My great grandparents used to travel and they have collected tons of stuff from around the world, mostly regular souvenirs but lots of more unique stuff as well, like real ivory and jade figurines that would be hard to come by today. One such item is a congo tribal mask that I inherited. It looks very similar to this. It feels pretty authentic, and is obviously quite old.

So I hang this bad boy up in my room and think nothing of it. But after a few weeks things get pretty weird. I'm finding it harder to sleep. I had more frequent and vivid nightmares. Finally, I woke up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat. You know how you can sort of tell that a sound woke you up, but can't quite place if you actually heard it? It was like that, but with a loud drum beat and distant chanting. I'd had enough. I stuffed him into storage and haven't had any trouble since.

Maybe I was just paranoid. Maybe the mask was just a dumb craft thing sold to tourists. But it's not gonna show up in my living space any time soon.