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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsDU is a good place to ask this: how many people here believe they have encountered a ghost?
By encounter I mean see, hear, or feel the effects from. I do believe in ghosts, but in my 48 years I dont have anything clear cut. I do think my dead grandfather visited me in a dream. Since DU has a lot of level headed people, this is a good place for the question.
BrianTheEVGuy
(425 posts)that haunts the old building my condo is in. I saw him, my dog saw him (and got confused), several guests saw him and Ive photographed him myself with my phone camera and also with a security camera. Clear as day.
mvd
(65,352 posts)Ive had maybe a few things that made me wonder but nothing that stood out like that.
BrianTheEVGuy
(425 posts)Not anymore! Though I still dont know how to explain it. My religion totally allows for ghosts, which are known in Hebrew as dybbuks, but theyre typically presented as evil. This wasnt evil, it was just there (if that makes sense).
rickford66
(5,606 posts)BrianTheEVGuy
(425 posts)I dont post personal info on the interwebs had a bad experience with a stalker.
Glorfindel
(9,874 posts)elleng
(134,768 posts)highplainsdem
(51,454 posts)elleng
(134,768 posts)highplainsdem
(51,454 posts)I've read that they can sometimes be more aware of ghosts.
In my first reply in this thread, I mentioned a house one of my brothers had owned for a few years in the.1990s. Their daughter was only a few years old when they bought the house. They'd sometimes find her curled up outside the door of her bedroom in the morning, but she could never explain why she was sleeping there instead of in her bed. She didn't seem afraid of her room. They never heard her mention the bedroom door swinging shut or open on its own, which had happened with the master bedroom door down the hall. But a friend of theirs who was staying there one night, and I at another time, both caught brief glimpses of someone dressed in blue in the hallway (well, stepping up to the hallway from the landing, in the case of what I saw) within a few feet of my niece's bedroom door.
Karadeniz
(23,113 posts)elleng
(134,768 posts)Starting Kindergarten tomorrow!!!
no_hypocrisy
(48,062 posts)I had one unsettling experience.
My father and I had a contentious relationship. OK, we probably hated each other. I even sent the funeral home a red-and-white striped shirt with plaid pants to dress him to send him to the crematorium.
He died 10 years ago in April. About a month later at my home, I left the front door opened all the way to get my cell phone from my car, not even 50 feet away from there. It's a heavy wooden door, maybe 100+ years old. Probably weighs over 100 pounds. And the damned thing not only shut as I reached the car, it effin' slammed shut. And the door was in lock mode. And I had left my housekeys upstairs. And I was locked out.
I retrieved my phone and called the locksmith, who let me in again for $125.
As there was no wind, no breeze, no reason for the door to slam shut (and it has never done that since then), I can only guess it was my father, being vindictive.
rogerballard
(3,520 posts)no hear, no feel. See meaning: stuff moved, light switches, sinks running etc
mvd
(65,352 posts)Any kind of sensing.
maptap22
(127 posts)Buried my husband in the National Cemetery. When his headstone came in, I drove to see it. My son happened to be on vacation with his family. I found the stone and sent my son the photo of the headstone number #502 so that he could locate the plot when he went to visit. Seconds later, he sent back a photo of the hotel room they were currently in... # 502. 😳. Gave both of us chills.
How many hotels have a room 502? I know it could be a coincidence but I choose to believe he was with us and sending us a sign.
Spirits are with us.
But I do have an unhappy history with something that is attached to a friend.. Commonly referred to as a Demon.
Elessar Zappa
(15,142 posts)Once in a hotel room, middle of the day, I was reading in the bed, 100% awake. A woman appeared in front of the bed for about five seconds and vanished. Im a pretty big skeptic but I have no explanation for what I saw.
AllaN01Bear
(22,404 posts)and so is the main church.
gay texan
(2,731 posts)But ive been in places where i got some really bad feelings
The Blue Flower
(5,582 posts)We hadn't spoken for quite a while. It wasn't a good relationship. He died in Orlando; I was living in Seattle. It was daytime and I was alone in my bedroom. I suddenly felt surrounded by his love. It was the first time in my life I ever felt he loved me. Then I learned he passed away.
Skittles
(157,025 posts)but I LOVE ghost stories
WestMichRad
(1,559 posts)Skittles
(157,025 posts)highplainsdem
(51,454 posts)who've had such experiences won't bring them up unless encouraged to do so - and even then, often want someone else to go first. There are religions that tell their followers any such experiences are demonic trickery, which can discourage those followers from ever saying anything. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people so convinced this sort of thing can't happen, that it's delusional to believe in an afterlife, that they feel it's their duty to disparage and ridicule any such stories.
I don't find stories of scary ghosts nearly as interesting as the stories of contacts from loved ones who've crossed over that you're most likely to hear from the people who are grieving, but also from those who've taken care of the dying and helped their families (hospice workers, nurses) or had other experience with grief support.
A neighbor of mine died after a heart attack while doing yard work a couple of decades ago. After he passed, both his widow and his grown, married daughter experienced what are called ADCs, after-death communications - but they were reluctant to mention the experiences even to each other until months later.
Here's a web page about various types of ADCs: http://www.after-death.com/Pages/About/ADC.aspx
People at the University of Virginia have done quite a bit of research. See their YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/@uvadivisionofperceptualstu9909 .
And see the John Cleese-moderated panel in the video below...and read the comments on YouTube for those YT users' own stories:
wnylib
(23,657 posts)a few months ago so I watched it. Fascinating and thought provoking. Worth the time to watch it.
A few years ago, my aunt by marriage did some extensive genealogy research on her husband's family (and therefore mine). She put it into a self published book for our very large extended family and included family stories along with factual data.
There was a story about my paternal grandmother that I had not heard before. Not something that people were willing to talk openly about, I guess. My grandparents had a farm in a very isolated rural area. Grandma gave birth to 9 children and all but the youngest one were born at home, attended by a midwife named Grace who was also a good family friend. Like a lot of rural people back then, they never locked their doors. Friends and relatives felt free to knock and enter when they stopped by for a visit.
One afternoon Grace dropped by to see grandma when she was in the house alone. Grandma said, "I didn't hear you come in. Have a seat and I'll put on some coffee for us." Grandma told Grace about family news while setting up the coffee pot on the stove (before electric coffee makers). When she finished and turned back toward Grace, grandma saw her smiling silently while fading away and disappearing. The next day she learned that Grace had passed away in the afternoon at the time when grandma saw her.
GReedDiamond
(5,354 posts)...I was visiting relatives in rural upstate New York.
They lived in a 1700s era house which had originally belonged to the Pastor of the old abandoned church next door.
Behind the house, in the "back yard," was a cemetery with headstones dating from the 1700s to around the early 1920s.
My 18 y.o. cousin had a collection of occult themed books and magazines, and a Ouija board.
We used the Ouija board, and at some point, the planchette started moving over the board, spelling out answers to questions we asked each other, without us touching it.
We stopped at that point, and went to our rooms to sleep.
I had a rollout portable bed with a single sheet covering me as it was very warm that night.
Shortly after lying down, something started sharply pulling on the sheet, one inch at a time, until the sheet was down to my ankles. This took maybe 30 minutes or so.
At that point, I went into the next room over, and slept on the floor.
Nothing else happened that night, and we left the next day.
Dale in Laurel MD
(723 posts)In a bed-and-breakfast that, about 130 years earlier, had been a brothel. This was in (yes!) Tombstone, AZ.
2naSalit
(90,874 posts)In my travels I have encountered a number of them in different ways.
A more recent one, had been around for a while and the locals won't say anything about it until you mention to someone that you saw it. Apparently there was a ghost in one of the older restaurant kitchens I worked in, probably a cook or bar tender, nobody has figured out who he was. I first noticed him walking in or out of the walk-in cooler, the door opening and closing all on its own along with the sighting, just in the corner of your sight, a slender white guy in black pants and a white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black hair, not long. He doesn't say anything or approach or acknowledge anyone, he just catches your eye as he either rounds a corner or is going in/out of the cooler. Everybody that every worked there saw him. Once in a while you might get the feeling someone was watching you when nobody else was around and maybe a pan would go missing for an hour but nothing spooky.
About a block away there was a former bar owner who stuck around in her kitchen and bar area, everyone who worked there knew about her, apparently she was something of a prankster. I only caught a glimpse of her once but I didn't go to that establishment much.
I have had other encounters but they're really involved.
LoisB
(8,019 posts)HeartsCanHope
(493 posts)I stayed at my Grandparents during summers as a kid. They were renting a house in a very small town after moving several months earlier. My cousin and I had dishes duty one evening. I finished up the washing and I thought my cousin was drying the dishes in the kitchen area. I moved to the next room, the living room and started playing the piano and singing a song. My grandmother's little dog was in the living room with me. There were wooden sliding doors that opened into a bedroom on the left side of the living room. No one else was in the house. My grandparents, sisters, and other cousin had walked over to one of my grandparents friend's house for a visit. As I sang, someone began to sing with me. My grandmother's dog turned toward the sound of the voice by the wooden doors and began to bark like crazy. The hair on her neck was raised like she was scared. I called out to my cousin, but she didn't answer. I found out later she was already outside in the backyard feeding scraps to my grandmother's chickens. I felt a chill, and combined with hearing the voice felt terrified. I scooped up the dog and ran outside through the front door. Carrying the dog I found my cousin in the backyard feeding the chickens. I told her what happened, and when I asked if she was pranking me she swore up and down she hadn't. We stayed outside until my grandparents and other family came home. My cousin and I never told anyone else in the family what had happened. I was afraid the others would make fun of me and my cousin agreed to not talk about it to anyone. My cousin casually asked my grandmother what had happened to the previous owner several days later. My grandmother told her that the owner had died in the house. My grandmother knew her and said she was a very nice lady that loved playing and singing music.
I even asked my cousin years later if she had pranked me that day, and she insisted she had not. We also watched all the family return from my grandparents friend's house, so I am pretty certain I was alone in the house. I can't definitely say I believe in ghosts, but I do think something weird happened that day.
crosinski
(517 posts)We were on vacation in the hills of southern Indiana. We were staying in a house that used to be a log cabin, and I was on the second floor when I heard someone gently call my name. I turned around and saw the half formed shape of a girl or woman with long hair.
I immediately went down stairs to see if anyone had called me, but nobody had. I told my family what had happened. They believed me and were a little freaked out. Personally, I was more curious than afraid.
UTUSN
(71,913 posts)Here is my true story:
It's October and here in N. Florida. There is the promise of a "cold" front in the next day or two. (50° in Florida is a cold front, lol) I feel like telling my true story of my FIRST ghost encounter. I've had many since then, but here goes what happened to me when I was 21.
One afternoon I woke up to a young man petting my cat, Lucy. She was sleeping at my feet and seemed to be enjoying the petting. This was a crisp cold November afternoon and the sun was shining and the sky clear in 1982. The young man was in a red lumberjack shirt and jeans. His hair was blond, longish, parted on the side and swept over his brow in the 70's style. He smiled and walked toward the door and disappeared but I continued to hear footsteps in the old apartment where I lived.
I called out to my roommate, "Bridget?" But nobody was there. Later, when I told her what happened, she told me someone had called her name one night and woke her up.
Fast forward a few years, the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper asked for local ghost stories one October. I sent mine in complete with the address and my name. A guy called me and said he was a friend of the young man who had died in 1976 in a parachuting accident in Gadsden county Florida and he had lived in that same apartment. He said his friend was blond and always dressed in flannel shirts and jeans, even in summer. He sent me a picture of his friend and it really resembled the young man.
Fast forward a few years, I was working at a facility for disabled adults and the teacher wanted to tell ghost stories in, of course, October. He started. He said he was at a party on Bronough street a few years back.
My ears perked up. "Bronough street in Tallahassee? Was it 800 Bronough street?" He said yes and went on to say he and his friends were partying and through the front window, they saw a BLOND HAIRED GUY IN A RED FLANNEL SHIRT walking up the stairs and knock on the door. When they answered the door, nobody was there. Wow, then I told him what happened to me in the apartment next door.
Fast forward to 2003 and I was working as a nurse at a rehab facility with a patient paralyzed in a motorcycle accident. Well, we were talking about paranormal experiences and I told him mine. Then, he said he knew who it was and the other survivor of the accident was a friend of his and was visiting the next day. I met his friend the next day and he corroborated the whole story to me, where his friend lived and the description of him.
I recently tried to look up the parachuting accident online, but there was no record of it. I wish I had kept the picture the friend sent or got names.
That is just one experience. I lived in place out in the country where covers were pulled off, weird music came from one room, a bread box flew off the top of the refrigerator, apparitions were seen, and the lights flipped on and off. As my wife and a friend of ours were laughing about the lights one night, the light in the hallway flipped on. We laughed even harder.
NJCher
(37,199 posts)that this young man was corroborated by others to you in so many instances.
To my knowledge, that rarely happens, yet in this case it kind of fell in your lap.
Very, very interesting. Glad you shared it.
sinkingfeeling
(52,651 posts)in the picture. I really, really wanted for my old house to have been haunted. I mean there had been a Civil War battle on the property ( more like an Union cavalry charge) and I knew a couple of people had died in the house.
When I first bought it, it was in 5 apartments and very poor condition. I kept hearing what sounded like footsteps in the attic. One night, I got a flashlight, and crept up the stairs as quietly as possible. When I got to the top and threw the light around the cavernous space, there were two big raccoons!
.
AmBlue
(3,378 posts)We live in a 100 year old house, where one of the 3 previous owners died here. We have encountered ghosts several times, in a variety of ways. When my son was 3yo at 6am in the morning, we heard a male voice very clearly call his name (me, my husband, and our 3yo son also heard this). I had a burned out ceiling light that turned on and off multiple times by itself, and a stair closet light that came on without anyone going in the closet. These were all isolated incidents that stopped as quickly as they started. For about a year or two, in a space that we converted into a bathroom (it used to be a kitchen), something was loudly bumping into the handle on our shower door, nearly every day and sometimes multiple times a day!! I guess he or she didn't like our renovation. All our family, and many visitors heard this.
Other things happened after my Dad passed away. Mom came to live with me after Dad died and she live here for 5 years until she also passed away. In the 5 years she was here, something was messing with my make-up mirror. It's mounted on the bathroom wall and I use it every day. But after Dad died, some days it would work and other days it just didn't. Almost as if the bulb burnt out. But then the next day it would turn back on like nothing happened!! This also started happening to the fluorescent lights in the same bathroom (on a totally different circuit). It wasn't every day, but it often happened on significant days, birthdays, etc. Dad was an electrician and a master carpenter and could fix just about anything. After Mom died, the shenanigans with the lights stopped.
Oh and lastly, our security camera sees and has filmed orbs in my kitchen on many occasions.
That sounds like a lot, but we have never felt threatened or uncomfortable about it. It's just something that happens sometimes. Tho not much lately.
hauckeye
(700 posts)We were alone in the kitchen when I heard someone walking around upstairs. I asked her if someone else was here and she said oh thats just Mrs. X, she used to live here and died in the house. Apparently my friend was used to her!
Response to mvd (Original post)
bamagal62 This message was self-deleted by its author.
debm55
(30,909 posts)window. I went back to sleep. Two hours later I got a call that my father died earlier in the morning. This was in September 2023
duncang
(2,792 posts)First house we lived in had been a spiritualist house. Nothing ever happened there.
Second house the previous owner had hung herself and her dog in the garage. Only thing happened there was the garage door came open while my wife was cooking. But that could have been just because it wasnt closed properly.
Phoenix61
(17,347 posts)I rented a house in Alabama. One night I was watching tv and turned to look towards the bathroom. There was an old, very pissed off man, standing there. Some time later I was sitting with neighbors and we started telling stories and I shared mine. I described the old man and a neighbor who had grown up there said the old man had died on the toilet and his widow had moved to another state. I forget the name of the state now but the next time I saw the old man I told him where his wife had moved and I never saw him again. There have been lots of others.
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,817 posts)If I am near a cat that has died . If I havent seen the cat and dont know it is there sometimes I see its spirit first then when I see its body it looks the same as the spirit same markings and the collar its wearing. Cats wear thier collars from thier human companions in the afterlife.. I have walked up to a cat spirit by the side of the road thinking it was a cat dangerously close to traffic only to reach out to pet it and lead it away from the road thinking its a live cat then it fades away before my eyes.
The spirit looks like the cat looked in life at his prime. Further down the road I find his precious little corpse .
Other times the cat spirit is a blue white sparking orb around the size of a red rubber playground ball that can fly around fast and it is pretty bright too. It gets smaller as it gets closer to you .
Sometimes It is very emotional to me. It causes a sensation like a pain but its not like regular pain in my chest before I encounter a cat spirit.
And I have seen the spirits of my own cats when they pass over. It always moves me to tears full on crying seeing a cat spirit. I call Lady Bast and Lady Sekhmet to help the cat home to paradise whether it is my cat or not or a cat I never knew.
And I saw my abusive fathers spirit like 3 months after he died sitting in a chair but thats another story. I asked him what he was doing there and told him to leave me alone.
highplainsdem
(51,454 posts)solar panels on the roof and a nice inground pool...and a ghost that would sometimes make noises in the kitchen that sounded like pots and pans being banged around. The master bedroom door would swing all the way open, then all the way shut, with no draft to explain it. I once saw the shoe and lower part of the pant leg of someone climbing the stairs ahead of me, stepping up from the landing just below the second floor hall, as I went up the stairs there, a bit slow following my sister-in-law and mom upstairs so I could see how my niece's room had been redecorated. I was only several steps behind, but when I got to the top of the stairs and went into that bedroom my mom and s-i-l were on the far side of the room, standing there talking, and neither was wearing blue slacks with blue loafers, like what I'd just clearly seen. A friend who was staying there one night was giving her toddler son a bath in the bathroom by the top of those stairs, and was sure she saw someone dressed in blue walk past, but when she checked quickly, no one was there.
A house my family lived in for a couple of years when I was in my teens would have noises of footsteps on another floor - upstairs when you were downstairs, or downstairs if you were upstairs - fairly often when one of us was home alone. All of us experienced that occasionally. Never on the same floor, never on the stairs. Never when two or more people were there, no matter how quiet they were being so you'd hear any footsteps.
The night about 20 years ago after I'd learned that a neighbor had passed away unexpectedly, alone in his home, I was up late reading something on the computer in my bedroom when I looked around and realized a light was on in the living room, since the hallway had more light in it than it should have had from the computer screen and a small desk lamp. I'd turned off all the lights except in my room. I went to check and saw the floor lamp was on behind the chair my neighbor had usually sat in when visiting. There was a very strong scent of vanilla in the air, and no source for it. Gary had needed help getting groceries for a while the year before, after surgery, and when shopping for him I'd been struck by how much he liked vanilla, whether cookies or ice cream or Vanilla Coke. It was the one scent I would have associated with him. Anyway, all trace of that strong scent was gone by the next morning, and I never noticed anything like that again.
My sister once saw the ghost of the man who'd built the old house she bought in the 1970s. She described him and the clothes he was wearing to an elderly neighbor, who had a photo of him in similar oldfashioned clothes.
Lots of other stories, too many to tell, my own experiences and friends' and relatives. A neighbor who was widowed, and one of my aunts after she was widowed, both would wake at times in the middle of the night with the kitchen light on and noises from the kitchen as if their husbands were getting a midnight snack. That aunt's son, when he was staying with her, would also hear the noises in the kitchen. There are stories about ghosts of pets, too.
My last aunt, the last of her generation (not the aunt who heard the noises from her kitchen in Arizona; this was her younger sister in Kansas), passed away 10 days ago. One of my cousins, another of her nieces, has already heard her voice a few times, just saying my cousin's name, and heard her laugh, once. My cousin's never had experiences like that before. I'm glad she's heard her, since my cousin is very Catholic still and worries about Catholic myths like Purgatory (sort of a temporary hell). I'd told her that our aunt, who really knew how to party, was already partying on the other side. I hope her laughter convinced my cousin that she's fine.
These sorts of things are most common - and are comforting - when they're contacts from loved ones. They can be very unsettling if you don't have any idea who the spirit is.
Occasionally they can seem threatening. I posted a thread earlier today about what filmmaker Guillermo del Toro had tweeted about in recent days, which made the news - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10182050893 . But what seems threatening to one person might not seem that way to another. One of my favorite music producers, Tony Visconti, has written about recording at Chateau d'Herouville - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_d%27H%C3%A9rouville - where Bowie refused to sleep in the master bedroom, and Tony took it instead, though he felt it was haunted. When he'd been there earlier in the 1970s recording T.Rex, Marc Bolan didn't mind taking the master bedroom. But a young artist who was there fairly recently thought it was haunted.
Figarosmom
(732 posts)Of a guy in an old time sailor suit. I couldn't speak but I remember thinking "who are you" and getting a reply " I think i' m a brother in law". My husband was born when his mother was 50 because his dad went into the navy right after they were married and ended up captured by the Japanese and spent time in a prisoner of war camp. It made me wonder if maybe his mother had a kid by someone else maybe in her 20's.
OldBaldy1701E
(5,810 posts)The last place was the school where I used to work. Plenty of people had seen and heard stuff there, but I had to wait almost five years before I experienced anything there. It was awesome. I can relate it if you wish.
As a teen, I used to do a bit of 'ghost hunting' with some friends. Anyone familiar with the 'Maco Station Light'? Or 'The Flaming Ship of Ocracoke'?. There is a legend that says the Carol A. Deering can be seen on occasion off of Hatteras...
highplainsdem
(51,454 posts)OldBaldy1701E
(5,810 posts)So, on many occasions I was the last person at the school on any given day. I had a bike I kept there in case I wanted to ride around the area while I was working. It was around 8:00 pm that night and I was working on making DVDs of the Christmas pageant for sale in the student store. It was a bit tedious, so after the new batch was started, I decided to do the nightly lockdown. This entailed checking out the entire school to ensure that no one was in the building, then setting the alarm and riding my bike around the building to the entrance by my office, which did not have an alarm on it, but also did not have an outside handle of any kind. (If you wanted to come in from the outside, either someone had to open the door for you or you propped it open.) I did my rounds (on my bike. I used to love riding it up and down the halls with no one around.) After making sure that there was no one in the entire building, I rode to the front office, went outside the door, locked it up and set the alarm. I then rode around the building and came back inside. I put my bike away and went back to my workstation to check on the DVD burner.
I had been back inside about two minutes when I started to hear what sounded like two or three sets of bare feet running on the floor above me. My first thought was that the teacher who had a classroom above my office had two small daughters and therefore I had accidently trapped them upstairs, as the stairwells all had alarm sensors. Of course, I then thought that there was no way, as I had checked the entire school before I had set the alarm. I then realized that it must be some kind of spirit activity. I walked out into the hallway by my office and I heard a few faint giggles as the running got more pronounced. I went to the stairway doors and called up through the crack, "Now now kids. You know you are not supposed to be running in the hallways!" I then heard a giggle again and the running stopped. I returned to my office and started packaging the DVDs I had made. I heard a few other giggles and a few footsteps outside of my office door. I called out, "Yes, I am still here if you want to come in." I head what sounded like whispering and then the door rattled just a bit. I turned to it and smiled. Then, the sounds stopped and I did not hear them again that night.
That was the most active incident I had at the school. I did not worry about it, but I was told never to tell the students about my encounter. (I told a few anyway.) What I found amusing was the fact that I never had an issue walking around in that darkened school. I always felt a good vibe about it. So, its energy was not scary to me. I knew that some of the faculty would never walk around that place after dark. LOL.
highplainsdem
(51,454 posts)missed the My Posts notification; I saw your reply just now when I looked for the thread to see if any more stories had been added).
That was an amazing and very positive encounter you had with those spirits, and it does sound like they were very friendly, if a bit mischievous. You handled it beautifully.
I imagine a lot of people would have been frightened just hearing footsteps and giggling, as you did.
Was that what the other people who'd heard stuff there had experienced?
OldBaldy1701E
(5,810 posts)To be honest, I do not recall any specifics mentioned by others who said they had seen or heard something at the school. I do know a former employee there often told the story about one time going into the area that became my office and witnessing a teacher's desk chair spinning around under its own power for a few minutes.
However, most of the students did not believe any of this. Mainly due to this one time where the eighth level students had a Halloween party one Friday evening in their classroom and the Operations manager and myself put a small speaker in the ceiling by the bathroom so that we could mess with the students as they came and went. After that, they all decided that we were just pulling their chain and there was nothing there. I was kind of glad about this, as a few of the students had expressed a very high level of 'freakout' on the topic. I always hoped the spirits in the school also knew this and tried not to scare the students.
(A non-related story that this made me recall. We had a new clock system installed one year in which all the clocks were wirelessly kept on the same time. Included in this were new clocks in the hallways. These were digital, as opposed to the analog ones in each classroom. But they were also kind of boxy and stuck out from the wall. Some of the students were asking me about the new clocks and I had a brainstorm. Without actually saying this, I implied that the new clocks also had cameras in them. Suddenly there was a major drop in hall incidents. When the boss found out, he decided to just leave it alone. I did not ever say there were cameras in the clocks, I just sort of hinted that 'we could see more now'. LOL.)
After my dad passed away some items were moved around and no one else was in the house but me. I didn't believe before that happened and it was in the kitchen where he had his heart attack.
bif
(23,576 posts)There was this robin that hung around our backyard. Every time I'd go and sit on the patio, he'd come up to me and dance around my feet. I definitely felt it was his spirit telling me it way okay to move on.
megapuzzler
(476 posts)Like many others have said here, you really do get used to it. First hint was the night we moved into the house, and that night while all of us were gathered around the dinner table, my dad heard someone walking heavily around upstairs. None of us kids were paying attention as we were too busy talking, but he and my mom exchanged glances (she heard it, too) and he went upstairs to check it out. As soon as he started up the stairs, the walking stopped (my mom told us this story much later). Through the years we lived there, the most common sound was someone walking down the steps from upstairs, but both I and my then four year old sister and our cousin saw someone once. I heard and then saw someone out of the corner of my eye one night coming down the stairs and going to the kitchen. I thought it was my mom until I went into the kitchen to talk to her and no one was there. I raced upstairs and she and my dad were both sound asleep (I had been up late watching a movie). Another time my four year old sister and an equally young cousin were playing on the stair landing when they saw a man dressed in old fashioned clothes step through a closed bedroom door. They shrieked and ran down to tell us and both their stories matched. Years later when we had all married and left and my widowed mom lived there alone, she was in the upstairs bathroom when the phone started ringing. It rang a few times and then stopped. When she opened the bathroom door, the receiver of the phone in her bedroom was laying fully extended (remember those long phone cords before cordless phones?) on the floor in front of the bathroom door. She picked it up, said hello, and my youngest sister said, "Hi Mom! How's it going?"
Evidently the ghost didn't want my mom to miss the call.
Only disturbing story was one we only learned years later after we had moved from that house. To preface, after our grandfather who had lived with us died, my mom used his bedroom as a guest room until she finally moved away. We were at a family reunion at my brother's house, reminiscing about the ghost, when my brother asked if he had ever told us the story of what happened to his friend. No, we hadn't so he shared. He and his friend had come down from Minneapolis to visit my mom, and his friend had slept in the guestroom. He woke up in the middle of the night because something unseen was pushing him out of the bed. He freaked and left in the middle of the night and went to a hotel. As my brother was telling this story, my husband got a funny look on his face and told us the same thing had happened to him when we were visiting early on and I had stayed up late to talk while he had gone to bed. Meanwhile my middle sister was sitting there with her mouth hanging open, as the same thing had happened to her once when she had slept in the guest room to escape our other sister's snoring. None of them had ever shared the story of their experience before as it had seemed too out there, even though we all knew the house was haunted.
The thing is, if you see and/or hear enough ghostly happenings, after a while they really don't faze you.
Duncanpup
(13,524 posts)Lots of interesting stories. I like ghost stories a lot.
Even though I have not had any clear experiences (though maybe the dream where my grandfather said Id be ok counts), my parents had a few things happen
- when my dad was young, an ambulance fan turned on by itself
- dad felt a cold spot in the basement where his dad lived. Sensed it was him
- when I was young my mom and I were touring the Schifferstadt in Frederick, MD. She sensed that a spirit did not want her to be there. In fact, it does supposedly have a cranky ghost.
Duncanpup
(13,524 posts)OMGWTF
(4,321 posts)to toast him and his life. Just as we were "clinking" glasses, the stereo came on by itself on the other side of the house. I ran into the room and the rocking chair was moving by itself. My late husband was in the music business, so this was the perfect way for him to say, "Hello!"
Karadeniz
(23,113 posts)Varying sizes, frequencies and white to gold color. Energy cannot be destroyed. For ghosts, I think the best show is the Dead Files. They try to back up the psychics findings with local research. If you can't find it on tv, episodes may be available on YouTube.
NJCher
(37,199 posts)there is quite a bit of watchng at youtube if one searches under "dead files."
Thanks for the tip. Sounds like some fun watching.
My earliest memory is of a man "Fritz' who would came in the back door, with a fishing pole, and fish on a line. mom was doing dishes, and the kitchen got so bright, I kept looking at mom and wondering why she didn't talk to him, so I had to. She asked who I was talking to, I thought her and Fritz were playing around.
Another time, in 1982, my bff and I were walking home after babysitting in Dec. We were just being girls, when this incredibly bright light burst up from the ground, where the dirt road met the main road (a suburb construction site) we stopped walking looked at each other and like young girls we just started "Oh my gawding"! "Did you see that", and about a couple seconds later, a car came speeding by with no lights and swerving all over the road.
sage
Prairie_Seagull
(3,542 posts)In 69 while being baby sat by my 17yo cousin. My 2 other cousins and me were playing with a Ouija board and one of the folks we were "communicating" with was my grandfather. I am the 3rd in the line and bear his name. While doing this I had the worst case of goose bumps I had ever had. Hair stood up as well (what hair I had at 9 or 10) anyway the night progressed and eventually we all fell asleep.
Got up in the middle of the night, had to go the bathroom across the hall which was a small half bath which contained a toilet, a sink, above which was a huge mirror and that's it. Was checking my look in the mirror like all 9 year olds do in the middle of the night. haha Really just washing hands I guess and was grabbed by something and shaken around the room. I looked in the mirror and saw myself being moved. The grab was very specific, on top of the collar bone in the muscle above. I freaked and started screaming the episode ended no harm and I ran out of the bathroom and ran into the living room where my 17yo cousin was hanging out with his girlfriend. They had heard nothing and when my cousin got me settled down and I explained. He told me that was how my grandfather shook peoples hand, he would grab you by the that muscle with his left hand and shake your right. I still feel being moved around that room. Cahreepy.
AllaN01Bear
(22,404 posts)now at church, our deacon reports quite a few sightings . and other things related to ghosts .
the creek behind my apartment in sonora ca @ tick tock base , is considered thee most haunted 1 mile in the world . this is where all the gold came from in the gold rush.(there were 3 really) that paied the northern part of the us civil war. lots of suicides and deaths .