Haunted Apartment In Southern California

This series of events happened in Southern California between 2000 and 2003. During that time my wife and I were living in an apartment building, while she was going to medical school.

As I reflect back on my time in that apartment, I firmly believe that it held an otherworldly presence. Whether that presence was benign or not, I can't really tell. I can only judge the incidents as they occurred.

The first of which was a string of night terrors I had while living there. Most of the terrors were centered on one central theme. Animals or insects moving under the bed sheets with me. On more than one occasion, I woke up from a bad dream, with the sensation of either snakes or rats crawling around my legs. I had the same experience with spiders. Almost every time I would wake up in a cold sweat, panicking, as I bolted off the bed. My poor wife was just as scared, as she tried to comfort me. I could almost dismiss these incidents as stress, causing me to have bad dreams, but they weren't the only strange phenomenon to occur.

Besides the night terrors, I often woke up with the feeling that someone had broken into the apartment. I can't really explain it, but somehow I sensed that someone else was in the apartment with us. At the time, I usually interpreted it as a break in. But in retrospect, I think it was a spirit.

The incident would always play out the same way. I would be fully awake, in bed, as I listened to the sounds carefully in the apartment. I always felt like there was an intruder. It usually resulted in me rushing out of the bedroom, into the living room, where I thought I might come across a burglar. But there was never anybody there. The door was locked and hadn't been forced open. The place seemed to be secure. I usually shrugged it off as my imagination. But later, I attributed that feeling to something else, as the incidents escalated.

One of the strangest incidents I ever encountered, occurred in that apartment. Basically I was lying in bed, fully awake again. At some point I noticed movement near the door of the bedroom. It was dark at the time, but essentially I saw a black shadow moving across the room. It traveled from the bedroom door to the bathroom. The bathroom door was open at the time and the shadow appeared to walk inside. At first I assumed it might have been my wife. But as I looked over to my right, I could see her sound asleep. What I had really seen was as a shadow figure. But not only had I seen it, I could also hear it. As it moved through the room, I could hear the sound one might make as they walk across a carpeted floor.

Interestingly, I wasn't scared when I saw it. By that time, I was becoming used to the strange occurrences and I just chalked it up as another one. But there was still one incident that creeps me out, even today.

While we were living there, we had a futon couch in the living room. It wasn't particularly comfortable to sleep on. But I was trying to sleep on it anyway, as I was too lazy to go to bed after watching TV. At one point I was half awake. I was having a hard time getting to sleep, let alone staying asleep. But in my half-awake state, I could hear a woman's voice. I began to come around as I looked over to the bedroom door. As I did, I saw the blurred image of a woman saying something to me, as she walked towards me. She was mostly white in appearance and I couldn't make out any details on her face. Again, I thought maybe it was my wife, trying to tell me to go to bed. But as the image approached me and bent down to talk to me, it slowly faded away.

I sat on the futon for several seconds flabbergasted, trying to interpret what I had just seen. What was she saying to me and why couldn't I understand her? I was a bit freaked out after that and promptly rushed off to the bedroom. I never saw that woman again.

I also recall having a sinister night terror, separate from the others. It basically involved a man wanting to hang himself in our bedroom. I had no idea who the man was. But even when he was hanging himself, he still talked to me. I can't remember what he said. But it was more of a taunting tone, rather than a plea of mercy. Like he wanted me to watch him hang himself on purpose, just to terrorize me.

When I woke up, the image was burned into my mind. I remember thinking about it for several days. But it occurred at the end of our stay in the apartment. By that time, I wasn't as disturbed by the dreams. I tried to ponder what they meant. And the only conclusion I could come up with was, there must be a presence surrounding that place, that occasional tapped into me. Sometimes it was benign and other times it was malicious.

After three years of living there, my wife finally finished her training and we moved away. It wasn't until later that I began to piece things together. The night terrors, the sense of a break in, the shadow figure, the white lady, that place was haunted. By who or what, I don't know. But for some reason, only I seemed to pick up on it. My wife never did. Or if she did, she never voiced it to me. But like all hauntings, these things didn't occur on a daily basis. Sometimes weeks or months would pass before something else would happen. That's one of the reasons why it's not always easy to attribute paranormal activity to a haunting.

I have sensed strange activity at other points in my life. But these were the main ones that stood out to me in that particular apartment. It feels strange to admit it, but yes, that place was haunted. And with all the comings and goings of people in a place like that, it's hard to know who the ghosts were and what their motivations are. Perhaps I was only catching glimpses of them. And maybe some of them felt compelled to harass me. But whatever the case may be, I now understand that there's a spiritual world around us.