A True Account of Living with Haunted Dolls
by Catarina S.
I have decided to write to you after engaging in an online search for haunted dolls. Since you seem to have a deep interest on the subject, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I shared my story with you.
This isn’t a joke, I just never had anyone to talk to about this without them looking at me like something was wrong with me. Please understand that it isn’t easy for me to share this with a complete stranger, but I´m hoping I can finally get some answers.
A Doll for Her Birthday
First, let me introduce myself. My name is Catarina. I’m 23 years old, and I’m from Portugal. I’m a normal, happy girl with a loving family, great friends, great boyfriend and a job I really enjoy. However, not everything in my life is perfect. Every now and then, I have the most terrible, scary, violent, atrocious nightmares you can imagine, many of them featuring two antique dolls I own, much like those you collect. But this isn’t anything new to me.
It all started when I was, if memory doesn’t fail me, six years old; so it was 1993. Around that time, my mom gave me what I thought was the most beautiful doll I had ever seen. Her face was porcelain, fair with rosy cheeks; her eyes were blue, the hair was long, wavy and blonde, and her dress was my favorite color: pink. I adored that doll, but my mom told me I couldn’t play with her the same way I did with the other dolls, because she was frail and could break; so I put her on a shelf on one of the walls in my bedroom, the one facing my bed, so I could always look at her.
My grandparents never gave me toys, not because they didn’t want to, but because they never knew what kids my age liked to play with; so they would always give me money for Christmas. As a kid, I didn’t really know what to do with it. But on Christmas the next year, I got the doll. I had asked my grandparents for another doll just like the one mom had given me, for she looked painfully alone on that shelf; and so they did. I was so happy. The new doll had all the same features the other one had, except she was shorter and her dress was a very dark shade of red. They were both so beautiful next to each other on my shelf; I liked to imagine they were friends.
Something With the Doll Was Not Quite Right
But, I soon began to notice something wasn't okay. As you know, some porcelain dolls have eyelids that open and close, and others have permanently-open glass eyes. Mine had the later, so they weren´t supposed to move. Only they did. The first thing I noticed about them was that during the day their eyes were as if they were looking left- both dolls to the same side, always in sync; but at night, they would be looking the opposite direction. I started staring at them trying to figure out what was happening, but the more I stared, the more afraid I would get.
I’m sure this isn’t anything new to you either and I bet you have heard many, many stories like this, but there is more. I wasn’t imagining things; I invited friends over for sleepovers and all of them saw what I saw and got really freaked out.
I’m sorry; I forgot to mention that I had those horrible nightmares I told you about all along. I can’t remember if I had them before I got the second doll or if they began after I got her. When this started, I had never heard of haunted dolls or even seen horror movies based on such things, since I was only a child.
The nightmares got worse and worse, but the ones I have today aren’t so different from the ones I had when I was 11. In some of them, the dolls have changed positions; their backs are turned and they are facing the wall instead of facing me. I don’t know what this means, but it scares the hell out of me. But there’s one thing that’s always present when I dream of them: there is always blood involved. They usually have blood on their faces and hands, and they usually kill or hurt someone I know and care about. Never me...they never hurt me physically or directly; they torture me with horrible, bloody imagery, bodies and their selves covered in blood, grinning maliciously. I know that it may not sound that bad; but trust me, it is. Words just fail me to describe precisely.
One day, when I was about 12 years old, I saw a box my mom left randomly outside of my room, and the first thing I thought I should do with it was to put all the dolls on the shelf inside the box and take them to my family’s country house, where I would only see them occasionally. And so, I did. I had more dolls on the shelf, tiny ones - different from those two, but decided they would go as well. As I was putting them in the box, I felt so liberated. I will never forget that feeling.
My family’s country house is an old house that’s been in my family for generations, located in a small village in the north of Portugal. I live in a big city. Even though they’re very far from me, I still get the nightmares. I had one not too long ago and decided it was the worst I ever had with them.
You see, I could never tell my parents or friends this story without being deemed as weird or as needing some help, so I kept quiet and suffered in silence for years. I was terrified at night for years as they entered my dreams, moved, etc. I forgot to say that sometimes their eyes were looking straight at me. I also can’t decide if one memory I have is real or if I dreamt it only. I think I found the second doll once with her back turned to me and facing the wall, but I don’t know now if that was real.
I’m telling you all of this because I know you will understand, even though you don’t know me. I thought this would just go away but it hasn’t. I am 23 now. Why am I still having the same type of nightmares with these dolls? I have no idea if this is relevant to this case, but I’ve had several other paranormal experiences, ones that aren’t related to the dolls. However, this stopped when I turned 13 or 14. Every time anything paranormal happened to me, it was bad. I don’t know exactly what it was, but all the energy I felt was negative, like those, let’s call them spirits, were there to hurt me (except for one time, the last time I ever had contact with spirits, or whatever they were). The last one was nice and it was the first time I didn’t feel scared.
My question is why haven’t my problems with the dolls stopped? I took them far away from me, so why are they still tormenting me? And what exactly are they? I’m not crazy, am I? There’s something there; they can’t be normal. Why do they hate me? All I did was love them. Yes, I loved those dolls. Why did this happen to me? What can I do? Will the nightmares ever stop?