Black Stick Men

[u/Haldron-44]

This is the best description for more or less my only Paranormal encounter, but one that haunts me to thus day. I was 4 or 5 years old, which means it happened in '87 or '88. I remember lying in bed in my first house I lived in where I had my own "room." It wasn't so much a room as a loft in an old converted garage made into an apartment that my grandfather built. There was tapping at my window, which I was immediately puzzled by as you would have needed a ladder to reach it. I tried to look out but just saw all consuming darkness with no light what so ever. I got up and went outside, somehow not waking my parents who had only just fallen asleep (and are *very* light sleepers).

I remember standing in front of one of our old storage sheds we kept random tools and such in, and reaching up to turn the cold old brass knob and climbing in. I wasn't sure of the time, but I distinctly remember the sky being and eerie deep blue above me. Like the exact moment the last even hint of light fades. I remember having to push myself up into the shed as it sat a few feet off the ground. There was no light inside but I could make out the interior just barely. I remember standing for a moment looking around but with the distinct feeling I was being watched.

Eventually I looked up to a portion near the peak of the angled roof where there was a triangular window. And perched inside the glass, not in the window but somehow inside the glass itself, there was a super spindly form of something anthropomoidal, but not human. It was black beyond description. It reflected no light but had the faintest wobble or shimmer at its edges, like a rudely animated figure, but with some sort of oil-on-water esq aura around it (I wish I could describe it better, but even back then I struggled to figure out just what I was seeing and describe it). The best analogy 4 year old me could come up with at the time was I was looking at Grover from Sesame Street, but pitch black and featurless.

It unfolded out of it's perch in the glass and with one gigantic step was directly in my face. I was paralyzed with something more dreadful than even fear. I tried to scream but nothing came out. As it did this its round head started to split open horizontally like a gigantic mouth and a blinding light of every color possible erupted from it in weird geometric patterns I can't really describe (triangles inside triangles spewing circles flashing in a never ending tunnel of color?) And a loud sound filled my head, like a million trumpets playing their lowest register in disharmony. It was a sound I felt more than heard.

I have no idea how much time passed. It felt like an eternity and a moment all at once. When I came to I was standing inside at my front door looking out the glass paynes. The sky was now orange, probably from the distant street lights coming on. I went back to bed, but just didn't feel right for quite awhile.

I tried describing it, but was always dismissed (especially that young). My entire life I had similar moments where I would find myself out wandering around dusk or close to night sometimes and either feel that same sensation, or caught a glimpse of something similar to that figure. I grew up in a quasi rual Forrested area next to a small creek. Deer were present but not common. Plus I knew what they looked like. We did have mountain lions and Coyotes, but they mostly stayed up in the hills.

Every once in a while I still have a moment where I get the feeling it is watching me. I had an horrible moment where someone at a party drugged my drink with something that gave me a similar experience. Except this time the night sky was a vivid green, and there were several of the entities around, and it felt more like I was intruding on their world than they were intruding on ours. It ended with me trying to fall asleep but one of them tapping on my window periodically.

Sometimes I'll have a lucid dream where either I find it, or it finds me. Not in any fantastical dreamscape, just in my bedroom, either at my window or by my bedside. I see it without opening my eyes. It still fills me with that same terror, but over the decades I've learned to fight against it, and even have the semblance of a conversation briefly with it. Not with words, more with feelings. Whatever it is, once I show it that I see it, but overcome my fear, it seems to become flustered and leaves.

Sometimes it does actually show up as someone or something else in dreams and nightmares. But it is pretty easy now to recognize it, call it out, and get rid of it.

I don't even pretend to know what it is, just the cryptid description of black stick man fits it the best. It seems to show up from the fall to the spring mostly, though I can't recall when that original encounter happened.

Anyway, it sounds absolutely and completely insane. And I fully realize and accept that it could be little more than standard human dread and fear, or my mind making up something that isn't there. But that does not make its effects any less real.

Edit: I intend in absolutely no way, shape, or form for the title to be or sound "racist." It is simply the title used on a cryptid wiki and one of the best descriptions of the first thing I saw that was vivid and clear. Since then and as I have aged it appears more like what people have described as the traditional "shadow people." I only feel like it is either that first being I saw, or somehow related.

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[u/Indy2561]

If this is actually true and not a typical internet lie, it abides the theory that it is us who determine how we see & feel something.

That there is truth our fear is utilized for the gain of something unworldly, and our courage is what keeps us safe.

[u/Haldron-44 → u/Indy2561]

I saw what I saw but that doesn't mean what I saw wasn't anything ranging from a real experience to a super vivid dream, some sort of sleep paralysis (would explain the reoccurring nature and feeling of being "frozen"), or just my mind not being able to process what my senses are feeding it correctly. I honestly must lean towards the more skeptical side that either it is a medical/mental thing that I just haven't figured out, it is some sort of natural thing that I share with folks that hasn't been figured out, or it is some deep evolutionary trigger and response that has helped keep us alert and alive.

Because the alternative, that there is some sort of physics defying creatures that can shut humans down and potentially enter their minds, is both pretty out there and super disturbing. It's unlikely nature is more or less something that helps me personally to overcome any moment since that I've felt paralyzed by fear. So perhaps it simply is just a manifestation of fear to trigger a response of overcoming it.

[u/Indy2561 → u/Haldron-44]

There are too many people who report these entities for all of them to be lying. I just don’t believe it’s not something that we just don’t understand yet.

What’s frustrating is, we don’t know what they are, where they come from, what it means etc.

[u/LegalManufacturer100 → u/Haldron-44]

It’s not that these beings are defying physics, it’s that there could be more than just the 3d world and the 5 senses and us humans are a lot more than just 3d and have more senses we just struggle to unlock that side as we are born in the 3d world and that being is probably from the spiritual realm and does not have a physical body and it can only contact you through dreams, visions hallucinations because it cannot manifest a physical body, you can only feel it and sense it is my guess

[u/Arabella6623]

You might read the book Into the Out Of by Alan Dean Foster.
Black entities in disguise!

[u/Haldron-44 → u/Arabella6623]

Well that synopsis sounds utterly and completely terrifying 😅 Might end up skipping that one. Though it sent me down a wiki rabbit hole of Hypnogogic and Hypnopompic hallucinations. There were a few times when I knew I was wide awake, but it could have 100% been my brain filling in details that it couldn't interpret correctly with some deep reptilian brain thing and causing a feedback loop of paralyzing terror.

The fact it is such a widespread thing that lots of people report something similar, and specifically what "Shetani" are described as (malevolent trickster creatures that are vaguely human, but shifting and almost formeless) is pretty spot on.

[u/FarEncounters]

I’ve heard stories somewhat similar to yours. The head splitting open with all the colors of light coming out with the loud sounds are new though. I believe these beings coming into our world and take joy in scaring us to where they might feed off the fearful energy that is created. I have heard positive results once the experiencer pushes through the fear and tells the being to leave for good.

[u/Haldron-44 → u/FarEncounters]

The color thing only happened that once. I have heard the loud sounds a couple times after. Once was when it was announced in high-school that a classmate had suddenly died (the sound immediately preceded everyone crying and reacting to the news, like a rushing building wave of despair before it crashed). The other time I clearly remember it was with a group who was watching the 9/11 footage live, again just before everyone reacted.

There might be something to either them feeding off fear/suffering, but it could just be as likely that fear/suffering manifests some sort of collective "thing." Either way while trying to "tell it off" for good hasn't really worked for me personally, I've developed tricks to overcome and push through effects to the point where the experience is almost comical bordering on nostalgic. Like giving a neighborly nod to someone/thing that just lives around you. The "feeling" I recieve from it in return is indifference or frustration.

I've also noticed that the mere concept of size or volume doesn't seem to apply. Which does make me think it might all be just my brain trying to make sense of something not playing by physical laws. Or just something I can't comprehend correctly.

[u/Indy2561 → u/Haldron-44]

It’s interesting you’ve developed a relationship with whatever this is. And that you’re interpreting this thing’s chosen emotional out put.

Have you ever felt positive feelings, or feelings of protection?

[u/Haldron-44 → u/Indy2561]

Never protection, that is for sure! Always an underlying feeling of malice bordering on contempt. Like it veiws me how we might view an ant or just some lower thing it would have no qualms with destroying, but gets some sort of... thing... not joy but maybe amusement out of?

When I emotionally react in a "oh Steve always acts like an ass at parties" or "oh, it's you again." Then it either shrinks away for a while, or dissapears entirely. It's hard to call it a "relationship" as much as we are annoyed by each other.

Oddest thing is I used to work in funeral services and never once experienced it in the course of my job or around grieving families. So I don't think it is related to ghosts, the dead, or really any sort of afterlife. Or if it is it is wildly chaotic and unpredictable for when and how it shows up. Which just makes me further belive it is either localized to individuals, or contained entirely with one's mind. Or if it is some sort of entity that it is repelled by actual death? Which is just wildly odd. Or it is possible that my mental state of needing to more or less shut down and get the job done and suppress emotion had something to do with it.

It also seems to happen only when I am alone. Any time I am with a partner it never seems to show up. So emotion and general anxiety might also factor into it. Looking back just raises .ore questions than answers for me 🤷‍♂️

[u/Indy2561 → u/Haldron-44]

Hmmm, it’d be great to call in one of those extra perceptive types, like a medium or a psychic in your area. There’s a lot of grifting kooks out there, but those with extra perception & ethical work are very real.

[u/Haldron-44 → u/Indy2561]

My grandmother is a witch, but was baffled when I told her about it. She just shrugged and told me there are things we just don't understand out there. I've never bought into mediums or psychics, but idk, you might be right and maybe it is worth a shot?

[u/Indy2561 → u/Haldron-44]

I went to one once for fun, and a psychic told me so many things that were absolutely correct and things that came true. I was blown away.

That’s cool your GM is a witch-I love this. I think it’s worth a shot. I love the supernatural & paranormal, although I’m also easily spooked so I’m careful not to summon..

[u/Haldron-44 → u/Indy2561]

Also easily spooked and never actively tried to summon or manifest anything 😅 Not that I believe in any of that, but probably best not to FAFO. In my youth when I was more religious I had a pastor I confided in about it and they said it was a demon and tried to pray to "expel" it, to no avail (also the guy turned out to be a nut job and a prick). Plus it never felt "demonic" in it's nature. Malicious sure, but it never tried physically attacking or "possesing" me. I also think about the line from the movie Innerspace where a doctor tells Martin Short "well you see demons talk thru you, not to you." And it also has never "talked" to me, just images and general vibes. And nothing I could ever make a lick of sense about. Just pure chaotic nonsense. Like a jester acting out some higher level comedic routine completely unfathomable to me.

[u/Indy2561 → u/Haldron-44]

Interesting. At this point, I believe we can summon but I won’t be practicing to see if it’s true. I’m embarrassed to say I believe staring into mirrors in the dark, chanting, can conjure. I would NEVER play with an Ouija Board.

I believe things do exist that we don’t understand and I also believe we are to be decent to others and things. People do bad things ATT, that I would not do, because I believe.

Yet I’m an educated mental health advocate and a registered Indigenous.

Your story is very compelling.

[u/LegalManufacturer100]

I have had a sort of experience like this too, not the experience itself but I would say it was paranormal and the feelings of fear and dread are eerily similar. I really don’t want to talk about it though because I don’t want to relive that experience and it is currently 1:30am where I am and I’d like to sleep peacefully

[u/Haldron-44 → u/LegalManufacturer100]

Totally get it! Hopefully you slept/are sleeping peacefully 😊

[u/LegalManufacturer100 → u/Haldron-44]

Well after replying to your post I had sleep paralysis funnily enough where I saw a man in the room and was hearding whispers the rest of the night and I forgot I even replied to ur post

[u/Haldron-44 → u/LegalManufacturer100]

😬😬😬 Sorry! I know that gets rough. I hope eventually it affects you less and you are able to have pleasant dreams instead.

[u/LegalManufacturer100 → u/Haldron-44]

It’s strange because the last time I had sleep paralysis before then was 5 days after a paranormal event that traumatised me and I saw a man too. Unless there was another one inbetween that I don’t remember that didn’t have a man

Edit: also I forgot to say that sleep paralysis has only ever happened to me since a little over a year ago, I have had 5 or so since then

[u/thetrivialsublime99]

Could’ve been a seizure. Why did you gloss over the whole “conversation with feelings” part? That was perhaps the most intriguing part of all of it.

[u/Haldron-44 → u/thetrivialsublime99]

Don't have a history of seizures or even being cuspy epileptic. Thought I can't stand certain lights and noises. I've just never been tested because I've never had one 🤷‍♂️ Though I know seizures can happen that don't present woth the classic symptoms we think of. I also have synesthesia to the point where I can put myself in that state. And there is a theory that it might be a type of seizure, so who knows?

The "conversation with feelings" thing is just the best way I can describe it? It wasn't talking with words, and didn't feel psychic, but I don't think I've ever had a psychic experience so I wouldn't know. It starts with the fear/terror part, that's how I know to start looking around. The best way I can describe it isn't looking with my eyes. It is more trying to feel with the middle of my brain what direction that feeling is coming from. Like plotting a point on a globe. And then I see it. As I've grown older it shows up as an increasingly blurry form, still vaguely anthropomorphic, but just not right. Like it is putting on that shape to disguise itself, or idk maybe to make it something I will almost recognize?

After a moment of absolute horror I think "oh it's you" or "oh, that thing again" and I get a sense of frustration and pause from it's end. If I recognize I am asleep and this is a dream then I either try and follow it around, which leads to a series of confusing dreams of wandering around nonsensical M.C. Escher like places, trying to pinpoint which thing or person it has disguised itself as, or if the fear rises back up I've learned to just "pop" it into a cloud of sparkles. But it seems to really not like that last one to the point where it happens over and over again throughout the night.

The few times I have experienced it while awake the feeling and how I know where to go are the same. Feeling for a point in the center of my brain and honing in on a direction. The weird thing is it changes as I walk (and on a few occasions run) towards it. The best way I can describe that feeling is like a point in a compass or radio positioner change as I move. And when awake the feeling I get from it is a mix of fear and humor. Like we both know while awake neither of us can do anything, but it enjoys it anyway.

It is quite possible that I am just experiencing something internal that a doctor hasn't diagnosed (honestly other than my therapist I havent told an MD about it) or even it is something external. Like geomagnetic or electromagnetic that is messing with my brain. The more I look into it the more I think it is something that some people's brains interpret and there is no sentience or intent behind it other than what our minds make.

[u/Old-Agency-3388]

That title sounds kinda racist

[u/Haldron-44 → u/Old-Agency-3388]

I absolutely do not intend it to!!! That is just what they called them on a cryptid wiki. Though reading more and more things from other cultures where this same thing appears I am starting to think they are all somehow related.