Dim the lights and come close. Prepare yourself for spine-shivering moments as iVillagers share their real-life encounters with the paranormal?

Three lions
'This is going to sound strange, but when I was a very small girl (they arrived before I was three years old) I had three fully-grown male lions that went with me wherever I went. I remember them as clear as day and my parents still joke about me holding doors open for them and waiting for them to get in and out of the car, etc. I remember that one was called Jason but the other two names escape me. I do know that I didn't question their existence.

As I got older they were around less and less and they eventually told me that they were going away when I was nine years old, I remember the conversation because I was upset by it. Bearing in mind that these "imaginary friends" kept me from harm countless times (they used to cross the road with me and would stop me from doing stupid things by explaining the danger to me - they also guarded me when I was asleep, chasing away all manner of horrid monsters), I wonder now what they were, where they came from and if they are with me still.'

Saved baby's life
'My husband and I used to live in a flat that had previously been occupied by an old couple called Mr and Mrs Wright. They had lived there for years and the old girl died in the kitchen of the flat. The old man said he kept seeing her and eventually moved into a home. On moving into the flat my husband said really weird things kept happening. A heavy fruit bowl full of fruit was thrown against a wall. Items would go missing and every time any DIY was carried out, more things seemed to happen. The cat used to be asleep in front of the fire and suddenly would jump up and run out of the room petrified.

The most memorable thing was when my baby was born. I laid him in his cot whilst doing some chores. After a while, I went to check on him and he had vanished. Panic-stricken I ran into the lounge and there on the floor was my six-week-old baby, fast asleep. There's no way I would have left him on the floor, especially with the cat close by. I phoned my husband at work and he came home immediately and consoled me as I thought I was going mad. However, on entering the baby room, there was a strong smell of burning and a plug was smouldering in its socket and beginning to smoke. Had the plug caught fire it would have ignited the cot blankets that were hanging down between the cot bars and could easily have caught fire. So after that I was never frightened of Mrs Wright. She may have saved my baby's life, but she didn't want us to change her home. We did re-wire the place though.'

The waiting room
'I never used to believe in ghosts and thought it was a load of claptrap. Anyway seven years ago, I was fast asleep and had a dream where I was walking down the road spitting out teeth, when a nice lady in her late 50s told me to go with her. So I followed her. I asked her where she was taking me and she told me she had to show me something. We climbed up these steps, concrete steps, there were people all queuing. The queue went on a long way, no one said anything; they were just queuing.

Next I was taken into a room and was told that this room was where all those that died before their parents had to wait. I looked around, then I spotted someone I knew and asked, "What's he doing here, I know him?" I asked if I could go and say hello and was told that they could not see me or hear me. I was also told that I couldn't go back yet, at which I panicked. I woke up in my bed confused and very upset. I had no idea what had happened and went to my parents house asking them if they could see me and to pinch me, as I wasn't sure if I was dead or alive. I know it sounds really silly, but I swear, it really scared me, totally freaked me out. Anyway, two years ago, the friend I saw in my dream died of cancer. No one knew that he had it until it was too late as he was never ill. I was very upset as I thought if I'd put the connection together earlier my friend might have survived. I could have warned him. I never told anyone. It still haunts me to this day.'

Fetching experience
'When my aunt met her father-in-law, he said, "Ah, I thought it was you." According to him, she had appeared round the door of the sitting room about three days before he had met her and smiled at him. This is called a "fetch" or manifestation of a living person.'

Just a coincidence?
'Eight years ago, when the world was still wild - in the days before mobile phones and email - I journeyed with some companions to the northern most tip of Scotland, Cape Wrath. My parents were also staying in Scotland and my sister was at home in Oxford, with the telephone number of their inn. On our way to the cottage we were to stay in there was a violent thunderstorm. The lightening streaked through the sky, illuminating the jagged mountains and bleak moors - and yet we toiled on. As we neared the end of a quest we came upon a stretch of water blocking our pathway. A gaunt ferryman with deep-set eyes set in a gnarled face glared at us as we approached to cross the estuary. He refused to take us across the water whilst the gale raged. Instead he guided us to a small wind-swept croft in the midst of the moors.

So it was by chance that we sat huddled by the fire in this lonesome abode with the wind howling down the chimney and wailing at the windows - we should have been safely tucked up at our destination. Suddenly, an eerie ringing eclipsed the sound of the storm. We discovered an ancient phone in the corner covered in dust and cobwebs and it was there from whence this infernal sound came. Gingerly, my fellow traveller approached the rattling telephone and lifted the receiver. It was my own sister - calling to parlay with my parents. She had got the wrong number, but of all the numbers in all of Scotland she could have rang accidentally, she called the croft where, by chance, we were staying that one night. Weird eh?'

Haunted house horrors
'I used to live in a haunted house in Leyton, East London. There were three of us living there at the time, and we all experienced odd things. The classic, which happened all the time, was missing objects, particularly watches (you'd put your watch down to have a shower and it would vanish, appearing somewhere else in the house). Walking along the street towards the house, we'd see someone standing in the garden. They'd then step towards the house, hidden by the hedge, and be gone by the time we reached the house. One flatmate always reported hearing what she thought was a body being dragged around outside her room, and we had that odd temperature change thing going on. (There was also a freaky locked room that we were never allowed to go into. V suspicious.)

Then we got physical evidence: one night, we all heard a smash, like breaking glass, from the living room. When we went to investigate, we found that a speaker had fallen off the wall and rolled into the middle of the room. But the wire had somehow passed BEHIND a wall-mounted radiator and UNDER a sofa. The only way to put the speaker back was to disconnect it from the stereo, feed it back under the couch and behind the radiator and reconnect it. It was physically impossible. That really freaked everyone one! We moved out shortly afterwards and later found out that someone had died in the house, about 15 years before.'

Spiritual awakening
'One night, a friend of mine was awoken by his grandmother - or at least a vision of her. He was travelling in Australia at the time and she was in Yorkshire. She asked how he was doing so far away from home and then vanished. The following morning his family contacted him with the news that his grandmother had died in the night.'

White spirit
'When I was 18, I had a dog called Tara. One night at around about 10pm, my dad and I took her for her last walk of the day across the park, which was right opposite our house. As we walked around the park, Tara suddenly became very nervous and agitated, her hackles on her neck rose and she started growling and barking for what seemed like no reason. Only when we reached the corner of the park where there was a bench did we see an old lady sitting, completely dressed in white. My dad said to her that it was late and cold and she should be on her way home; she looked at my dad and nodded once, but never said a word.

We walked about four paces and looked back at her; to our surprise she was no longer on the bench but in the middle of the park just standing there, dress flowing in the wind. Now a young person could never have got to the middle of the park that quickly, let alone an old woman, and needless to say my dad and I made a hasty exit with our dog. The strange thing was the next day when my dad was telling our neighbour about the eerie experience, he also had a dog and walked her about an hour later and explained to my dad that he had also seen the very same thing. We all came to the conclusion that this must have been a spirit woman but no one to this day knows anything about her or have seen her since although we do still look out for her.'

Marking the moment
'At the precise moment my grandfather died, a leather-strap calendar broke through. It just snapped and fell to the ground. The calendar was only 2-3 years old, and the leather's about 3mm thick, yet it looks like it's been cut off with scissors (which would be extremely difficult to do, unless you used sharp gardening shears). We concluded that it could only have been him.

A guardian angel
It was 1979, I was 23 and seeing a guy who was very keen on me. We lived in Inverness, which was not exactly famous for it's nightlife, so my boyfriend arranged to meet up with me and some mates to go clubbing out of town. He would drive. He turned up and met us, but there were extra people who wanted to go, so we crammed six into the car. I was stepping in when suddenly the whole world seemed taken up by fog. I couldn't see anything but this greyness or hear anything except a voice (quite ordinary, but insistent) saying, "Fasten the seatbelt, fasten the seatbelt." This was before the seatbelt law and I had never previously fastened the belt in a car before. I had to fight to get it shut as it was adjusted for my boyfriend's mum, who was a tiny woman. I just managed it and looked up to see lights right in front of me. There was a sickening crash and screaming. There had been a three-car crash and I was the ONLY person able to walk away from it. At the time, in Glasgow, my Nana had a nightmare and kept repeating the name of the hospital I was taken to for a check. Also my friend in the back of the car, when she recovered, asked who the man sitting on my knee was. She said he was dressed in black with a moustache and looked old-fashioned. I didn't have anyone earthly sitting on my knee, but I believe my guardian angel saved my life.'

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