The Benadryl Challenge: The Truth Of The Hat Man 

Imagine planning to go on an existential trip just to get haunted by a paranormal redditor in a fedora

It’s crazy i never realized taking 10x the recommended amount of something could pose negative effects

The idea of a social media challenge going viral being set up by a figure called The Hat Man so that he can terrorize more and more people is a great idea for a horror movie.

"I don't wanna see the hat man again, I owe him money" "HOW? HOW DO YOU OWE HIM MONEY???"

"Threw a torch at a cave demon, turns out i threw my phone at my dog" bro...

The Hatman is literally the Neighborhood Watch sign. Seriously.

how the hell did we go from dumping ice on each other to this

gave the hatman one of my earbuds so we can watch this together rn

2:10 these visuals are NOT what Benadryl looks like. These visuals are psychedelic or dissociative visuals. Benadryl would have you start seeing a million spiders or people coming up to you saying weird stuff or attacking you. Then you wake up in a ditch, then wake up again in your bed, then in a dark room, then outside your neighbors house, then in a hospital bed for real this time.

Back when I was a teenager i tried a high dose of Benadryl. I seen spiders the size of dogs and centipedes that were many feet long. Heard my parents calling my name for hours when I was home alone. I had to sit with my eyes closed until I finally fell asleep. Shit was terrifying.

The Hat Man being such a common sight really isn't that surprising. Some people saw and talked about him, people read about it, more people saw it, more read about it etc. Eventually people started expecting to see him, and so they did

“…I am of course referring to, the Hat man” *Oppenheimer ad rolls, with a literal second of Oppie staring at the camera with a hat on* Sometimes, RU-vid ads have the funniest timing

I tried this once and it was the most real hallucinations I’ve ever had. My friend who lives in another city just walked in my room and I had a full conversation with him and he wasn’t even there. I had no idea.

“For some reason they keep doing it” they’re addicted, homie.

9:12 him repeating the same line again made me start questioning reality for a second. I'm trying to learn about this stuff not experience it.

i got put in a mental hospital this summer. i met a guy who OD on benydrl he said he doesn't remember 10 years of his life and it fucked him up.

Do not fuck around with DPH. I've been taking a higher than average dose for a long time. I've never seen the Hatman, but I've experienced some truly bizarre things and having my reality shifted. I once snapped back into reality to find myself about to drink laundry detergent. Be careful, everyone

The Hat Man is like an irl creepypasta,like we're living in a whole analog horror series or something

Went digging for copper and found a gem.

I think the description of the "hat man" fits right in with primal fears of the human mind. An unknown person with unknown intentions, appearing out of nowhere, totally black (as humans tend to be afraid of the night and shadows for primal reasons), and with hat, something that can conceal a person's identity (which is, again, a primal fear of humans), just like horror usually covers the threat's face with an emotionless mask. The only sleep paralysis episode I've ever had was back when I was a child, and I remember vividly something of a hat man appearing. I still slept with my bedroom door open, and also left the bathroom light on. When the episode started, I could see a tall, manly figure wearing a beret, completely dark and shapeless even though he was standing in front of the light, and he was just moving in a way that looked like he was dancing, just loosely swinging his arms around. It was absolutely terryfing, and by the time I could scream for help, it felt like days went by in that situation.

Fuck. Dying on a Benadryl trip sounds like the worst possible way to go.

> The benadryl challenge You know, back in the day we just called it "Tripping your ass off on DPH" and it involved spiders that weren't there.

Real ones know the Hat Man is just the Undertaker letting you know who runs shit in the afterlife.

After my sister had passed in July 2020, and my parents divorcing earlier that year in February, I became a regular benadryl user to cope with the losses. I started off with a 450mg dose because that was all that remained in the bottle we kept in our medicine cabinet. I then asked my dad to get more benadryl next time he went grocery shopping and upped the dose to 800mg. I took two 800mg doses before I eventually took a 1500mg dose. That was my last dose, and it was in September 2020. While hallucinating, I never saw the hatman or anything really. I saw a spider every once in a while, but mainly the visuals my wooden desk produced kept me mesmerized. My body was definitely heavy, and mentally I felt nothing but a little bit of "brain fog". I did however end up vomiting all over my keyboard and monitor as the dose was too high for my body to handle. Can say I'm glad I never fell to the addiction and quit after ruining my expensive setup. It was a good time while I was doing it, but I look back and can only think of how much of an idiot I was and how it wasn't worth it. I seem to have no health consequences due to my dosages, but that's for now. Who knows what can come up in the future because I decided to have an extremely unhealthy coping mechanism.

I saw the hat man, and I apperently owe him 30 gold coins. I accidentally took too much for allergys. Later that night, I woke up with sleep paralaysis, had an out of body experience. It was kinda like I was floating above my body, with the hat man staring at me from the foot of my bed. That was 6 years ago, and I still refuse to take Benadryl to this day.

Imagine going on a really-really bad trip and then dying from self induced poisoning. That Benadryl Challenge had NO CHILL.

While waiting for my Mom to return home when I was 10, I had a really bad allergic reaction to something on my skin (figured out later on it was a bad reaction to to a certain detergent we just switched to) and in a panic I chugged a whole bottle of liquid children's Benadryl, not knowing or understanding how bad of an idea that was. By the time she got home I was screaming in the corner and kicking at everything that was around me, completely hysterical and losing my mind. I remember experiencing the spiders crawling on me, it feeling like the shadows were figures who would either dance or form around me in random movements. The anxiety, the incoherent thoughts. It felt like every molecule around me was sentient and watching me, I was losing my sanity by the minute. She called 911 when she found me and the bottle, after she came home to the sounds of me screaming. After they asked how old I was and how much I weighed at the time they basically told her it was a bad trip and to wait it out, that a hospital visit would be unnecessary if I wasn't trying to hurt myself or others and that it would pass. That was one of the worst days of my life. She came home with a Nintendo Wii though, got to play it the next day so that was pretty cool.

I used it to go to bed after starting a new job. Only took 50mg, which is a normal dose for sleep aid however it had mixed badly with another medication i was taking. I was standing in the closet in the dark and my wife woke up asking me what i was doing. I told her i was working with an engineer on solving a problem at work. She was terrified. I never sleep walked in my life. She asked me to just come back to bed and i apparently snapped at her and told her i would lose my job if i didnt figure out this work problem..... while i was naked standing in the closet staring at her for 20 minutes like something out of Paranormal Activity.

There is no medication in the world as interesting to me as Benadryl. I’m allergic to mold, corn, and my darling cat (see profile picture for the handsome guy) so I rely on it quite often. I also recently discovered that Benadryl works to reduce anxiety and mood swings during PMDD episodes. It is crazy to me that this one little pink pill I take every morning to make my allergies & health conditions manageable also has the potential for psychedelic-adjacent abuse. On a more personal note, as someone who has also attempted using Benadryl, I just wanted to say: I’m so glad we’re still here together. I hope your world feels brighter nowadays my friend. ❤️💕

Approximately forty years ago, I had a terrifying experience in my infant daughter’s room. I was wide awake, not under the influence of any medication. Suddenly, I felt a sinister presence behind the nightstand. Glancing over, I saw a shadowy figure from the shoulders up, with glowing red eyes and a hat. It was hunched over, as if peering around the furniture. to my horror, the figure stood up, revealing a long coat, and moved towards my daughter’s crib. It paused, leaned over to look at her, then vanished through the doorway. The entire figure was black, matching the images I’ve seen of the so-called Hat Man. I was frozen with fear. I’d never encountered anything like it before or since and had no knowledge of shadow people or similar entities at the time that I could have been influenced by. This makes the experience even more unsettling. I’ve never forgotten it. I find it strange so many others have seen this same thing. What is this phenomena, anyone know or any theories as to why so many see this same entity or whatever it is? Reminds me of the Mandella effect - that so many people would be having the same false memories. PS -- I've now freaked myself out after recalling this experience and after posting it I was reading other's posts and I heard a noise from the bathroom which caused me to have an intense adrenalin rush. I think it was just the AC coming on caused the door to shut but am now sitting here with heart pounding out of my chest and adrenalin surging through my body

Not a DPH tripper, or a tripper of any kind, but I have a Hat Man experience. Long before I knew the entity had a name I was hospitalized long-term for Crohn's Disease related issues, which at this point was a full intestinal blockage. I was on high doses of IV steroids and opiates for days, in a nearly delirious state for the duration. The night the blockage finally moved the pain I endured set off a massive panic response which triggered steroid psychosis. I sat upright in the hospital bed, feeling as though I were chained to the wall. In a chair sat this shadowy entity that would vanish every time I looked directly at it, but would reappear the second I looked away. It was one of the scariest nights of my life. I learned about The Hat Man years later. I think it's a shared hallucination, but it does intrigue me that it's so widespread a phenomenon. Thanks for reading my blog post of a comment

As someone who suffers sleep paralysis with hallucinations on a regular basis. The recreation at 14:50 or so is pretty accurate. The exception for me is with the eyes, mind don’t have them, and the proportions. Mine are unnaturally tall and they usually don’t get on the bed, they just loom over you and you’ve got so much cortisol running through you by that point that you’re sure they’re going to harm you some how (only had one case where I was “physically” attacked by two of them at the same time. I’ve found a mental loop hole though bc when it happens to me now, I know what it is and why it happens, so I constantly tell myself goody shit during to keep myself calm. Sometimes it effects the hallucination itself. Like sometimes I’ll tell myself “it’s okay, he’s just an alien and he’s studying you like a biologist would an animal- he’s not going to harm you” and after I did that I noticed the entity was holding a clipboard and pencil which made me laugh when I woke up lol

We did this as teens with popular anti nausea pills and I had a fantastic day that ended up in the hospital, I thought I was in a magical world and I drew things with my blood because I kept thinking my IV was a pen, my friend had a horrific time thinking she was in hell and demons were ripping her up and eating her.

I have never done Benadryl, but I do have one encounter with the Hat Man. I saw him during my sleep paralysis when I was 12 or so. I remember opening my eyes and looking down at my closet door to see him step into frame just for him to stand there and stare at me for what felt like an eternity. The only available light in the room was from the street light peeking through the curtains in my window. It was cast upon my closet door where he was standing. I didn’t know other people have had experiences with the same entity, so I just called him the “Shadow Man” for years until I encountered the Hat Man again in a RU-vid video a year or two back. It gave me chills like nothing ever has when I saw him again and hearing I wasn’t the only one who has seen him.

These extremely detailed descriptions sound so terrifying. Seeing spiders that don’t exist and hallucinating the voices of family members is just the chill zone??? Yeah dawg there’s a lot of fucking drugs I’d rather do

I searched for videos of pollinating bees

The Hatman is probably the guy that first made benadryl

I swear to god, if you tweens get benadryl outlawed, I'm going to lose my shit. It was bad enough losing the GOOD sudafed because of the tweekers.

The hat man could be the grim reaper

I saw the hat man as a child. I never knew he was a phenomenon... He walked up the staircase of my childhood home, I saw the red eyes and figure then move to the doorway and just stand there to watch me. I couldn't move or speak. I felt like he was in my head - in my thoughts. My dog at the time then came into my room. I saw the eyes turn to see my approaching dog. He left and the dog laid down just inside the doorway. I haven't seen the hat man since. This was 1995ish. One of my earliest memories.

Sleep paralysis is one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. I was at my parents, laying on the living room floor. I didn’t realize I passed out. The way I was angled was I was on one end of the room, and on the opposite end, there was the walkway to the kitchen/dining room. I’d passed out on my side, facing the opening to the kitchen/dining room. One thing I’ll mention is that as a child, the Exorcist was the scariest thing I’d ever seen. (My dad made me watch it lmao). But I’d had nightmares about Regan ever since. So I see Regan slowly start to crawl on the ground around the corner from the other room. I try to scream, but nothing comes out. I can’t move. My mom is actually in the room with me, and she saw me breathing rapidly for seemingly no reason. So she wakes me up, and I freak out. And none of this has to do with DPH.

as someone who suffered and still continues to suffer with a benedryl addiction im here to say it's not fun. don't try it. once you try it you'll always want to do it again. DO NOT DO IT.

I've seen the hat man. I've had insomnia since I was 3, and sometimes I can't sleep for weeks at a time, but I've always been turned away from sleeping pills. I didn't remember anything associated with why I wouldn't take pills for it, until my mom reminded me of something which happened to me when I was young. My grandpa was a jazz saxophonist, and there are many pictures of him wearing a trilby hat and tweed coat with his sax. One night my mom gave me some Melatonin (safe for children in fact these are encouraged if children have sleep disorders and attention problems), and after a few hours she checked on me and I was staring at the door with wide eyes and not moving. She asked me what was wrong and I wouldn't respond or move. She was trying to get me to respond and eventually it was like something snapped and I came out of whatever trance I was in and started crying and saying that grandpa was watching me from the closet with glowing eyes.

I’ve definitely met the hat man during a sleep paralysis episode. He stood over my bed, and I felt like I was being engulfed by the whispered chants and cries of demons from hell. The auditory hallucinations were more terrifying than the figure-he just stood there. But what I heard was insane: crashes, explosions, metallic clanging, the demonic whispers, and a low frequency hum all at once.

I was on these doses to keep me from dying from anaphylaxis, MCAS, and Kounis Syndrome, and felt absolutely nothing. Of course mine was needed to keep me alive, but as someone who is dependent on diphenhydramine to keep me from dying, I cannot fathom why people would do this with a medication, so many people need to live.

Years ago, I accidently bought and took b6 instead of a general vitamin. "The dream vitamin." Hat man,shadow man, whatever you call him showed up. He tortured me for THREE months within the dream. I lived entire days and nights in the dream. Worst nightmare of my life. It was so real, that I am to this day convinced that it actually happened. Shadow man is very real to me. He even promised before he let me go that he would come back for me some day. He said I wouldn't know when or where, but he would be there to take away my hope and happiness. That was his only goal, to break my spirit. He wanted me to accept the reality and become a permanent resident in his augmented reality hell.

"DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME" so public is cool then? 😂

My theory is that he is your mind's interpretation of looming death

Took too much Benadryl once and laid in a paralyzed state, half awake and half asleep. I could see around me but I couldn't move. Didnt see any hat men, but my parents had been literally shouting in the other room and I couldnt hear them. Scary stuff.

I used to do this regularly when I was 16 (12 years ago). I would take half a bottle of the 25mg pills (totalling 625mg). I’ll never forget the sensation of swallowing 15 of those weird oval pills. The first time I tried it, I was with a friend and I ended up falling asleep when the whispers started. I still had half a bottle so I tried again a couple nights later but alone. This time I made it into full 5 sense hallucinations. They started with small spiders crawling on my wall next to my bed, which I promptly squished not even considering they were not real. The whispers are beginning to become coherent speech to a slight degree but I still can’t make out what is being said. Then the crazy part started. A small corner of my room which is pitch black with the light off and the tv on had a yellow dot appear followed by 7 more. A large spider with a body approximately the size of an average house cat and legs about 1.5m long crawled from the space and up my wall. I was aware it wasn’t real so it didn’t scare me too much but it watched me all night. When I awoke the spiders I squished on my wall were all gone.

I think it’s interesting how similar the effects sound to datura. Datura is a terrifying drug and can cause massive damage to your body and give you PTSD, but to my knowledge usually people do not find the effects addicting, strictly painful and traumatizing and they want to avoid it. Yet something as common as benedryll has similar effects yet has a quality that pulls you in to do more despite it being unpleasant.

As an avid horror movie lover, my time with DPH was definitely the most fun I’ve had in my life. I knew how dangerous it was going in, and I only did it twice. Funnily enough the first time I did. It was also the first time I took LSD I remember looking inside of the fridge and seeing something like an entire civilization that was far more advanced than our own. For some reason I didn’t see anything scary this first time, even though I drank an entire bottle, the second time was definitely very terrifying spiders everywhere, pouring out of window and door coming through the ceiling, and of course the hat Man was there, too. The Hatman seemed more reminiscent of the shadow people I would see on ecstasy, and seemed like an old friend.

the Hat Man is an Avadhuta - I would see him standing in the doorway when I was in high fevers as a child. very old entity, and as you mentioned, an echo from the future...

He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow, and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, The Judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

The Hat Man is the Angel of Death deciding whether or not to take you.

I did this so much in my teens that I saw black spots out the corner of my eyes for about 5-7 years after I stopped. Shit scared the hell out of me.

Sending Hat Man and you best wishes from Iceland. He is one of the best, kindest and mot noble teachers mankind has ever had. Thank you!

I’ve never abused Benadryl but I did suffer from sleep paralysis for many years in my youth. I have had LOTS of experiences with the Shadow people but I don’t recall any wearing a hat. I CAN say that at some point instead of shadow people it became a projection of myself that would emerge from any mirror in a room that I was unconscious in. The shadow people didn’t seem malicious, but my reflection definitely felt …. Bad

Sleep paralysis is so fucked, happened 2 times with me during my life and i can't really remember much of the first time but this last one is still fresh in my head. Woke up after a good night of sleep and immediately saw a pale skinny figure jump over my window and me (my window being very close to the side of my bed) and falling on the ground with a loud sound on the other side of my bed, heard nothing after and just froze still for a minute, don't know if i could or couldn't move but i stood there for a solid minute gathering courage to turn around only to have nothing there, creepy as fuck and so fucking real. If just that short experience got me shitting my pants i can't imagine the fear these people go through when they see this guy.

Looking at it logically, there is actually a reasonable and completely logical explanation for "The Hat Man". Since the concept of "a shadow person wearing a hat" isn't exactly unique, it's entirely feasible that multiple people could have had the same basic concept show up in their delirious state, thus accounting for the initial appearances. Then it gained traction, and the idea of "The Hatman" became a meme (as in an idea that spreads withing culture). Hallucinations are often heavily influenced by outside factors. Thus the mere knowledge of "The Hatman" can result in him appearing in your own hallucinations, reinforcing the idea that he is real, leading to you spreading the meme by telling people he is real, which results in more people encountering it due to their exposure to the meme. And hell, given that it originated on a subreddit dedicated to this drug, it's entirely possible that only one "original" appearance happened before the meme spread to others in the subreddit. My point is, the Hatman isn't some spirit or the Devil or anything like that. He's a cultural meme that was likely spread from one or two people having a similar hallucination.

This popped up randomly in my home page, no regrets. Great research and writing, instant sub

The fact that the Hat Man is so consistent across different cultures and regions, and predates the internet leads me to suspect that he isn't a hallucination at all. I feel it's more closely related to the theory that certain substances or altered states of mind 'thin the veil between worlds' so to speak, and that he is always there, but typically unseen. From my sightings he seems to be one of the shadow people, but has taken more of an interest in humanity for whatever reason. I've never seen him from using drugs as I avoid pills and only mess with weed, but I can recall at least 4 times ive seen him during stressful times. For three of them I felt almost relieved, as if a weight had been lifted off my soul. The fourth he appeared mid anxiety attack and left me with a greater sense of unease than any other experience I've had, and the only difference I recall is that his eyes appeared malicious that time. They weren't red or orange like most negative instances I've read about since, but rather a void. His whole appearance is that of a shadow, but in this instance his eyes were darker than dark, and drew my attention to the point I couldn't look away. Then after a while I blinked and he was gone, with the only remnant being the memory and a sense of dread that took days to dissipate. I'm still uncertain wether the neutral/helpful one and the malicious one are the same, or entirely different entities, but I am certain they exist as far more than simple hallucinations.

I seen the hat man.. I never took Benadryl. I was woken up by the hat man and tried to dismiss it as a dream, but it wasn’t until social media hearing others speak of him did I realize it wasn’t a dream, which I knew, but needed to believe it was. It was 1x, I was 17 yrs old and I had awoken from sleep, to see he was in my door way, then all of the sudden he was standing over the top of me, he choked me and pulled me to a sitting up position then threw my head back to my pillow, from the second I seen him in the door way, I was paralyzed and unable to scream or move. Once he was gone I got up and ran to jump in bed with my mom. I was completely sober, wishing I wasn’t, but I told my mom I had a bad dream. Never had it happen again and I’m 47, but I will never forget that.

The thing that fucks me up the most about the hat man is that when I was growing up, my family would tell me about how I was always followed by this shadow figure wearing a cowboy hat. After they’d brought me home from the hospital, this figure started appearing around the house, but only around the rooms I was in. My sister vividly remembers one of the times she’d seen him, and it still gives me goosebumps to this fucking day thinking about it. I was a little over a year old, we had just gotten back from the grocery store, and my older sister brings me in the house. As she was strapping me into the Johnny jumper, she saw the shadow of a tall male figure appear as if he were behind her, and slowly start moving over to the left of her. She said she turned, saw nothing there, and ran the fuck out of the house with me. Reason she booked it out? As this figure passed behind her, my eyes FOLLOWED it. I had fucking saw it. It makes my eyes well up with tears when I think about it, even if I don’t remember it.

About the only thing I hate about the internet and all the experiences I can live vicariously through others, is the realization that The Hat Man wasn't just my own hallucination. No drugs involved... unfortunately.

i dont wanna see that guy again i owe him a car bro

I used to run around with that kid in the beginning when he was like 8 years old always following me and my buddy around everywhere we went. Kid was wild af. Rest easy man. Prayers go out to the family in Greenfield OH

Makes you wonder where Freddy Krueger got his nightmare hat motif

It's not strange to me that many people who likely read about people hallucinating seeing The Hat Man, would themselves hallucinate about The Hat Man if they tried to do the same thing. It's not some cosmic, supernatural entity. It's just your brain constantly retaining information you've seen, heard or read, even if it's only in your subconscious.

loved the build up - how you showed the different levels of benadryl dosage and kept building up for the ending. Can't believe you have only 4K subs with this quality of videos. Keep going bro, you'll make it.

I sleep with my eyes open, I seen it was 3ft tall & going towards the garage as the sun was coming up, it seen me see it & came right to my face. I’m sleep but my eyes were open. It had red eyes then it laughed this evil joker laugh that echoed & it just vanished. My step dad was watching mcgyver in a rocking chair next to me. I told him what I seen & he said he doesn’t mind that I smoke weed 😂

Likely the trip allows people to see things that humans usually can not. "Hatman" is likely a being that is usually around us but non visible to the normal, sober human mind. We have all had those moments when we feel like something is watching over us, protecting us, guiding us. We can not see it but we can sense it's presence. Perhaps when tripping on certain drugs the human is able to see things that are normally not visible.

When I was in Junior Highschool I used to suffer with Spring Allergies BAD, so bad that I would end up getting conjunctivitis from the pollen in my eye, combined with my eczema flaring from my asthma which also would be affected thus making me wheeze. So put it all together itchy gunked up eyes, itchy red scaly skin, and can hardly breathe…Benadryl came in like Superman. It was the only one that would not only stop the histamines from becoming worse but also make me calm and sleepy….and then the problems began. Everyday I would wake up for school I would go and get a pack from my local Mobile gas station and double dose because I was scared of letting my allergies even come close to starting..then one pack became two, and then two became three..one day I took 2 in the morning and then 2 before lunch, then one after lunch. That last class I had was one of the most bizarre experiences I’ve ever had in my life post popping an Ambien for the first time. I was sitting at my desk and could literally see things that I knew were not there, I even started playing my PS2 when in reality I was just holding a calculator and staring at the computer monitor the distance. The scary part was I was still of sound mind to know that if I didn’t get it together my teacher would know I was drugged up, it was so bad I couldn’t even hold my head up from falling asleep. Somehow I willed myself through and took one of the longest naps on a bus back home I’ve ever taken and still managed to get up in time for my stop. After that day I stuck to Claritin D+ and took it every morning. Benedryl is a real street drug , if you really wanna phuck around you’re REALLY gonna find out.

The hat man has been haunting us since we were children. My sister and I remember his eyes, no Benadryl needed.

I loved your vocal delivery. Also your commentary was great. I listened to a different scary channel who is bigger than you where half their commentary was unnecessary. Glad to have watched this and thank you for taking the time to create it. I appreciate your time and effort 😌

A week after my friend died I seen the Hatman in my hallway, I told my other friends about it and 2 of them mentioned they seen the same shit THAT SAME WEEK, the look of fear when I brought it up to them resonates with me till this day. Idk what he is but he is definitely real to some aspects, makes you wonder about ALL the other weird paranormal creepy shit you think is fake.

I take 2 or 3 at night sometimes when my allergies are bad, and can’t keep my head up. I can’t imagine taking the doses these people take.

I've seen the hatman before in an episode of sleep paralysis and it was oddly wholesome. I was maybe 11 at the time? I just remember being old enough to start becoming my own person but young enough to share a room with my brother which is something to note later on. I wake up unable to move and being able to look around but since I get sleep paralysis fairly often or at least a fair amount more than a normal person I was just like "Ugh okay... lets get this over with...". My door slowly started to open and who woulda opened it other than the damn hatman, from my experience his hat was like a detectives fedora with a little bow wrapped around it but the brim of it kinda drooped down slightly as if being weighed down and he was wearing some robes of some kind so there was no outline of a body but it was still good ol' shadow demon hat dude. He stood in the doorway for a bit just observing me so I stared at him back, until he slowly started to walk up from my door, around my bed and to my bed side. I was scared shitless to be completely honest. Now, the way our room was set up was that in two corners of the room their was my bed and then my brothers bed, with a little bedside table between us. The other side of the room there was the door to walk in, and in the next corner was our tv with our toys and games and what not. I'm not joking when I say this shit alright but on my table there was a copy of the fucking old school book in the diary of a whimpy kid series, and, I kid you not, this shadow demon mf slowly turns his head from me and methodically yet enthusiastically picks it up, sits on my brothers bed, and starts reading it to me in his distorted voice so deep you couldn't even tell what he was saying. This went on for a solid 20 minutes until he just went "huh" like he was impressed with how good the book was before he closed it, place it down, and left. The rest of the day after I woke up was just like I was having deja vu, just confusion the entire day.

About 6 or 7 years ago, I had a nightmare after taking medicine. It's the worst sickness I've ever had, and I felt like a blob. I think I had pneumonia or something like that. I fell asleep and had a nightmare after, where I was at a sleepover at one of my friends' houses. they were twins, and they had a sister. In the dream, I remember trying to sleep on their couch, and in front of the couch is the entrance to the kitchen, and you can see the table from there. It was really dark, but there was a night light that was illuminating the table. I was wasn't able to sleep in the dream for about an hour but when I started falling asleep, I saw a figure that was a similar build to the babadook with the hat and long finger, but this was before I ever even heard of that movie. For the sake of everything, I'll obviously refer to him as the hatman He slowly emerged from behind the table, unmoving. Like a sideshow presentation, just moving up and coming to a sharp stop. I remember being so scared i still remember the exact feeling, and I still have never been so afraid. A lot of the dream I can't remember but I remember that I was just living my life but I was like haunted by him, and things started happening like my fingernails were falling off, I was losing teeth, I was starting to lose hair, just everything. I remember my little brother drowned in a creek we used to go to, and I remember that the hat man was involved but can't really remember how. But I sorta remember how the dream ended. I was in my bed and my door was wide open. all the lights were off, and my room was lit up by the moonlight. I was staring into the dark hall when the hatman slid into the room in a normal standing pose. but it was like he slid in from the left of the door and slid across the wall behind my bookshelf. I don't know how to explain it besides referencing a spongebob episode where spongebob tried catching the blue jellyfish and he gets a call when the power goes out and the silhouette of the jellyfish sliding on the ground. it was like that. an unmoving black hatman png moving to the left. I lost sight of him when all of a sudden it felt like I was disintegrating, like my soul was leaving my body. it felt so freaking real. The hatman was at the side of my bed, and it felt like I was being pulled closer to him but still unmoving. I knew that my soul was being taken from me, and I was begging God to save me. That's all I really remember, but again, to this day, that's still the most terrified I've been. God saved me from dying that night. that's what I want to believe.

One more video before bed 😄 The video:

The hat man's not scary.All he wants you to do is switch to linux.

Very last time I took DPH I blacked out fully naked holding a deck of cards. I owe the Hat Man like $500 dollars and he definitely knows I cheated. I just suffer through allergies now, not worth the risk. 😂

I used to take a whole 24 box on the reg. My brother was at my other parents house but I was having full conversations with him for hours. He’d disappear whenever I’d look at him directly but I could still talk to him. I went in the kitchen and started looking for him in the cupboards

When I was a teenager (long before tik tok or any 'challenges', Im gettin kinda old lol) I used DPH. It's insane. Not a single good thing about it. Youll hallucinate entire conversations with people who aren't there, phantom cigarettes, dry mouth, hearing people talking or calling your name, seeing shadows walking around your house, seeing spiders everywhere, seeing translucent spiders everywhere, insane muscle spasms that make it impossible to be comfortable, not being able to pee or sleep, an extremely heavy body load, completely blacking out for minutes at a time etc. Also anyone you talk to will be well aware you're on something. Its impossible to act normal. There is nothing positive about this experience. It is similar to opening a gate to hell and hanging out in there for a few hours. Stay away from deliriants. Stay away from DPH. None of it is anything close to fun.

I have a theory when it comes to things like "the hatman" or other "beings" or shadow people. I feel like people see images online or hear about these beings before they end up taking any type of hallucinogens' and then when they finally do "trip" they see these things. Not because it's a common thing to see, but because their sub conscious now knows about "the hatman" and displays it to them. You may not even have realized you've seen an image of these beings before, but your brain and sub conscious has picked it up as you were scrolling or browsing the internet. I've taken LSD and 25i many times and I have never seen "the hatman", but have seen shadow people or things of that nature. Our brains are super powerful and can remember things that even we cannot remember seeing.

You don't need benadryl to see the hat man. Sometimes he just comes to you. He is one of the shadow people you can see upon accidentally waking prematurely before your brain and body sync with the wake cycle. I used to have a lot of experiences seeing shadow people when I was younger. I saw the hat man once. Most of the other times they were just regular humanoid shadow people, some adult sized, some the size of children. I once saw the wrake, that was the most horrifying of them all. Two inches from my face upon waking, he had white skin, white eyes, skinny. I shut my eyes, waited a few seconds and then opened them. Gone. Some people are just more in tune, some require aids to peer into that world. Either way...I don't know why anyone would want to experience this. Those creatures are nothing but malevolent, you should not want to actually see them. That makes you more crazier than me and you should seek help. No I do not take medication for this, but I also don't experience these as much as I used to. I think I just eventually grew out of it as I got older. I try to avoid talking about this topic because talking about it opens me up to those experiences. But I just wanted to provide my experiences with shadow people. I obviously avoid taking Benadryl because that seems to be a trigger for these experiences, even the normal dose can cause them for me. If I need allergy medication I will take cetirizine which has little side effects for me. This also goes to show that everyone's biology is DIFFERENT. That information on reddit is dangerous because the dosages described may be an overdose for someone else. Don't screw around with your life.

I remember hearing about the Hat Man almost 10 years ago when people were talking about their sleep paralysis experiences, it’s a super common hallucination and people have talked about seeing it even in the pre-internet age

I can only think of one time I ever encountered “shadow people” and it was when I was trying to go sober cold turkey after drinking/smoking weed very heavily. My dreams would always be vivid nightmares for about a week. One of these dreams, I was in my bed and there were multiple of these dark “shadowy” humanoid figures, I think 3 all on my right side (at least that’s the direction I was staring at) and the one closest to be very slowly moved in and reached out their hand to touch me. The closer their arm got, the more dread I felt, almost like the second it would touch me I would die. Of course I couldn’t move and so their arm just got closer and closer and right before it touched me I woke up screaming “No! Get away!” and lunged back on the other side of my bed. I had nightmares that I awoke from yelling or moving away quickly, but never one where I was in my bed that I was actually sleeping in, and couldn’t move. I mean I was in the exact same spot and position in my dream that I was in reality, which made it feel that much more real. Mostly though, the dread I felt that intensified the closer they got was the most unnerving part about it. Because at first I just saw them, and felt more so confused/curious by their presence rather than scared of them, but the second the one started to reach for me I immediately felt threatened. I don’t remember my dreams/nightmares much, if at all. Maybe for a day or 2 but eventually they all fade away. But that one I for some reason always remember.

The hatman is Odin, here to give you forbidden esoteric knowledge

The Hat Man? Sounds like death awaiting to claim the next soul...

All you had to say was Erectile Dysfunction 😂more scared of that than death

Found a comment, looked up the hat man, found gold, thank you for your content

Side note: don’t down a bottle of Tussin at 4am then go do Army PT at 6:30 thinking it’s gonna be ok. It’s not gonna be ok 😂

I saw the hat man in my doorway as a child. No benadryl. That was the first and last time I ever slept with my door open.

The Hatman is a “Fear Demon”. He’s not only seen on Benadryl, but in some haunted houses, during sleep paralysis. There different demons that take roles in negative human experiences and are seen as totems of archetype checkpoints of a human experience that reached its psychological maximum. The psychological maximum of human fear can reach a level beyond the hatman, where the experience will cross over into being in dark water during a moonless night, and suddenly met by a pitch black great white shark- sometimes even experiencing being eaten alive in the delirium or in the dream the person is having. If you meet the hatman, all it takes is for the fear to fold in and you’ll literally be in a nightmare of “unholy waters”.

Trump getting a bucket of warm water and a bucket of ice dumped on him. Who was he trying to fool?

kinda like wendigoon, I love playing videos like this in the background while I play games to pass time. I love it, keep it up!

I want the hat man to take me to a diddy party

When me and my brother were kids, we didn’t have social media or RU-vid..but we both talked to each other about seeing a man with a hat but was all black and just standing there… we weren’t on meds none of the sort, two sober awake kids..

this video is very helpful, showing the dangers of benadryl while not outright demonizing people for tripping on it. drug education videos like this is what we need. warnings, not just criminalizations.