Hey everyone. I've been reading through your stories for a while now, and I finally worked up the nerve to share what happened to me. I'll try to keep it straightforward, but sorry in advance if I ramble — once I start thinking about this stuff, it's hard to stop.
It was November 2019. My wife and I went to Cairo. Not one of those all-inclusive Red Sea resort deals — she's got a degree in History and had always wanted to see the pyramids in person. I'll be honest, I was more in it for the trip itself. I was never someone who believed in anything supernatural. I was always the guy who'd say "there's a rational explanation for everything." Was.
On day three we headed to Giza. We'd hired a local guide, Ahmed, solid guy, spoke great English. It was about 30 degrees out — November and still that hot, go figure. There were tourists around, but it wasn't packed. Off-season, I guess.
The Great Pyramid up close is something else entirely. Photos don't do it justice. You stand there looking at those stone blocks — each one comes up to your chest — and there are millions of them. Your brain just can't process it.
Ahmed asked if we wanted to go inside. My wife didn't even hesitate, and I tagged along. We paid the entrance fee and in we went. The passage is narrow, low, stuffy. I'm not claustrophobic, but I won't pretend it was pleasant. We started climbing up the Grand Gallery — this long, sloping corridor with a high ceiling. And that's where the first thing I can't explain happened.
I'd fallen a few metres behind my wife and Ahmed. They'd gone round a corner, and for just a moment — I'm talking two or three seconds — I felt completely alone. Not in the "they walked ahead" sense. Alone in the world. Every sound vanished. All of them. No footsteps, no tourist chatter, no echo off the walls. Dead silence, thick and almost physical. And the smell changed — instead of that stale, damp air, there was something sweet, like incense but not quite. I can't describe it any better than that.
It lasted two, maybe three seconds. Then my wife called out to me and everything snapped back — the sounds, the smells, the feeling of reality. At the time I told myself it was the heat, the thin air, and I didn't mention it to my wife.
We made it to the King's Chamber. It's a room with a granite sarcophagus, bare, with a massive echo. Ahmed was explaining things, my wife was taking photos. And I was standing by the far wall feeling strange. Not sick — strange. Like there was someone else in that room besides us and the three or four other tourists. It wasn't threatening, more like... being watched. You know that feeling when you walk into someone's house and the owner is just standing there in the doorway, silently looking at you? That.
I wanted to get a photo of the sarcophagus on my phone. Pulled it out, aimed the camera — and it switched off. Just died. Battery was around 70 percent. I pressed the power button — nothing. Held it down — nothing. My wife was right next to me photographing away on hers, no issues whatsoever. I shoved mine back in my pocket and figured I'd deal with it later.
It turned itself back on about fifteen minutes later, as we were leaving the pyramid. Screen lit up like nothing had happened. Battery — 70%. But in the photo gallery there was one picture I definitely didn't take. Black, almost entirely black. But when I cranked the brightness all the way up, you could make out the wall, the corner of the chamber, and something like a shadow near the sarcophagus. It wasn't my shadow, it wasn't any tourist's — it was different. Elongated, the shape didn't match anything. My wife said it was probably a camera glitch. Maybe it was.
Right, so up to this point you can still come up with a rational explanation for all of it. What came next — I'm not so sure.
That evening we got back to the hotel. I had a shower, lay down, absolutely shattered. Fell asleep instantly. And I had a dream that I remember in vivid detail to this day — and I'm someone who normally forgets dreams before I've finished breakfast.
I was inside the pyramid, but it was different. Not crumbling — new. The walls were smooth, covered in drawings and symbols. Oil lamps were burning. And I was walking down a corridor, and I knew where I was going — as if I'd walked that route hundreds of times. I could feel the clothes on my body — some kind of rough linen. And I could feel that I wasn't me. The body was different, the hands were different — dark skin, calluses, and bracelets on both wrists.
I reached a room. Not the King's Chamber — a different one, smaller, lower ceiling. There was a stone vessel, and I knew I had to place something inside it. I can't remember what. But I knew it was important and that it wasn't the first time I'd done it.
Then I heard a sound. Low, vibrating, as if the pyramid itself was humming. Not unpleasant, but powerful — I felt it through my whole body. And at that moment I looked up and the ceiling was gone. Instead of stone, there was sky. But not a normal sky — the stars were closer, brighter, and they were moving. Rotating slowly.
I woke up at 3:47 a.m. I remember the exact time because I checked my phone straight away. Heart hammering, t-shirt soaked. And here's the part that genuinely scared me: on my left wrist there were two red marks. Parallel, like something tight had been pressing against the skin — a cord, a bracelet. They weren't scratches — they were pressure marks. They stayed visible for about two hours and then faded. My wife was asleep. I didn't wake her.
The next day we went to the Egyptian Museum. I was looking at the exhibits when I stopped dead in one of the halls. There were items from tombs — vessels, figurines, jewellery. And I saw bracelets. Bronze, wide, with etched markings. I recognised them. Not "they looked like the ones in the dream" — I recognised them the way you recognise something that belongs to you. My hands started shaking. I could feel the weight of them on my wrists.
Ahmed was with us. I asked him what those bracelets were, who wore them. He told me they were worn by the "hemu netjer" — temple servants, a kind of junior priest who worked at temples and tombs. Not the high priests, but the ones who carried out the daily rituals. I asked what rituals. He said: offerings, preparations, looking after sacred objects. Basically, what I'd been doing in the dream.
I hadn't told Ahmed anything about the dream.
It's been over six years now. The dream never came back, the marks on my wrists never reappeared. The phone works fine. That black photo is still sitting in my cloud storage — every now and then I open it, stare at that shadow, and just sit there not knowing what to think.
I only told my wife the whole story about six months later. She took it the way you'd expect — "well, maybe it was genetic memory, maybe it was all the impressions from the day getting jumbled together." She's like that, rational, practical, feet firmly on the ground. I used to be too.
I don't know what it was. I'm not claiming anything — not past lives, not spirits, not pyramid energy. I've told you what happened, that's it. If anyone's been through something similar, write it up — I'd love to compare notes.