Most Terrifying Haunted Asylum Stories That Will Spook You Real Bad

It is sad that people get spooked out by just visiting mental asylums or even by spotting mentally challenged or differently-abled beings. Abandoned asylums don't need ghosts to make them creepy -- cages for humans, ruins of uncertain treatments, and ice-pick lobotomies do the job just fine. It is but obvious that any mental institution is bound to be emitting bad vibes, but a haunted former asylum? Well, now that's something that'll not just run a chill down your spine but also make you go sleepless at nights. Here are some of the darkest histories of abandoned mental asylums that will make go doubt if you should read the next in line.

Danvers Lunatic Asylum, Massachusetts

Opened in the year 1878, Dancers Lunatic Asylum not only housed mentally challenged beings, but also was a prison for sinners who were mentally unstable. Imagine a house full of lunatics who have been accused of some gruesome crimes and are also madcaps. The number of admissions in the asylum increased so much that the hospital became understaffed and the deaths went so frequent and unnoticed that the staff discovered bodies of the prisoners only when they started to rot.

Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, South Korea

Once the patients started disappearing from this psych hospital, locals grew suspicious about the incidents. There were rumours that the doctors, who were going insane, kept patients as hostages rivaling them to madness and ultimately brutally killing them. It's said that the place was shut down because of sewage problems, but as per the local lore, this psych hospital is no less than a haunted graveyard.

Lier Sykehus, Norway

One of the most haunted spots in the whole of Norway, this place has been abandoned since 1985 but parts of it still house psychiatric patients, who share their space with ghosts, shadows, and odd noises. The reason why this became a death trap for a lot of humans was because a lot of illegal drug testings that shouldn't be done on humans took place here, resulting in a number of deaths.

Narrenturm, Austria

It's hard to pick what's worse - the morbid history that took place in Vienna's "Fool Tower", Europe's first insane asylum, built in 1784 -- or its current use, the Anatomical-Pathological Museum, which features more than 4,000 graphic, gruesome abnormalities, jars full of deformed foetuses, and sickening wax models of untreated STDs. Either way, there are enough elements that exist in the structure that will leave you with the creeps for a long time.

Rolling Hills Asylum, New York

This former Genesee County Poor House established in 1827 counts over 1,700 documented deaths, including the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, the handicapped, the criminal, the alcoholic. Paranormal activities in this spook house include slamming of doors, screaming and screeching noises. There's also something known as the "Shadow Hallway", it's called so because of the shadows being spotted peeking out of the doors and the hallway, crawling across the corridor.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, West Virginia

Built around the Civil War era, the asylum was designed to house around 250 patients, but ended up holding more than 2,400. People were locked in cages, lobotomized with icepicks, chained to things leading to hundreds of deaths and a palpable air of suffering. Also since the asylum was briefly a civil war military base, you would spot uniformed soldier-ghosts taking a casual stroll along the corridors.

Waverly Hill Sanatorium, Kentucky

This asylum tops the list of America's most haunted spots, with an alleged 63,000 deaths. Now, that's a number! Built in 1910, this place was initially built to house cure for tuberculosis patients, but a trail of mistreatments and dubious experiments made many lose their lives and getting shoved in what was known as the "death tunnel", or "body chute". Spirits include Timmy, a boy who likes to play with rubber balls has been caught on tape; the nurse who hung herself in room 502; another nurse who fell from the same room's window; and scattered screams and footsteps.

Beechworth Lunatic Asylum, Australia

Before shutting down in 1995, this place saw 128 years of terror with almost 9000 deaths. It comes as no surprise that a few people loitered after death. Faces floating in windows are a common sight, along with Matron Sharpe doing her rounds, and children laughing. Tommy Kennedy, who used to transport the dead out of the asylum and died there himself, still hangs around. There's also a woman who was thrown out of a window, and died in front of the hospital because she was Jewish and the only person allowed to move her, a Rabbi, couldn't make it to Beechworth sooner.