Our BetterMost Community > The Polling Place
Do You Believe In Ghosts?
ZouBEini:
Oh I'm not laughing, though I'm smiling because I love everyone's stories.
More! More! I want more! ;D :o
~Larz
delalluvia:
I've had some cat visitations. Both my cats from childhood died of old age in the apartment I'm in now and I felt both jump into bed with me and run down the hallway...except there was nothing there.
Once in my parents house, where the previous owner's son drowned in the bathtub, I was home alone asleep in a side bedroom. It was a weekday, my classes didn't start until noon and I was sleeping in. No one else was home, my parents had no pets, the windows were all shut.
I had my back to the open door and could hear someone walking on the cheap plastic-backed runner in the hallway, heading for the room I was in.
If anyone walked on that runner, your footsteps would make the plastic 'pop'. But it happened immediately as you walked, not hours later.
The steps came up to my bedroom door and stopped.
By this time I was wide awake and scared shitless. I didn't turn to see who - or what - was standing in the doorway. I was sure it was a 'what'.
I waited for a long time, sweating under the sheets and finally got the gumption to turn and look.
Nothing.
A couple of friends of mine have had visitations from dead relatives or pets, standing over the bed or pet collars jingling in empty room kind of things.
A co-worker had a spectacular experience some years ago. So spectacular I wonder if she was just pulling my leg, but she didn’t seem the type. Anyway, her story was that she, her husband and her 5 year old son moved into a townhome complex.
Moving-in day was a little off center. A workman had left his tool belt on the floor full of tools, but never came back for it and maintenance was busy replacing the doors inside their townhome.
The first night there, they had just laid their mattress on the floor and were collapsing on it to sleep when she said she was awakened by her husband suddenly jumping up and running toward the door yelling ‘Get out get out get out!”
Seeing nothing, she raced after him and asked what was going on.
He turned to her and asked,’Didn’t you see that guy?’
Turns out, he’d woken, and backlit by the hall light, he’d seen a man standing in the doorway carrying a briefcase.
Strange little things started happening, the cold spots, orb lights in Xmas pictures, things being left out of place, open closet doors, the feeling of someone brushing past them when there was no one there, her little son seeing a mess on the bathroom walls and a ‘strange man making faces at him’ when there was no one and nothing there.
And they kept getting mail addressed to the previous owner. Piles of it. She just figured the guy moved out and didn’t forward his mail.
Then, months later, she was watching the news when she heard the newsman announce that the body of a missing businessman was found outside of Oklahoma City. Yep, the name of the guy is the same guy whose mail she’d been getting.
She finally did some research and found out that the man had lived in their townhome. One day he had come home from work and someone was waiting for him. Whoever it was chased this guy through the townhome, the man was desperately closing doors in his pursuer’s face, trying to stop him/them, and the doors kept getting broken down – reason why their complex maintenance men were replacing all the doors in their apartment – the guy was finally cornered and beaten severely in the closet, then was dragged to the bathroom and killed.
As for the tool belt, she believed that a workman had a bad experience alone in their townhome and got so spooked he bolted and would not come into the townhome, not even to recover his tools.
My friend couldn’t move out, even as she felt the spirit/entity/aura get progressively more hostile, because they were trying to qualify to buy a house. Nothing much worse ever happened and they finally moved out.
I asked her if she’d ever gone back. She said she’d driven by once. The townhome was still vacant and the neighbors on either side of it had moved out.
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: David925 on July 06, 2006, 12:05:27 am ---Victoria -
See? That sounds very similar to what happened to me. But it only happened to me one time, thank God. I wouldn't wish this experience on my worst enemy.
It was really, really awful! :(
--- End quote ---
This is exactly what I've experienced, and what is known in the Sleep Disorders lingo as "night terrors." As a child, I would hear heavy footsteps on wood coming down a hall. The hall was carpeted, so why it sounded like wood I have no idea. And I would hear a deep voice, and malevolent laughter. And then I would feel something grabbing and shaking me - something strong enough that it had to be male. And I would be in a half awake, half asleep state and be telling myself as fiercely as I could, "Wake up. WAKE UP!" And then I would and it would be over.
As a young adult, it wouldn't just grab and shake me, but it would lay its entire weight upon my chest, and that weight would be suffocating - like it was going to crush me like a boa constrictor. Again, I would will myself awake. In my 30s, it morphed into a dark shadow. I'd "awake" to see it hovering there over me and be overcome with the sensation that I had to get out of there and quick or I would die. I'd run screaming from the room. Usually running into a door or furniture would wake me up. Thank God I never went through a plate glass window. Ed would come and console me, and I'd have no memory whatsoever of the running and screaming (even though I would be hoarse), just of the dark shadow that scared me so much.
I really think these are phenomena that happen to a small percentage of the population. I think it's genetic, and that something triggers it. They just don't know what that is. Stress? I don't think so - I've had severely stressful times in my life, like the period after my Mom died, where I didn't experience it. Sleep deprivation? I don't think so again - I've never been so sleep-deprived as I was when Will was an infant, and I didn't experience it then. I honestly think it may be sugar-related. I had three of them inside of a week - broke my toe on the last one running into the leg of an armchair - when Will was about 2 1/2. At the same time, I was hearing a lot about the South Beach diet at work. I wanted to lose 10 pounds for an upcoming event, so I started on it the next week. I've never had another one since. And I've never gone back to eating the large quantities of sugar-laden junk food since, either. Perhaps I should make a study of it.
I do think it's possible these are much more extraordinary events than just sugar-fueled, modified sleep-walking - I don't rule out that possibility. But the scientist in me keeps insisting that, like depression, it's a natural human (and maybe even non-human too?) phenomenon that happens to a select (!) few of us with a certain genetic makeup and the necessary trigger.
moremojo:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on July 06, 2006, 09:19:55 pm ---This is exactly what I've experienced, and what is known in the Sleep Disorders lingo as "night terrors."
--- End quote ---
Hey, Barb--
There is a tendency in my mother's family to experience sleep paralysis. My mother has a history of this, as does a first cousin of mine(my mother's biological niece), and I myself have been plagued by it, but not for quite some time (knock on wood). In my case, I would have the sensation of waking up in bed, being conscious, but unable to move any part of my body save my eyes. It was always accompanied by a sense of dread, of a great urgency to stir myself into mobility, as if something dreadful would happen imminently if I failed to do so. It felt that if I fell back asleep, I would never wake up. After some considerable effort, initiated by rolling my eyes and then eventually moving my jaw, my body would jolt into movement, with my arm flying across my torso, usually. And then, when mobility was unimpeded, the sense of dread would dissipate, and I would roll over and peacefully resume my slumber!
This would seem to suggest that a physiological, chemical, or psychological factor is at work in this kind of experience. I would often note that I would be prone to such episodes when I was sleeping irregularly, such as taking long afternoon naps. For some reason, I haven't had such an occurrence in what must be years by now.
My mother's experiences are often colored by a sense of impending danger, such as an intruder making his way to her room to do her harm. The last report she gave me involved just such a feeling, which was broken when she willed herself into rolling off her bed onto the floor--with that jarring sensation, the paralysis and sense of danger were both dispelled. Another, much earlier experience involved waking up and seeing a little man dressed in blue standing by the bed, staring at her; despite her terror, she could not move, and eventually fell back asleep. She doesn't think that incident, though, was a figment of her imagination--but that's another story...
Scott
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: moremojo on July 06, 2006, 10:02:59 pm ---Hey, Barb--
There is a tendency in my mother's family to experience sleep paralysis. My mother has a history of this, as does a first cousin of mine(my mother's biological niece), and I myself have been plagued by it, but not for quite some time (knock on wood). In my case, I would have the sensation of waking up in bed, being conscious, but unable to move any part of my body save my eyes. It was always accompanied by a sense of dread, of a great urgency to stir myself into mobility, as if something dreadful would happen imminently if I failed to do so. It felt that if I fell back asleep, I would never wake up. After some considerable effort, initiated by rolling my eyes and then eventually moving my jaw, my body would jolt into movement, with my arm flying across my torso, usually. And then, when mobility was unimpeded, the sense of dread would dissipate, and I would roll over and peacefully resume my slumber!
This would seem to suggest that a physiological, chemical, or psychological factor is at work in this kind of experience. I would often note that I would be prone to such episodes when I was sleeping irregularly, such as taking long afternoon naps. For some reason, I haven't had such an occurrence in what must be years by now.
--- End quote ---
I actually experienced this once. A classic case. I took a nap, then suddenly came awake, but I was unable to move. I had read about other people experiencing this so I waited for the dread, then for the ghosts, then for the aliens. There was nothing. Just me laying there, unable to move. Finally, I decided that I had awoken in some strange sleep pattern I wasn't supposed to and if I went back to sleep, my condition would pass. So I did and it did. :)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version