u/Masimasu

Kan sub an post thenkhat objective miah lova Mizo selna post ho hi entertain lo ang u, an account hi han chhui Ila, comments leh post dang mizote hmusit zawnga Siam leh sanghi mindset deuh nei an ni zel a nia. Hei hi Mizo sub a ni a, Mizoram sub a nilo a, duh duh ina Mizote laka kamchhe tleuh Nana an rawn hmqng thin hi a rilru nat thlak lek lek thin. Ni hman nuam u.

When I was a kid I had this incredibly vivid nightmare where I saw a human corpse wrapped in white cloth sitting upright in a chair. It was so disturbing that for years after I would randomly get flashbacks of that image at completely random moments. Like I'd be having a great day and then out of nowhere that image would just pop into my head and completely kill the vibe or ruin my mood entirely. As a kid it scared me oftentimes.

Over the years it's gotten better especially after 25 and it doesn't affect me as much anymore but I still think about it almost every single day, it's part of my everyday thought now. Which got me wondering... can a dream be so vivid and traumatic that it causes some kind of lasting psychological effect? I know it's probably nowhere near actual PTSD but what else would you even call it when a single dream haunts you for decades.

When I was around 6 or 7 years old, my parents were doing mission work, so we moved around a lot and lived in different parts of the country(a country in Asia). At one point we had just moved into a small wooden cabinlike house that had been provided for us. The bathroom was not inside the house. It was a separate little structure right behind it.

Because of that, whenever my siblings or I needed to use the bathroom at night, we would wake one of our parents up to escort us, even though it was only a few steps away. One night, probably around 1 am, I woke my mum up because I needed to go. It was a clear night. This was back in the 90s, and the porch was lit by one of those fluorescent yellowish lights.

After I finished, my mum said she needed to use the bathroom too and told me to wait outside. So I was standing there by myself, looking around the yard. This town was rural so I could see the stars, and the sodium vapour lamps of the street were casting a faint orange glow all around. That is when I noticed something peeking around the front corner of the house. It looked like a man wearing a hat. It had a sharp jawline and was wearing a fedora style hat. I could only see its head and hat sticking out from behind the corner. The strange thing was that it was completely black, like a silhouette or a shadow, but I knew it was staring at me. There were no facial features whatsoever. The fluorescent porch light illuminated the foliage behind it, but somehow none of that light touched it. It was literally peering around the corner and intensely looking at me.

I was a bit scared, but I honestly thought it was a neighbour trying to prank me. It was common for older neighbourhood kids to do things like that. So I called out to him. No response. I called again. Nothing. It did not even flinch. It just stared at me without an eye.

For some reason, I decided the best course of action was to approach it. So I mustered all my courage and charged towards it. As I ran toward the figure, it started getting smaller and smaller. I cannot really explain it properly. Not like it was moving away. By the time I got close, it looked almost flat, like a shadow on the ground. Then it merged with a shadow being cast by a chair on the porch and simply disappeared. I looked around and there was no one there. It was dead quiet. I turned around and ran back to my mum. I looked again and there was absolutely nothing there.

I told my mum what I had seen but she brushed it off as imagination. Though perhaps she was a bit concerned as well, because she read the Bible to me, prayed for me and tucked me into bed.... Since then I have never forgotten what I saw. That image of the hat and the black silhouette has stayed with me for almost 30 years now.

I am not from the West and as a kid in the 90s I had never been exposed to horror characters like Freddy Krueger or anything similar. I had no reason to imagine a hat wearing shadow person. I only learned about Freddy Krueger and started consuming American pop culture in the mid 2000s.

Then today, completely by chance, I watched a YouTube video about the Hat Man phenomenon and discovered that people all over the world describe seeing almost the exact same thing.

When I was around 11, two of my neighbours, both 3-4years older, invited me on a bike ride and hike through the woods in the hills about 5 km from our house. It was summer vacation, all boys, and our parents were happy to let us go. The plan was to ride out to a spot where there was this tree with edible bark, we wanted to check it out and come back home.

The ride out was a blast. We were racing each other on the hill roads, having the time of our lives. About 3.5 km in, we came across an old cemetery. We stopped there, opened our lunch boxes, and rested for a bit. That's when something strange happened for the first time, I kept hearing what sounded like a woman singing. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, so I asked the other two if they heard it. They said no. Something in my gut told me we should turn back. But I was the youngest, and there was no way I was going to say that in front of the older kids. So I kept my mouth shut and we carried on.

From there, the road was all uphill and too steep to ride, so we pushed our bikes the rest of the way. The forest got denser and darker the higher we climbed. When we finally reached the tree, the two older guys started peeling off strips of bark and chewing on them, joking around and talking about girls. I just stood there, uneasy, scanning the woods. I kept thinking, what if a bear jumpred out of those trees right now? What if I see a ghost?

And then we heard it. A deep, low moaning sound, like a woman's voice but very deep, something like "uuuuuu". All three of us heard it clearly. The forest had gone completely silent around us. We just stood there frozen, staring at each other with wide eyes, asking "Did you hear that? What was that?"

I was the youngest but I could see the older boys were genuinely scared. I don't know why I did it, but I told them I had farted. They looked at me, annoyed, and one of them went "then why didn't you just say so?" I still cannot believe they bought it. But the tension broke, and they kind of laughed it off, I smiled nervously.

After we got bored of the tree, we decided to head home. Going downhill was a completely different experience. We were flying on our bikes, laughing, the creepy sound already fading from our minds. Until we saw this bright sparks on the road, apprently a live electric wire had snapped and was lying across the road directly in our path. We slammed our brakes and skidded to a stop just in time. None of us dared get close. We had all seen enough educational TV shows to know that electricity can travel through the ground. But this was a narrow hill road with no way around it, except through the bamboo thicket on the side. What were we to do now? This was before cellphone era, none of us had a way to contact our parents, so the eldest had to make a decision.

So here is what he suggested and what we did. We rolled our bikes down the slope and let them crash past the wire, sending them further down the road. Then we climbed off the road, pushed through the bamboo, and carefully crawled back onto the road on the other side of the wire. Somehow, none of us got hurt. We retrieved our bikes, got back on, and rode the rest of the way home in almost complete silence. No jokes, no racing. Just neutral faces and quiet until we reached our houses.

I still think about that moaning like sound sometimes. Was it a bear? Could it have been the electric wire snapping making the sound, Or was it something paranormal? I honestly don't know. Probably never will. Unfortunately, I believe my companions still think I farted suuper loudly that day.

Today I learned about the "Hat Man" phenomenon, and it honestly freaked me out a bit because I saw one as a kid long before I had ever heard of it. When I was around 6 or 7 years old, my parents were doing mission work, so we moved around a lot and lived in different parts of the country. At one point we had just moved into a small wooden cabin-like house that had been provided for us. The bathroom wasn't inside the house. It was a separate little structure right behind it.

Because of that, whenever my siblings or I needed to use the bathroom at night, we'd wake one of our parents up to escort us, even though it was only a few steps away. One night, probably around 1 am, I woke my mom up because I needed to go. It was a clear night. This was back in the 90s, and the porch was lit by one of those fluorescent yellowish lights.

After I finished, my mom said she needed to use the bathroom too and told me to wait outside. So I was standing there by myself, looking around the yard. That's when I noticed something peeking around the front corner of the house. It looked like a man wearing a hat. it had sharp jawline and was wearing a fedora like hat, I could only see its head and hat sticking out from behind the corner. The strange thing was that he was completely black, like a silhouette or a shadow, but I know it was staring at me. There were no facial features, whatsoever. The fluorescent porch light illuminated the folliages behind him, but somehow none of that light touched him.

I was a bit scared, but I honestly thought it was a neighbor trying to prank me, it was common for older neoighbor kids to do stuffs like this, So I called out to him. No response.I called again. Nothing, it didnt even flinched, it just stared at me without an eye.

For some reason, I decided the best course of action was to charge directly at it. As I ran toward the figure, it started getting smaller and smaller( I think thats what happened, i cant really explain). Not like it was moving away. By the time I got close, it looked almost flat, like a 2D shadow on the ground. Then it merge with a shadow being cast by a chair on the porch and simply disappeared.

I immediately turned around and ran back to my mom. A few moments later I looked again, and there was absolutely nothing there.

I told my mom what I had seen, but she brushed it off as imagination. Since then, I have never forgotten it. That image of the hat and the black silhouette has stayed with me ever since.

I am not from the west and as a kid in the 90s I had never been exposed to horror characters like Freddy Krueger or anything similar. I had no reason to imagine a hat-wearing shadow person.

Then today, completely by chance, I watched a YouTube video about the Hat Man phenomenon and discovered that people all over the world describe seeing almost the exact same thing.

I'm not saying it was supernatural. It could have been a trick of light, a child's imagination, or something else entirely. I got goosebumps when I watched that video describing the phenomenon though.