While walking downtown next weekend viewing everyone’s costumes and outfits you’ll witness the funny, the original, the slutty, and the just plain scary that’s meant to be cute.

But maybe you shouldn’t be as focused on your costume, about attracting the attention of your crush, or getting shit-faced and perhaps even arrested. Maybe there are other things you should be more worried about.

Whether you’re superstitious or not, Halloween is the one night of the year where, coincidence or not, experiences can really freak you out. Halloween superstitions are pretty interesting to think about, even if you don’t believe in them.

Here are some of the Halloween Superstitions I found online:

• If the flame on a candle goes out or turns blue, a spirit is nearby.
• When bobbing for apples, the first person to bite an apple will be the first to marry.
• If a bat flies around a house 3 times, it is a death omen.
• You should walk around your home three times backwards and counterclockwise before sunset on Halloween to ward off evil spirits.
• Never slam a door. You might hurt a ghost, who’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.
• If you hear foot steps behind you on this night, don’t look back. It may be the dead following you. Turning back could mean that you will soon join the dead.
• It is believed that if a person lights a new orange colored candle at midnight on Halloween and lets it burn until sunrise, he or she will be the recipient of good luck.
• A broken mirror represents the soul being astray from your body. To break the spell, you must wait seven hours before picking up the broken pieces, and bury them outside in the moonlight or you will have 7 years of bad luck.
• Put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween night to meet a witch.
• In North America, it’s bad luck if a black cat crosses your path and good luck if a white cat crosses your path. It is the opposite in Britain and Ireland.
• A person born on Halloween can see and talk to spirits.

Read more of these superstitions here.

So who knows, maybe something will happen to you this Halloween that will make you reconsider these superstitions. Or, maybe things really are just coincidental…

How did the celebration of Halloween begin anyway?

Watch this video to learn more about the history of Halloween:

Contact Chloe Makarick at [email protected].