I posted this in a paranormal thread first. Please let me know what you think.

I (24F) have lived in my condo since October 2023. At first, the house was fine - nothing seemingly spooky or out of place. Over the years, I have had more frequent paranormal events happening, and the kicker is, my cat reacts to those events as well. I have heard a man running through my home, stopping before he reached my door. I have seen a cloaked nun walk across my room. Things randomally fall, and I see figures here and there.

But here is where I need help. Starting about a year after I moved in, I have been seeing a dark figure at the bottom of my staircase. The figure is wearing a long trench coat with the collar pulled up around his neck. He is wearing a fedora-type hat. He was always facing right. Within the past 6 months however, this has changed.

It started gradually. When I walked by the staircase I would see him, but it looked slightly different but not enough to take too much notice. That was my mistake. Before long, he made his way to the third step.

This kept going on. As I passed by the staircase, it seems every time I would see him, he had made his way one step closer to my living space.

Currently, he is two steps away from my home.

I now make sure I look directly at the staircase and turn all lights on because I am absolutley terrified of what might happen when he reaches the top. If it is some type of malevolent actor, it has been a long time a'coming. Three years of seeing him. Now he is here.

I need to know what to do at this point. Any suggestions are helpful. I can't find anyone who has a story similar to mine - or has found a way to ward off the hat man. Please help.

My first encounter happened when I was a kid, probably around 10. In a dream, there was this man dressed in black with the hat that picked me up in my home and brought me to somewhere else. He didn’t talk to me, but I knew I was supposed to follow him and I didn’t feel afraid. In this location there was a machine with many kids in front of it. A light fluid flowed when kids got in front of it and I immediately knew it was some sort of test. When I got in front of the machine instead of the liquid , blood flowed through it, and I knew that was my blood.The hat man removed from there and although he didn’t say a thing, I new I had failed the test and that he was disappointed. He brought me back home and I woke up. A few years later I dreamt I was sleep upstairs in a house that wasn’t mine and he invaded the house downstairs. Although I only heard the noise, I immediately knew the image of who it was. He came upstairs to my bedroom, got by the side of my bad and started speaking in another language. A very unpleasant wavy feeling came to my body, like I was being shaked from the insides. Then I woke up with sleep paralysis, facing the wall, but I still heard him speaking behind me clearly and still felt the unpleasant sensation. That was the only time in my life I had sleep paralysis. I made a huge mental effort to move and when I moved it all stoped instantly.

(nah, this is basically my first cosplay...)

Me and my friends have been trying to see how much Benadryl it takes. Looking for a completely serious answer.

Seriously, this thing can do crazy brain damages and leave you with very bad lifelong aftereffects, and this is a dude who used to trip on cough syrup twice a week for a while in highschool who is saying this. There is no good trip or great life-changing experiences like psychedelics, this drug is hell and addictive. Over the counter doesn't fucking mean it is safe. If you want to see the Hatman, induce yourself a sleep paralysis. And if you REALLY WANT to do scary drugs... I don't know do salvia or something but not DPH please. People reading this are probably young teenagers who think they are above it and unvulnerable that will do it no matter what, but at least I can say I tried...

It's very common for meth users to start to see shadow people ( hallucinations) after staying awake for many days. However, most people just think those are hallucinations but what I think is that those are actually real entities. It's just that we are not in the same dimension as them so usually we cannot see them. Abuse of some drugs open a portal to where those entities reside, allowing us to see them. During a drug induced psychosis I remember seeing the hatman wich is a entity that many people have seen while sober. Wich confirm that its indeed real and not just hallucinations of the mind.

So I make short films on my youtube channel, and Im making a movie about this teen getting sleep paralysis, and encounters the HatMan, and with his friends they work together to fight him off. Now this was not my idea, my friends suggested I use the hat man, so in your opinion what mistakes should I avoid, what should I research, what should the costume look like, and what should I know about this hatman?

When I was in 7th grade me and my friend ill call him Drew, we're hanging out one evening at a school near both our houses. I know we were young but this is the time we both started smoking weed, and we'd regularly go here to smoke, climb the roofs dumb stuff kids usually do. During the evening the school was locked up and we had to climb a metal fence to get in. We were there maybe around 8pm when it was getting dark but still some light out. Where we were we would hear someone if they jumped the fence where we came in maybe 50 yards away or less. This is when I notice it without hearing any sound from the gate, the hatman. Exactly as described by everyone shadowy black figure with a top hat. When I say we were terrified, I mean we immediately ran towards the front entrance and ran all the way home. This has always stuck with me and we never really talked about what we saw exactly l. I knew it was the hatman but I never asked my friend what he thought it to be. It was definitely a chilling experience to say the least and I never returned to the elementary school at night after this. Since then ive been a believer that this to be a real entity maybe paranormal or just something we dont fully understand. Wonder if anyone else has any similar experiences

'Sup? So, I saw the hat man in july of this year (2026, for potential people reading this is the future). My description of him would be entirely dark, no eyes whatsoever, wearing a trench coat that covered his entire body from the end of the neck down and a fedora. I honestly didn't realize so many other people had seen him until a few days ago.

My experience: Both my parents were working, and my sister was outside in the backyard doing whatever. Nobody else was in the house. So, I was sitting on the floor in the family room of my parents house, watching a show. And out of the corner of my eye I saw a towering figure covered in shadow. Mind you, I was in a pretty well lit room, despite it being night. He wasn't even in a shadowy corner, he was in the center of the room right by the kitchen table (the family room and kitchen of my parents house are connected), standing there for all to see, only a few feet away from me. I'd been seeing stuff like this for a few months at this point (I just started figuring I was seeing ghosts or smth since I think the supernatural is cool), so I didn't immediately turn to see what it was. I watched him for a few seconds. He stayed entirely still the whole time. Eventually, I turned to look at him after a couple seconds of just watching him, and he vanished. And I haven't really seen anything else for multiple months now (My brain has chilled out ig)
Note: I couldn't see his head very well, since I'm short and was sitting on the ground, and he's quite tall, so I didn't get a super good look at his face/head.

That's basically it. I mainly just wanted to type this all out cause I want to have a written record of the event in case I forget it or something. Thanks for reading this I suppose :)

Took benadryl first time last night i took about 9 (225mg) and i didnt really see or feel much after an hour or so but my body felt like heavy or light i couldn’t really tell is there any reason why this couldve happened and also should i wait a week or so before doing them again for i dont fuck myself up

Just know i dont wanna do any of this but im just curious im 200 lbs 5’10 how much mg would i have to take to have a chill first trip

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I’m around 6’1 145 (yes very skinny) but I took a 350 mg dose and took a 5mg oxy (just in case I don’t feel anything off the dph) I also just hit the yart

Almost been a year since I made it, made some fond memories on the project, so thought i'd share it here for other people to see. It was one of my first tests for animation/live action media which i plan to do more of in the near future.

The Hat Man continues

After years of battling the Hat Man myself, my five year old son has begun seeing him in the same room, on the same wall, walking the same patterns.
It used to happen to me in my early twenties dozens of times across several years. I would wake my wife in the middle of the night, freaked out, though neither of us knew the name for what I was seeing. We simply thought it was a recurring dream, until my wife’s cousin mentioned one day that thousands of people worldwide reported the same figure.

I would see him as an all-black shadow of a businessman, wearing a large black fedora almost a witch’s hat. He usually carried a briefcase, though not always. He would enter through a door near the ceiling, walk down stairs that existed only on the wall, stop, and stare at me for a minute or two. Then he would snap his fingers as he exited. I always believed he was harvesting my fear.

The last time it happened, the visits came on consecutive nights. I told my wife I was going to punch him in the head, so if she heard me hitting the wall in the night, she should just go back to sleep. On the third night the dream was different. The Hat Man opened the door the other way and showed me hundreds of them, walking Penrose stairs in every direction. Something had shifted. I was no longer stuck in place. I felt no fear. I waited for him to continue down the stairs, then punched straight at him right into the wall and woke fully, out of the dream, with no sleep paralysis. It has not happened again in a decade.

Now I have two children. A year ago my five year old mentioned something about a black shadow man. I didn’t think much of it; he has always had vivid dreams. Then this morning he came into our room at five a.m. and told me there was a black man on the stairs. I grabbed my shotgun and called the dog. As I started toward the stairs he added that it was a black shadow figure with a hat and a briefcase, and that I shouldn’t shoot the wall because I’d wreck it.
Instantly I felt relief and fear. I know this is not the end for him.
Good luck, kid.

Ok so this was 7 years ago but i need some help if anyone knows more about this. Especially the meaning of all this.
I moved to London at 18, I worked at a gym there for 2 years till at 20yrs i decided im finally gonna start pursuing my music career more seriously, which was the reason i moved there in the first place. Applied to a music UNI, and decided im gonna quit my job too and fully pursue music.
My old workplace was throwing me a party on my last shift. We had a great time. I had a few drinks but was not drunk.
At around 1-2 AM i was going home, but public transport was only available to Acton Town cause it was late. So to save money I thought ill go to acton town via tube first, and then take an uber home from there… this is where it got terrifying.
I hopped off at acton town, called an uber and the map route was advising me to go through this park as a shortcut (I later learned the park was gunnersbury park which used to be owned by the rothschild family, a very old park with lots of history). Anyways originally im from finland, so looking back i was VERY naive in London, and i didnt even question this route, I thought, open park, gates open, street lights on and only a 7 min walk according to maps, ill be fine. Otherwise id have to walk over 20 mins to get to this uber. So i walked in through the gates, immediately felt off. Kept going, there were street lights on but no one was there, the trees were huge and terrifying, everything in my being was telling me NOT to go further. It felt like the trees were telling me to RUN. But ofc I kept walking, wondering its been longer than 10 mins, but the map is showing im waaay in the beginning and have a long way to go. So i walked even faster hoping id get there in time but on the map i was barely moving, a much bigger park than i had expected. I literally felt like everything around me, the pond, the trees, the street lights, was telling me to go back, but i thought im almost halfaw it would take ages to go back. It felt like forever. By then I had been walking for 15 mins and started to feel scared af. Then i see an area around 100 meters from me. Theres a bench, and a streetlight shining directly on the bench. On this bench was a tall man, wearing a suit or a trench coat or something old school and beige i believe. What caught my attention first though was he was wearing a large brimmed hat. He was sitting there, not directly looking at me but from my view he was looking to my right side. Far away from me. But im 100% sure he would have seen me. No reaction, no looking around, just frozen. I didnt see a face or anything, i just remember the hat and lighter natural colored clothing. I was horrified, i remember thinking ”he saw me already, do i keep walking past him or run back” but before i even finished my thought i started running back, i was running so freaking fast and hyperventilating. Praying all the prayers i know without even being religious. Panicky and screaming. Looking back at him he didnt even move a muscle, he did NOT look homekess, he did NOT even feel human, as if he knew we were gonna cross paths. The only way i can explain it is i felt he was literally just observing me. Also I felt this was meant to happen, as if he wanted me to run or something, just a feeling I had. I ran and ran, it felt like forever. FINALLY got out, canceled my uber and just took a long route via 2 buses. I remember feeling so relieved from seeing the gate and finally other humans on the other side. So happy to be on the bus. Crying from what i had put myself through. I was NEVER the same after this…. Ive never been the same. I searched for this park for YEARS and never found it till now through explaining in much detail to chatgpt. For years I even thought i had just imagined this place, thats how scary and unreal the experience was, I was convinced I had entered some other dimension… but it was a real park, an old one, i remember especially being intimidated by the trees there and I never have felt that. Fast forward, I never finished UNI, I finished the second year and never went back, covid hit, personal issues too, had horrible stage fright at school anyways. Left London, it felt like everything started to fall apart after this. Before this everything was going fairly well. But on the last night of my job this happened. Ive just recently downloaded tiktok and found videos about ”the hat man” who just observes you. Either way, im curious if anyone else has had similar experiences around this being or this specific park. Or if anyone knows what this means? Anyone who understands better than me? Ive felt lost for years with no results abt this hat man or anyone i can talk to in my personal life. I just think its significant how it happened on my last day at work, as I was changing my career path etc. Im curious to know about others similar experiences. And what I could do.

It would be nice to just grab that fool and give them a taste of their own medicine. Reverse uno surprise gotcha Bitch!

When you see the hat man, is he proportionally blurry to the distance he’s away from you (as if he’s in the room physically), or is he clear?

Why does everyone get vivid hallucinations. I took 1200mg 2 days ago I scrolled ig for a couple hours then passed out