A lot of my sleepover memories involve a lot of Nintendo 64, watching movies I’m not supposed to watch, and drinking enough soda to make my brain hurt.
But not everyone’s memories are quite so rosy.
Warning: some of these tales from Reddit get into VERY serious and dark territory. Reader discretion is advised.
1. The pained laughter
Friend and I went to another friend’s house to sleep the night. We were all mucking around like most 10 year old boys do, to the point our friend’s Dad started yelling at his son. Was a little bit awkward and tense, and then my friend told his dad to “shut up”.
So his Dad decided his son needed some old school punishment and made his son pull his pants down, and made us watch as he whipped him a few times on the bare cheeks with his belt.
I remember feeling so awkward and embarrassed about it all that the only way I knew how to handle it was to start laughing…
– LePetitChatEstMort
2. The accident
I was about 7. I went to a friends place just as his dad got home after accidentally shooting and k**ling his friend.
I was too scared to leave and it was a big place and i guess we kind of just kept out of the way. His screams of anguish kept me up all night.
was a dark night.
– Cutsdeep-
3. The sleepwalker
Not me but my sister. She was a sleepwalker. She was about seven. Slept over at a friend’s house, sleepwalked, woke up in an enclosed space. Panicked. Pushed her arms straight out in front of her against what she thought was a wall in front of her.
She had ended up behind a 7-foot tall bureau that was placed diagonally in the corner of the dining room. She pushed it over. It was full of plates, glasses, fine china etc.
It was 4am.
– septicman
4. The distraction
My parents sent me to spend the night with my friend.
When I got home the next day my mom told me my dad moved out and they were getting a divorce.
I didn’t see my Dad for three years.
– Large_Artichoke_3323
5. Keeping up appearances
Slept over at a friend’s house when I was 9. Her family was wealthy and I was envious of everything she had.
The party was really fun but at 11 pm we heard her dad come home very d**nk. After a little while I went upstairs to get some water and saw him pushing my friend’s mom against a wall and threatening to hit her. She seemed so scared.
I went back downstairs and never spoke about it with my friend. But I definitely learned something about appearances that night.
– SuFuDumbo73
6. The Cat in the Corner
My friend had a poster of the live-action Cat in the Hat in her room and the thing scared me so bad at night that I couldn’t fall asleep and I just sat there on the floor the whole night.
– thatmeddlingkid7
7. Good Church Folk
Went to my friends house for the first time. She always wanted to come to my house not the other way around. But never told me why.
So I get there and after the first hour it all goes down hill. The parents had strict rules about eating at the table. Proceed to insult me about my weight (I have always been skinny but not unhealthy so) to the point I nearly cried. After that they do 21 questions about my race and family. By the time night comes I found out they basically have a lock down rule in their house.
We weren’t allowed out of her bedroom until morning and I didn’t know that. So I got lectured the next morning. And the end finale was I didn’t know I’d be forced to attend their church in the morning before I could go home. So that’s how I figured out why she always wanted to stay at my house not the other way around.
Bonus. At one point I overheard her parents talking about me when on the phone with her. They called me a few nasty names and slurs for always inviting her to hang out and go places with my family and putting ideas into her head apparently. I will never forget these people.
– neopolitanmew
8. The Nightmare
I was 12. My supposed best friends 17 year old brother played his music very loudly and then shook his junk in my face.
My friend and her brother then tied me to a chair and made me watch a final destination movie that freaked me out.
They then proceeded to laugh their a**es off when I woke up in the middle of the night screaming from a nightmare.
I’m not friends with her anymore.
– chefgurl20
9. Done a Poo
Had a big group of girls round for a sleepover when we were like 9/10. Slept in a tent in my garden. One girl brings my slightly special cat into the tent for the night. Cats loving it, he’s purring getting loads of attention from this girl and he falls asleep on her.
Wake up the next morning to find a s**t on one of the other girls hair. Turns out the cat had got up in the night, walked over the the second girl, done a poo and then went back to the first girl and fell asleep on her again.
– myhireath
10. The Exclusion Zone
It was my birthday party, I was around 10. I invited all my friends, about 4 of them.
A couple hours into the sleepover, I found out the hard way that none of them liked me, and they had just came to my party to hang out with each other when they kept excluding me from everything and they finally told me.
I spent the whole night crying in my room, but at least they all had to sleep in the floor without blankets or pillows because they didn’t know where to find them
– Champ-Aggravating3
11. The Bleed
I bled through my underwear and pajamas ALL over my friend’s bed. I was mortified and too embarrassed to tell her.
I cleaned up in the bathroom before anyone else was up.
I then made the bed up before anyone could see it.
I still feel so terrible and embarrassed about it almost fifteen years later.
– Outrageous-Tie6393
12. The Uninvited
In a carpool from soccer practice with a teammate/classmate with whom I shared a lot of mutual friends, her mom casually mentioned her upcoming birthday party. The girl angrily shouted at her mom, and in front of other girls in the car, “Thanks for bringing it up, mom, now I HAVE to invite (me)!”
I’m young, so when I got the invite, my mom makes me go. I don’t remember too much about the party, except for when someone decided all us girls were going to relocate our sleeping bags from the basement to the upstairs living room to watch a movie, the birthday girl went down to grab everyone’s sleeping bags. When she brought them all up and everyone was snuggled in, mine wasn’t there. I went downstairs into the basement, and she had purposely left only mine down there. :'(
– ambrann
13. Don’t go
I went over to a friends house. She lives with her grandparents.
Suddenly she refused to let me out of the room. She wouldn’t let me go downstairs, she kept making excuses and wouldn’t let me exit at all. I got creeped out and almost called my Mom but she begged me not to go. Eventually we sorta slept, she had the tv on all night so I couldn’t sleep well.
Years later it was discovered her grandfather was m**esting her. And it turned out that night she noticed he was eyeing us both so that was the explanation for how the night went down.
– FaithlessRoomie
14. Reduce, reuse, recycle
Early 1990’s: When I was a kid, I slept over at a buddy’s house for the first time.
The next morning we woke up and his mom made us cereal, the milk tasted hella sweet, even for my child taste buds. Something about it all seemed off. Just as my buddy finished his bowl of cereal, his mom came over and turned the bowl on its side to pour the leftover milk from the cereal bowl into a milk carton. The mom then did the same with hers. I felt my face turn red with shame and embarrassment and my stomach turn. Horrified and confused I asked “what is that? What are y’all doing?”
He turned to me and said “that’s our cereal milk”
Turned out this sadistic f**k and his ENTIRE family poured all of the leftover milk from each bowl of cereal back into a separate milk carton, specifically for cereal. I drank this entire family’s backwash.
F**king CEREAL MILK. Used. Cereal. Milk.
– Unique_the_Vision
15. The hiding place
went to a friends birthday party in 4th grade. about half way through the night we decided to play hide and seek.
maybe 30-45 minutes later (all i know was it was a long a** time) i come out of my hiding place to find them playing on the wii in the living room.
they’d forgotten about me and thought everyone was found so they moved on to the next thing without me.
– shoesfullofwater
16. The Gun
My friends older brother(22m) had a gun out.. me(8m) and my friend(8m) were playing Nintendo.
The 22m thought it would be funny to scare us so he pointed the gun at us, we screamed and said to stop, he laughed and said it wasn’t loaded, pointed it at my friend and pulled the trigger, shot him in the face from point blank range and k**led him.
I have nightmares still about it. Im now 40.
– Zer_bird_81
17. The A**ser
Went to a girl’s sleepover where there were three of us. The girl’s dad put an audio recorder under the teddies on top of her cupboard when he came in to hand them out. Would have been about 8 years old? We were talking about crushes at school and such.
Next day he played the recording out loud to wake us up, laughing and listening closely to what we were talking about, in front of us. They moved away eventually. 14 years later the girl messages me and asks if I remember anything weird happening at that sleep over.
I told her what I remembered and it turned out she was being s**ually a**sed by him.
– gothamnightlights
18. K**ler Time
Friends mother and her boyfriend were arguing in the kitchen after we went to bed, he started talking about how he would “k**l the kids if I have to”
I was about 7 or 8 I guess, so it didn’t really sink in that much at the time, but my friend wasn’t really in a great mood for the rest of the time I was there.
– randomnameandanumber
19. Garage Dad
Think it was around grade 3 or 4, I had a best friend with a big house and two parents who later divorced a couple years after. I’ll say his dad was a HUGE garage dad. As in the guy had his own brand new fishing boat he cleaned every day in there, all his trophies, life relics, everything was in there. The floor of the garage was nicely carpeted, and legit everything in there was spotless. Anytime I went over, his dad spent most of his waking hours in that garage.
My friend, his brother and I somehow got into a “water battle” with the garden hose / super soakers. I can’t really remember how or why it started but as you can guess, we moved our “battle” into the garage and left the garden hose running inside. We must’ve left it running from lunch time, and his dad didn’t come home until 5 or 6.
I’ll never forget the absolute hysterical screams and wails my friend and his brother made to their mom, who was closing her eyes crying, begging for her to do something while their dad was dragging them into that garage. The screams and yelling from the dad inside the garage continued for the entire hour it took for my parents to pick me up. They were beaten so bad, I don’t think my friend could sit down for a solid week.
– theodore931
20. Poor Nana
I stayed over at my elementary best friends almost every week. Their grandmother lived with them and everyone treated her like a burden. They told me she was crazy and mean but she was always very kind to me and because I was raised to be nice to my elders, I was kind in return.
One day, when my friend had to go talk to her mom about something the grandma asked me into her room. I had never been in there and it was decorated completely differently, I could tell she had moved an entire house worth of stuff into one bedroom.
I can’t remember the whole conversation but basically she said I was kind and she really loved talking to me every week, and that her family didn’t really let her talk. She gave me a little metal Noah’s ark bracelet but asked me to hide it from the family.
I was scared to wear the bracelet because I didn’t want my friend to get mad and every time i looked at it, it made me so sad for Nana.
– TheBerenstoinBears
21. The Passing
Had my first ever sleepover with my best friend in the first grade. Things at night were awesome. When I woke up the next morning everyone at his house was super distant, and they called my mom to get rid of my asap.
His father had an aneurysm that night and passed away.
After everything settled he and his mom moved away and I never saw them again.
– Sixin2082
22. Down With the Sickness
My friend Ryan had a slumber party for his birthday.
I remember we watched “my favorite martian” we went to sleep and I woke up mid vomit. I wasn’t even feeling sick. I literally woke up throwing up at 5 in the morning.
They took me home, I slept in till noon.. and I remember thinking I wasted a whole day because I had never slept in that late before.
– xfocalinx
23. The Uninvited
I was invited to a birthday party in elementary. Everybody kept talking about the slumber party afterwards.
I assumed I was also invited to the slumber party, so I brought my sleeping bag and pajamas. Turns out, nobody actually wanted me there. I cried in the hosts room alone for an hour or so, then faked being sick and had my grandma come pick me up.
– –ShineBright
24. The Fruit Platter
When I was like 14(?) I was at a big group sleepover with my friends. The mother of the girl who was hosting it was really strict about health and she told us that we couldn’t order any pizza until we’d eaten the massive fruit platter she’d prepared for us.
No one was touching the platter other than taking a few pieces to snack on. It was getting late, the pizza place would be closing soon and her mum was not budging about her rule. Someone needed to step up. That someone was me.
I started absolutely devouring the fruit platter, shoving pieces into my mouth and swallowing them without chewing. This was a platter for like eight people, but I was a woman on a mission.
We did end up getting pizza, but I got so sick I spent most of the night throwing up in the toilet. I couldn’t even enjoy the pizza cause I was so full
– Living_Employee_7735
25. War Injuries
Girls sleep over when I was in elementary for a friend’s birthday. Had a great time laughing and telling scary stories before bed.
Woke up the next morning with a fever and terrible nausea. Went home and I was only getting worse. I had a huge spot on my leg in-between my ankle and knee, right in the middle. It was hot, puffy, and red.
Went to the hospital and it turns out I was suffering from a really bad staph infection. The night before, we were playing on the stairs when I slipped and scraped my leg. The doctor initially thought I was bitten by a spider.
The infection was spreading fast and was eating away at my flesh. I had a tunnel up to my knee cap that had to be packed with fresh gauze everyday. Almost lost my leg.
– hsaWaknoW713
26. Barflies
We were 13 I would guess. Normally I would always stay at my friends place but this time we stayed at mine. My parents took us to the bar which was something people did at the time. Well my father decided to get black out d**nk and us two 13 year olds were stuck in a bar from 8pm until 1am. It was getting pretty uncomfortable between the parents and even some of the other people in the bar, cause well kinda sh**ty to have a couple of 13 year olds in a bar on a friday night at 1am.
So when my father got up to use the bathroom my mom grabbed us and we ran out to the van. He came out screaming threw a beer and was banging on the van screaming all sorts of obscenities.
Well we get home, get some dinner finally and my mom goes to bed. My friend and I decide to watch who framed roger rabbit in the living room which I never got to use, but hey dad is gone. Well an hour later he shows up. And he just sits on the couch and smokes pot until falling asleep an hour later.
So we sneak off to my room and my friends parents picked us up to stay at his place
And that was the last time I ever had a friend over.
– spytez
27. Survivor
Friends decided to set up a mock game of Survivor, based on the reality show.
Which turned out to be an excuse to vote out the friend nobody likes first.
Guess who was the friend nobody liked.
– SanaJisu
28. I Am the Night
It was like 6 or 7 of us at a friends house. Hot summer night so we’re camping outside in sleeping bags. It’s pretty late/early and we’ve been f**king with each other all night tossing little pebbles running around dragging each other around in sleeping bags the usual.
Well I feel a nudge when drowsy and just waive it off. Then I feel a nudge inside of my sleeping bag and immediately hear a squeaky screech. I scream And everyone Immediately pops up. I’m zipped up in a mummy style sleeping bag so when I stand it’s still wrapped and so is the screeching in my bag.
A quick witted kid named cayde runs overs and shakes my a** out of the bag and a huge f**king bat flies out.
I later harness this fear and become Batman
– Youeclipsedbyme
29. All Wet
When I was 8 I had a sleepover at a friends house who lived in the bush. They were living in a dilapidated house on the property while their proper house was being built.
Unfortunately this house didn’t have an inside toilet, rather, a long drop out the back. Double unfortunately that night was a thunderstorm. It was a rule that I had to go to the toilet before bed but one look outside at the rain, thunder and their horse standing between the door and the long drop… I skipped that step.
I ended up wetting the bed that night and her dad wasn’t too pleased with me. I remember her brother coming home in the morning say “ah you’re the one who wet the bed”. My friend also told all our other friends at school.
Not horrific but it certainly affected me.
– lifeofadeline
30. Yopo
In high school I went to stay over with my buddy at one of his friends houses and it turned out that it wasn’t really his friend it was some dude from Xbox live that lived in the same town but was for sure older, had to have been in his 20s when we were 16.
Smoked some kind of seed mix that he claimed had some kind of hallucinogenic property, I believe he called it yopo. Anyways, honestly not my worst night but my mom would have f**king d**d if she knew what I was up to lol
– pribnow
Makes me want to never let my kids go to sleepovers, yanno?
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