Do you believe in ghosts? Up until a few years ago, I'd never given it much thought. I wasn't a non-believer, but I wasn't a believer either. I was pretty neutral on the subject. Until I had a couple experiences, that is.

When I was in high school, I would spend the occasional weekend home by myself. My step-dad is military and is stationed out of Charleston, SC and we lived about a two-hour drive from the air-base. On the weekends that he would have drill, he and my mom would stay the weekend in Charleston, and I would stay home with the puppies. At the time, we lived in an old, single-wide trailor...that had a very creepy hallway. This hallway freaked out my entire family. We all got weird vibes if we walked down it at night or without any lights on.

My room was at the end of this hallway and I HATED sleeping back there when no one else was home (we'll get to why in a second).

So there I was, sitting in a chair in the living room reading a book. It was really late, around 2 a.m., and I was sitting there without the TV or any music playing, just reading. Both of my dogs were sitting on the couch directly across from me, which was right beside the entry to the hallway.

On the wall beside the entry, we had family photos. Your usual collage of family portraits and what not. The dogs had been staring at these pictures for a few minutes, which seemed a little weird but I wasn't really worried about it. Then, one of the dogs, who never barks, starts barking and growling...at the picture frames. Talk about nerve-wracking.

This continues for a few minutes and by this point, I'm really freaked out. I go to close my book, deciding I should probably just go to sleep, when, I kid you not, my dog starts growling even more, and a picture frame goes flying off the wall. I was terrified, grabbed my dogs, and ran to my mom's room where I slept until they came back the following day.

Another experience I had was during another weekend while I was alone in the house. This one is a little more hard to believe and a lot of people actually don't believe me when I tell them about this, though I am certain it happened, 110%.

I was laying in bed and I had been asleep for a few hours. This night was the same as any other; I didn't feel particularly weird or anything before I went to bed. I was sleeping and I was woken up by what felt like someone sitting down on the edge of my bed. Sometimes, if my mom came home late, she would come into my room and do this, so when I woke up, I figured it was her.

I had a weird prickly feeling on my skin. There aren't words to accurately describe it, but the best way I can think to is to explain it as a negative energy in the air that made me feel...off.

I turned over, expecting my mom to be sitting on the edge of my bed, but what I saw wasn't my mom at all. It was a figure with the shape of a decrepit person, but without any of the characteristics that make someone human. His eyes were red and he was a completely black, shadowy figure. I say "he" not because I could tell if it was a specific gender, but because there seemed an aura of power in the room and my gut tells me that whatever it was, was a male.

I have never been so scared in my life. Thinking about it now causes me to get goosebumps and for my eyes to tear up. I wouldn't wish this encounter on my worst enemy because it was the worst interaction I've been through at this point in my life (and hopefully ever).

I think a lot of people will think I'm exaggerating with this story or that I could have been suffering from something called "sleep paralysis". While these may seem like obvious solutions to skeptics, I am certain that it happened, and I am certain that it was not sleep paralysis, but something truly evil in my room that night. I remember my heart almost beating out of my chest right after I saw the figure, and not being able to go back to sleep or calm myself down afterward.

I hope to never have another experience with these otherworldly beings, but these two events have definitely made me rethink my stance on whether I believe in them or not.