People Describe Their Worst Experiences At A Sleepover

I miss sleepovers.

They were a highlight of my life, not just my childhood... but my entire life.

I've been trying to cajole my friends into an adult slumber excursion for years.

My attempts have been met with muted disappointment.

For many, though, sleepovers didn't go over as well.

Some overnights were derailed by family unpleasantness, nightmares, and illness.

I've heard horror stories that left people traumatized.

Redditor SerotoniniSapiens wanted to hear some horror slumber party stories, so they asked:

"What is your worst sleepover experience?"

Mid-90s

"When I was about 12, I went to a sleepover at my best friend’s house for his birthday. His family was great, and I always felt welcome there. The sleepover was pretty typical: we watched a movie, ate junk food, went to bed but didn’t sleep—we just stayed up all night talking and eating sweets."

"At the crack of dawn, we snuck downstairs to play a game on the family PC (this was the mid-90s). Everything was going well, and the strategy we’d planned during the night was working perfectly. But then, out of nowhere—probably due to sleep deprivation and a sugar overload—my friend had a full-on seizure. He let out a guttural moan that terrified me. Panicking, I ran upstairs to wake his parents, and they quickly called an ambulance."

"He was taken to the hospital for tests, with his dad going along. His mom, still calm and kind, offered me some breakfast before I grabbed my things and walked the short distance home. As soon as I saw my mom, the shock of what had happened hit me, and I broke down."

"Thankfully, my friend didn’t have any serious health issues, and we’re still best friends to this day. In fact, we’ve even been each other’s best man."

- RichBezza44

No Light!

"I slept in the spare room of my friend's house and didn’t realize the bloody curtains had an automatic opening time of 7 am which scared the living s**t out of me.

- Nipplec**t

Sun Hang Over GIFGiphy

Bad Bell

"My friend and I both got diarrhea from eating bad nachos. He shat his pants, and my dad had to give him a pair of shorts that fit him loose."

- Brief-Jaguar3111

"I'll trade that for six elementary school-aged kids all getting extreme acute food poisoning from Taco Time so bad that there wasn't enough bathroom 'bandwidth' such that one of my friends had projectile diarrhea in the bathtub while another was still barfing into the toilet.

- spicypeener1

VICIOUS

"One of the first times (if not the first time) spending the night with a friend at the time, I must have been 10 or 11, maybe 12. He was a year or two older, we were teammates. Families were friends. Realized once I was at their house that the family (mom, dad, my friend, his younger brother) were VICIOUS yellers. Like, seemed like no conversation could end without some member of the family screaming at another. It was never really violent, but just really wild and loud the entire time."

"Culminated in the younger brother getting into a huge screaming fight with my friend, followed by his mom discovering my friend’s ADHD meds were missing, followed by my friend being accused of stealing and selling his ADHD meds at school by both his parents, mom crying and dad absolutely furious, followed by a car ride to a gas station nearby to meet my parents so they could pick me up, all four members of the family screaming at each other and throwing accusations and calling each other names the entire time with me just sitting there like '...😶.'"

"11-year-old me was very excited to go home."

- dodmaydc2

Can't Sleep

"Stayed over at a friend’s house in high school. As the night wore on, realized that the house was riddled with cockroaches. They were even in the bed. Slept on a chair because it was too late to go home."

- SoCalDiva13

csi cockroaches GIFGiphy

Traumatizing

"When I was about 13 I had one of those TV/VHS combos in my room cause it was the only one that I could use the N64 on. I had my besties over for a sleepover and horror movies as per but we had watched all of mine."

"I was rooting around my parent's old collection of VHS and found one that looked like it said 'Halloween' on it and we all sat in bed ready to watch it."

To our absolute HORROR, It actually said 'Halloweenie' and it was a cheesy old 60s 70s porno. Traumatizing."

- trixy_treat

SLAP

"Was very young when two friends stayed over. I was about to sleep with my eyes shut when one randomly started sh*t-talking about me, thinking I was asleep, and the other joined in after some hesitation. They even considered I was awake and tried to ‘slap’ me awake to make sure they were safe, I haven’t forgotten about it since even though it’s been about 20 years💀."

- mcfruity03

Silence

"We were talking and laughing in her room after her parents told us to go to bed her dad came in and spanked both his daughters and then me for still being up. I told my mom about it, and she said I should have gone to bed then. It wasn't any patty pat either it was full body thrown into it while he screamed at us until his face was red to go to bed. After he left we just lay there in silence with the light still on. Breakfast was quiet the next morning, too."

- QuiteLady1993

Aberdeen

"I slept over in Aberdeen (a very cold place in Scotland) and her parents didn’t let her have any electric blankets or thick duvets. It was freezing the whole night. Her dad kept coming in and asking if we needed anything, but when I said I wanted a thicker blanket he just laughed as if I was joking. 😡."

- Super_Highlight_2510

Oh My...

"I was at my friend’s house one night and got to experience hearing their parents having their sleepover, if you know what I mean…"

- FreePlantainMan

Oh My God Wow GIF by The Roku ChannelGiphy

Pitch Black

"One of my classmates had a big campout in her backyard in elementary school. I was already scared, but then we kept hearing sounds outside. The girl just shrugged it off and said sometimes their elderly neighbor wanders around their backyard. I was so scared I ran barefoot in the pitch black to their house and fell asleep on their couch.

- Otherwise_Anybody873

Irregular

"I stayed at a popular girl's house when in my pre-teens and still learning how to manage my period. We all slept in the common room and slept on a futon with a sheet covering it and yep. Murder scene in the morning, I’m still mortified when I think about it."

- AimlessCreator

"I think one of the most traumatic periods I’ve been involved in was at Disney World. My GF at the time had a super irregular period and she was at the point where it should have already started."

"We get on Toy Story Mania and have a blast and as we get up I look and there is a puddle of blood. I quickly tap her on the shoulder and whisper in her ear we have to go back to the room your period started. Confused she asks how do I know. Told her about the puddle and she cried. I comforted her and ran to the lobby to buy pads."

- Karsa69420

Friends

"I was strongly encouraged to be friends with the 'weird neighbor kid' and eventually attend a sleepover at his house. He was nice and probably had a learning disability."

"I was too young to really know about makeup, but his mom apparently wore A LOT of it."

"I got up to go find the bathroom in the middle of the night, and when I came out, I was confronted by the ghost of his mother asking if I needed anything."

"I cannot imagine how she must have felt explaining that she was not dead, but merely had removed her makeup."

- this_feels_important

But like, annoying...

"I have a prosthetic leg."

"When I was like 3rd or 4th grade, one of my friends had a sleepover. Every single girl going went to our school and knew I had a prosthetic leg. I don’t sleep on my leg. It’s uncomfortable and bad for my residual limb in several ways."

"I was sleeping in a sleeping bag. I went to take off my leg and this one girl totally panics. She started crying and would not chill out. The parents came down and asked me if I could just leave it on. She didn’t even have to see my residual limb (which is not scary or gross, obviously). But apparently even seeing the prosthetic leg near me was too much."

"I took it off and just had it inside my sleeping bag with me. But like, annoying."

- Miserable_Sea_1335

WTF?!

"I was 10. I fell asleep early, and my friend found my diary and went to the living room where my parents and brother were watching a movie. She then proceeded to start reading it aloud to my family. They obviously intervened once they realized what she was reading. I can’t make this s**t up."

- CallMeTallCake

I Thought We Were Friends Penguin GIF by Pudgy PenguinsGiphy

Okay, if I had survived some of these doozies, I would probably stay home as well.

Who reads someone's diary out loud like a poetry slam?

That is gross inhuman activity.

And stop worrying about other people's limbs.

Just mind your business and go to sleep.

Now sleepover campouts?

Yeah, that is a no-go for me!

I don't do wilderness.

No bugs, no dirt, no leaving myself prey to the weather and serial killers.

I never understood that motivation.

Oh, the good old days of just laughing in pajamas while eating ice cream with popcorn and watching a scary movie.

That is how God intended sleepovers to be.