Now that your pumpkin is picked out and ready to carve and you have your stash of Twix and Butterfingers hidden from the kids, it’s time to up the creep factor this Halloween. We found some real life spooky stories that have left a lasting impression on the tellers.

Blanket Statements
As told by Mark Massey, a commercial real estate broker in Los Angeles

When I was 18, I was home alone in Dallas. I lived in a pretty wooded area in a two-story heavy wood house. You could hear it settle at night and it was always pretty cold. I was trying to stay up to watch TV, but I couldn’t help from nodding off.

In my dream, I felt a lot of pressure on my chest. It felt like a weight and was gradually getting stronger and stronger.

When I opened my eyes, I had a blanket on top of me, covering me from head to toe and tucked in around the edges.

I thought maybe someone came home and put it over me, but my brother was out and my parents were all the way in Houston. Nobody had a key to the house and the blankets were kept in a chest across the room from where I was sleeping. I’ve never had a history of sleepwalking, either.

I think it could have been my grandma who had died about a year earlier. I still think of it when I’m home alone or when I put a blanket around me.

Spook factor: Pretty creepy. Possibly a case for the Ghostbusters. At least the presence seemed friendly. It was probably Grandma.

Mother Nature’s Revenge
As told by Brandon Cruz, an Air Force Staff Sergeant in Oklahoma City

It all started the day I accidentally hit a raccoon while driving my little Toyota Echo. A couple weeks later, I hit a random bird, again on accident. Soon after, I drove past a flock of birds and ended up hitting another.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, a few weeks later, when I was driving to the movies I had to swerve around a dog that had been hit by another car lying in the road—and I swear it looked right at me. So I reversed and got out of the car, but by the time I got to it, the dog had died.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of my bad luck. On a rainy night, I slid out and hit the center divider. By this time my car had taken a beating.

A few weeks after that, I was driving home from a friend’s house in Tulsa with my wife. We were laughing about all the stuff that had happened to the car, when a giant owl with wings spread and talons out swooped toward our windshield. Honestly, it was the size of the windshield. We collided. It sent a crack down the center of the windshield, and it crapped all over the car.

We didn’t stop. I didn’t know this about owls, but they can poop a lot! It was pretty bad trying to clean up the car.

The crack is still there, more than six months later, but there haven’t been any instances since. We think the owls got the word out not to mess with us.

Spook factor: More absurd than scary—unless you were in the car. But owls are definitely one of the creepiest kinds of birds. It’s something about those big, round eyes.

Baby’s Blues
As told by Toni Coleman, a relationship coach in Washington, DC

When our second child, who was born with Down's syndrome, was only 5 months old, I woke up and went into the bathroom and realized I was experiencing symptoms that had to be morning sickness.

I was stunned. First, I hadn’t had a premonition of the pregnancy like I’d had before. And I had no idea how and when I would tell my spouse if this was, indeed, another child—and so soon.

At that moment, he came through the other door, having just woken up. He looked at me and said, "We’re going to have another child." I was quiet for a moment, then asked him how he knew this. He said, "I had a dream last night that we had a third son. In my dream he’s about 8 years old, has blue eyes and looks like your family."

I then asked my spouse if he looked like he had Downs and he said no. Eight months later, we had a little boy who is the image of one of my mother's siblings. His most striking feature is his blue eyes. He is now a few weeks from his 13th birthday.

Spook factor: Major goose bumps! This case of husband-wife ESP goes beyond finishing each other’s sentences.