Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
Everyone in Malaysia either knows someone who has encountered a spiritual entity or has encountered one themselves. It helps that we have a rich culture regarding our hantu: SOPs to not get haunted or possessed run rife in Malaysia.
IRL spoke to 5 Malaysians about the worst hantu stories they have that happened to them:
1. The house we moved into held a dark secret we were unaware of
The rent for the house we were living in got too high for us so we ended up relocating elsewhere in the same neighbourhood. The new place wasn’t too bad – especially for the rent.
But soon after moving in, things started getting really weird. My eldest daughter would see shadow people everywhere. Her younger sister almost jumped out the window once while sleepwalking because she dreamt of something calling her from beyond the bedroom window. Even my husband heard whispered conversations happening behind our doors – and when he tried to open the door, it would be stuck fast until the whispering ceased.
The house originally had 3 bedrooms, but we soon moved the entire family into the master bedroom because of how weird things were in that house.
Eventually, it just got worse. I started going into trances late at night and finding myself miles away from home when I became aware.
My husband and I agreed that we had to get out as soon as possible. I packed everything up as well as I could and we left the house and never went back.
Years later, my daughters found out through neighbourhood gossip that a murder had occured in that house. It was something that everyone in a 10km radius knew about – except for us.
2. I was possessed as a 4-year-old girl
I didn’t know about it until my 17th birthday. My parents sat me down and told me the full story. I was never allowed to go to Batu Caves for Thaipusam, something I resented my younger sister for because my parents let her go. But not me. Turns out they were afraid of me becoming possessed again.
Apparently my dad came home from a night out and my grandparents told him that something strange was happening with me and they thought I might be possessed. I was very quiet and well-behaved when he returned home, so he was surprised to hear what they said. They told him to jaga me while they checked on my younger sister. He said I complained of some knee pain and he rubbed my knee while I fell asleep. When I was fully asleep, he went to my grandparents to talk to them.
However, they were upset that he left me alone. As they were about to scold him, they heard a roar come from the room I was in and everyone rushed there.
This is where it got scary. My grandfather was a former Navy officer and my dad is a 6-footer. Yet I pushed them around, forcing them to stagger around my small child body. They kept trying to hold me back as I tried to run towards the altar in the room, wanting to spit onto it. I was also cursing and blaspheming – I was full of words and actions no 4-year-old would know.
Whatever was in me tried to trick my father. I seemed normal suddenly and asked my father to pick me up. He did and he said the look on my face was pure evil. I smirked at everyone as if to say “I can make you fools do anything you want!”
But it ended as suddenly as it began. At one point, I gave a tiny sigh and became “normal” again. I said I was tired and that I wanted to say my night prayers and go to bed.
Ever since then, my parents have been a little wary of it happening again.
3. A playful game with my sister revealed an entity I’d been seeing all my life
My sister claimed to have found this game online to test your spiritual powers and your ability to sense spirits. She didn’t tell me that though, but I don’t blame her because I know she didn’t want to spoil any potential outcome by letting me know what it was about.
First, she told me to close my eyes and recall the earliest house I remember living in. Then she asked me to take a walk around the house, with my eyes still closed. She asked me who I encountered.
“The house is empty…” I said. But then suddenly, I saw a dark shadow standing in a corner. I immediately opened my eyes and grabbed her hands.
“Who did you see?” she pressed me. Apparently, if one sees a person one knows, then you don’t have any spiritual powers. But if you see someone you don’t know…
It was an entity I’d seen ever since I can remember, I think. It definitely wasn’t my first time seeing it then. I’d seen it a few times before: late evenings in school after classes, my dreams, my grandmother’s house while it was under renovation, and so on.
I still don’t know what it means – or what it wants.
4. I used to not believe in hantu until I explicitly saw one myself
My best friend used to tell me lots of ghost stories that happened to him and his family, but I never believed in that kind of thing. I prided myself on rationality and logic. Whenever my best friend started up a ghost story, I would scoff and make fun of him.
Until this experience I had when I was in Form Five. I was walking home from school as usual. After my classes were done, I’d often find myself wandering over to my grandparents’ house for lunch. I couldn’t really cook back then and I didn’t get much pocket money, so it was the best thing to do.
I remember it was in the middle of the Hungry Ghost Festival at that point in time. But it was broad daylight and I didn’t believe in ghosts anyway, so whatever.
I made my usual cut across a few housing blocks through a lorong, listening to music through earphones plugged into my phone. And then I saw it: a person was striding along next to me, matching my pace… a person without a head.
I was very athletic back then and the moment I perceived the headless corpse walking next to me I just ran. I sprinted all the way to my grandparents’ house and my grandma caught me running in with a cheeky “ah boy what la you running like that – saw ghost ah?”
Yes, grandma, I saw a f*cking ghost!
5. During Hungry Ghost Festival one night, something grabbed my ankles
I was a tall boy from a young age. At 16, having reached almost all the way to my adult height, I towered over all the other boys in school – and even all of the teachers.
But here’s the shitty thing about being so tall: you don’t fit in a single bed. No matter what I did, unless I curled up in the foetal position, I’d always have some limb hanging off the bed to dangle in the night air.
A long time ago, I decided that my feet could hang off the bed. It was much better than my hands or arms because those would cause terrible pins and needles when I left them dangling too long.
It was the Hungry Ghost Festival and I had just finished talking on the phone with a girl I was crushing on. My mind full of soft romantic thoughts and my breakfast, I was almost too excited to sleep.
And then suddenly, something grabbed my ankles from beneath my bed. It wasn’t something I could imagine either. I truly remember feeling hands wrap around my ankles, hands that were as cold as my air-conditioning. You might be tempted to blame a misbehaving sibling, but I am an only child.
The moment the hands released my ankles, I ran to my mum’s room and slept in her bed.
Whether Malaysians believe in the supernatural or not, the common consensus is to act respectful “just in case”
From rituals handed down from ancestors, we learn to never call out someone’s real name in the forest, to ask for permission before we urinate somewhere, to leave the offerings of other cultures untouched.
Much like with other areas of our lives, the interference or touch of spiritual entities is something we would rather prevent than cure.
For more stories like this, read: 4 Schools in KL Older Than Malaysia – Here’s the Ghost Stories Told by Students, Malaysia’s 5 Most Popular Hantu & Their Creepy Background Stories, and My Dad Confessed He Had A Side Chick Who ‘Bomoh’d’ Him Out Of RM700,000.
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