I was always an intuitive child. I didn't understand it at the time, but I got "feelings" about things on a regular basis. When I went to funerals I always felt a connection with the deceased. I would get thoughts of people, and things that I knew nothing about. My great-aunt still tells the story about how at the funeral of a man she knew, I, with a maturity far beyond my tender years, told his wife that she should not feel sad, because she would be with him again one day. I didn't realize it at the time, but I believe now, that I got that message from her husband.
The house I lived in when I was young was not old. I don't know much about it's history, but it doesn't seem to have much reason to be inhabited by spirits. However, I believe, as does my mother, that it is. All through my childhood I was terrified of being left in a room by myself. I would see what I always called "shadow people". Two of the most dominant shadow people were named by me "the Stairs Man" and "the Door Man". The Stairs Man, naturally, lived on our stairway. He could be seen as a man-shaped, almost solid looking, shadow on the wall next to the stairs. I saw him often. He was *not* my own shadow, this I know because he was there whether I was on the stairs or not. He would stand against the wall as I stared at him from the hallway. Sometimes he would move up and down the stairs. When, on the rare occasions I went downstairs by myself (I only would if I were *forced* to) he would sometimes glide down behind me, or stay where he was, depending on his mood I suppose. There was physical contact with him twice. I know that this happened to me twice, but I only remember the circumstances surrounding one of the incidents. My mother and her then-boyfriend were downstairs. They called me to come down for pizza. I was walking down the stairs when, after only about the third or fourth step, I was lifted up and carried down the stairs. I did not fall, I glided. I was deposited lightly at the bottom. It terrified me, but I didn't dare tell anyone until years later. I remember at the time that as scared as I was, it hadn't been the first time. That's why I'm sure it happened at least twice.
The Door Man resided in our entry way. We had a wooden door with a window to the space between the inner door and the outer storm door. There was a man in that space. He was an almost-solid shadow like the Stairs Man. He was a large man, where the Stairs Man was smaller. He always appeared to be wearing a hat...truthfully, he was shaped rather like Dick Tracy. He never seemed to be hostile, he just stood there. Sometimes he would move the curtain on the glass. It only went down half-way, but he would rustle it about on occasion. There was never any contact with him that I remember.
There were other Shadow People...and some Shadow creatures as well. I once saw one man in a solid form. He was completely black...a shadow, but this time solid. He had no face, no distinguishing figures, just a pitch black, three-dimensional shape of a man. Often at night I would peek out through my bedroom door into the living room from my bed. I could see small shadow animals running around. They almost resembled dogs, but appeared to be horned. Accompanying them were usually small lights of red and green.
For a time there was a woman in my closet. I thought she was a witch at the time. My parents had not yet divorced then, and they would have terrible fights, so they would shut me in my room. The woman would open my closet door and mock me that I couldn't get them to believe that she was there. Unfortunately, I don't remember her clearly. She may or may not have been a Shadow Person.
Often, from under my bed there would come a glowing lime-green light.
After my parents divorced, I once ended up sleeping in my mother's bed for over a year because I heard a deep growl from under my bed.
As I got older, the problems seemed to decrease. I stopped seeing the Shadow People, and by the time I was eleven I was staying home alone after school. The disturbances began again, as mostly sounds this time. If I were to go downstairs I would hear people walking, and sometimes even talking, upstairs. I would hear knocking at the doors when there was nobody there. Once I even had my best friend as a witness. She and I were on the phone when suddenly there was a horrible scream from downstairs. I asked her if she heard it, and she said she had. The room I was in got very cold, and I was so scared, I stayed on the phone with her until my mother got home.
The eyes of my posters in my room would often turn red.
Finally, my mother admitted to me that she herself had experienced strange things in the house. She had lived there from the time she was fourteen, and she described to me many of the same things that had happened to me. She hadn't had any experiences since she was a teenager though. One afternoon she had another one. She was home from work for a while, and she heard the people upstairs. She shouted up to them "Why are you doing this?" and left.
Aside from the antics of the spirits in that house, I've had other ghostly encounters. The night my dog was hit by a car I heard her wimpering underneath my mother's bed, and after that I would often hear her in the night.
One night while my mom was out on a business trip, and my father and his girlfriend were staying with me, I encountered a man. This was in that house, but I don't believe he was one of the resident ghosts. I was going to sleep on the couch, because for some reason I wanted to. There were two couches in our living room on opposite walls. It was dark, but not too dark to see. I looked across the room to see a man sitting on the other couch. I thought it was my father "Dad?" I called. My father did answer...but from the other room. The man on the couch stood up, and walked over to me. He kneeled so we were face to face. He smiled at me, and I, being young and terrified, rolled over and closed my eyes. Years later I found a picture of my grandfather when he was in his twenties. I was certain the man in the picture was the man who had been on the couch. He had died when my mother was in her early teens.
My grandmother lived in a house that was very old. I often had experiences there. One of which leads me to believe that my grandmother was as sensitive to spiritual things as I am. I spent almost every day with her until she got sick when I was five. We would go down into her basement sometimes to get canned peaches. There was sometimes a man down there shoveling dirt back and forth between two piles. He was dressed in black, and would usually either say hello to us, or wave. My grandmother would always talk to him, as would I. When I asked her who he was, she told me he was "fixing the furnace". At the time, that was an acceptable answer for me...but later I realized that people don't fix furnaces by shoveling dirt, and he wouldn't be down there doing it over a period of *at least* two years. I asked my mother about it when I was older, long after my grandmother had passed on, and she said there had been no man down there fixing the furnace that she knew of. My great uncle said the same, and no other family members knew anything about a man in the basement either. I don't believe he was a bad spirit. He never hurt anyone, as far as I know, and he was always polite. I suppose I'm doomed to wonder about him, because his secret died with my grandma when I was six. He may have even saved my life once. I fell down the basement stairs, and they were cement. It's a miracle that I didn't break my neck with the way I fell...but somehow I felt as though the fall had been softened, and I made it away with a few scratches, and a stiff shoulder.
I've had several other psychic experiences. Many dreams of places I'd never seen that I ended up at later on in life. Other prophetic dreams have come to me as well. I've felt connections with people. My father and I were on the phone one night, and he told me that I'd woken him in the middle of a dream in which I had called him on the phone, just as I was doing. His feet often bother him because of his blood sugar, and I noticed that my left foot had fallen asleep for absolutely no reason. I asked him which of his feet were hurting him the most, and he told me it was his left.
I believe in soul mates, and I am almost positive as to the identity of my own. He is my father's younger brother. There have always been strange similarites between us. There have been times when I've known what he was going to say before he said it, and sometimes it feels like we don't even need words to communicate. Many times I have been thinking to myself that I miss him very much, and would give anything to see him, and he shows up unexpectedly, almost as if he knew somehow subconciously that I needed him. I sometimes will be by myself in a room when I'll catch a strong smell of his cologne. I feel more at ease with him than any other person, almost as if he is the other half of myself.
I have some suspicions that my spirit guide may be someone rather famous. Many signs have pointed to it, but I am not sure. Here I'll call him "W". The first idea I got of his possible presence was when I was probably around ten or eleven. W was on television (he is dead, of course, but there was a special about him on tv). I recognized him not as a celebrity, but as someone I knew very well. Years later, I finally became acquainted with his work. I had just started to like it when I saw him again, for the first time since I was *very* young. I would hear him whistling to me a lot, and often could feel his presence nearby. He sends me thoughts from time to time, and has helped me find lost things. Very few people know who I think he is, because I don't, to be honest, like telling people about him. I hate being called crazy, and made fun of, and telling someone you know the ghost of such a famous person would be really asking for it. To this day, I very strongly defend him to anyone who would put his memory down. To me, it is like defending a dear friend. As I said, I am not 100% positive that my guide's true identity is what I believe it to be, but I have very strong suspicions that it is.
NEW STUFF:
There have been a few odd occurrences lately. I usually shower in our upstairs bathroom. I have always noticed (but never really thought much of it before) that the door often does not stay shut. This only happens to me, not to my mother or my stepfather. I will shut the door before I get in the shower, and make sure it is all the way shut and latched, but when I get out it is often open about an inch. I got sick of this, so I decided to lock it. Sure enough, it made no difference, the door was open when I got out of the shower. That means it had to have been opened from the inside. I always thought this to be strange, but didn't start thinking towards the paranormal until one night I got up to go to the bathroom, and found that the clock on the sink was turned around backwards. After I noticed this, I looked, and while I had been turned around, the door had been opened again. Now, often when I am in the shower the water will heat and cool on it's own, without any apparent cause. It also will sometimes have huge increases in pressure, shooting out at me with great force suddenly, and for no reason. Also, the shower curtain blows back and forth, as if by a breeze, but there is no breeze.
I had a dream last night about my deceased grandmother and my cousin's new baby. I believe my grandmother wants very much to be here on this earth with her new great-granddaughter. The fact that she can't be is very saddening to me, but I'm glad to know at least, that grandma is thinking of the baby, and watching her from the other side.
-P. B.
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