Throughout the ages, humans have sought different ways to change their perceptions and alter their states of being. Many ordinary people, spiritual gurus, monks, and even priests have relied on shifting their conscious experience to achieve some sort of enlightenment or even simple joy.

Euphoria, confusion, and delirium have all inspired and transformed people. Many methods to achieve these ends come with a truly phenomenal experience: hallucinations. One Swiss scientist defined hallucinations as “perceptions without the corresponding stimuli.”

Hallucinations can be terrifying, especially if you’re not expecting them to happen. But for some individuals, they’re downright fun. Here are 10 different types of hallucinations that humans experience and what they’re all about.

10 Excitation

Yes, something as simple as excitation can cause hallucinations and often does. The state of the brain which influences the mind and all its perceptions is a paramount consideration when it comes to the nature and origin of hallucinations, which can often result as a break from the homeostasis of the resting, so-called normal state of brain functioning.

In some people, things like anxiety can trigger hallucinations and the psychosis that sometimes ensues. Anxiety is not experienced in a calm state of mind. It’s directly caused by an overstimulation of the brain, much like what happens when people ingest certain drugs.

Hallucinations through excitation and anxiety aren’t necessarily signs or symptoms of an underlying mental illness. They’re simply a physiological response to the stress (or perceived stress) that the brain is experiencing.

These states of mind and the hallucinations—the vivid, terrifying light, the loud noises which didn’t really happen, the chatter which sounds like voices in the wind—all of this can happen to sane, ordinary people under the right conditions. So if you experience anxiety or excitation that causes hallucinations, you’re not alone. A lot of people share this experience.^[1]

9 Sleep Deprivation

Sleep deprivation is something that college students often experience religiously, and religious people often use it as a means of studying spirituality. But in all cases, under the right conditions, you might just end up with hallucinations.

Most of us have experienced this—the tiny, dancing movements that you know aren’t real, that feel so real, and that are just outside your focus. By and large, the mind comes from the brain as the various centers of the brain process their respective portions of our consciousness, which form a cohesive experience.

That said, if one goes for long periods of time without sleep, these centers of the brain and their constituent neurons begin to degrade, which eventually causes an inability for the brain as a whole to create a unified experience of consciousness. Thus, it is unable to make reasonable sense of the stimuli from the outside world.

Sleep deprivation mainly targets the visual cortex, and approximately 80 percent of people experience visual hallucinations when they don’t get enough sleep. Auditory hallucinations don’t occur with sleep deprivation.^[2]

Not all of this is under our control as it’s more than just staying up late watching TV. A slew of conditions, such as snoring, can prevent someone from getting enough sleep and send him down a path to hallucination. Sometimes, it’s just minor things that you see out of the corner of your eyes. But for some people, the hallucinations become bizarre, extreme, seemingly very real, and even nightmarish.

8 Hypnagogic Hallucinations

Hypnagogic hallucinations are the next most common type of hallucination caused by things relating to sleep. Experienced by 37 percent of the population, this is something we grow out of with age for the most part.

Have you ever been falling asleep and right before you get to the point of no return where you swim into your own little dreamland, you awaken suddenly, partially suspended in a purgatory between waking life and dream life? When this happens, many people experience hallucinations involving their waking selves and seemingly their dream at the same time. This is a hypnagogic hallucination.

Even more terrifying, these sorts of sleep hallucinations are primarily auditory in nature. They include ringing sounds, unpleasant or uncomfortable noises, chatter or popping, and even voices talking to you.

If people use certain drugs, even when they’re not on the drug itself, they can often experience hypnagogic hallucinations in the form of beginning to fall asleep, being suddenly jolted awake, and then suspended in a distorted reality of waking life. They perceive bugs or insects crawling all over their bodies, which sometimes causes these individuals to itch, scratch, or otherwise remove the hallucinatory objects from themselves.^[3]

7 Hypnopompic Hallucinations

The hypnopompic state occurs between waking up from sleep and being fully awake, and many know all too well that hallucinations can occur then, too. However, hypnopompic hallucinations are much less common, only experienced by approximately 12.5 percent of the population.

One of the common themes is sleep paralysis. It is a terrifying experience where the body is wholly paralyzed, suspended between wakefulness and sleep, and some rather dark sensations, even hallucinations, occur.

Sleep paralysis can be either hypnopompic or hypnagogic, but the feelings and fear are always the same. When transitioning out of sleep, the person senses some evil force coming toward him or in the room with him. Often, people report being stepped on, punched, or otherwise attacked by this entity—all while they can’t move.^[4]

Many creatures, demons, and ghosts have been attributed to this supposed entity. It’s seemingly universal and has been around and discussed since at least the days of ancient Greece, whose residents attributed the terrifying hallucinations to succubi and such.

Thanks to science, we now know that these terrifying hypnopompic hallucinations are actually errors in the brain that happen when there’s a problem with REM sleep. It’s a natural, albeit uncomfortable, part of how the brain works.

6 Blindness

One of the most fascinating forms of hallucination are the intense visual hallucinations of the blind. It’s actually rather common for blind people to see things that aren’t there or that they wouldn’t be capable of seeing.

These natural, nonpsychotic “trips” are precise, clear, and often elaborate. The experiencer is usually perfectly sane while seeing 140 small white gnomes prancing around in the snow in synchronization. Many people consider the hallucinations nothing shy of sublime, while others find them terrifying.

Charles Bonnet syndrome is the official name for this. Although the term was coined in the late 1700s, this phenomenon was nothing new. However, few know about it. One 64-year-old blind patient saw snakes crawling into and out of her body. Talk about a wild experience.

It’s estimated that at least 20–30 percent of the visually impaired population have these hallucinations. For obvious reasons, many people don’t feel quite right reporting them to others, including friends or family, for fear of mockery. So that number may be much higher.^[5]

5 Sensory Deprivation

One of the most challenging, terrifying, and unusual experiences is sensory deprivation. The brain was designed for all the senses to take in just the right stimuli to keep the organism alive. It was not intended to be deprived of these things.

This happens because the brain tries to adjust to the new level of sensory input, which is far different than normal. Any incremental changes are experienced as unusual and new phenomena.

This corresponds to hallucinations from excitation, where the brain is starved for new sensations but their input has been strongly blunted. It is much like a starved person who doesn’t need a full meal to be satisfied as he readjusts to a life with food again.

When the brain receives no sensory input for sound for long enough, it eventually begins to invent things from whatever hints of sound it supposes are there. People end up hearing imaginary voices and full-on conversations inside their heads.

This coincides with both the visual hallucinations of the blind and phantom limb syndrome, in which an amputee experiences sensations in a part of the body which is gone. The brain doesn’t receive the input it’s used to, so it just makes up whatever it thinks might be there.^[6]

4 Schizophrenia

One of the tragic hallmarks of schizophrenia is vivid hallucinations. These often present in the form of annoyances–such as hums, buzzes, and noises—for the person suffering from the affliction. Imagine having a hummingbird or an insect flying right next to your ear for several hours.

The visual hallucinations are much like the static of an old TV set displayed over the person’s field of vision. It’s like seeing the world through the craziest photo-video filter you can think of. Schizophrenia is a disease which gives people all sorts of hallucinations, not just those auditory ones mentioned already, but tactile, visual hallucinations where they close their eyes and “sense” themselves in other worlds.^[7]

Hearing voices or sometimes seeing and hearing people who aren’t in the room are common experiences in those diagnosed with schizophrenia. Having people whom these patients trust to tell them what is actually going on in the outside world is absolutely vital for many people with this disease.

With a nearly constant state of mind that misinterprets the inputs that the brain is receiving, it’s no wonder that this terrifying disease leads down the path of delusional thinking and behaviors. How do you know what’s real if all your sensations are lying to you at least a little bit?

3 Trance States

When humans didn’t have access to powerful drugs, they relied on a simpler and much more personal way of achieving the desired hallucinations through trance states and self-hypnosis. We’ve all heard that drugs such as dimethyltryptamine (DMT) can transport someone out of his body into what’s seemingly another world. But did you know that we can do this simply with the power of our minds?

This process is called autoscopic hallucination. The person transcends his body and experiences another world which is totally in his mind. For a few seconds or possibly minutes, a person is “out of his body” like a short, strong drug trip or near-death experience.

Autoscopic hallucinations can come from the trance states inspired by deep meditation and other means by which people transcend reality using nothing more than their mental faculties. Believe it or not, self-hypnosis is a very real thing. It can be achieved through concentrating on a single focal point, using the power of the mind to eliminate your surroundings, and replacing them with something totally hallucinated.^[8]

This may be the oldest form of intentional hallucination, perhaps besides mushrooms or other substances which can bring about such states. But don’t underestimate the power of the mind to intentionally conjure up hallucinations.

2 Epilepsy

Different types of epilepsy can cause different types of seizures and experiences in the affected individuals. Sadly, much like those with paranoid schizophrenia, epilepsy sufferers can have hallucinations accompanied by a fear of persecution or a feeling that someone is out to get them for some time before the onset of a seizure.

It is now being discovered that epilepsy can also cause powerful auditory hallucinations. This happens when the left temporal lobe is damaged. We’re not talking about the fuzz or chatter of other types of hallucinations but extremely complex strings of sound heard by the afflicted person.

We’re slowly starting to piece together the entire story of how epilepsy affects the brain, but it is known that some people experience extremely powerful hallucinations and sometimes a feeling of transcendence. About 80 percent of seizures in those with temporal lobe epilepsy are focal aware, otherwise known as aura seizures.

Although the patient is conscious during the whole seizure, he hallucinates the entire time. This type of seizure only affects one portion of the brain and can produce vivid, astonishing hallucinations.^[9]

1 Drugs

Probably the best-known form of hallucinatory experience in most places is the use of drugs or other mind-altering substances. From LSD to psilocybin, the way that chemicals affect the brain to cause hallucinations has often been described as “jamming the circuits.”^[10]

The transmission of information, usually by way of chemical compounds in the nervous system, creates an excessive stimulation of the senses, at least perceptively. Drugs are the synthetic way to produce sensory overload, and things become transposed and blurred. Anyone who’s taken these drugs will know exactly what I’m talking about.

A lot of science backs the idea that these sorts of chemically induced states are actually quite good for your physical and psychological health. Other hallucinations happen when people intentionally or accidentally poison themselves with certain plants.

These methods have been practiced by humans to achieve hallucinatory experiences for thousands of years. Some of these plants were considered to be medicinal by ancient and tribal cultures. Now science may be confirming their beliefs.

I like to write about the weird, the dark, odd, and unusual. Here’s a fun little piece on different types of hallucinations.

When most people think about racial persecution and genocide during the Nazi regime, the Holocaust is usually the first thing on everyone’s mind. Although it’s true that the Jews endured horrible atrocities, they were not the only ones to suffer under Adolf Hitler’s twisted ideas of racial superiority.

The population of African people living in Germany was relatively small compared to the Jews, but the Africans weren’t spared when the Nazis decided to rid the world of anyone who did not fit their Aryan ideal. The stories of the Africans who lost their lives before, during, and after the war—as well as those who survived—are often forgotten. We believe those stories need to be told.

10 The Death Camps

Years before the Nazis came to power, the German army was methodically killing off Africans in a racially motivated genocide. When Germany colonized South West Africa, they created a death camp in what is now known as modern-day Namibia.

In 1904, General Lothar von Trotha gave the order that all native Herero people needed to be exterminated to make space for German colonists. He specifically ordered that the soldiers show no mercy to women and children. In just three years, the Germans killed thousands of people, wiping out approximately 80 percent of the Herero tribe and 50 percent of the Nama tribe.

A total of five different concentration camps were located in Namibia on Shark Island. It earned the nickname “Skeleton Coast” because of the mass graves that are still there. One missionary described a scene of an African woman lying on the ground and wasting away. When she asked for water from fellow prisoners, a German soldier shot her five times, outraged that she would have the audacity to ask for anything.^[1]

The soldiers were so proud of their “conquest” that they would have friends document the experience by taking photos of the soldiers surrounded by starving African prisoners. Then the pictures were turned into postcards to send back home. Some postcards even had pornographic images of German soldiers raping African women.

A man named Dr. Bofinger living in Namibia conducted experiments on the cadavers of these prisoners. He was known for decapitating the victims, preserving the heads, and sending them back to scientists living in Germany. At the time, Adolf Hitler was a young child, and none of these horrific crimes were actually associated with the Nazis.

9 Propaganda

Propaganda played a huge role in influencing the German people’s perspectives of Africans. The vast majority of Germans had no idea what went on in the African colonies. Propaganda was spreading about the friendship between Africa and Germany.

One propaganda poster shows a German woman with her arm around an African woman, claiming that there was no longer any “racial pride” in Germany. The government wanted to encourage citizens to move to all-German colonies in Africa, but the authorities couldn’t convince people to move unless it seemed like an appealing prospect.

After World War I, Germany lost their African colonies to the Allies. Before and after World War I, Germany was losing thousands of people who immigrated to the United States due to rampant unemployment and poverty.^[2]

After the rise of the Third Reich in the 1930s, German filmmakers created movies to glorify the history of German colonization in South West Africa. One of the Nazi’s long-term goals was to regain their African colonies and spread the Aryan race all over the world. They wanted people to get excited by the idea through these films.

8 The Rhineland Bastards

After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919. Allied troops were stationed in the area of western Germany known as the Rhineland. Many of these troops were black men from the French colonies in Africa.

Hundreds of German women ended up becoming pregnant with the babies of these African soldiers, giving birth to the first significant population of multiracial children Germany had ever seen. These children were nicknamed the “Rhineland bastards.”^[3]

The public was outraged. Propaganda began spreading about women falling victim to black men. One illustration titled “Jumbo” showed a Godzilla-sized naked black soldier holding nearly a dozen German damsels in distress. A metal coin was even minted with the image of a white woman being shackled to a gigantic penis on one side and the image of a black soldier on the other side.

The German public was taught to believe that these women had been raped by the African soldiers, although only one woman out of hundreds of mothers ever made that claim. Those who knew that the sex was consensual tried to paint the black men as oversexed predators and the women as demented.

Therefore, their offspring were not worthy. In Hitler’s Mein Kampf, he blamed the Jews for bringing black men into Germany, saying that it was all part of their plan to soil the pure blood of the Aryan race.

7 Rassenschande

Nazi Germany strongly pushed the idea of Rassenschande, which translates roughly to “racial pollution.” The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 prevented Aryans from having sexual relations with or marrying non-Aryan people.

Most people remember this rule as it applied to the Jews, but of course, it also extended to Afro-German people. German citizens had to undergo medical examinations to get an Aryan certificate to prove that they were “pure-blooded.”

Publications around that time claimed that the Allies introducing African soldiers into Germany was itself an attack on the German population. The Nazis claimed that they were victims of the outside world trying to force racial integration. If they allowed Africans to defile their bloodline, it would mean the end of the German race as they knew it.

Though Germany once had diplomatic ties within Africa and wanted to eventually colonize it again someday, they strongly believed that black people belonged in Africa and nowhere else.^[4]

6 Murder And Sterilization

An anthropologist named Dr. Wolfgang Abel ran tests on Afro-Germans and Asian Germans and claimed that many of the children were aggressive, psychotic, and “genetically inferior” to Aryan children. He also claimed that the German mothers who gave birth to them were corrupted after being a sort of alien vessel.

In 1937, the Gestapo was ordered to round up any black people they could find. Many of these blacks were killed, sent off to be sterilized, or used in scientific experiments. Non-German black people who happened to be in Germany at the time were also killed or imprisoned rather than being allowed to return to their home countries.

During Nazi Germany, any person who was considered to carry undesirable DNA was sterilized, which prevented them from having children of their own. There was an order that every single one of the Rhineland bastards must be sterilized. Over 400 sterilization procedures were recorded.^[5]

5 The Extraordinary Life Of Hans Massaquoi

Hans Massaquoi was one of the few black children who survived growing up in Nazi Germany. Hans wasn’t just any boy. He was a prince. Momolu Massaquoi, the king of the Vai tribe in Liberia, was working as a consul general in Germany. His son, Prince Al-Haj, fell in love with a German nurse named Bertha Baetz. She became pregnant with their son, Hans.

However, Al-Haj was a university student in Dublin and never returned to Germany. King Momolu helped to raise Hans at the consulate’s mansion for the first few years of his life. Then the king returned to Liberia. Bertha did not want to leave Germany, so she chose to raise Hans as a single mother in Hamburg and returned to working as a nurse.

When Hans was a child, he was bullied and harassed over the color of his skin. But he was intelligent and friendly, so he was able to make friends with people in his neighborhood. He desperately wanted to become part of the Hitler Youth because they got to wear “cool uniforms” and all his friends were doing it.

Hans was the only child who was left out, and he desperately wanted to fit in. He even got his babysitter to sew a swastika patch on his sweater to wear to school. His mother tried to stop it, but Hans continued to support the Nazis along with the other brainwashed children, not fully grasping what the Nazis were really like.

As he grew up, the war caused starvation and unemployment. As a black man, he was not allowed to work a job. Though he hated what the Nazis stood for, Hans tried to enlist in the German army. He was denied.

In 1948, his father finally stepped up and brought Hans to live in Liberia where he was treated like the prince he actually was. When he grew up, Hans became a journalist for magazines like Jet and Ebony.

Thankfully, Hans was spared the sterilization imposed on others like the Rhineland bastards, most likely because German officials shared with him that he could be useful if the Nazis ever regained control of their African colonies. Hans grew up, moved to the United States, got married, and had children.

Later, he wrote his autobiography, Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black In Nazi Germany, which was made into a movie in Germany.^[6] The entire film is available on YouTube.

4 Human Zoos

Theodor Wonja Michael’s parents were from a German colony in Cameroon. They were taught to believe that the “motherland” was a wonderful place, so they moved to Germany, believing that they could find a better life.

Once they arrived, they were horrified to learn that Africans were not allowed to be hired for normal jobs. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough money to go back home to Cameroon. They all had to work as actors in a human zoo. They were called “People’s Shows,” where black actors dressed in grass skirts and sat in front of mud huts picking at a fire and pretending to act like savages.

These human zoos typically traveled with a circus. Many of them were set up inside actual German zoos, right next to the monkeys. The showrunners claimed that these were Africans who were recently captured from their homes and given a habitat just like where they came from, exactly like animals.

German people would watch, laugh, and mock these Africans, not knowing that many of them actually spoke German, too. Around 400 human zoos existed in Germany until the 1930s.^[7]

After the end of the Nazi regime, human zoos became a thing of the past—until 2005. The Augsburg Zoo in Germany set up a display of native African life, including mud huts, grass skirts, and tribal dance. They placed it with the baboon exhibit, which is exactly what happened during the Nazi era.

Considering that black people had been compared to wild beasts and baboons in Germany for years, it was a clearly racist exhibit. People were so outraged that the zoo began receiving threatening letters.

Protesters picketed the zoo until the display was removed. The Augsburg Zoo maintains that they were not trying to bring back “human zoos,” and they deny seeing any racist correlation.

3 The African Campaigns

History remembers the lives lost during the bombings of the Blitz in London and so many other attacks on civilians throughout Europe. Yet few memorials bring attention to the lives that were lost in Africa. Much of the fighting during World War II happened in the countries of North Africa between the European colonies, which kept the war far away from European civilians.^[8]

Similar to today’s wars, the battle was also waged over controlling oil supplies in the Middle East. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, roughly one million European soldiers died or were injured during the campaign in North Africa. Germany had control over Tunisia for a short time in 1942 and immediately set out to “neutralize civilians.”

The National WWII Museum has a chart of all the civilian casualties across the globe during World War II. Yet the countries of North Africa are suspiciously excluded.

Some may argue that the desert terrain where the battles took place was not highly populated, but civilian deaths in these countries were recorded elsewhere in biographies and personal accounts. Yet it seems as though no one stopped to recognize these people and keep track of the numbers.

2 Prisoners Of War

There is a code of honor that prisoners of war (POWs) should be left alive, even if only to be traded for the capturing country’s own soldiers. These prisoners are usually used for manual labor, extracting secrets, and as pawns against the enemy. As The Journal of American History points out, both the Axis and Allied powers were guilty of war crimes against POWs during World War II.

The Nazis had no qualms about killing the African soldiers who were fighting from the French colonies. In fact, the Germans probably saw this as revenge for the enemies’ “crimes” against the German women in Rhineland.

African prisoners of war were not allowed to set foot on German soil for fear that they would defile the purity of the German race. They were housed at prison camps called the Frontstalags in France. These prisoners came from Algeria, Tunisia, Southeast Asia, West India, Madagascar, and Morocco, just to name a few places.

Nonwhite prisoners were sent to the Frontstalags. Vintage photographs show that the prisoners were forced to live in flimsy handmade tents with virtually no protection from the cold.

In 1941, there were over 100,000 prisoners at the Frontstalags. By 1942, there were only 44,000 left. The prisoners were forced into hard labor, and tuberculosis spread rampantly among all the men, who were constantly in close proximity to one another. In 1943, Germany commanded the French government to take over guard duty for the prisoners at the Frontstalags.

Once the French were in charge of the people from their own colonies, they began to provide a “godmother” service where female volunteers would cook, read, educate, knit, and give religious sermons. Some of them fell in love with these prisoners of war, giving birth to mixed-race babies.

Unfortunately, even after the war was over, these men were not allowed to return home or marry the women with whom they had children. The men were still considered to be members of the French military and were regrouped to live in barracks.^[9]

1 After The War

When the war was over, soldiers from the United States occupied Germany, which resulted in the births of what Germans called Mischlingskinder (“brown babies”). The German media used these kids as an example of how much Germany had changed by accepting mixed-race children into their society. The media also said that within just 10–20 years, everyone had come to embrace all races.

Despite their portrayal, racist views were still very much alive and well after the war. The vast majority of mixed-race babies were abandoned in orphanages. One cover of Ebony magazine showed a picture of a black child with blue eyes. Under the picture was the caption: “Homes Needed For 10,000 Brown Orphans.”

In the 1950s, thousands of African-American families stepped up to adopt these kids. Still, many children were left unwanted and abused in German orphanages.^[10] A documentary filmmaker named Regina Griffin interviewed dozens of the now-adult Afro-Germans in a movie called Brown Babies: The Mischlingskinder Story. The documentary shares incredibly tragic stories of these children, including one boy whose caregiver at the orphanage tried to drown him.

Today, there are few black people living in Germany. The United Nations released an official warning in 2017 to black tourists that they should never go into certain areas of Germany if they don’t want to get killed. The UN is also investigating reports that teachers grade Afro-German children poorly in schools on purpose and that there is rampant job discrimination.

Shannon Quinn is a writer and entrepreneur. You can find her on Twitter.

Celebrities are just like us. Sometimes they like to have a night in with some popcorn. Sometimes they like to dress up and go out and have a nice dinner with their significant others. Sometimes they are kept awake at night with sleep paralysis, frozen by the whispers of demons and spirits that inhabit their homes and waking nightmares. They’re just normal people, guys. While the juicy celeb gossip may be hard to resist, sometimes a good ghost story is even harder. Rest assured, there is no shortage.

We’ve already brought you a list of ten hauntingly famous ghostly tales, but now it’s time for another round. So, pull up the covers, and let’s dive right in. Here are ten more of your favorite famous faces that have had their brush with the supernatural.

Related: 10 Celebrities Who Had A Terrifying Ghostly Experience

10 Brittany Howard

Former frontwoman of Alabama Shakes, Brittany Howard, doesn’t shy away from her past with hauntings. In an interview with The New Yorker, she casually mentioned the house in which she grew up, “Oh, yeah. That bitch was haunted as hell.”

Brittany lived in a dilapidated house in Athens, Alabama, close to the railroad tracks. Her great-grandmother passed in the house shortly after Brittany and her mother moved in, and her mother claimed to see her great-grandmother’s spirit on the end of her bed frequently. Brittany claimed in the same New Yorker article that it always felt like someone was watching her. The cabinets and doors would slam on their own frequently when she was home alone.

After a while, the ghost in the house got personal, opening and closing her bedroom door while she would try to sleep. She assumed it was the ghost of her great-grandma like her mom used to see, but Brittany didn’t take any chances and started sleeping in the living room to be safe. That lasted all of one night while the spirit started terrorizing Brittany, growling at her in her sleep. As to who the spirit is? It’s still not known even to this day. We may never know.^[1]

9 Ariana Grande

You’d think if Ariana Grande had a date with the Devil, we’d all have heard a song about it by now. The truth is that’s apparently what happened back in 2013 when she visited Stull Cemetery in Kansas City. The cemetery is supposedly one of the seven sites where the Gates of Hell on Earth exist, and satanic activity is rampant should you be so unlucky to take a stroll around Stull. Grande did just that, knowing the ramifications of her actions. Upon entering the site, she said, “I felt this sick, overwhelming feeling of negativity over the whole car and we smelled sulfur, which is the sign of a demon, and there was a fly in the car randomly…”

For weeks, the pop star saw shadow figures and black masses. She heard whispers and growling and felt a heavy presence while trying to sleep. It has all the elements of summoning a demon. When seeking advice on how to rid herself of this entity, she was told to “tell it to eff off,” to which Ariana said she was too scared to try. Take this as a cautionary tale if you’re ever in Kansas City. Don’t visit a portal to Hell unless you’re willing to suffer the consequences.^[2]

8 Matthew McConaughey

You don’t need to have starred in a ghost movie to see a ghost, but it makes this list more fun. Star of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Matthew McConaughey actually claims that his Hollywood Hills home was haunted by a spirit named Madame Bleu. Alright, alright…alright?

While at a press junket for the film in 2009, McConaughey revealed the spirit came to him when he had to stand his ground with the angry spirit wanting to stake her claim in his home. Guests to his home felt her presence, and he finally came to an accord with the spirit of the Madame to share the home. Since then, everything has been quiet and serene. We hope.^[3]

7 Melissa McCarthy

This Ghostbuster has earned her keep dealing with the dead. She revealed that during her college experience in Boulder, Colorado, she moved into a house and lived in an attic that was definitely haunted. Her friends wouldn’t dare walk through the threshold, maintaining that same “creepy” feeling you get when there’s supposedly a presence around, and the door would inexplicably open and close by itself when McCarthy was alone. Two weeks later, she moved to New York.

McCarthy also revealed in a telling interview with Ellen DeGeneres about when she was in the 2nd grade. Her great-grandmother passed and revealed herself in spectral form the same way she looked weeks prior. *Bonus: Ellen then revealed she has seen the spirit of a man from the turn of the century in a three-piece suit that just stared at her. Creepy!^[4]

6 Mike Colter

Before he was Luke Cage, Mike Colter grew up in the very haunted state of South Carolina, where he claims a slew of paranormal goings-on occurred. He told Kelly Clarkson on her show back in October of 2019, “When I was a kid, I used to have this thing that was sitting on my chest when I would sleep, and it was keeping me from getting up, and I couldn’t open my eyes, and I would struggle, and I couldn’t breathe very well.”

Colter’s mother casually claimed the spirit was a “hag,” or the unsettled spirit of a woman come to haunt her son night after night. Colter admitted he and his cousins used to speak ill of the creepy, lonely old woman next door, and he’s positive the spirit was hers. He claims she could have been a witch all along. Let this be a lesson to always be kind to your neighbors.^[5]

5 Dan Aykroyd

It turns out that Dan Aykroyd has a fairly involved history busting ghosts. His fascination with the paranormal started in early childhood. His great grandfather, Simon Aykroyd, was a pretty renowned spiritualist who held seances. A book titled History of Ghosts written by Aykroyd’s father, Peter, mentions the family history in mediumship. Says Akyroyd, “They passed it [psychic powers] on to me, and then I took it and turned it into a ludic exploitation with Ghostbusters.”

So, has he seen a ghost? Plenty. One story is particularly chilling. Ackroyd relays how something climbed into his bed one night when he was home alone. He recalled that the door was closed, so he would have heard the door open had anyone entered the room. After feeling a chill and the mattress next to him being depressed slightly, he decided to go with it as he had been working all day and was too tired to deal with anything. He just “snuggled up next to it” and went to sleep. He awoke in the morning, noting he actually had a good night’s sleep.^[6]

4 Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman

It’s not too often that the ghost doing the haunting is more famous than the living. That’s allegedly the case with Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, who have claimed to be haunted by the ghost of Nicole Brown Simpson in their Hollywood home. Mullally told Busy Phillips on her talk show “Busy Tonight” that they lived in a home on the same property of a house that once stood where O.J. Simpson had rented a home for Nicole Brown Simpson.

Said Mullally, “In one corner of the house, like maybe where the bedroom used to be in the old house, we would have all these sounds and weird things all the time. I would be like, ‘That’s Nicole, and she’s pissed because Nick doesn’t get it.’” Mullally claimed all the paranormal activity came to a screeching halt after Offerman watched Simpson ESPN documentaries and Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story series covering Brown Simpson’s murder. She claimed that the spirit of Nicole just needed to be heard and understood.^[7]

3 Jenny Slate

Jenny Slate has made the story of her family’s home and its paranormal hauntings one of her talking points in her book, her recent Netflix standup special, and pretty much anywhere anyone will listen. She did this as a cautionary tale on how to address death to children and how the paranormal can shape identity.

Slate grew up in Milton, Massachusetts. The home her parents moved into still had all the furniture of the previous owners (who had died) sitting idle in each room. It creeped her out even then. She claims that her father saw the ghost of a sea captain staring at him from the bottom of the stairs almost immediately upon moving in. Every member of her family has seen spirits in that home except for Jenny, but she claims her current home is also haunted. She spoke on the hauntings in her standup special and in an interview for Refinery29, “Ben and I live in a very old house, and it was made for his great-grandmother as an old dance hall. A lot of people who sleep over, guests that we’ve had, say that they have wild dreams and hear things in the house.”^[8]

2 NeNe Leakes

Sometimes the ghosts we encounter reveal the trauma of our past. For Real Housewives of Atlanta’s NeNe Leakes, this seems to be the case. Leakes recently opened up about her ghost story on A&E’s Celebrity Ghost Story to reveal a terrifying and traumatic experience with the paranormal.

Leakes was at a wedding and kept hearing the voices of children. Every time she would turn to look, there would be no children around. Leakes sought the help of psychic Kim Russo, who delivered messages from Leake’s mother, revealing an emotional past where she revealed having missed out on formidable moments in her own childhood. The conclusion being that perhaps these ghost children following the Real Housewives star could be manifestations of that residual energy she has left behind. It brings to light what ghosts really are to us and how we carry them with us in our lives.^[9]

1 Ice-T

While Ice-T is usually in character as the tough, no-nonsense cop on Law and Order: SVU, his mettle was tested when filming an episode in an old factory in New Jersey. He recalled some disturbing stories from when they filmed at the site of the abandoned factory. He never wanted to film at the location again, so, much to his surprise, he returned with the specific intention of investigating the property.

While he claims to be a skeptic, he admits his wife, Coco, is a believer. Deciding to revisit the location with psychic Kim Russo, Ice-T and Coco participated in an episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories. While touring the factory, lights flicker on, causing Ice-T to want to leave immediately. After he is convinced to continue, the trio visits the basement, encountering more unexplained feelings and sounds. It seems the experience still wasn’t enough to make him a true believer…no matter what his wife felt.^[10]

Some people live for adventure. They dive from planes, bungee jump from bridges, ski impossible slopes, and surf terrifying waves.

But there is another way to experience the wild side of our world: getting up close and personal with nature. For those who are not lucky enough to live in a natural setting, there are many wildlife and sea-life experiences to choose from around the world. Here are 10 adventures that will connect you with the wild side of nature!

10 Wolf Watching

Wolves are legendary creatures. They are highly intelligent and incredibly loyal and have found a permanent place in both folklore and fiction worldwide. In 2021, Yellowstone National Park officials announced that the wolf population inside their reserve had grown by 20 percent. Yellowstone also happens to be one of the best locations in the world for wolf-watching.

Here you will be led by a wolf tracker while keeping your eyes peeled for gray or black wolves hunting their prey in the snow. While there is usually a 50/50 chance of seeing a wolf while on a watching tour, the odds climbed to 90% during 2021. Popular watching spots include Elk Creek, Blacktail Plateau, and Hayden Valley.

If wolf-watching is on your bucket list, Yellowstone should definitely be one of your first considerations.^[1]

9 Whale Watching

Hermanus is one of the brightest jewels of the Western Cape in South Africa. Here you will find huge mountains and an unbelievably beautiful shoreline all in one place. Located at the edge of Walker Bay, the town of Hermanus offers stunning forests, sparkling lagoons, a hidden valley, and a whole lot more.

What makes Hermanus exceptionally popular, however, is the fact that it is a prime whale-watching spot. Tourists make their way here in droves between June and December to see southern right whales who migrate from the Antarctic during this time to mate and breed. You can see them right from the shoreline in Walker Bay, as well as various other locations close to Hermanus. And if you really want to get up close to these magnificent creatures, you can book a trip on a whale-watching tour boat for an unforgettable experience.

For those who want even more of an adrenaline rush, Gansbaai, which is less than 30 miles from Hermanus, offers great white & copper shark cage diving for the whole family (ages 12 and up).^[2]

8 Walking with Elephants

Also in South Africa, the stunning Askari Game Lodge in Magaliesberg offers excellent accommodations for wedding parties, conference attendees, and more. The biggest draw, however, is the touch-and-feed elephant experiences and the hugely popular “walking with elephants” sessions.

Here, you will get close enough to the elephants for them to playfully knock your hat off your head and give you a sloppy trunk kiss. While you feed them, the guide will give you interesting facts and titbits about these gentle giants.

Winding down the day at the pool overlooking the dam on the 4,000-hectare game reserve on which the lodge stands, you might just spot a hippo or two at the water’s edge.^[3]

7 An Unmatched Experience

The Galapagos Islands combine the pleasure of an island holiday with the thrill of seeing animals in their natural habitat. Here, you can keep an eye out for marine iguanas, the only known lizards with the ability to swim, and giant tortoises that live up to 150 years and weigh almost 600 pounds (272 kilograms). At the southeast point of the Galapagos lies Espanola Island, which boasts Christmas iguanas. These lizards turn red and green during their breeding season, hence the name.

Snorkeling is also a fun activity around the islands and will give you the opportunity to spot the world’s smallest penguin, green turtles, and a variety of colorful reef fish. Look down every now and then while under the surface, and you might just see hammerhead sharks circling below.^[4]

6 Giant Pandas

Even if you’re not one of the very lucky people who get to work with and hug pandas every day, you can still interact with them should you go on holiday in China.

The Chengdu Panda Base in Sichuan is a non-profit research and breeding facility for giant pandas. It started out with six giant rescued pandas, and since 2008, they now house more than 80. At the base, visitors can observe the pandas while playing and eating or nursing their young. Experts are at hand to guide tourists in feeding the pandas while teaching them about the various ways these creatures can remain protected.

The panda base is also home to other creatures, including red pandas, swans, and peacocks.^[5]

5 Lounging with Leopards

South Africa might be famous for its wildlife encounters, but it is definitely not the only country in the world where wild animals can be observed in their natural habitat. The Yala National Park and Wilpattu National Park in Sri Lanka offer the incredible opportunity to see the elusive leopard. Yala has the densest leopard population in the world, but sadly this amounts to only around 40 of these magnificent animals. Their dwindling numbers are due to human settlements encroaching on their habitat and poaching.

At both Yala and Wilpattu, you should only go on a safari with an expert naturalist who will show you around at a safe distance from the wild animals.^[6]

4 See a Rhino before They’re Gone

There are only two Northern White Rhinos left in the world. And other species of rhino are dwindling fast because of poaching. Kenya was once home to around 20,000 black rhinos, of which almost 9 000 were killed over the last decade.

These days, rhinos are protected by 24-hour armed security guards, which is necessary to try and prevent the remaining species from becoming extinct. Fortunately, there are still some places in Kenya and elsewhere to observe rhinos in their natural setting. And if you are able to do so, you should, as it seems the fight against poaching is not going well at all.

At OI Pejeta Bush Camp in the OI Pejeta Conservancy, the last two northern white rhinos, Najin and Fatu, are living out their last days. Here, you will also find 20 south white rhinos and just over 100 critically endangered black rhinos.^[7]

3 Swimming with Dolphins

While swimming with captive dolphins is not something most nature lovers would want to do, a few places around the world offer an ethical swimming-with-dolphins experience.

One of these destinations is the beautiful town of Kaikoura which is located on the east coast of New Zealand’s south island. Here, a company called Dolphin Encounters takes small boats out on the water three times a day and offers tourists the opportunity to swim with dusky dolphins.

As soon as you get into the icy water, you will likely be surrounded by these playful dolphins who like showing off in front of visitors. Chances are you’ll also spot a whale or two in the distance.^[8]

2 Other Unusual Experiences

If you’re looking to experience something completely different, you can always take a trip to Burkina Faso, where in the town of Sabou, you will find crocodiles so tame you are able to swim with them and even sit on them if you so wish. If you have the nerves for it, you can also dangle a live chicken in front of them at dinnertime.

Alternatively, there is the wild griffin vulture experience in Aragon, Spain. A local naturalist has taken it upon himself to feed these creatures and has been doing so for nineteen years. Tourists can watch from a safe distance as the vultures line up for their lunch and wait for the man to spread food across a field.^[9]

1 Up Close and Personal with a Polar Bear

If swimming with dolphins and watching vultures is too tame an activity for your liking, you can always go and take a dip with a polar bear. However, you will be on the other side of a very thick sheet of bulletproof glass, seeing as how polar bears see humans as prey and all.

Located in Ontario, Canada, the Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat has a unique wading tank that you can swim in while interacting with the three polar bears—Henry, Inukshuk, and Ganuk—who love lazing around in the water on the other side of the glass. Outside of the water, you can observe the amazing bears as they eat their favorite snack, watermelon, and play with their plastic toys.^[10]