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“You Are Hearing Dead People Laugh”: 50 Disturbing Facts That May Leave You Feeling Unsettled
According to ABC News, the most common ‘biggest fears’ people have are social phobias, the fear of open spaces, the fear of heights, the fear of flying, claustrophobia, the fear of insects, and the fear of snakes. And while you might be feeling calm and collected if none of those particular phobias afflict you, just keep reading, because something on this list is bound to freak you out…
Below, you'll find some of the most unsettling and disturbing facts that Reddit users have shared, as well as an interview between Bored Panda and Steffany Strange of the Something Scary Podcast, to remind you pandas that spooky season can be year round if you want it to be. Be sure to upvote the facts that unlock new fears within you, and if you start getting uneasy, just remember that all of these facts were true long before you read them. Oops, did that make you even more scared?
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Why am I reading these I already have crippling anxiety, depression and paranoia
To learn more about the topic of frightening facts, we reached out to an expert on all things spooky, Steffany Strange, host of the Something Scary Podcast. Steffany was kind enough to have a chat with us about what she loves most about diving into the world of scary. "I think for most of us we can relate and say scary stories help us tap into the unknown or the supernatural," she told Bored Panda. "But additionally, we as humans have a natural tendency to seek out information in the world/society we live in."
"I love that folklore, scary stories (especially ghost stories) bring in cultural and historical elements to better understand our emotions and the essence of being human," Steffany continued. "This makes me think of my grandfather and aunt telling me Salvadorian ghost stories, and it helped me tap into the unknown elements of the supernatural while understanding my own Salvadorian culture."
#3
**Someone you love will probably get dementia, and it will f*****g suck.**
The human brain is a machine, and like any machine it inevitably breaks down. Imagine a person you love. Imagine their mind starts dying before their body. They cease to be the person you knew, a little bit at a time. They lose their memories - the cherished and the mundane. Then they start looking at their loved ones in terror because nothing makes sense and everyone seems like a stranger. It's nature at its most cruel.
F**k dementia.
adam craker 1 year ago
My mom had dementia. She started showing signs in her mid Forty's. She still had her personality for the most part. But it took a part of her and she knew it but she didn't know what she lost. It was awful to watch her slowly deteriorated. She died in an accident at 62. I miss her constantly but I'm glad she never forgot who my dad, brother or I was. My grandfather died about a year before and she constantly forgot. I would just talk about him like he was alive. I couldn't stand for see the hurt in her realizing he was gone.
#4
A good portion of spiders shed their exoskeletons occasionally so when you happen to come across a "dead" spider, there's a good chance that it's just an empty husk and there is another, slightly bigger spider nearby.
We were also curious what sorts of scary things freak Steffany out the most. "The darkness!" she shared. "Your imagination runs wild when the lights go out, and the darkness creeps in. We hallucinate in pure darkness because our brains are biologically wired to fear darkness, amongst other things our brain just does for survival, which I guess brings me to exorcist movies and topics. I think it hits close to home not being able to have control of one's own body."
And as far as unsettling facts you pandas are likely to never forget, Steffany has informed us that glitter can cut your eyes. "And we have so much glitter in makeup, so I'm always weary even if it is safe," she added.
#5
With enough stressors you can trigger a psychotic episode and never be mentally healthy again.
White Paper Tsuru 1 year ago
Ummm. I'm here to add a voice of hope too. There can and is health after mental health breaks and psychotic breaks. And hopelessness (often a symptom/factor chicken/egg mess) that prevents people from ever returning a state of balance is not to be denied by any stretch. But this statement is too black and white and leaves no room for growth or rehabilitation. If we believe that some bodies can be healed from devastating injuries and equilibrium achieved, why not the mind. With enough of the right supports and treatments? Sadly, mostly inaccessible since (at least for most western culture) we treat health (physical and mental) reactionary instead of preventative. And money drives everything. But as someone who's been suicidal, there can be true mental health after if you live long enough to get there.
#6
Most laugh tracks were recorded in the 1950's. You are hearing dead people laugh.
Steffany also says it's "very healthy to be able to experience some form of safe scares within a form of horror entertainment because it can release us from our everyday reality of tragedy, fears, and anxieties better yet help us cope."
"I think there's something about watching scary things or listening to ghost stories and coming out of it much braver and reassessing 'what would you do'? Or 'how would you reassess it'? Fear is survival, and that means coming out more courageous and letting go of unnecessary fears," the host added.
#7
Human a******s can stretch out to 7 inches without tearing and a raccoon can fit in a hole as tight as 4 inches.
You’re welcome
#8
You have walked past someone who was spending their last day alive.
"There's always something about horror and ghost stories that bring us together through culture and I'm so excited to see what this generation brings as I continue to see more diversity and different voices that bring in new perspectives," Steffany says. "Including myself, being able to be part of something where we can share each other's cultures and bond over our fears is beautiful underneath the facade of just horror."
If you'd like to hear more from Steffany about all things horrific and spooky, be sure to check out the Something Scary Podcast. You can listen to the show right here and find their YouTube channel where they release weekly animated videos, alongside the podcast, right here!
#9
Some of your friends might just pretend to like you because you are useful to them and you don't realize it because they're just great at hiding it!
ChocolateCake 1 year ago
this has happened to me way too many times. i suck at making friends. the friends I have now are nice though :)
#10
Lake Superior has dead bodies from the 1920s.
With freezing temperatures and a lack of oxygen, bodies don't decompose at the rate they would under normal conditions. Sure, they don't look as "fresh" as the day they died (in fact they're covered in bodily fat from saponification), but they can be recognized as human remains.
In fact, there's been this ongoing debate because of the ship SS Edmund Fitzgerald that sank in the 70s, because scuba divers wanted to explore it but the families of the deceased were upset because this is basically a mass grave.
There's a YouTube channel called Ask a Mortician that just did an episode on this, and I really recommend it. She goes a lot more in-depth about the facts, and even went out there to talk with a surviving Fitzgerald relative.
Katie Lutesinger 1 year ago
The lake it is said never gives up her dead, when the skies of November turn gloomy...
#11
An aneurysm can happen at any time to anyone for any reason
EmBree 1 year ago
My husband had one when he was 32. He fell asleep watching TV and I woke him up to say it was bedtime. He said he had a headache and that he'd rest there for a while. I didn't think anything of it and went to bed. Our kids found him when they got up early to watch TV before school and they woke me up saying daddy was sleeping on the floor. People rarely survive aneurysms and they usually do so by getting immediate medical care. It's a miracle that he survived and is with us today.
#12
Youve probably walked past a murderer
Katie Lutesinger 1 year ago
Walked past? The guy was our waiter at the local Italian restaurant and went to school with my sister. She hated him, which felt very justified indeed some years later when he abducted and killed a local man and dumped his body in a national park.
#13
Sleep helps your immune system fight off those cancer cells, just think of that when you're up at 4AM.
Kaitlyn the great! 1 year ago
yeah i see you all.. GO TO SLEEP!!! STAY HEALTHY!!! (i know its hard but u can do this!)
#14
Not exactly useless, but there have been quite a few men who have died at the Grand Canyon because they thought it would be cool to take p**s over a ledge, only to lose their balance.
#15
Your body produces a cancerous cell about once every thirty minutes.
Your immune system is usually very, very efficient at finding and immediately neutralizing them.
But it's very possible that thirty minutes from now will be the time your immune system slips up and allows it to reproduce.
#16
You may already be dying, many fatal diseases have no symptoms until it's too late. You're welcome.
#17
By you winning the lottery you increase your chances of being murdered by a family member or any other person close to you.
#18
you know nobody fully. you only see the sides they choose to show you. the only person you really, truly know is you, and even then, there's your subconscious.
Jellicle bat (he/she/they) 1 year ago
Yes I can confirm this, as I do this. I'm not even the same on different social medias- Here I'm a bat, somewhere else I might be a tree or a loaf of meat. My parents Don't know i'm a furry and my Friends Don't know that I actually hate one of them. Nobody knows me whole, maybe I don't even know myself.
#19
How much do you know about your great grandparents?
Because in 50-100 years, that will be how much the world knows about you.
Edit: for those of you stating that information storage and accessibility will allow everyone to easily look back into the past, I challenge you to run a game designed for Windows 95.
Point being, information storage is not a ubiquitous system and as the architecture of software and hardware changes there is certainly a possibility that some systems will require specialised tools and equipment to acess.
Furthermore, social media is the highlight reel of history, not the story. Very few people show their true selves in their twitter or Facebook feed.
Also a number
Kaylee Best 1 year ago
My great-grandfather died in 2017:( Though I was only 7, I remember he told stories about how he fought in WWII and how he shared the chocolates he got for christmas with my sister and I :)
#20
Years ago I saw an episode of *Monsters Inside Me* where this guy was doing something outside and a fly flew into his eye. It only made contact for about a microsecond, but it was enough time for it to lay eggs. After they hatched they started eating his eye from the inside and he was starting to go blind until a doctor figured out what was wrong.
Ever since then I get super paranoid whenever a fly goes anywhere near my face because of the scary fact that something like this could possibly happen to me.
Pablo Aikin 1 year ago
Doctor here: fly larvae can only feed on necrotic (dead) tissue. Therefore, these parasites only arise in already injured structures (previously infected by bacteria). If a fly oviposits on healthy tissue, said larvae will starve to death.
#21
[Komodo Dragons](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) poison their victims and then follow them for hours on end. Then once the victim is throughly exhausted and poisoned, it tears it to shreds and eats it alive.
Brittania Kelli 1 year ago
They aren't actually poisonous, it's their saliva has deadly bacteria and the dragons can then follow the scent of your flesh being destroyed by that bacteria. It's in order to not waste energy chasing prey.
#22
There are some parts of the Universe that we’ll never, ever be able to see. No matter what we do. They’ll always remain just out of reach
Edit:I never had this much upvotes, Thanks to everyone
Stardust she/her 1 year ago
Most of the universe is out of our reach. We can only go till the Local Group (the group of galaxies which our galaxy is also part of). It’s impossible to go past the local group into the next group because of how the universe is expanding. There will come a time when the light from other groups beyond ours will be shifted to such long wavelengths that it would be impossible to detect them. Our galaxy will be lonely and any future species won’t be able to figure out how the universe started or how it will end. Our galaxy will slowly grow darker and darker as the last of its stars slowly start dying and fading away
#23
According to some research a human head may remain conscious for up to 30 seconds after decapitation. Most notably, a man named Dr. Beaurieux did a series of experiments in the early 1900’s where he yelled at recently decapitated criminal’s heads and saw a response.
SendMeABrownie 1 year ago
The response was probably pain from having their head cut off and smash onto the floor
#24
The sun could have exploded 8 minutes ago and we wouldn't know about it.
#25
The bubonic plague is still alive and well and thrives in such places as Africa and the western United states.
#27
If you begin to display [severe] symptoms of rabies you will go crazy and die. There's no cure.
Jerrica Coyle 1 year ago
There has only ever been one person to survive the rabies virus without having received immediate medical attention and the vaccine. She was bitten by a bat when she was 15 and doctors put her into a medically induced coma to allow her immune system to fight it off. She does a lot of stuff now to educate people. https://www.wbay.com/2022/09/28/rabies-survivor-shares-story-educate-others/
#28
When people are crucified, they rarely die from bleeding out; instead, they die from asphyxiation, or suffocation. The way their bodies are hung makes it almost impossible to breathe unless they physically hold themselves up instead of just hanging there, and after some many hours it gets to be to much, resulting in oxygen deprivation, unconsciousness, and death.
#29
If you’re murdered theres a very high chance you knew your killer.
Katie Lutesinger 1 year ago
I got a pretty big shock when I watched a True Crime story and it turned out the victim's boyfriend who was acting super suspicious WASN'T the killer. She was killed by a total stranger and the boyfriend was acting shifty because he was involved in a major drug deal and therefore didn't want cops looking at the contents of his phone.
#30
The possibility of conscious anaesthesia paralysis
Adira Bennett 1 year ago
This happened to me when I was intubated 3 years ago. It is indeed as utterly horrific as it sounds.
#31
Alright I collected some of my favourite scary facts from an app I really like called Thunder Dungeon.
They have all types of memes and facts and stuff so it was all written in pictures I had to manually write them down.
1. There's an episode of sesame street that had to be pulled off the air in 76' cause it was so scary, parents complained their children are screaming in horror at the TV.
2. There's a disease nicknamed Ondine's Curse, which causes suffers to die if they fall asleep.
3. On August 26th 1968, every TV in America shut down for 25 seconds, there was a murmuring sound coming from the TV and people reported hearing a demon.
4. In 1994 a man was arrested for dressing as the grim reaper and standing outside old people's homes.
5. It only takes about 7 pounds of pressure to rip off an ear.
6. There is an island in Italy that is supposedly so haunted that the government forbids the public from visiting it.
7. There's a syndrome called Charles Bonnet Syndrome that have been called "a window into a parallel universe". People who has it are prone to seeing bright lights, weird shapes and scary faces. The thing about this syndrome is that all those who suffer from it are almost exclusively blind or vision impaired.
8. When a bear attacks you, he will most likely start eating you alive rather than killing you first.
9. At any possible moment, Earth could be hit be a Gamma Ray Burst which will extinguish most if not all life on the planet.
10. A woman in St.Louis was watching a TV documentary about a serial killer who tortured and killed women, when she realized she was living in his former apartment.
11. There's a Caterpillar so poisonous, just brushing your finger on to it can cause internal bleeding in your brain.
12. In 1942, a man known as the phantom barber would break into people's house while they were sleeping to steal a lock from their hair. He was never identified.
13. There's a fish called a Stone Fish, it's so venomous that if you step on it you could die in 20 minutes.
14. According to a recent study, 1 in 5 CEOs demonstrated psychopathic traits. Another population with similar proportions of psychopaths is the prison population.
15. There was a guy from New York who owned a car with the license plate 5V 1732. He died on May 17, 1932.
That's all folks!
Edit: fact number three, the time of the shut down was 25 seconds, not minutes.
#32
You never stop watching with your eyes, even when you close them.
Another one: This topic will be dead in few days O.O
Terry Tobias 1 year ago
You can see someone's eyes move behind their eyelids. Watch someone sleep when they're going through REM sleep. (Rapid Eye Movement)
#33
There’s such a thing as “hair splinters.” Hairdressers deal with it all the time after cutting particularly coarse hair, the small pieces can stick in you like a splinter and pose risk of mega infections if you’re unable to get them out.
I’ve seen a stylist friend of mine lose a whole finger due to one tiny sliver of hair.
#34
Bed bugs can survive for up to a year without feeding under the correct temperatures. As adults the females can lay 300 eggs in their lifetimes. You could be spending thousands of dollars and eventually just get infested again. And bed bugs are making a comeback after almost being eradicated.
Jane Cortez 1 year ago
In addition whenever they become ‘stressed’ by spraying they go dormant. Bedbug eggs are also sticky, so are notorious hitchhikers. Places like behind baseboards, electrical outlets, electronics, inside furniture, crevices in the floors, the places that they can fit into and multiply at an astonishing rate are endless. They are becoming immune to insecticides. A combination of pyrethroids, diatomaceous earth, bagging every and storing outside after laundering, keeping bed legs in containers with baby oil, vacuuming 2/3 hours per day for months might, might with diligence eradicate them. Frying anything that can be fried in the dryer. Beware of scavenging, seal second hand clothes tightly in plastic bags until you can dry them in high heat for 30/35 minutes. Secondhand purchases need to be sealed with clear varnish, steam cleaned or put I to the dryer to kill the eggs, nymphs and adults is critical.
#35
You can have a heart attack and die at any second because of a heart problem you never knew about. There's one called Brugada syndrome which has no physical evidence and most people aren't diagnosed with it until they drop down dead and testing is done on immediate family members (it's genetic) and one of THEM is diagnosed with it. Happened to my father. We found out because I'm the one tested who has it, my uncle and brother got the all clear, chances are my grandad has it too (4 heart attacks since he was in his mid 40s)
Cupcake Kitten 1 year ago
Your grandad has survived 4 heart attacks after his mid 40s? I feel like he's both unlucky (for having so many) and extremely lucky (for surviving)
#36
There are several species of mushroom that implant their spores into insects, creating a kind of zombie that will lose their mind, wander off, die and their corpse will be used as fuel for the next generation of mushroom.
#37
When someone dies, the last thing the dying person senses is the sense of hearing, then touch, smell, and taste.
The first sense that is usually gone is sight.
#38
Your body can kill itself just to get rid of a foreign organism.
#39
You have almost a 90% chance of breaking a rib by giving effective CPR
AJay 1 year ago
And that is completely fine. Effective CPR requires very forceful compressions, much more forceful than what you generally see on TV. The compressions also need to be a lot faster. The advice from the NHS (National Health Service in the UK): Place the heel of your hand on the centre of the person's chest, then place the palm of your other hand on top and press down by 5 to 6cm (2 to 2.5 inches) at a steady rate of 100 to 120 compressions a minute. After every 30 chest compressions, give 2 rescue breaths. Remember, it is better to be alive with some broken ribs than to be dead with perfect ribs.
#40
Pooping can kill you because of a major nerve that is involved in the heart
#41
There have been 32 reported "broken arrow" incidents in the USA since 1950 (many more in former Soviet countries and other nuclear powers). A broken arrow incident is basically an accident where they lost a nuclear weapon.
Edit: Apparently losing a weapon is called an "empty quiver" incident
Bluetoyou 1 year ago
Thrasher was lost when I was a little girl. We were at a Navy base and the lady we visited husband was on it when it disappeared. I was around 6 but remember that evening of comforting her. We thought it got stuck on and underwater ledge and couldn't get free causing all the men to starve to death. A few years ago it was learned it imploded for going too deep. They died instantly. It was a nuclear submarine I believe.
#42
every year you pass your death day but you don’t know when it is
#43
Coconuts kill more people than sharks kill people every year.
#44
There is a theory in quantum cosmology. It is the hypothesis that our universe is actually a 'false vacuum', meaning that it isn't in its most stable possible configuration. Think of a ball rolling on a surface having several local minima (dents in the surface) but there is only one global minima (the dent which is the deepest). The ball may be in one of the dents which is not the deepest one. So, it is stable for now, but, given the chance it will slide to the deepest dent, which is the lowest energy configuration possible, the so-called 'true vacuum'.
Now the interesting part. If our universe is, indeed, in a false vacuum, due to something called 'quantum tunneling', it may 'tunnel' into the true vacuum, creating a bubble of lower energy. Once this lower energy bubble is formed, it expands, engulfing the entire universe, destroying everything we know as is, and creating new laws of physics. The speed of expanding is the speed of light, so we would have no information whatsoever about it before it hits us. We will literally never see it coming.
The really scary and really useless part? There is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
#45
For me, it's the fact that you can go crazy at any point, and even worse, you could have already lost it and you'd have a great chance of never finding out, making it virtually impossible to stop the trip downwards.
Icecream Sarang 1 year ago
This. So much this. I sometimes wonder if my husband and kids are real. Or if I’ve lost my mind and made it all up.
#46
the paris climate accord relies on technologies that do not yet exist, and might never exist, to pull carbon dioxide from the air by future generations. if we reach the paris climate accord goals, including using technologies that do not exist yet, there is at least an 50% chance of staying under the predicted catastrophic temperature rise. Literally coinflipping humanity.
why is this a useless scary fact? because there literally is jack s**t you can do about it in our current societies, beyond voting.
#47
I dunno how useless this is but; You are never 100% safe.
Think about it, no matter what scenario you put yourself in, there will always be some sort of counter measure. Let's say you built a concrete room that is 10 inches wide with no doors and windows underground, an earthquake could happen, a sinkhole could open up, a ravine could open up, etc.
No matter how safe a situation sounds, it can NEVER be 100% safe.
Edit: However, it is good at making people paranoid tho.
Mickysixxx 1 year ago
This sounds like some teenage logic trying to scare someone. They have been doing probability in maths and learnt nothing is 100% certain
#48
You can have a heart muscle disease and never know it, and possibly die.
True story, my dad had a cardiac arrest last November (he's 49yo) because apparently he has a heart muscle disease. Never showed any signs, works out regularly, relatively young - and he almost died out of nothing.
#49
Goblin sharks.
That's it.
AJay 1 year ago
"The goblin shark is a rare species of deep-sea shark. Sometimes called a "living fossil", it is the only extant representative of the family Mitsukurinidae, a lineage some 125 million years old." - Wikipedia. I couldn't work out how to put a picture in but have a google, they look very cool/terrifying.
#50
In a couple of billion years the sun will expand rapidly and consume the earth. There is nothing we can do to stop this
What do you think ?
PeridotPlatypus377 1 year ago
These aren’t facts for the most part. These are just things everyone thinks about when they are bored and need something to entertain themselves with.
Seabeast 1 year ago
Some of them are, others sound suspiciously like urban legends.
Load More Replies... Stardust she/her 1 year ago
Not a scary fact but fun fact: the dwarf planet Pluto has a small chance of being able to host life under its surface as there is an underground ocean and all the organic compounds necessary for life are present there
David Paterson 1 year ago
Even more exciting than that. The size of Pluto's underground ocean is an exact match +-20% for the size of Earth's ocean. It's the only other object in the solar System with an ocean the same size as Earth's.
Load More Replies...
Telepathetic 1 year ago
I have this gif too but cant get it to post. How do you do it ?
Load More Replies...
Octavia Hansen 1 year ago
Amazing how fast negative information, false info and depressing thoughts are disseminated and yet it takes so much to lift your spirits. Get a sense of priority -- change what you can, set a good example and do what you need to do. That's about it, people.
David Paterson 1 year ago
I don't know why these should be considered "scary". I already know every one of them, and they're just part of life - or death. And yes, they are "facts".
Betty Lydon 1 year ago
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PeridotPlatypus377 1 year ago
These aren’t facts for the most part. These are just things everyone thinks about when they are bored and need something to entertain themselves with.
Seabeast 1 year ago
Some of them are, others sound suspiciously like urban legends.
Load More Replies... Stardust she/her 1 year ago
Not a scary fact but fun fact: the dwarf planet Pluto has a small chance of being able to host life under its surface as there is an underground ocean and all the organic compounds necessary for life are present there
David Paterson 1 year ago
Even more exciting than that. The size of Pluto's underground ocean is an exact match +-20% for the size of Earth's ocean. It's the only other object in the solar System with an ocean the same size as Earth's.
Load More Replies... Telepathetic 1 year ago
I have this gif too but cant get it to post. How do you do it ?
Load More Replies... Octavia Hansen 1 year ago
Amazing how fast negative information, false info and depressing thoughts are disseminated and yet it takes so much to lift your spirits. Get a sense of priority -- change what you can, set a good example and do what you need to do. That's about it, people.
David Paterson 1 year ago
I don't know why these should be considered "scary". I already know every one of them, and they're just part of life - or death. And yes, they are "facts".
Betty Lydon 1 year ago
I’m using an online business opportunity I heard about and I’ve made such great money. It’s really user friendly and I’m just so happy that I found out about it. Here’s what I do. … For more details visit————————➤ 𝐖𝐰𝐰.𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧.𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝟗.𝐜𝐨𝐦
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