I was recently talking to my mom about the intuition of animals when I brought up one of the strangest experiences I had as a child…

When I was around 10, I had a very vivid dream of my bedroom at night seen from the perspective of me lying in my bed. In said dream, I also saw a tall dark figure standing in the corner of my room, watching me. The only features I could make out were two white glowing eyes. I remember waking up instantly frightened, but it only got worse. My cat, Oreo, who had been sleeping by my side, was also awake. He was awake and staring intensely at the corner in which I had dreamed about the dark figure. Before I could fully process what I was seeing in reality, my cat shot up and ran out of my bedroom. I spent the rest of that night, and many following nights, under my covers, waiting for the first rays of sunlight to deliver me from my fear.

After telling my story, I told my mom that it was interesting to me because I had heard of other people witnessing dark figures such as I had, and that many people referred to “him” as the Hatman. Upon hearing that name, my mom brought her hands to her mouth and said, “Oh my God! As you were telling me your story, I was thinking of a figure I saw when I was younger that I called the Hatman.” She proceeded to tell me that when she was around my same age, she woke from a dead sleep to see a tall dark figure wearing a wide rimmed hat standing beside her bed. Upon her waking up, she said the figure backed away from her bed and went out the door. My mom told me that she was scared, but that she thought it might have been my grandpa coming in to check on her at night. In the morning she asked my grandpa about it, but he told her that he didn’t come to her room at all that night. After hearing him say that, she said that she felt truly terrified.

Learning this from my mom adds a whole new layer of craziness considering that, as we spoke in 2023, I am 23 years old and my mom is 61. That means our strangely similar experiences occurred around 40 years apart from one another…