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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To start a new woo thread

302 replies

arh25 · 23/09/2025 08:50

Has anyone had any woo experiences, particularly if it's something/someone you've seen? I know that not everyone believes, just I've had some odd experiences myself and it makes me wonder. Especially with Halloween next month and it being a little while since we've had a woo thread. Would love to hear your stories!

OP posts:
CarrieWasReal · 25/09/2025 18:40

Thrge · 25/09/2025 10:47

I’ve namechanged as mine are outing because they are events I’ve told a lot of people about irl.

My relative lived in a house that had a really heavy and cold atmosphere. I’ve never felt it in any other house I’ve been in. I always felt nervous visiting her. I especially hated upstairs in her house. One day I was visiting her and was desperate for the toilet so reluctantly I went upstairs to use it. I sat on the toilet and left the bathroom door open because I wanted to make a sharp exit when I was done. There was a shut bedroom door directly opposite me. All of a sudden the handle of the door dropped down like somebody was opening it and it swung open (the handle needed weight to open, it wasn’t one that had any natural drop). There was nobody there but I got up and ran down the stairs as fas as I could . There was nobody else in the house with us, I looked for every logical explanation but there wasn’t one.

In my own house I was stood in my living room on my own because I had been tidying up. My then baby and toddler were both asleep in bed and my DH was washing the dinner dishes. Suddenly I felt something behind me and heard a strange almost impish voice shout something incoherent then a strange laugh, then I saw the strangest thing - it was like a waist height dark transparent figure running away from me. I wanted to find a logical explanation for it, ran straight to the kitchen and my DH was just washing the dishes, both children were still asleep.

There was also another time that me and DH were both in the kitchen and we both saw our 4 year old daughter walk into the dining room next to us with a sheet over her head. I said to my DH that I would just check what she was up to, then she breezily walked down the stairs. That sounds like such a stereotype and I wouldn’t believe it either if we hadn’t have both seen the same thing.

In a ruined castle abroad we couldn’t find the way out. We followed a man who was slightly ahead of us down some stairs, walked into the room the stairs led to and he was gone. There was no other way out than the stairs we had come down on.

I'm just catching up on the rest of the thread. How old were you when you were sitting on the lavvy and saw the door flung open? That's very like what I experienced.

Worried198423 · 25/09/2025 18:41

I think some can definitely be attributed to sleep paralysis,.Or some preconceived idea when you hear about a places history.

But when your 3 years of age (me) looking out your bedroom window a and seeing people in old style clothes walking around.
When you have dreams of seeing your dead mother and uncle pushing a pram and handing it over to you.
Then finding out your dil is pregnant.
There's obviously something else at play.

CoffeeCantata · 25/09/2025 18:45

@CarrieWasReal

It’s weird, isn’t it? But poltergeist activity does seem related to pubescent children, especially if they’re going through an unhappy time.

laddersandsnakes12 · 25/09/2025 18:52

@CoffeeCantatayour post is so interesting. I had a few strange things happen to me when I was a teenage girl (and not a happy one at that). The one that sticks out the most is I was with some close relatives, going through a very difficult time, when from the corner of a room that no one else was in, a DVD case flew off the TV stand and smashed into the wall on the opposite side of the room. Terrified us all and we ran out of the house. I’ve never thought it was something ghostly, but always suspected that being a young woman going through a tough time had something to do with it. So it was interesting to read your thoughts and experiences!

Thewitchsong · 25/09/2025 18:56

AndSheDid · 25/09/2025 10:59

Her first words to a stranger knocking at the door were ‘Oh, you’ve seen her then?’ Rather than ‘Hello’ or ‘Not interested in your political campaign/buying brushes/hearing about Jehovah’?

She just sits about waiting for passersby to knock on her door to tell her they’ve seen her sobbing child ghost?

Yes
A lot of people knock and let her know that 'her' child is crying at the window
The fact I was hopping from foot to foot and pointing at the window as she answered the door

This is a well known fact in York,we where one of many people who can tell this story

NoRoseTintedGlasses · 25/09/2025 19:09

Not me but my late mother.

She was pretty poorly in hospital; she had MRSA post operative and was in hospital for months (this was 2001 I think). Anyway, on one ward, she said that she woke up to a woman dressed in black, stood at the side of her bed. My mum asked her what she wanted but the woman didn't reply. Just stood there silent and then disappeared.

I work in hospital and sometimes will pick up a night shift. You can imagine the spooky stories that get told. And admittedly, as a non-believer, even I got a little bit spooked working on a ward that even the porters hate going up to at night 🫣

CoffeeCantata · 25/09/2025 19:21

@laddersandsnakes12
Wow - that’s a terrifying incident. I’m fascinated by this subject for many reasons.

Critics say that certain phenomena are part of a kind of mass hysteria - they’re sort of ‘caught’ or copied from others, like the experience of incubi etc in the 18th century, the hysteria about demons and witches in the 17th century and more recently things like UFO sightings. They are all the rage for a while and then seem to stop.

But poltergeist activity (whatever we mean by that) has been attested for centuries - I think even from ancient times, long before there could have been any communication or any way that people could have got the idea from others and ‘copied’ it. The features of PA are very similar over time. Whatever it is, it does seem to happen in the presence of teenagers, and especially girls.

Until we experienced it I wouldn’t have believed it, but we definitely had to reassess our ideas.

Pricelessadvice · 25/09/2025 19:23

Worried198423 · 25/09/2025 18:41

I think some can definitely be attributed to sleep paralysis,.Or some preconceived idea when you hear about a places history.

But when your 3 years of age (me) looking out your bedroom window a and seeing people in old style clothes walking around.
When you have dreams of seeing your dead mother and uncle pushing a pram and handing it over to you.
Then finding out your dil is pregnant.
There's obviously something else at play.

I have narcolepsy and suffer from sleep paralysis and hallucinations when coming in and out of sleep. Peoples experiences at bed time/night time are exactly what I experience so I just don’t believe they are anything supernatural.
People would be very surprised at how your brain works when you are both asleep and awake at the same time. When I am in stage 1 sleep, I am fully conscious but my brain waves are in a sleep state. This is quite common and people don’t realise they are actually technically ‘asleep’ at this point, despite the fact that they could chat with someone if they spoke, or answer a question.
This is a common time to experience things like seeing people, feeling people sit on the bed etc.

AndSheDid · 25/09/2025 19:24

Worried198423 · 25/09/2025 17:13

@CurlewKate can we not have 1 thread to talk about experiences.
You don't have to come on a thread you don't believe.
Block it and go and live your life.

@Somethingsnapped asked @CurlewKate to provide a sceptical perspective on the thread. And her contribution is pretty much a blanket explanation of everything on it, especially experiences remembered from early childhood, when children have all kinds of crazy beliefs, like how swallowed chewing gum wraps around your heart.

Hillsmakeyoustrong · 25/09/2025 21:27

I'd be happy for any sceptics to explain these...i have asked DH if I can share as he gas never told anyone IRL. He dreamed about 9/11 the night before, so literally a few hours before it happened. I woke up to him shouting in his sleep and had to calm him down. He said he had been on a plane flying across America and it couldnt land so people were calling their loved ones to say goodbye but then it crashed into a building and he said there was burning and ash everywhere. He also kept hearing water rushing for a week before the tsunami during the day and in his sleep. He hasn't dreamed anything since. I have had weird dreams where I dream that I'm walking down the road and there is a man lying in the middle of the road. I run to put my coat over him and call an ambulance. The next day it actually happens, down to the smallest detail like the location, being right outside my house. I also haven't had anything like that in ages but those instances DID happen and I can't think of a rational explanation.

IcanBe · 25/09/2025 21:54

My now DH was interviewed for a job but the office where he was interviewed wasn’t the one he’d work in but one in an old village about three miles from his home. So on the Sunday before starting, he went to find the office and look around to get his bearings etc. His office was on the ground floor of a three storey 250 year old building.

A few weeks after starting, he asked his colleagues who the girl was who he’d seen looking out of the top floor window when he came by that Sunday.

Freaked out both his colleagues and the solicitors working on the second floor as the top floor was empty and had been closed up for years.

Comeandgetyourblackbinbags1990 · 25/09/2025 22:32

arh25 · 23/09/2025 08:50

Has anyone had any woo experiences, particularly if it's something/someone you've seen? I know that not everyone believes, just I've had some odd experiences myself and it makes me wonder. Especially with Halloween next month and it being a little while since we've had a woo thread. Would love to hear your stories!

Been waiting for this 👻 🎃

LlamaNoDrama · 25/09/2025 22:39

Hillsmakeyoustrong · 25/09/2025 21:27

I'd be happy for any sceptics to explain these...i have asked DH if I can share as he gas never told anyone IRL. He dreamed about 9/11 the night before, so literally a few hours before it happened. I woke up to him shouting in his sleep and had to calm him down. He said he had been on a plane flying across America and it couldnt land so people were calling their loved ones to say goodbye but then it crashed into a building and he said there was burning and ash everywhere. He also kept hearing water rushing for a week before the tsunami during the day and in his sleep. He hasn't dreamed anything since. I have had weird dreams where I dream that I'm walking down the road and there is a man lying in the middle of the road. I run to put my coat over him and call an ambulance. The next day it actually happens, down to the smallest detail like the location, being right outside my house. I also haven't had anything like that in ages but those instances DID happen and I can't think of a rational explanation.

When I was a teen I had quite a few dreams/premonitions. Never of anything big, just random stuff really but then it would happen and I'd get de ja vu and would know exactly what was going to happen next. In one of them I was followed home one night and asked to do a sexual act by someone, it then actually happened in real life, exactly as I'd dreamt it. I'm convinced that because I dreamt it and knew I'd be okay, that's what kept me calm and allowed me to safely get away.

Hillsmakeyoustrong · 25/09/2025 23:02

@LlamaNoDrama I'm so sorry that happened to you. I think its amazing you managed to stay calm and managed to find safety 🙏

It's interesting that the premonitions came when you were a teenager. DH and I had our experiences in our 20s but very little, if any, as we have aged. Maybe there is something in that.

Tcateh · 25/09/2025 23:16

Well this evening we heard a something drop which made a distinct muffled thud in our bathroom upstairs.

There was a loo roll upright in the middle of the floor. It's normal vinyl flooring over floor boards.

All other rolls on a shelf in the corner.

One on the toilet roll holder.

No cats. Not placed there or left by either of us (me and adult daughter only in the home) dd had just been for a wee and it wasn't there then.

There was nowhere for it to fall down from. Experimented with height drop/sound we'd heard and it would have had to have dropped from about 3ft with force.

Weird

Amybelle88 · 25/09/2025 23:22

Love this!!! I’ve got some new tales to share but I’m literally falling asleep - placemarking to come back and add my two pence worth!

UnctuousUnicorns · 25/09/2025 23:59

Tcateh · 25/09/2025 23:16

Well this evening we heard a something drop which made a distinct muffled thud in our bathroom upstairs.

There was a loo roll upright in the middle of the floor. It's normal vinyl flooring over floor boards.

All other rolls on a shelf in the corner.

One on the toilet roll holder.

No cats. Not placed there or left by either of us (me and adult daughter only in the home) dd had just been for a wee and it wasn't there then.

There was nowhere for it to fall down from. Experimented with height drop/sound we'd heard and it would have had to have dropped from about 3ft with force.

Weird

I once pulled the shower curtain back after finishing my shower (over bath type), and as I did, an empty toilet roll dropped down from the air above me. Another time it was a pair of tweezers that fell down in front of me. Both times, bathroom door locked. And before anyone suggests I must have been in some sort of trance, and balanced them on the shower rail myself, whence they then fell off, à la Ciáran O'Keeffe, I'm 5' 0", I can't even reach the shower rail. I have to get DH to change the curtains. So no. 'Twas most odd.

PoshestPaws · 26/09/2025 05:10

I’ve had a few I think I might have posted about one of them under a different name.

My mum was dying, it was a weekend and she was at home so we had no medical assistance. She was on a syringe drive giving pain relief but she was hanging onto life and it was very distressing.

For two nights in a row family members had been awake by her bedside and they were exhausted but I work nights so was finding it easier.
I’d caught up with a few hours sleep during the day but no one else was used to sleeping in the daytime so had been awake constantly.

The other family members left for some sleep in the afternoon and I was on my own with my mum, my sisters dog and my mums cat who was on the bed with her by her feet.
My mum was peaceful and I was just sitting by her side, it was a weird dreamlike state.

My dad had died 4 years before and suddenly the smell of his aftershave filled the whole room, I was convinced I was imagining it but it was so strong and recognisable. It was an aftershave that was hard to get hold of and I bought it for him for every birthday and Christmas and usually had to order it from abroad.

The dog sat up and started whining and the cat moved and sat right on my mums chest and her breathing changed and she took 3 last breaths whilst I held her hand.

I’m glad those last moments were was so peaceful and that the animals were there, I try not to think about it but I do find it comforting when I remember how strong the smell was.

Like pp I’ve had a few dreams that have been very vivid then the event I’ve dreamt about has actually occurred, they are often pretty mundane but the last significant one was the night before the air India crash in June this year.
I told DP about it in detail and he was very freaked out when we saw it later on the news.

Me and DP have both had almost identical dreams some nights which is pretty freaky.

Often the premonition like dreams are reoccurring and I’ve had the same one over and over recently that I’m hoping is just anxiety.

I keep dreaming I’m watching the news and they are advising to have a “survival kit” with food, water, batteries, a wind up radio etc. there is an underlying sense of urgency but they are saying it a precaution and not to panic.
I stopped watching the news a few months ago due to anxiety so it’s not something I’ve seen and subconsciously remembered.

In the dream it escalates where the uk gets warning that an attack could be imminent and gives advice on what to do if it happens but reiterates it’s unlikely and this is just to make people prepared for all eventualities. Next there are rumours on the internet saying that the uk is under threat.

Every time I dream that an emergency alert goes off on my phone (I’ve never had one so it’s not based on experience) and then I wake up.

I know logically it’s likely just my brain picking up on anxieties but it’s the way the dream is so vivid and similar to the others that is really causing me to freak out, I’ve had the same dream 5/6 times in the last two weeks, it’s always the same and I wake up at the same point.

This is one of the cases I actually appreciate people’s scepticism and I’m happy to be told it’s just an overactive imagination and that it’s just a dream and the others were simply coincidence!

arh25 · 26/09/2025 06:38

Loving these stories so far, can't wait to read more. The woman walking infront of someone's car is horrifying! For anyone interested, the Uncanny FB group has some freaky stories from people. I'll check out the podcast linked above by someone, I love a spooky podcast 👻

OP posts:
unsurewhattodoaboutit · 26/09/2025 07:05

CurlewKate completely trolled the last woo thread and was very disparaging of everyone’s experiences.

CurlewKate · 26/09/2025 07:19

unsurewhattodoaboutit · 26/09/2025 07:05

CurlewKate completely trolled the last woo thread and was very disparaging of everyone’s experiences.

No, I didn’t. There are many people who are made very unhappy and scared, and who lose a lot of money (and make a lot of money)because of a belief in the paranormal so it’s good to remember that there are always alternatives. If you think me saying “It was probably a dream” is trolling or disparaging then so be it. I hope you never meet a troll.

MoodyMargaret11 · 26/09/2025 07:59

AndSheDid · 25/09/2025 10:59

Her first words to a stranger knocking at the door were ‘Oh, you’ve seen her then?’ Rather than ‘Hello’ or ‘Not interested in your political campaign/buying brushes/hearing about Jehovah’?

She just sits about waiting for passersby to knock on her door to tell her they’ve seen her sobbing child ghost?

Same Sobbing Girl story shared here, seems by the same OP but slightly different details and another username - scroll down towards the end of page

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5343548-to-ask-whats-the-spookiest-thing-thats-ever-happened-to-you

CoffeeCantata · 26/09/2025 08:07

CurlewKate · 26/09/2025 07:19

No, I didn’t. There are many people who are made very unhappy and scared, and who lose a lot of money (and make a lot of money)because of a belief in the paranormal so it’s good to remember that there are always alternatives. If you think me saying “It was probably a dream” is trolling or disparaging then so be it. I hope you never meet a troll.

But people are recounting personal experiences. Why should anyone suppress or feel guilty or thick or gullible about such things? I’m very sceptical and when I listen to friends or acquaintances telling me about their experiences, of course I might very politely question them but I’d never just rubbish or dismiss what they’re saying because THEY WERE THERE.

But I’ve experienced things myself. I’m selective about who I tell - some people are arrogant know-alls who always know best. Some are credulous and will swallow anything, and some are like me (and Good old Danny Robbins - give that man a medal): open-minded and humble enough to realise we don’t understand everything yet, however scientific we may be.

In fact, before I had personal experience of ‘the unexplained’, I remember being ticked off by a research scientist friend who told me - science can’t explain everything - yet.

CurlewKate · 26/09/2025 08:13

And I am sorry to double post-but there is a mumsnetter posting today very distressed by somebody suggesting the paranormal to her.