Anyone else noticed shadow figures always seem to appear in doorways specifically?

Been thinking about this a lot lately actually. Had one at the top of my stairs back in 2019, just standing there in the doorway to the landing. Solid black, no features, just a shape that was somehow darker than the dark around it.

The doorway thing isn't a coincidence though and I don't think it's just because thats where we naturally look. There's a theory in demonology about thresholds being liminal spaces, points of transition between one state and another. Doorways, staircases, mirrors. The idea is that whatever these things are, they exist at boundaries and doorways are literally boundaries built into the structure of a place.

What gets me is how consistent the reports are worldwide. Different cultures, different languages, all describing the same thing lurking in a frame. That level of consistency has to mean something.

Anyone had one somewhere that wasn't a doorway or threshold? Genuinely curious whether the exceptions exist or if its just always the same spots.

@FrostyWanderer doorways are liminal spaces - thresholds between one environment and another. A lot of paranormal researchers (and plenty of older folklore) treats them as boundary points where conditions might be different enough to allow perception of phenomena that's otherwise filtered out.

Theres also a neurological angle worth considering. Your visual system processes peripheral areas and low-light environments differently, and doorways are literally frames that your brain uses to segment space. Some researchers think this creates a kind of perceptual hotspot where ambiguous shapes get resolved into human silhouettes more readily.

That said I've spoken to too many credible witnesses over the years to dismiss it as purely that. The consistency of reports - solid black, no features, sense of presence or intelligence - is hard to explain away as simple pareidolia. The stairway/doorway correlation keeps coming up in serious field work too. Not random in my view.