He described experiencing the occasional cold spot in his room too, and the feeling of being watched. At that time, I did believe in ghosts but had never seen or experienced the presence of one. So, I was curious to know more.
At some point, I tuned out of our conversation and put myself into a quiet, meditative state. Mentally, I popped open the lid of my skull - I am still not sure how I knew to do this - and called out silently, 'Hello. Anyone there?'
Instantly, I felt I'd been seized by what can only be described as an invisible force!
I felt the impact on the back of my head and my neck. It was not a physical contact, as such, but it was very real and horrible at the same time. To me, it felt as though my consciousness was being dragged out of my body, through the top of my head.
I also felt a mild electric shock (physical) run through my body. My vision literally blacked out. I fought as hard as I could to remain conscious. However, the next thing I knew, I was huddled in a ball on the floor, screaming and crying incoherently.
My friend grabbed me and yelled out for whatever it was within me to get the hell out, and to stay away from me.
The next day I denied ever having experienced all this because I was so embarrassed. I thought I must have hypnotised myself, and somehow managed to convince myself into thinking there actually was something in that room.
NOTE: I have never been diagnosed with seizures, epilepsy, schizophrenia, or psychosis. I have never experienced anything like this since, although I have had other, less alarming encounters with ghosts later in life.
I remained afraid of ghosts for ten years or so following this occurrence. However, after several conversations with a Cherokee medicine person, who was taught by a card-carrying tribal elder, and trained for 20 years in traditional healing ways, I began to see this experience quite differently. I now feel less scared. I’m also confident that I can protect myself and keep such things from happening to me ever again.
I’m Not Crazy
Ok firstly, you might think I'm crazy...but I'm not crazy. I have tried to rationalise my experiences and put a lot of them down to some explanation or another.
I had often felt that there was something not right about the house I grew up in.
Events happened after we play with a homemade Ouija Board in the hallway at night; we had several seances as kids. Things that happened in the house after that included glasses shattering, windows violently shaking, people being called by family members that were nowhere to be found and a shadow that would dart across the corner of our eyes.
These experiences were simply brushed off as the results of active imaginations or we to accept these things as just commonplace events. Nothing drastically scary ever happened. Just small things that made us wonder if we were alone.
The events died down eventually and they slowly faded away as we got older but somehow they started up again when my nephew moved into the house.
One event that still stands as the major "unexplainable" experience was the time when I was roughly 20 years old.
I worked late delivering pizzas to pay for school and I'd usually be home around 2am. When I'd get home, I'd jump in the shower and watch a little TV before I went to bed. Usually, my dad would be woken by the sound of the shower or TV and he'd often sneak up to the bathroom door, wait and then bang on the door and tell me to go to bed. It was his little joke. It would scare me most times.
One night, I had just got into the bathroom when I heard what sounded like bare feet walking towards the bathroom door in the hallway. They got closer and stopped at the foot of the door. I waited thinking it was my dad. I stood there, silent, expecting the knocking to come any second, but it never did. Instead, the footsteps continued, after a long pause and went back down the hallway. I thought this was odd because my dad would always knock. Always!
I just brushed it off and as I jumped into the shower I heard my sister say "XXX, I know its you. Piss off.” When I heard this, I threw on my pyjamas and opened the door. I turned on the hallway light and stuck my head into my sister's room. She was on the lower bunk with my older sister on the top. She had the covers pulled over her head so I asked what was wrong. She asked if I had been walking in the hallway to which I replied "no".
She then told me she had seen me, or what she thought was me, walk past the bedroom door and then slowly peer into the room. She said the figure was completely black and stood there for a good 10 seconds before it turned and went back down the hallway.
I told her it must have been my dad and she said, "No, it was you...or it was like you". My dad was a large man. He had a very built physique and I was taller and thinner.
I still believed it was my dad and went back to the shower, telling my sister to go back to sleep.
When I got back into the shower my mum came into the hallway only seconds later. She knocked on the door and told me to go to bed. I told her I had just gotten into the shower. She then replied, "No, you've been walking around the house. Go to bed and don't wake up your dad". This struck me as weird almost instantly I opened the bathroom door and asked if my dad was awake. My mum replied "No, he's in bed, and don't wake him up".
Right about then my sister, who still had the covers over her head, said, "It's not us".
At that very moment, I was sure of one thing. None of us had been walking around the house.
I got goosebumps thinking we had a burglar and walked around the house checking all the doors and windows. I turned on all the lights and checked all the cupboards. I found nothing. My mother didn’t believe it wasn't us. She simply told us all to go to bed. My dad came out of his bedroom and wasn't too happy. He asked why I was using their bathroom. I was totally freaked out.
"There's someone in the house," I said and walked into his room. He wasn’t happy at all. He told me to go to bed. My parents didn’t’ believe in anything paranormal.
I had only ever had an interest in horror movies. This event was something quite out of the ordinary. I went back to my room and got ready for bed.
I turned on the TV and had it at such a low volume that you could hardly hear it. It was an attempt at a little peace of mind - to have something to get my mind off what had just happened. I sat on my bed and heard the footsteps again. Again, they were bare feet and this time they were coming from the bathroom.
I asked my sisters if either were in the bathroom. My elder sister replied, "Did you hear it too?” I immediately walked into the hallway where I stood quietly. I could still hear the footsteps. They sounded a lot like bare feet on a wet floor.
I slowly walked through the hallway and turned the bathroom light on.
As the fluorescent light flickered on I saw what I believe to be someone standing, facing the mirror. A complete silhouette! Only visible for a split second as the light flickered, and then gone when the light was on. I can still remember the feeling that came over me when I saw it. It was like getting hit with an iced cold bucket of water. Almost like the shock of hitting a brick wall, kind of feeling.
Seeing something I never expected to see standing right there as a reality. I can remember being so startled for a split second that I froze and my heart jumped, unable to comprehend what I was seeing until it was gone.
The one thing that occurred to me later was the fact that the hallway was the area where we'd play as kids, having our seances and Ouija sessions. Even though those games were quite innocent to us, I always had a bad feeling about that end of the house as I grew up. In fact, whenever anyone was alone, they'd stay in the front of the house. The back was colder at times, for no apparent reason. We put that down to the front being the only heated part of the house but we'd often wake up almost chilled to the bone in bed. This is one major incident of two I've had.
The second one was quite scary. Since then, I have maintained my scepticism but have joined a paranormal research team in order to find out more.
My nephew is living in the house now. Since he moved in unexplainable things have started to happen again. Recently, I stayed a few days at the house whilst preparing to move into my new house. I spent the night sleeping on the couch in the lounge. I woke every night with the feeling someone was there with me, almost hovering above me, floating quite close. It was that feeling you get when someone is right behind you. That was pretty weird.
It’s Not for Us to Choose
About three years ago my boyfriend of ten years and me were getting ready to leave the house to go out. We were heading up the steps out of the basement when we heard the sound of loud laughter. It was in a man's voice and it lasted about 6 seconds.
We stared wide-eyed at each other; then we both felt something touch the back of our necks. My boyfriend described it as cold fingers against the back of his neck and I experienced a dull tug on my hair. I felt it in my hair first, and froze. Then, I noticed my boyfriend hunch his shoulders, and he said, "Something just touched my neck!" I informed him I'd felt something pull on my hair but I was hoping it was just my imagination.
We checked the TVs and radios in the house and they were all turned off, and we don't have any children so there weren't any children's toys around that could have shifted and made the laughing sound.
It was the only time we ever heard that sound, and both being open to the existence of ghosts we just assumed something had decided to make itself known to us. Why? No idea!
We don't call on ghosts or demons to show up; we are not 'occultists'; we are Christians and have had more than our fair share of otherworldly experiences etc.
However, that incident was the last time anything supernatural happened to either of us.
So at the moment it is the end of a long line of strange occurrences over the course of my life, but I'm still reasonably young so who knows what will happen next. I'd rather be left alone, but as I like to remind people, we don't really get to pick and choose if an entity shows itself; it either will or it won't, of it's own choosing.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
I was getting ready for bed one evening. At the time, I was sleeping in the basement because it was summer and my attic bedroom was simply too hot. The way our small basement was arranged, my bed was against the west wall facing east, and I could see the huge mirror that stood against the south wall.
It was not very late, perhaps 10 o’clock at night and and I wasn't tired, just bored, so I decided to turn in for the night.
I had only been lying down for several minutes but was still wide awake when I saw a very bright flash of light come from the direction of the mirror.
The light was so bright that it illuminated the entire basement; it was bright as day for a few seconds. During that flash, I saw SOMETHING step out of the mirror (it's a really big mirror). My eyes were still adjusting from the flash light so I could not make out details, but this thing was maybe a little over 6 feet tall, had a vaguely human-ish shape (as in 2 arms, 2 legs, and stood upright) but I couldn't tell if it had wild, medusa-like hair or something on it's head.
It approached me till it was about 4 feet from my bed, and then we just stared at each other for about a minute! Then, it turned around and went back to the mirror, where it disappeared with another flash of light.
About that mirror: It originally came from an old mansion not too far from Milwaukee, Wisconsin that was being renovated. During the rebuild, many household items were discarded and offered to the workers. My father was contracted to do electrical work there and brought home the mirror and an old bookcase. Since then, there have been many people who have witnessed odd things in regards to that mirror, but not the bookcase.
And, I may be crazy, but when I moved out I took the mirror with me and I still have it, although I keep it partly covered, just in case.
Inner Peace Movement
I was experiencing some telepathy - thoughts of other people were penetrating my mind at this time. I sought expert help. I went to the Inner Peace Movement (IPM) in XXX in 1990.
IPM at the time had branches in Australia, New Zealand, England, U.S., Canada and other countries. The founder of IPM, Francisco Coll a Puerto Rican was based in Washington, USA. He visited XXX and I met with him. He told me, through his agents, that some 'energies’ cause paranormal activities.
As I was an expert in … evidence I wanted to objectify the process of communicating with these 'energies' to demonstrate the repeatability or otherwise of these phenomena. Whilst, without objectifying the communicating process the experience was still overwhelming, I knew I would be on more solid ground if I could somehow objectify any communication with these non-physical ‘energies’. The closest I came to this was by way of the energies moving my body when answering my questions by telepathy. If I wanted to elicit a yes answer, my body was pushed forward by these energies; a no answer and my body moved either to the right or left. For more information required, my body moved in a circular motion.
