I had a very weird dream once where I came into possession of a little trinket that was basically a wood block with a spherical evil eye bead the size of a shooter marble floating above it. Whenever I moved, the eye would follow me, and if I tried to get rid of the trinket, it would re-appear someplace else, like on my front porch or on my desk. I remember thinking at one point I had made the eye mad, because it started spinning and bobbing. Anyway, the paranormal part came when I woke up completely paralyzed. Most people who experience sleep paralysis hallucinate demons or shadows, but I didn't see anything except my dark, empty room. Also, I could move my eyes, but my facial muscles weren't moving - I tried and failed to yell - and my body was in a completely normal sleeping position, but I couldn't coax any part of me into shifting for what felt like minutes. Weird stuff, yo.

A better story didn't happen to me, but to my grandma. My grandma was a tough-as-nails South Carolina woman who didn't tolerate lying, exaggerating, or sometimes even silly stories. I tell you this because it means she wasn't fucking around when she swore she had an encounter with The Gray Man in the late '80s. She and my grandpa retired to Pawley's Island long before I was born, and The Gray Man is a local ghost who used to appear to foretell big storms and foul weather. She apparently saw him walking down the beach one day when the weather was fine, and he warned her that she should pack up and head inland. She didn't, and not long afterwards, Hurricane Hugo hit the coast as one of the most devastating hurricanes in American history (before Katrina, at least) and tore their roof to shreds. Anyway, if you check his wikipedia article, apparently The Gray Man hasn't been seen since Hugo. I wonder where he went.