Contact in a dream
Dreams of a missing friend asking to be buried, later found in a car
A caller who gives the name [name withheld] and says the call is from [quote withheld] passes on a secondhand story from a friend named [name withheld]. According to the caller, [name withheld], [name withheld], and [name withheld] all dreamed of their missing friend [name withheld] appearing in a window and saying “bury me.” The dream image reportedly began to look like a decomposing body. Then [name withheld] was found dead by suicide in a car with a hose from the exhaust. The host sums it up as a decomposing man entering his friends’ dreams and begging to be buried.
A floating translucent man at the caller's bedside at seventeen, and a warning five years later
[name withheld], calling from Grants Pass, Oregon, tells the host that at seventeen they woke in bed to a translucent man floating about a foot above the floor, who they say had been shaking them. They fled the house, and their mother told them it was a dream. Five years later, they say, the same figure came to them in a dream and warned that their boyfriend, their son’s father, would hurt them. The following day, they report, he choked them. They end by saying they would listen to the presence next time.
Basement door, a shared dream, and a slow-burning teddy bear in a country home
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Dayton, Ohio, describes several “spooky moments” in a country home that the caller and their husband bought in the mid-1970s. A basement door opened by itself each evening at supper time. Their son said something was coming into his room. One night the caller and their husband reportedly shared the same vision of their daughter being raised out of bed and slammed to the floor. They found the daughter asleep and unharmed on the floor. They concluded there was an entity in the home. They blessed the rooms with holy water and burned a handmade teddy bear the caller distrusted, which, the caller says, took hours to burn. The caller says they left the house with their children a few months later.
A face materializing in the caller’s own vision, followed by a dream
A caller addressed by the host as [name withheld] from California tells of sitting in their living room on the phone about 15 years earlier when a gray spot in the corner of their vision grew and materialized into what they could barely make out as a non-human face. The caller says it went around a corner smiling at them and that they ran out of the room. The caller later had a dream of an abyss and something screaming for them to come outside. The host cut in to say they were out of time, and the call ended.
Rented split-entry house: orbs, mist, whispers and a white figure on the stairs
[name withheld], a caller from New Hampshire, tells Art Bell about strange events the caller says began on the first night their family moved into a rented split-entry house about twenty-three years earlier, when they were sixteen. The caller reports a dream of an old man with hollowed-out eyes, then waking to balls of light zigzagging through their room. Later came a mist and cold in the hallway, whispering and footsteps at night, a face staring over their shoulder at the computer, and a white figure with bulging eyes on the stairs. The caller says their brother [name withheld] reported the same experiences. The host ends this part of the broadcast by telling the caller they are haunted.
Aunt’s magician dream and the coworker’s husband’s matching dream
[name withheld], calling from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, tells Art Bell a story they say their aunt in Ontario told them about five years earlier. She reports waking from sleep, going to the basement, and being threatened and chased by a man dressed as a magician with a butcher knife. This happened several times that night. The next day, according to [name withheld], her best friend at work said their husband had spent the night dreaming he was in the aunt’s basement dressed as a magician trying to kill her. [name withheld] says the story is true, and the host says it resembles an urban legend.
Daughters’ dreams of a “red lady” in a sublet house where a suicide occurred
A caller who gives their name as Nathan, from Sacramento, tells Art Bell that about fifteen years earlier, while their family sublet a house for a summer, both of their four-year-old daughters reported dreaming of a “red lady” in their room. Before moving out, the caller says, neighbors told the family that the previous owner’s wife had killed herself in that same children’s room. The caller explains the dreams as leftover energy from the death. The host adds his own view that suicides tend to remain behind, and the call ends with the host thanking the caller.
Dream-guided trip, two figures in black, and a black net in a valley
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld] describes a series of vivid dreams or waking dreams over seven to nine months, at some point about fourteen years before the broadcast. In them a voice told them of a place near Papua New Guinea. The caller says they traveled there, encountered a man and a woman dressed in black at an airport, and was then engulfed by a black net in a valley at night before calling on spirits and escaping. The caller says they later came home by way of the Philippines on Halloween and concluded that a spirit watches over them.
Caller reports fingers closing on their wrists and ankles after mocking a friend
A caller from Mississauga, Ontario, tells Art Bell that they mocked a female friend’s story of being attacked by “this thing.” About a week later, the caller says, the same thing came to them while they slept. The caller reports fingers curling one at a time around their wrists and then their ankles, and says they bolted upright to find nothing there. They also say their boyfriend later told them the thing came to him in a dream. The call ends abruptly as the host wraps it up.
Strangling dream and a hag mask found at the basement stairs
A caller who gives the name [name withheld] and says they are calling from New Haven, Connecticut, tells Art Bell a “scary” story from their teens. The caller reports that in summer 1980, while sleeping in their parents’ basement, they dreamed of being strangled by a hag or witch. They woke to find the rubber hag mask they had gotten for Halloween 1979 lying at the foot of the basement stairs, though the caller says it had been upstairs. The caller reports no marks and says their family did not believe them. The caller says they never figured out how the mask got there or where it later went.
Fire dispatch dormitory and a dream of an 1864 village by the Santa Ana River
An unidentified caller says they are in Birch Bay, Washington, and that in 1984 they worked at a fire communications center on the banks of the Santa Ana River. The caller reports that they felt something lay across their legs and saw a fog-like form in the dispatch dormitory. The caller then had a vivid dream set in 1864 of a dying woman in a small village. In the dream they merge with a young woman, are shown a dying old woman, and are then confronted by the faces of villagers whose deaths they say they felt. The caller says a fellow dispatcher reported feeling watched and refused to sleep in the dormitory. Art closes by suggesting dispatch centers, as places of crisis, are places of haunting.
Dream of a grandmother at the door saying “There is no heaven,” and a father’s parallel dream
A caller named [name withheld], from Philadelphia, recounts a dream from about ten years earlier, three days after their grandmother’s death. In the dream, the grandmother stands at their door barefoot in the snow, scratches the glass, and asks to be let in. The caller refuses and tells her [quote withheld] and she answers [quote withheld] After waking they tell their family, and their father describes a parallel dream from years before about a neighbor, [name withheld], who died shortly afterward. The caller says they do not believe it was the actual spirit.
30 more stories
- A dream of a family death, a waking premonition, and a phone call, Utah, 19552 min
- Mother's dream warning before a motorcycle wreck and a later check on her father3 min
- Repeated waking dreams of a school bus and the caller's sister3 min
- A brother's dream phone call from his deceased father, who spent his prayers on the call4 min
- Red eyes in a tree, a transforming figure, and a drive-by rescue4 min
- Two fortune tellers’ warnings and a 1945 dream of a factory explosion4 min
- Dream of a school friend who said he had been hurt in a car wreck1 min
- Teenage dream of a casket foretelling an uncle's death two days later46 s