Children have incredibly vivid imaginations. If they are playing as a princess, super hero or wicked witch, they can put on an Oscar-worthy performance without even five minutes of rehearsal. If they are tasked with coming up with a fantasy creature in art class or an incredible invention in science class, within 15 minutes they will have created something so spectacular that a team of adults could spend months working on something only half as impressive. The amazing minds of kids are usually fascinating and intriguing, but sometimes, they can be a bit frightening as well.

In honor of spooky season, we’ve gathered some of the creepiest stories Reddit users have heard children share about their “imaginary friends” down below, and we’ll warn you, these tales might make you want to sleep with one eye open. From vivid descriptions of people in their bedrooms at night to friends who commit violent acts, some of these imaginary characters sound a bit more like ghosts and demons than friends.

Keep reading to also find an interview we were lucky enough to receive from child therapist Katie Lear, LCMHC, RPT, RDT, on the topic of imaginary friends. Be sure to upvote the stories that make you reconsider your plans to have kids, and feel free to tell any terrifying tales you’ve heard children share in the comments below. Then, if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article featuring creepy things kids have said, we recommend reading this article next. (And you might want to turn all of the lights on!)   

More info: Reddit

#1

My son stopped talking to his imaginary friend for months after my nephew, who was 15, took his own life. My son, who was not quite 5, was the apple of his eye. My nephew treated my son like a little brother, and since his mom watched my son while I worked, they spent tons of time together.

I had simply told my son his cousin was sick from sadness and he’d died. I would remind him every time before we went to their house so he wouldn’t pester my sister about where he was. One day he said “Mom, you keep saying he’s not here anymore, but he IS. He sits on my bed before I go to sleep and talks to me.” He would NOT be dissuaded. This went on for months. He knew things we did not speak about around him that happened. My nephew’s grandpa on his dad’s side passed a few months later. That’s when my son told me his cousin told him he wouldn’t be able to visit anymore. He was going on a train with his grandpa, and they couldn’t come back again. Last thing he told him was to never play with guns, they weren’t safe. My nephew took his life with a handgun. Wigged me the hell out.

Image credits: songbird563

To gain some insight on imaginary friends and how common it is for children to have them, we reached out to child therapist Katie Lear, LCMHC, RPT, RDT. Katie told Bored Panda that it is actually more common for kids to have imaginary friends than to not have them. “Research suggests that 65% of children will have an invisible playmate at some point during their childhood. It’s totally normal.”

“In fact, parents can rest easy knowing that having an imaginary friend is correlated with high social intelligence and creativity later in life,” Katie noted. “It’s a form of play, and in nearly every case a sign of healthy development. It seems that children who spend more time playing alone may rely more on their inner life for entertainment. We see only children and firstborns creating invisible friends more often than other kids, which seems to support this theory.”

#2

So maybe not scary but definitely weird.

When I was little I claimed to have an imaginary friend, who had light brown hair and wore a night gown, and she had stars for eyes.

Well, my niece was living at my old childhood home and she told me that she has a friend who misses me and she asked why I went away. When I asked who, she described my old imaginary friend. It was super spooky.

Edit: I have been informed that this is scary, my apologies.

Image credits: StarDustAndLus

#3

A kid said he didnt want to go to church because “my invisible friend says he cant follow me in there”

Image credits: Rook_45

When it comes to what these imaginary friends are usually like, Katie says they can be pretty much anything. “Child or adult, human or animal… There’s a ton of variety,” she says. “In general, imaginary friends seem to range from friendly to mildly mischievous. I think it’s much less common for children to create scary or violent imaginary friends like we’re hearing about in this Reddit thread.”

“It might sound alarming, but I don’t think having a creepy imaginary buddy is immediately cause for concern,” Katie says. “If this were my child or a child on my caseload, I’d be curious about whether having a ‘naughty’ imaginary friend was giving the child an opportunity to explore feelings and behaviors that aren’t socially acceptable. For example, it’s not okay for me to hit people, but maybe I can let that impulse out if my imaginary friend does it.”

#4

Most of my extended family live around the same area so we have lot’s of gatherings.
For the backstory, one of my uncles (lets call him Steve) lost a childhood friend when he was ~7.
Steve and his friend (let’s call him Jack) were having a play-date one after noon and got a bit dirty in some mud. So Steve’s mother gave Jack a pair of Steve’s shoes to borrow. When Jack’s father came to pick him up after the play date they forgot to put back on Jack’s shoes and Jack accidentally got into the car with the borrowed shoes still on. Tragically the father and Jack got into a terrible car crash on the way home which killed 7-year old Jack. The family had him buried in the shoes he had borrowed from Steve. (i’m not sure why)

Fast forward 30 years to a family gathering in 2010.
My 6 year old cousin Sara is playing alone with toys in a quieter room of the house. My Uncle Steve comes up to her and asks her what she is playing. Sara responds saying that she is playing with a friend. Holding back a smile, Steve asks who her imaginary friend is. Sara continues to play while saying that she is playing with his friend Jack, and that “he is sorry he forgot to give your shoes back”.
My Uncle’s jaw nearly dropped. He had not talked about Jack in years, let alone tell that story to a 6 year old.

No one had brought up Jack that day nor at any family gathering recently. Every time i remember this incident i get chills.

Image credits: paxlaina

#5

Purple mommy. When my son was first learning to talk, he would tell us about something called “purple mommy”. It could be an imaginary friend, but these details are a little bit creepy.
Here’s a few of the purple mommy details . Purple mommy is all purple with long hair and bright all white eyes(at the time he mixed up purple with black, so he could have meant she was all black) . Purple mommy picks him up at night, and turns off the lights. We would often find my son out of his crib in the morning, which would mean him crawling over the railing and to the ground, at a time when he was barely walking. Definitely found the lights in his room off a few times too, even though hes terrified if the dark. . Purple mommy needs a bandage because she has blood everywhere.

.Purple mommy has no smile, meaning a mouth

. Purple mommy can take her head off. . Purple mommy really doesn’t like daddy.

He told us all of this stuff for maybe a year or a little more. If we ever asked where she was, hed always point to the same spot. A corner of the room behind his open closet door. He would also wake up crying almost every night during this time. Once, during a really rough night, my wife went to ask him whats wrong, and his answer was “purple mommy wont let me sleep.”

Image credits: professor_dog

We also asked Katie if children usually understand that their imaginary friends are make believe. “Young children are still learning to differentiate reality and fantasy. The blurred lines between ‘real’ and ‘pretend’ are part of the magic of early childhood,” Katie explained. “By the time they start Kindergarten, most kids should be able to tell what’s real and what isn’t. They may have an emotional investment in their imaginary friend, but they know their friend is make believe.”

Katie also added that the way we respond to our children can affect their behavior. “I’d be really curious about the response the child is getting to these creepy stories,” she said. “Are they getting a big reaction from you? Any behavior that gets a lot of attention from parents is likely to be repeated, so parents may unintentionally encourage more of this creepy behavior if the stories freak them out.”

#6

My oldest when she was 4. She had an imaginary friend named Jack who lived under our back porch. And he liked to shove sticks down people’s throats. I discouraged playtime with Jack.

Image credits: RyeDoll13

#7

My son, then about two or three, used to tell us about his imaginary friend Johnny, who wore all green, including a green hat. One time, we were driving by the cemetery and my son pointed out the window and exclaimed, “that’s where Johnny lives”. He was very little and didn’t know what a cemetery was, so we explained to him that no one lives there, it’s a place for people who died.
That’s when he told us that “Johnny was a soldier who died in a place called Nam. “

Image credits: LibriBot

And although imaginary friends are usually nothing to worry about, Katie said there are rare times where parents should step in. “Sometimes kids attempt to blame their own naughty behavior on an imaginary friend, which isn’t something parents need to go along with,” she noted. “While imaginary friends are usually helpful for developing social skills, a child who is deeply invested in their friend to the detriment of their real-life friendships may need help connecting with peers. Rarely, an imaginary friend might be a child’s attempt to cope with trauma or stress. If your child’s imaginary friend encourages them to behave badly in real life or says upsetting things to them, you need to intervene. It never hurts to run these concerns by a children’s therapist or pediatrician, especially if you’re noticing other symptoms like anxiety, behavior problems, or difficulties sleeping or eating.”

If you’d like to gain more wisdom from Katie, you can find her website right here. She also shared with Bored Panda that she’s working on a new venture as well called Young Dragonslayers, an online company that helps kids practice social-emotional skills through online gaming, that can be found right here.

#8

When my daughter was a toddler she randomly started talking about a man named Don. She always described him the same way and didn’t seem scared at all, despite bringing him up every day. She didn’t go to daycare and we didn’t know anyone named Don. Then one day she got completely freaked out, wouldn’t walk around the house alone in case she ran into Don, wouldn’t sleep in her own room, and would talk about how she hated him because he said “mean words” to her all the time. About a year into “mean Don” we bought a new house. Once we moved she never spoke of him again.

Image credits: sciencenerd86

#9

My youngest sister(4 at the time) had an imaginary friend named Paris Jaris. My dad had built her a small playhouse in our backyard where my mom could see and hear her while she was in the kitchen. My sister would have tea parties and such with her imaginary friend. One day mom heard her say “don’t worry, as long as I’m alive they won’t hurt you”. She paused and said “well if you do that then I can’t help you, it’s not nice to kill people”. When my mom asked her what that was about my sister said “sometimes I have to tell Paris to be a nice person or he can’t visit anymore”. We moved not to long afterwards and she didn’t get a new playhouse.

Image credits: Biggusparrot

We hope these stories aren’t scaring you out of having children of your own some day, if you planned on becoming a parent. Keep upvoting the responses that would freak you out if your own kids said them, and feel free to share any creepy imaginary friend stories you’ve heard children tell in the comments. Kids are incredible and so smart, but sometimes, as many horror movies have taught us, they can be a bit frightening… Enjoy the rest of this spooky list, and then if you’re looking to read even more frightening things children have shared, we recommend checking out this Bored Panda article next!

#10

I’ve mentioned this before, but my sister Ashley used to get visited at night by a dead girl with long dark hair and spider hands (yes, this pre-dated The Ring, yes, I’m old AF). She moved out the second she turned 18, never looked back.

20-odd years later, our half-brother Trevor moved into her old room. It wasn’t long after Trev started sleeping on the sofa, or with the lights on, and told us about his new “friend” that he didn’t like. She was a dead girl who had long dark hair, an old nightgown, and spider hands.

Needless to say, none of us offered to trade rooms with him.

Image credits: NotAnotherWhatever

#11

My sister and I had the same exact imaginary friend when she was 6 and I was 5. Her name was Narni. It would freak our older brother and parents out that we both would talk to her and knew exactly where she would be. They would wonder how we both would interact with her at the same time and that our descriptions of her matched. We would even talk about how she would get angry or jealous. Our parents thought for sure that it was the spirit of a child that had passed

Image credits: anon

#12

So this is actually my story of when I was a kid. I had an imaginary friend named Derek who was a carbon copy of me. We were completely identical. I played with Derek for years, longer than what normal kids do. But he would always look at my mom and older sister with a sense of sadness. Eventually he went away. 23 years later im digging through my moms safe to grab some paperwork she’s kept for me and I see a stillborn death certificate for a boy named Derek who shared my birthday. It was only then I found out I was actually a twin and my twin, Derek, died during birth. Creepy right?

Image credits: uwu_SenpaiSatan

#13

My cousin was a few years younger than me and he had an imaginary friend called ‘Mooky’.

Mooky wasn’t human, but some kind of alien/monster thing.

Used to freak me out when I’d hear a noise behind me at my grandparents house and my cousin would calmly say “It’s only Mooky, he just wants to see you.”

Image credits: Gemski13

#14

My cousin had an imaginary friend who she said used to live in the fireplace and “was red and patchy” – as if she was burnt. Apparently she was a little girl who wore funny clothes that “looked like olden day clothes”. Still spooks me out!

Image credits: babizzo

#15

When my son was about 3 years old, we were living with my mom in an older apartment. I had always gotten a weird vibe from it — the atmosphere felt heavy and a little oppressive, but I assumed it was just because of the age. However, my son started waking up in the middle of the night and would talk to his ‘friend,’ who he described as the ‘Hat Man.’ He would always wake up and tell Hat Man that he didn’t want to go play with him because he was supposed to be asleep, and that he’d see him tomorrow. This was always followed by him waking me up and asking for a glass of water. I knew it wasn’t just an imaginary friend when, one night, I heard him talking, and when he said he’d see him tomorrow, the door to his room closed on its own. This stopped completely once we moved out.

Image credits: anon

#16

When I was little it was pretty firmly established that I had an imaginary friend named “Other”

Other had the same name as me so I just called him Other.

I would tell my mom that Other was being mean to me and wants to steal dads bike.

I remember I told my father that Other was very mad at him for hurting me (He was an abusive piece of work) and he literally threw me across the room.

I asked my mom about it as an adult and she told me my father had a brother that I was named after and wasn’t told about because shortly before I was born he died in a motorcycle accident

Image credits: doesitfeelbad

#17

My eldest told me that his imaginary friend misses me and wishes he could have been with me longer than a month.

I lost his big sister to SIDS a month after she was born the year before I had him.

Image credits: anon

#18

My son had this imaginary friend – Ganga. She lived in the nearby pond, had duck feet, hair all over her face, ate through a slit in her neck and we were expecting her any minute for dinner.

He was totally chill with this horrific monster idea, yet he had recuring nightmares about a puppy comming into his room. Kids are wierd.

Image credits: Why_So_Slow

#19

My youngest niece had an imaginary friend and when my sister told me about it she said “ask her what she looks like”

“Ok, what’s she look like?”

“Broken pieces.”

“…Oh.. why’s she broken sweety?”

“She fell from our tree”

Nope. Sorry sis you’re on your own.

Image credits: DarthSangheili

#20

Was taking my 3 year old niece for ice cream one evening. I strapped her into her car seat in the backseat. As I started driving, my niece asks if Jacob (imaginary friend) could get an ice cream, too? I jokingly said, “Jacob can get his own ice cream.” I laughed, and said, “Just kidding – we’ll get Jacob an ice cream.”
She didn’t respond so I looked in the rear view mirror. I couldn’t see very much because it was dark. What I could see was my niece’s face. She looked angry and I was about to reassure her that I was kidding but I realized she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at something near my ear, towards the back of my head.
Then she says, “I said NO, Jacob. Be nice. NO. She didn’t mean it.”

Image credits: lilpigperez

#21

Not an Imaginary Friend per se, but my niece as a toddler made a pretty convincing case that she was reincarnated. From the time she could lisp her first words, she carried on about someone called “Tertha” or “Trutha” or something odd like that. Sometimes she called herself “Tertha” and a fair number of her dolls had those or similar names.

By the time she was 2 or three, she talked non-stop about “Her other Mommy” and “Her sister” and how she (Tertha) and her “Other Mommy and sister were in a car accident and then were in the hospital and her other Mommy died”. I mean, she wouldn’t quit about it.

My sister neither discouraged her from telling the stories nor encouraged her. She would always finish up with the punchline “Then after my other Mommy died, then I was in your stomach!” Imagine a little child, big eyes looking up at you, rattling on about this.

She pretty much stopped by the time she was 6, and by 8 didn’t remember this at all. We figured she had forgotten her reincarnation.

Image credits: Travelgrrl

#22

Bro, me.

His name was Ricky, he lived in the mirrors and wouldn’t let me change. I vividly remember saying something along the lines of, “Ricky, please don’t watch me while I’m changing”, “Ricky, go to a different mirror, I have to take a bath”.

Like, what???

Image credits: ThisIsSoDamaris

#23

A baby cousin and her family moved into a new apartment in the Middle East. Baby cousin would go out to the balcony and play with someone, according to her mom. Talk, run around, laugh, etc. Mom asked who she’s talking to, and she said it was her new friend. Mom got concerned and told her to stop playing there. Later, the dad started feeling like a child would come sit on his lap when he sat on the couch. Felt the weight/warmth of a child but there was nothing there. IIRC they would hear kids’ voices and stuff would disappear and all, too. They moved shortly after.

Image credits: erikagirardi

#24

My eldest son was about 2 had an imaginary friend. BB was orange, the size of a large apple and covered in fur. BB was cool. Occasionally my son would yell at him to be nice but overall he was good. One day in the car my son yelled “THAT’S IT!” and put his window down, threw something out and calmly put his window back up. When we asked what happened he says very bluntly that he threw BB out the window and was now dead. We asked about BB in the weeks after and he always said BB was dead.
Son is now 10 and still remembers BB. He says BB was a d**k and deserved it but can’t remember why.

#25

Ha, I haven’t thought of this in a while, but when my son was younger (6ish) he had an imaginary friend named Boney Akiki. Boney Akiki was a skeleton man. Honestly my son only ever had the nicest things to say about Boney Akiki, so he wasn’t very scary, even for a skeleton man.

#26

My little sister had an imaginary friend called “Rhymey Guy” from when she was 2 to about 5 years old. He was half hamster, half man, six inches tall, and always spoke in rhymes. Once, she randomly began freaking out in the middle of a meal, and when we asked why, she said that rhymey guy had jumped into her mouth and she had swallowed him. About an hour later, she started complaining that she hurt because “rhymey guy was eating her insides.” She said her stomach and chest hurt for the next week or so, and she would tell us that she was “trying to poop him out, but he kept crawling back in.” It was totally creepy, and after that incident, she told us that rhymey guy wasn’t her friend anymore, and that she was scared to go to sleep because he might crawl back inside her. My mom had to “take him out of the room” every night to get her to go the sleep. When she was five and a half, or so, she told us that rhymey guy left to find “another girl to climb inside of.” The mind of a child is truly wonderful.

#27

One day, my daughter came home from preschool and told me she had a new friend that joined her classroom named ‘Soosha.’ I didn’t think much about it. My daughter would say things like that she wanted a colorful backpack like Soosha’s, or hair ribbons like hers. One day, my husband asked the teacher to point out which girl on the playground was Soosha, and the teacher told him there was no such girl.
After that, my husband insisted this was an imaginary friend and discouraged my daughter from mentioning her.

“It was several months before she brought Soosha up again. We went on a trip to Argentina (from California), and as we were riding up a glass elevator in the Buenos Aires airport, my daughter suddenly pointed down into the crowd and said, ‘Look, there’s Soosha! She followed us here. Even though Dad told her to go away.’ Neither myself or my husband saw a child where she was pointing

#28

One night, I was reading a story to our 3-year-old, and he started laughing. He was looking over my shoulder, so I asked him what he was laughing at, and he answered, ‘The little girl by the door is being silly!’ I looked back, terrified of what I might see, and as I did, he stated, ‘Oh! She ran away!’ Needless to say, I called my husband at work and told him I would not be sleeping a minute that night!

#29

When I was around 3 or 4, my mom would drive around with me in the backseat, and I’d usually just talk and talk. When my mom used to answer my questions, I’d always tell her that I wasn’t talking to her, but I wouldn’t tell her who I was talking to when she’d ask. We pulled into the driveway one afternoon, and I said goodbye to my ‘friend’ named ‘Pappy.’ My mother told my father some years later, and discovered that ‘Pappy’ was what my father used to call his father when he was little. My grandfather passed away a while before I was born, and my father never shared that name with anyone

#30

When I was six I had a friend who was a little younger than me and her imaginary friend was not a very nice person. She used to tell me how her imaginary friend, “Mr. G” made her “hurt between her legs” and how he “tasted funny and made funny noises”. She was absolutely terrified of him. She told me Mr. G was very, very tall, with no hair, and very mean eyes. After a few sleepovers my mom wouldn’t let me have sleepovers at her house anymore and then she and her mom moved away. Her father didn’t go with them. He was a very tall man with no hair and mean eyes.

#31

I don’t know if this would be considered a “Imaginary friend”, but this happened around I was 4/5/6 (dont exactly remember)

It was a couple months after my grandfather died because of lung cancer(he used to smoke), and we were living at my grandmothers at the time. One day I was on the couch and my grandmother was talking about her wedding with my Grandfather, I ended up saying “I was at your wedding…” They explain to me I wasn’t and my grandmother asked me questions about it and I answered every one correct about the marriage.

I think this was a week before or after, but on that day I was talking to my self(I usually talk a lot to myself and I still do.), and my mom walked in and asked who I was talking to. My mother told me I responded with “Im talking to Pap-pap”

A couple months past after these events, and they start re-asking me and told me if I remember talking to my Grandfather, I forgot everything…

When I was 8, I remember getting ready to school and my grandma was still asleep. This is forever in my mind, I see a white-figure the same shape he is and I saw him walk into the bathroom.

That was the last time I saw or talked to him.

Image credits: RaZzB3RrY_

#32

Bit late to the party but anyway, my mom used to tell me the story about my imaginary friend Well to start off, my mom used to come check on me in the morning and things would have been placed into my cot that baby me would have had no way of reaching to put them in myself. Then as I got to maybe 5 years old i complained of someone knocking on my bedroom door each night. Then came the story of my imaginary friend, a little girl that I would play with. My mom asked me describe her and I said she wore a long dress, had blonde ringlet hair and her eyes were rolled back In her head. Cue freaked out mom! She tried not to bring it up too much as she didn’t want to encourage this “friend” to stick around. But a few months later we were sat in the front room when i started to cry. She asked me what was wrong and I told her that my friend was sat on her lap and that wasn’t fair as I wanted to sit on her lap instead. She never forgave me for the mini heart attack that gave her ha. Eventually years go by and I have no recollection of said friend but my mom would tell the story every so often.

Bonus story. Years later when my eldest was old enough to start talking she would frequently tell me about her “other mom” who would come to visit her in her dreams to make sure she was ok and to say she missed her. My daughter would tell me that sometimes she would want to go with her other mom to wherever she goes when she leaves. F**k that.

EDIT: There’s quite a few ghost stories from that house that happened well into my early 20’s. I struggle to accept the supernatural. But there was alot of stuff that happened that I just can’t explain.

EDIT 2: Spoke to my daughter about “other mom” today and she has no recollection of her whatsoever. BUT something strange she said was “I think (*little sister*) is other mom. She came back to me” which is really odd as imposter b***h did stop visiting a few months before little one was conceived.

Image credits: BornEve

#33

CONTEXT: My bedroom was in the attic

When my brother was 4 he told me about the man who lived in the attic. Apparently he would hear someone walking around in the attic when I wasn’t in there. He said he’d seen someone’s head poking out of the hatch watching him at night, and that he was sorry he’d been too scared to do anything about the man in my bedroom.

I no longer live with them. I was talking to the same brother (now aged 10) about him taking the bigger attic bedroom now it’s empty. My youngest brother (5) immediately answered, “but where will the man live?”

Image credits: mother_of_squid

#34

When my son was 3-4 he started talking about his wife. He would say she was outside, and very sad. I remember him putting his hand on his heart and saying he missed her, but we couldn’t let her in- she needed to move on.

#35

My son was two, he started to cry in the middle of the night and say an “orange doggie” was under his cot. This went on for at least a month, he would describe the Orange doggie as having sharp teeth, stealing his dummies and biting his lips and face until there was blood.
He’s 16 now and still remembers it vividly.

Image credits: muthaclucker

#36

My son had an imaginary friend that was an angel. I’d always heard that angels would convince kids to go with them so I was not comfortable at all when he would tell me about this angel. Come to find out, a child had apparently drowned in the tiny pond in the far corner of the yard. So maybe the dead child’s angel was looking for a playmate? Yeah, I had that pond filled in with dirt, real quick.

#37

My coworkers daughter told me that her imaginary friend “Lisa” said, “Good people die too. You’re good. Watch out.”

Image credits: darthbiscuit80

#38

My sister works with children, and was once in charge of a class of kids who all agreed there was a school ghost. She told me she once asked where this ghost is and THEY ALL POINTED TO THE SAME PLACE!

I think these were kindergartners? So while I’m not superstitious, I kinda feel like any explanation for how an entire class of 4 year olds were able to coordinate this as a prank is less likely than the explanation that there was a goddamn ghost in that classroom

#39

Where are those people from the before?

Before what?

Before here. Before this place?

2 year old who had only lived in the one house

#40

“I’m talking to Ms. Lady.”

“Who’s Ms. Lady?”

“The white lady with black eyes and long fingernails!”

Cue me searching for the nearest exorcist.

#41

My son was 2-3 and always had a bunch of imaginary friends. The most frequently mentioned were Monkey boy and the cowboy. When my son was 2 he woke up one night screaming . I ran in his room and he was terrified. He kept pointing at the corner and saying that Monkey boy was bad. I ended up picking my son up and putting him in bed to sleep with me. The next time he was 3 and we were taking a walk with his younger sister in the stroller. I’m pushing the stroller and he’s walking just behind me. He keeps saying ” owww stop it” or ” please stop! ” I keep looking behind me at him and see nothing. I stop and ask him what’s hurting him. He says ” the cowboy is hurting me mommy” I tell him that there is no cowboy by us . He says ” yes there is. It’s the cowboy in my head” kids are creepy sometimes.

Image credits: brerosie33

#42

My friends kids used to wake up at night and tell us there is an old lady in their bedroom. F*****g best not be.

#43

So I lived in a very old house in a neighborhood that was predominately hispanic with my little sisters and according to my mom, we each had an imaginary friend called “The Little Brown Boy.” I was the first one to see him, then my sister, then my other sister, and we all had forgotten about him by the time the next sister saw him. He would apparently be super nice to us at first and we would play with him, and then out of nowhere we would be absolutely terrified of him and not want to go to our room (where he lived). We were all about 4 years old when we saw him. We moved out a few years later but the people who moved in next apparently have said their little daughter has an imaginary friend she called the mean boy…

#44

My boss has a stepdaughter who likes to talk about her brother all the time and how he’s a bad boy who likes to play with fire.

She’s an only child.

#45

My son has always talked about “the green lights that come visit him”.

4yr old: The green lights came to me again last night.

Us: Oh, OK. Are they friendly?

4yr old: They don’t have mouths.

… Sometimes they go into your room.

#46

My cousin had a friend called Monkey Man. My auntie asked him why he was called that & he said it’s because he just hung in the corner of the room, which freaked her out. He would always wave at the window as they left and say monkey man is hanging at the window.

Long story short she did some research & the houses were built over mine shafts & suicide was common.

I still feel like someone’s watching everytime I walk past.

Image credits: AlbertsTash89

#47

My son once told me, “Gary said not to touch the stove, it’s hot.”

Gary is my father’s name, and he’s been dead for 21 years. My son is 10.

#48

I wouldn’t call it an imaginary friend, but growing up (ages 6-10) I used to think the two grumpy old men from the muppets (Statler and Waldorf) lived in mirrors. It got to the point where I was deathly afraid of mirrors and would turn them around so I couldn’t see the reflection. I know I creeped my mother out when I told her I did it so “the men in the mirror can’t watch me”.

I’m almost 20 and I have obviously grown out of that, but it’s still a habit to turn mirrors so I can’t see the reflection. I don’t even realise I’m doing it sometimes

#49

Not me but my nephew pretty much starting at like 3 until like he was 8, he’s been born and raised in Seattle, WA and has never traveled out of country and had never been to daycare. he would talk about his 8 brothers and sisters back home in Africa (we are Indian). He would get sad but describe how they lived in a mud house, never had enough food or water but he missed playing with them

#50

My mom told me that I used to say this when I was like 3 or 4.

When she would put me to bed I’d wave at the window and she asked who I was waving to and I said “the man in window” she looked out and there was no one there and she was like “what man? There is no one there” and I just said “not yet, he will come” and then I went to sleep.
After that I got curtains for my room but I kept waving at the window at night.
My mom had sensor lights in the back yard but they never went off.
My mom asked me about it a few times and I’d always say he visited me at night to watch over me.
My mom then just assumed it must have been an Angel watching over me because she couldn’t see anyone actually come into the back yard.
(I don’t believe in angels) so I’m just assuming I had an active imagination

#51

My mum told me that when I was younger (maybe 3-4), I was looking out the window into the front yard laughing. When she asked me what I was laughing at, I flat out said to her “the people dancing outside with no faces”. Mum said she just kept looking ahead at the TV and acted as if she had never asked.

#52

Our son is 4 now, he’d be telling us about an imaginary kid named Sam he’d see at night. Sometimes we would hear our son laughing out loud in the middle of the night. The same way as when I would be tickling him, or when he enjoys a program. For a while he’d wake up at 4 in the morning to the minute. At one point we thought our old next door neighbour visited him. He died of old age, aged 93 and was a grandpa to him.

When I was young, probably 8, the night my great grandmother died, I swore I saw her in her wheelchair , carting slowly up my bedroom wall. I froze. Two days later I heard she died. I wasn’t close to her, we didn’t visit them much, but she really liked me

Similarly one night while my mom was on the phone with her sister. She hung up when she saw a procession of thin long shadow figures walking on the wall. Appearing from one neighbours wall all the way to the next. They where walking towards an old Malaysian woman nextdoor. She was on holiday to Malaysia. Most neighbour’s where Malaysian. That night she died in Malaysia. Mymom described the shape of the figures as those Indonesian dolls.

An ex girlfriend freaked her mom out when she was very young when she said ” do you remember when I was your mommy?” . Her mom’s mom died young.

#53

When I was pretty young, let’s say around 5 years old because I don’t know how old for sure, my dad would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night and hear me talking. He’d come to my room to check on me and find me sitting in the corner of my room facing the wall in the dark having full conversations by myself. When my dad would ask me who I was talking to he said I would usually respond with something along the lines of “I’m talking to the people.”

#54

I used to have a imaginary friend named Flora and I never told any of my my younger siblings about it cuz we had a 8 year age difference and it was irrelevant. I know that flora would follow me everywhere and and move objects when I was little. About a month ago I was sitting in my room and I noticed that a stuffed animal was sitting in the doorway. But it was just me and my little sister home and she was taking a bath
(I could see her from my room dw she was supervised).
I asked her what he stuffy was doing in the doorway. She didnt know what I was talking about and she wasn’t lying because she is 6 and doesnt know how to lie properly. So I threw it into her room. Later she was talking to the wall and was crying. When I asked her what was wrong she said flora ripped her stuffed animal in half. I saw it laying on the ground. We have no animals and she said f*****g flora…

#55

No scary… but definitely freaked me out a bit.

My then 3 to 4 year old daughter came out of her room at my mums one day and ask if “Grandpa Ken” can have a sleepover in her room because he was tired of being in the dark. She then went to the spot that mum kept his ashes, and took his brick onto her room. She would play with his ashes and hve conversations with him regularly.

This doesn’t seem that odd, except we were out shopping one day, and she went up to an old man and had a chat with him – she kept calling him “Sonny and was glad he could breathe again”. Old man was nice and entertained her. When she walked away, my mum had a chat with the old fella and he was telling her things my kid had said. This man looked just like my grandfather, who’s nickname was Sonny.

My grandpa ken died from anaphylactic shock from a bee sting before I was born (about 27 years prior to all this starting) We had no pictures of him, and mum never discussed him, and no one but her knew of his nickname.

About a year later, she said he told her he had to go be with his wife, and that now he knew his girls were safe he wouldn’t be back. She’s never brought him up since.

#56

Not an imaginary friend but hopefully creepy enough to count.

My daughter is 2 and since she could talk she has always chatted happily to herself in her crib as she drifts off. It’s super cute. Usually just things like:
“go see nana? Go see papa?”
“Hello Aunnie. Hello Tim” (her aunt and uncle)
My wife and I loved to listen in on the baby monitor and talk about how cute she was. Then one night she said:
“Satan!”
In that tone that only little girls have that is so sweet it chills the blood when they say something like this.
It evolved over a week into like “it’s satan!”
Or “satan and the son!”
OR my personal favorite: “good night everyone. Ah satan!”

My wife eventually cracked the case. Our daughter loves this book called “Good Night Everyone” she’s also really into the planets. The last line of the book is unsurprising: “good night everyone.” On the following page are drawings of the planets. We’d go through them from the edges of the solar system to the sun. She’d always happily call out “Saturn” as I suspect it’s rings made it easy for her to spot.

#TLDR 2 year old was quoting the last line of a book and excitedly naming Saturn and the Sun. Not communing with the Lord of Hell

#57

When my son was about 3, he would talk to someone named “Wally”. He was crying one night and said Wally was looking in his window but this time his face was missing. I had him sleep in bed with my husband and I that night after doing a perimeter check around the house lol. Kids are creepy little creatures.

#58

My son had an imaginary friend he called “Dark” He was only three at the time. He would say “Hear it? See it?” We would ask him what he was talking about and he would say “Dark”. There was only one room in our house he would say this in and it was in our basement. He said Dark didn’t like when my son would tell us about him. We got the house blessed after my son told us Dark had a dog and the dogs name was “Keeper” After the blessing he never talked about Dark or Keeper again.

#59

My when my cousin and I were kids she casually mentioned she had a “friend named Harold who lived in the picture frames. Their entire hallways was lined with picture frames, and she would always hold her breath when she walked by them. Anyway one day we were hanging out in their unfinished basement and she pointed to a beam in the far back corner and stated very bluntly that “That’s where Harold sleeps.”

#60

Had a friend who, when about 4, had an imaginary friend. She was a girl her age (4) who was basically a Roman or possibly local (South Wales, UK) girl who was living with Romans.

We lived on the slopes of a hill fort the Romans had destroyed, and all the dead buried around our place apparently.

Anyhoo… The imaginary friend had very appropriate dress and lots of odd knowledge like eating mice and daily life that got passed on and deemed correct.

That whole row of houses was haunted. Ours was bad but my friend’s place was the worst. She’s still living in the same house.

I’m a sceptic but shheeesh, that place was odd.

#61

Not sure if this was necessarily an imaginary friend but I hope that’s all it was. When my kiddo was about 2-3years old she would talk about her “other family”. How she missed them and was worried about them. That she had a mom and a dad and a brother and sister (she was an only child when this started.) Sometimes we’d ask questions and she always had the same answers. Really creeped me out. She said they’d come visit her sometimes and whenever she’s start talking about that I’d let her know that she can tell them that she’s safe and happy so they don’t need to worry about her. She seemed to like that and it made me feel better too!

#62

Okay, so this is kinda creepy. I’m an adult that says I don’t believe in ghost and such, but then I think of this experience and wonder wtf is wrong with me being so stupid.
I’d hardly call it a “friend” but when I was younger, like 12, I lived with my brother and his family. We moved to a house and one of my nieces, who was about 4(maybe 5), would avoid certain corners of the house. She was scared of “the green lady”. Pretty much always the same corner in the family room, but on a couple occasions she’d move.
So her big sister (about 9 at the time)would pick on her. Throw her toys in that corner. My little niece would avoid it like the plague. Then one day, her big sister PUSHED her in that corner. I swear, NEVER in my life had I ever heard such a blood curdling scream. Never again have I yet and I hope to never hear that kind of scream again.
She didn’t even run away from the corner. She was backed into it, looking upwards.
The fear had us scared, I think. My niece never messed with her little sister about that corner again. And none of us really f****d with that corner. Friends thought we were joking when they’d come over and we’d casually say, “oh annnd stay away from that corner cause we’re pretty sure an evil ghost lives there.”

So, when did the green lady move? Here’s the f****d up part.. According to my niece, my brother and his wife were discussing moving out of the house. The green lady did not like that and at bedtime, she followed them into their room.
The other time, my SIL got pregnant and the green lady got mad again. She moved to the nursery and would stay in there.
During this time we lived there, about 2 and a half years…
My SIL was having twins but lost one. The surviving twin was born with spinal meningitis and all kinds of s**t wrong. It was at least a month before he got to come home. Then my SIL developed cervical cancer. Her mom who uses a walker falls in the f****n pool and injured herself. And we couldn’t keep pets alive anymore. We had a golden retriever, a cocker spaniel, a cat, a couple pet rats & a guinea pig. The dogs got sick with pancreatic cancer & tumors growing on their sides. Our cat got ran over, the guinea got sick and the rats were fine until SILs mom forgot to take the towel cover off the cage on a hot day and it cooked my nieces rat.
We finally moved the f**k out. But we all agree even after all this time that something was wrong with that place and that whatever that green b***h was, she was f****n evil & was probably what made so many horrible things go wrong while we lived there.

#63

When my older brother was about 3-4 (late 70’s) he told my mom very matter of factly that there was a ghost behind the TV at my Grandma’s house (old style floor TV) and that he was friendly like Casper, but it wasn’t Casper. There have been lots of weird things heard/seen at that house over the years. My youngest son also used to sound like he was saying real words/sentences when he was just barley old enough to even babble (witnessed by multiple people) and when he got a little older and could actually talk he would casually and randomly mention the man in my closet – he never seemed scared of him so I was just like “ok cool..”
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