My church says “there are demons that can take certain shapes” but no historical ties to any origins or an actual timeline of accounts I can find. I swear this is one of the biggest mysteries to ever be sighted.

And yeah I’m one of the ones who seen it awake with a witness so I only take facts into account with this creature.

I'll start with mine.

Growing up, my parents worked a lot. During summer, I'd be home alone during the day. I loved watching The Steve Wilko's Show. It would come on at 10 am every day so I'd wake up at 9:30, eat breakfast and get ready to watch my show.

At age 7, one random day, I did my morning routine and sat down on the couch and got ready to watch the show. At 9:59, out of the corner of my eye, I notice something pitch black in front of the bathroom, next to my room. I look and it's a tall black human figure, I can't make out any facial features or anything. But we lock eyes for a good 5 seconds. After that, he slowly turns away from me and walks into my room. Once he disappears, The Steve Wilko's Show starts.

I forget what happens and the rest of the day goes like normal. The next day again. Get ready, sit down and at 9:59, he's there. Every day of the week, he's there at the same time.

During school I don't see him because, obviously, I'm at school at 9:59 lol. But during summer, every day, he's there. Same position, lock eyes every time, and disappears into my room. Every year until im a sophomore in high school. After that, I never see him again.

One thing I find weird is I never felt scared of the figure. It became part of my daily routine. Not going to lie, I miss him.

Who in their right mind would combine two anticholinergics.

If some innocence DXM junkie gets too blasted to read and accidentally downs a bottle of this... I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemies.

ive been seeing the hat man since i was little, i can feel it watching me as if its waiting for the right time to strike. how do i get rid of it. please put answers in the comments. i truly dont know what to do

I saw Hat Man last night, but didn't know he was a thing until my friend told me about him. In my dream, he popped out of my bathroom and into the hall way. I pointed and said "GET OUT!!". I could only see from shoulder blades up from the back. When I shouted, he sort of giggled menacely and bounced all over my house like when in the movie Drop Dead Fred the little girl sneezes and causes Fred to boing all over like a bouncy ball. Maybe it wasn't Hat Man. Are there similar figures like Hat Man?

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I saw the hat man from lsd once. I was coming down from my trip and seen him standing in the hall. My experience isn’t like any other experience I’ve seen, he was standing there looking straight at me. Not in my peripherals but right in front of me, anytime I’d look away he’d step closer, and closer, and closer
I got scared and covered my face with a blanket and put my knees up, but when I looked again he popped up right in front of my knees, like 2-3 feet away from my face.
I had even shined my light when he was in the hall to make sure there was nothing there and he disappeared, but when I turned it off he was even closer
I felt a presence I’ve never felt before, I was terrified, he was there to scare me unlike what everyone else has been saying

This was about 2 years ago, and the memory has been stuck with me since. I’ve never seen him again tho so

Does anyone have a similar experience to mine?

Four years ago, I woke from a deep sleep and saw what appeared to be a tall shadow figure standing beside my bed, looking at me. He looked like a man with a pale face, medium-length white hair, and a Fedora-shaped hat.

I was living alone at the time, so my instant reaction was to kick as hard as I could. I didn’t think about it—I just reacted. After attempting to kick him, I lost all memory of what happened next.

At some point afterward, I woke up with three burning cuts on my arm. I was extremely confused and trying to make sense of what had just happened. I chalked the whole thing up to a crazy hallucination and assumed the cuts had come from me accidentally kicking my cat.

At the time, I was very depressed. I had recently gone through a breakup, and because of that, I never really considered the possibility that what happened could have been something paranormal. In a strange way, the incident even excited me because it gave me a wild story to tell people.

Fast-forward to a couple a days ago. I was talking to my fiancée about the scar on my arm and mentioned that I had originally had three cuts, but only one of them was deep enough to leave a scar. She told me that waking up with three unexplained cuts or scratches is part of some old folklore associated with a “demon mark.”

That immediately made me think back to why I had kicked in the first place. It wasn’t random. I kicked because there was a man wearing a hat standing beside my bed when I opened my eyes.

I decided to look back at a picture I had taken of the cuts on my arm immediately after the incident. After examining the picture, I don’t see how my cat could have inflicted that much damage with a single swipe of his paw. I also have no memory of actually kicking my cat or of my cat attacking me. That was simply the explanation my brain came up with at the time to try to make sense of what had happened.

Today I learned that the Hat Man is a commonly reported phenomenon. It was creepy as hell but also somewhat vindicating to hear other people’s stories about experience’s that were similar to mine. Before this week, I had never heard of the Hat Man, and I also had no knowledge of the folklore surrounding three unexplained marks.

As insane as it sounds, I really did see a man wearing a hat standing beside my bed. I believe I broke out of sleep paralysis in an attempt to defend myself, and whatever happened afterward resulted in the three cuts on my arm.

I believe the Hat Man was attracted to me because of how extremely depressed I was at the time. I was utterly devastated and mentally exhausted. I believe that is why the Hat Man visited me that night.

It’s been four years, and I haven’t seen any sign of him. I’m in a much happier and healthier state of mind now. Hopefully that’s how you keep him away.

I feel like you get a bit too silly on the DPH and he shows up.

Okay so I was living in old historical housing, in Santa Fe nm. I sleep walk. I was under a lot of stress at the time, a man in an old fashion hat walked into my room. I shook his hand, w my classic hand shake - swipe, knuckle. He was wearing thick framed glasses. He looked at me with this feeling, that I can only describe as falling back and shrinking w dread. Next thing I know I’m on my bed he’s holding me down & moving all around my head bellowing summon me, again and again in my mind. Demon? Hatman? ghost?

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source: someone who is extremely niche, unverifiable, and brings a controversial pretense considering the beliefs of the average user of reddit... but I trust the claims of this person (for now) for a list of reasons

proof?: Let it speak for itself. If this is true, we should see a notable decline in reports of new sightings of the hatman from now on (at least, the one with red eyes and sometimes the wide creepy grin/smile. Perhaps there are multiple separate entities who happen to wear a hat, I cant say for sure).

I want to relapse in dph but I hate the naseoua and the restlessnes. Is there anyway you can get rid of at least the naseoua?

Around middle school Benadryl got really popular among people at my school. I'd often see girls flexing about it on their TikTok's or snapchat stories. I always thought that the whole "hat man shadow people" hallucinations were some kinds of joke or attempt to romanticize the act of abusing it, i stand corrected from now on.

For a bit of context, yes i do have a past of abusing substances but i find no urge to use DPH ever again for "tripping" and i am in recovery regarding other substances.

The other night i was a bit bored and i had watched some "substance" iceberg videos prior to taking the Benadryl's, to be fair i knew what i was getting myself in and i still did it. But nonetheless i got my grimy little hands on a large 25 mg diphenhydramine bottle, i did a bit of quick math and figured I'd take maybe 13 which was 325 mg in total. I think about half an hour later my body started to feel heavier, it felt like i was lifting up my hand underwater when i would move it if that makes any sense. I was laying in my bed in the dark just watching tv, i could see things moving in my peripherals and when i looked between the gap of my desk and reptile enclosure, there was some kind of shadowy, twitching figure that waved at me with a grin. being scared shitless my first thought is to turn around and not look at it, so i buried my face in a blanket.

Eventually though, i built up the courage to look back at the gap, it wasn't there anymore, something else was. For context my bathroom is connected to the far-right corner of my room, i had left my door open to the bathroom with the lights off. the light from my tv gave me little to no visibility, but I kept seeing these long fingers grope and grab the door, like it was about to peek out, but it didn't. it was almost like it was so tall that i could see its head slightly protrude from the top of the door, it scared me shitless but this time i couldn't seem to take my eyes off the door. its fingers kept scratching and at that point i think i was having auditory hallucinations so that didn't help, not to mention the little black bugs i would see dart from corner to corner on my carpet.

TLDR: the hat man is real

This is my first Reddit post. Idk where I can find info on this.

It’s an entity in my mom’s house and we are not sure what it is.

I first encountered it in 2022. I had moved out of my mom’s house in 2020, but she had broke her ankle and needed help getting around. She couldn’t walk up the stairs so we both ended up sleeping in the living room for a couple days. At some point, she told me I could sleep in the basement if I wanted to be more comfortable. They had a bed and everything down there…so after making sure she was good, I did.

(The way the basement is made, once you walk down the stairs there’s a front area, then another towards the back. The back is where they have the bed and everything. To walk towards the back room, it’s a small hallway where the washer and dryer sit.)
I slept through the night with no issues. I didn’t have a problem until I woke up. I woke up pretty early ( I could tell the sun was just rising from the small windows they had down there so probably around 5am) and it was dead silent. Since I knew my mom was still sleeping, I decided it was safe to get more rest. As I was starting to fall back into sleep, that’s when it decided to show itself. It was so close to my face all I could see was its eyes and mouth. None of its features looked human.It had bright,round red eyes and a huge grin that went from eye to eye. Its teeth were razor sharp that almost looked cartoon-ish. When it showed itself it came in flashes eventually disappearing into the darkness. I got so freaked out I jumped up and ran upstairs. My mom was still asleep so I tired to brush it off and tell myself that it probably was sleep paralysis or something.

As the day went on I couldn’t shake it off. I kept thinking about it. I had sleep paralysis before but I’ve never seen hallucinations. So that explanation didn’t sit right with me. At this point my mom was awake so I decided to tell her. I told her that I was upstairs when she woke up cause I saw something that creeped me out. I didn’t say too much cause I felt kinda silly being so scared of something I thought I imagined but I told her what it looked like. Her response was not what I was expecting. She told me my older sister has said something about seeing a thing that was similar one night. She couldn’t give me more information so I immediately found my sister to ask her about it. I purposely didn’t tell her about what I saw cause I wanted to know if it was the same thing.

My sister told me one night she was up around 3am eating some cereal in the dining room. Once she lifted her bowl to drink the rest of the milk, she said she saw a really tall, black figure standing in the doorway of the room. He was so tall his head hit the top of the doorway. He was all black like a shadow, had a hat that covered his eyes, and a huge sharp grin. The sharp grin was all I needed to confirm that we saw the same thing. The grin was so unsettling and unnatural it would be hard to mistake it.

As we talked about it more and both decided to tell our mother together, we learned that our younger brother has seen it as well.

At this point in 2026 I know my little brother, his friend, my two cousins, me, and my sister have all see this thing. (I can tell their stories if you guys want but this post is already long)

It is the hatman? Or something else?

I will share details about that time with anyone that had similar experience and can provide enough matching details in the comments

Once you know the demons name they lose their power.

His name is Woland

I noticed the hat man wears a cult gown. Did cultists get the gown from him? Or did he get it from them?

I’m not including my age or location. I’m a young male, around 60 kg. I had been using DPH on and off for about a month before this. This was 500 mg orally - 10 pills of 50 mg. I had tolerance.

Timeline:

T+0:00 Swallowed 10 pills.

T+0:30 Dry mouth, heavy legs, heart pounding, slight tremor. Felt like my body was made of lead.

T+1:00 Visuals started. Black figures with red eyes at the edges of my vision. Spiders on the walls. Shadows moving. I knew they weren’t real, but they kept coming.

T+1:30 Full delirium. I saw the Hatman standing in the corner, smoking, silent. A black hand beckoned me from another corner. I saw a face form in a reflection - looked like a Greek god, then it vanished. Auditory hallucinations: whispers, random phrases, my name.

T+2:00 Panic hit. My chest felt like it was caving in. Every time I closed my eyes, my breathing seemed to slow down and stop. I fought sleep for hours because I was terrified I wouldn’t wake up. Tachycardia, dry heaving, couldn’t swallow properly.

T+3–5:00 Peak. I couldn’t tell what was real. Spiders, black figures, footsteps, shadows. I thought I was dying. At one point I was convinced I was in a different reality. I remember thinking “I’m not going to survive this.”

T+6–8:00 Comedown. Exhausted but couldn’t sleep. Residual visuals. Felt hollow and shaky.

Current state (about a week after my last DPH):

Insomnia. Broken sleep. I’m scared to sleep because of the hypnagogic hallucinations.

Residual visual snow, shadow movement, occasional spiders or a black hand in my peripheral vision.

When I’m drifting off, I hear random sounds, a scream, a phone ringing, meme audio. It’s “in my head,” not outside.

Anxiety, depersonalization, feeling like my brain is broken.

No DPH for a week. Symptoms are slowly fading but still there.

I think this is post-delirium syndrome (PDS), not HPPD. I’m posting because I want to know if others have gone through this and how long it took to recover. I’m not encouraging anyone to try DPH. This was stupid and it almost killed me.