this weird feeling. Then I thought about being alone in that house at night, it gave me the creeps.

Interesting that your dog reacts before you notice, I suppose it's possible we condition responses in dogs with our own reactions.

I do feel for men walking on their own. I was out with the dog on the beach very early yesterday morning (too early for other people to be up and about) and there was a man just strolling along the beach on his own but in my head that bastard was ruining my walk because him walking on his own was suspicious!

I do believe there are evil people though (obviously), and that at times some people can sense this.

I had an interesting experience several decades ago. I was on an exceptionally rare night out. A friend of a friend of a friend introduced their new partner to me. He shook my hand and I looked in his eyes and have never felt such evil, and had a visceral reaction to it. After a few minutes I quickly lied to the hosts saying I’d been called into work and politely exited. I was shaking all the way home and called my mum (expensive long distance phone calls in those days so not a common occurrence), and told her and said that I knew he’d done something so terrible.

Considerably later, I learnt that he had been accused of murdering his previous wife, but had been acquitted. He did it.

I believe you OP. I can’t explain why this happened but I believe you had this unusual and unexplained reaction because my mum has had it twice…

1. About 30 years ago she was with my dad heading to a local beauty spot for a walk (summertime), as soon as they arrived in the car park she just freaked out and had a petrified feeling so they left. The following day a woman was murdered in that location.

2. More recently she went into a very old pub for lunch and again had a feeling of complete unease and fear. They left immediately. She couldn’t explain it as she had never been to that pub or even that village before. She thought that perhaps something had happened to her in the pub or village or was a victim of someone in the pub there at the time in a past life!!

I can always sense when I shouldn't do something. As a child it would be when I was about to sneak a biscuit from the tin or do something naughty, i'd get this very vague feeling and decide not to do it, then someone would walk in the room or my parents would return home. I've had it before when about to leave the house to go shopping, then a few minutes later there was a car crash on the narrow lane I live on. If I'm doing something I'm worried about I search for the feeling and it's never been wrong. (Operation went wrong- I sensed it before I went in, randomly thought about a relative, had the feeling and a few days later was told she'd died, etc)

DH and I booked a viewing for a house and I got the feeling, assumed it was because the house wouldn't be right but when we got there even the estate agent mentioned how cold it was and kept saying "It'll be more inviting when furnished" etc. After, the EA declared there had been a murder AND a suicide in the house (seperate occasions) which he hadn't known before showing us- so he sensed it too!

I don't question it- it doesn't cause me any distress, doesn't mean I'm mental etc. If I was hallucinating or it was stopping me from living I'd be concerned.

I should add- it's not a feeling of apprehension or worry. It's such a subconscious thing I sometimes only notice it after changing my mind. Not just coincidences either, I've searched for patterns or triggers of what has changed my mind about decisions and found nothing. I don't sense good things, only when something is bad.

Yes a few times. I also left a medical career and felt it on several occasions with fellow doctors.

Always always listen to your gut. If something feels wrong. It usually is. It is good that your friend sent you the prayer.

@Trinity65 this is so interesting because that little area around the arches/Villiers St/Craven Passage is one of my favourite areas of London!

I had an experience as a teenager with a relative that really unnerved me. Would have been about 13 or 14 at the time and this guy was a distant relative who we'd only see rarely as he didn't live in the UK. Never had any issues before at all, but on this one occasion we were all on holiday together and I got in the swimming pool with my brother. Relative then got in and I cannot explain the fear I felt. All I knew was that I had to stay away from him-there was something about the way he looked at me and I just knew I wasn't safe.
I recall thinking that I just needed to stay close to my brother and then get out as soon as I could. Nothing happened and I never told anyone about it (in fact this is the first time I'm 'telling' anyone!) but often thought about it.
About 10 years later the relative was convicted of historical child sex offences and jailed. Can't help but think my sixth sense was spot on

Yes absolutely. Long story short but many years ago I met a man in a nightclub and went home with him (stupid I know). When we walked in, certain items in his living room troubled me but I thought I was just being oversensitive. But he seemed very nice and kind of, I dunno....beta male, like a bit of a waffly Hugh Grant figure? But as the minutes wore on it felt like he was putting on an act. But I put that down to him just trying to be attractive to me in a non-threatening way, I thought it was quite sweet.

See - female socialisation was making me override these little instinctive niggles that I had.

i was quite drunk and therefore relaxed but then he went out to the kitchen to pour us both a drink and in that moment I heard, I SWEAR I physically heard it, a voice very close to my left ear, or maybe in the left side of my head, say, very clearly, "Get out of here now." It wasn't my own voice, or any voice I thought I knew, but it was somehow a familiar, authoritative voice and one I trusted. So I literally got up and ran. Left some of the contents of my handbag but not my purse or keys thank god. There were two chains on his front door but once I undid those I opened it with no problem and just left and ran down the road. Middle of nowhere, countryside, no buses or anything that I knew about (no mobile phone, just pre- the era where everyone had them, early 00s). After ages of walking I saw a cab and, thank Goddess, it was a female cab driver who listened kindly to my blurted out tale of fear and possible paranoia and said she thought I'd done the right thing.

Mad and creepy but I'll never forget it.

Maybe they’re swingers?

@PureBlackVoid but why would that incur a feeling of doom? Surely it's a good thing he was caught?

I'm confused, that just seems like a coincidence to me. It held more relevance to you due to family history but how would they link?

Thank you @covilha

Well, it’s definitely not weird to feel weird after strange people are saying weird things to you.

OP this all sounds very usual: you had a v normal response to people pushing boundaries in this way.

Yes, answered upthread

But it wasn't usual, it was an unusual thing.
Had lots of experience with odd or dangerous or horrible people through work. This was very different

But they behaved oddly. In a creepy boundary pushing way. And that made you feel really uncomfortable. Seems very normal? They don’t, they sound bizarre and deeply suspicious!