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Dreams of ghosts and demons yet to be?

gattino

gattino

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
2,526
There's a wordy but intriguing title.


As previously mentioned elsewhere the middle brother moved back in here a month ago, suspected of having bone cancer and awaiting, still awaiting, formal diagnosis and indeed prognosis. He finally heard this week from them, simply to inform him he has an appointment at a hospital clinic associated with cancer care next week...which more or less confirms the general picture must be as presumed.

So? Well.. several nights ago (the night before the phone call I think) I had the familiar dream, or rather dream theme, which I've reported to people at least 4 times in the last couple of years.. of an invisible ghostly entity grabbing me from behind in the house and me screaming the whole exorcist in the name of Jesus go kind of thing. I may recount them in detail in a follow up post but in summary.... The first one, in 2012, involved a young boy in the downstairs bathroom, the second an unknown entity in the kitchen, the third another unspecified invisible on the hall landing, the fourth was slightly different.. I''ll come back to the fourth. This week I had essentially the same dream again, and the violent ghost was that of a young girl...I was bashing her head in and all kinds trying to get her off me. Again, so?

Well to check similarities to the previous invisible attacker dreams I message searched my summary of them to you. The fourth, and til now last, one was rather unsettling. It was one where I felt like I was dragged at speed backwards from my bed, briefly opening my eyes to find myself lying in the hallway in the dark glancing up at the inside of an unfamiliar front door, before awakening a second time back in bed...and I speculated might I have actually had an oobe that night? Who knows. But it was the start of that dream which I'd forgotten and now has an unsettling resonance.....

11 June 2013 my report began "Again my father was in it. But mainly one of my brothers had died. My other siblings variously acknowledged and grieved the fact but I seemed rather unemotional, not sufficiently distressed, for perhaps a week, and then it began to sink in and properly hit me...my brother was dead...he was never coming back, and I began to sob and sob and found myself lying down in my bed (as I actually was), in the dark (as it actually was), curled up (as I actually was) and crying in grief and saying to him, prayerfully, if you live on, if there is anything to this, show me now, just show me...." (that's when the sensation of being pulled out of bed happened)

I obviously have every reason to have anxious dreams about my brother dying this week...but this was 30 months ago. I should say that from my recollection it was a different brother in the dream, but in the nature of these things I don't think that's relevant, as its all about language and association.

Anyway, rather unnerving reading those words now.
 
Here's a copy and paste of my summary of the first four dreams, to a friend in 2013:

Dream reported to Gadge on 30 May 2012:

"At home. I'm in the bathroom looking in the mirror when something invisible touches my back. Jump out of my skin. (........) I find myself back in the bathroom and this time there was no mistaking it.. invisible hands ran up and down my back. I shit myself.. ran out, telling my dad and whoever else. I don't know if its at this point or at the end I'm going round like the exorcist repeating over an over again "In the name of christ I command you to leave this place!" (This might have been at the end because I woke up actually wondering if the dream indicated a real ghostly presence in the house).

My dad has an idea...

..We look into the mirror and there we can see what's not visible to the naked eye... ..a young boy in a hooded top running round kicking or touching people.... I reach behind and grab/pick up (without tangibly feeling anything) the area were the lad is in the mirror... And I must have continued my pleas/commands for him to depart this plane because he whispers in my ear...That he's not gone to heaven, because there is no heaven."

Dream reported to Lee 21 December 2012:

"Every night this week a similar theme has been appearing in my dreams...it never involves the actual act, but a church/communion theme keeps popping up in different guises. My dad is appearing constantly in my dreams, though it never ever involves any reference to him being dead at all, so its hard to know what his appearances represent. (......................) The two dreams of most interest last night were one which was vivid, almost lucid as it was set in the real rooms of my real house at night..I was going down into the kitchen for something, aware it was a bit spooky when something invisible bodily lifted me into the air from behind and I was crapping myself and trying to scream out, aware this was a dream and willing myself to wake up...which I did."

Dream recording 25 May 2013:

"Scary dream...basically I'm being haunted by a creature..something invisible, on my back. Put it down to imagination. The sensation grew each time. I'm crying things, in the name of christ go, in the name of christ I command you to go, in jesus name go. The sensation's still there and objects start....I can't decide is this real or is this my imagination? Get out of bed and I'm fighting with it. I need to go to church and pray. (......) one of the priests is in the house...I'll ask him to do it...My sister is ironing or something and my mum is shouting up, and getting all irrational, I hear my sister shout "yer fuckin' bitch!" From my bed I shout out Don't you dare! Don't you dare say that! She's apologetic but now I'm kind of stuck because does that mean she's possessed too? I want to go to the priest..but is there a mass..not a mass, a blessing...to explain this thing. Scary dream, I'm going to wake up and really pray now."

Dream , 11 June 2013:

Again my father was in it. But mainly one of my brothers had died. My other siblings variously acknowledged and grieved the fact but I seemed rather unemotional, not sufficiently distressed, for perhaps a week, and then it began to sink in and properly hit me...my brother was dead...he was never coming back, and I began to sob and sob and found myself lying down in my bed (as I actually was), in the dark (as it actually was), curled up (as I actually was) and crying in grief and saying to him, prayerfully, if you live on, if there is anything to this, show me now, just show me....and a sensation came over me of something happening, and an invisible presence, once more, grabbed me from behind and pulled me at great speed. In my real bedroom I'd have instantly come into contact with the wall but in the dream sensation I clearly went far beyond that point and found myself at rest, still curled up in the dark, opened one eye, tried to focus and found I was looking at the top corner of hte inside of a front door with glass panels (like my own one actually is but somehow slightly different). I lay there for several long seconds trying to take this in as if in fact I had indeed just woken from a dream. I then opened my eye a second time, for real, and found I was in exactly the same scenario as I had just been, but the front door was replaced by the dark shapes of my own bedroom after all.

The invisible thing from behind obviously connects it to my previous dreams, as indeed does the fact it took place n my real house and so appeared to be really happening. The false awakening adds an air of eeriness to the whole thing. and above all the vivid sense of reality occurs in every one of these dreams.

I found myself contemplating if some kind of astral travel had actually just happened...perhaps I really was transported elsewhere, my brother's house perhaps?"
 
gattino said:
Here's a copy and paste of my summary of the first four dreams, to a friend in 2013:

Dream reported to Gadge on 30 May 2012:

"At home. I'm in the bathroom looking in the mirror when something invisible touches my back. Jump out of my skin. (........) I find myself back in the bathroom and this time there was no mistaking it.. invisible hands ran up and down my back. I shit myself.. ran out, telling my dad and whoever else. I don't know if its at this point or at the end I'm going round like the exorcist repeating over an over again "In the name of christ I command you to leave this place!" (This might have been at the end because I woke up actually wondering if the dream indicated a real ghostly presence in the house).

My dad has an idea...

..We look into the mirror and there we can see what's not visible to the naked eye... ..a young boy in a hooded top running round kicking or touching people.... I reach behind and grab/pick up (without tangibly feeling anything) the area were the lad is in the mirror... And I must have continued my pleas/commands for him to depart this plane because he whispers in my ear...That he's not gone to heaven, because there is no heaven."

Dream reported to Lee 21 December 2012:

"Every night this week a similar theme has been appearing in my dreams...it never involves the actual act, but a church/communion theme keeps popping up in different guises. My dad is appearing constantly in my dreams, though it never ever involves any reference to him being dead at all, so its hard to know what his appearances represent. (......................) The two dreams of most interest last night were one which was vivid, almost lucid as it was set in the real rooms of my real house at night..I was going down into the kitchen for something, aware it was a bit spooky when something invisible bodily lifted me into the air from behind and I was crapping myself and trying to scream out, aware this was a dream and willing myself to wake up...which I did."

Dream recording 25 May 2013:

"Scary dream...basically I'm being haunted by a creature..something invisible, on my back. Put it down to imagination. The sensation grew each time. I'm crying things, in the name of christ go, in the name of christ I command you to go, in jesus name go. The sensation's still there and objects start....I can't decide is this real or is this my imagination? Get out of bed and I'm fighting with it. I need to go to church and pray. (......) one of the priests is in the house...I'll ask him to do it...My sister is ironing or something and my mum is shouting up, and getting all irrational, I hear my sister shout "yer fuckin' bitch!" From my bed I shout out Don't you dare! Don't you dare say that! She's apologetic but now I'm kind of stuck because does that mean she's possessed too? I want to go to the priest..but is there a mass..not a mass, a blessing...to explain this thing. Scary dream, I'm going to wake up and really pray now."

Dream , 11 June 2013:

Again my father was in it. But mainly one of my brothers had died. My other siblings variously acknowledged and grieved the fact but I seemed rather unemotional, not sufficiently distressed, for perhaps a week, and then it began to sink in and properly hit me...my brother was dead...he was never coming back, and I began to sob and sob and found myself lying down in my bed (as I actually was), in the dark (as it actually was), curled up (as I actually was) and crying in grief and saying to him, prayerfully, if you live on, if there is anything to this, show me now, just show me....and a sensation came over me of something happening, and an invisible presence, once more, grabbed me from behind and pulled me at great speed. In my real bedroom I'd have instantly come into contact with the wall but in the dream sensation I clearly went far beyond that point and found myself at rest, still curled up in the dark, opened one eye, tried to focus and found I was looking at the top corner of hte inside of a front door with glass panels (like my own one actually is but somehow slightly different). I lay there for several long seconds trying to take this in as if in fact I had indeed just woken from a dream. I then opened my eye a second time, for real, and found I was in exactly the same scenario as I had just been, but the front door was replaced by the dark shapes of my own bedroom after all.

The invisible thing from behind obviously connects it to my previous dreams, as indeed does the fact it took place n my real house and so appeared to be really happening. The false awakening adds an air of eeriness to the whole thing. and above all the vivid sense of reality occurs in every one of these dreams.

I found myself contemplating if some kind of astral travel had actually just happened...perhaps I really was transported elsewhere, my brother's house perhaps?"
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I had a very similar experience around Christmas time when I was a patient on a hospital ward Gattino ... it was so vivid and I didn't actually wake up from it. I was awake through the whole thing so I must have been hallucinating .. I had to go outside to have a cigarette to calm down afterwards with a member of staff. This was after I called the police to report an attack on our ward ... after I posted this in the below link (I was still hallucinating at the time), I even said the lords prayer because I could see shadow demons around my bed. They gave me different meds to knock me out ..

The post here:

http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/things-that-make-you-go-wtf.26340/page-326
 
Swifty said:
it was so vivid and I didn't actually wake up from it. I was awake through the whole thing so I must have been hallucinating .
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Interesting/weird tale. I've never had a traditional "hallucination" as far as I've any reason to be aware, but I have - all in the last few years - had a number of false awakening dreams, some with clear elements of sleep paralysis (struggle to move my limbs and a presence in the room) but generally not. What they all have in common is hte fact they weren't real was indicated entirely by the fact of waking up a second time. In the first few moments of the second awakening I'm able to attest there is no qualitative difference in the sense of realness between the dream version of being awake and the...er.."real" version.

I say waking up a second time is the only indicator but of course the presence of the fantastical in the false awakening is also a pretty big clue it was some form of dream. The creepiest was when I woke up in bed in the morning, my fist resting on my chest and with an awareness of something lightly clenched in it...something oddly furry... I explored it with my hand to work out what I was holding and realised it was alive and growing from my chest, essentially a cat's tail! My eyes shot open, startled when I heard the disembodied voice of my brother (the one who had died in the dream coincidentally enough) say aloud "The eyes. The eyes follow you around the room." Then my eyes opened for a second time and I had to immediately conclude the last few minutes when I appeared to have already awoken, werein fact entirely a dream.

A more speculative theory is that perhaps in such moments one is both awake and still dreaming,as you were... a kind of direct opposite of lucid dreaming. Rather than the conscious mind waking up in dream world, the dreaming mind has carried over into the world of conscious wakefulness.
 
An update and an addition.

Today my brother finally had the appointment and its confirmed to be untreatable cancer. The details are important for what follows.

His principle symptom these many months is pain, primarily and initially in his back which started, along with his visible weight loss, last summer.

Today I'd just returned from going to request a repeat prescription for him and recommencing clearing out a bedroom to get it recarpeted, while my eldest brother went with him to the hospital...and it was he who texted to let us know the outcome. "He's had bad news I'm afraid, he asked me to let you know." This was unnecessarily opaque.. I assumed the meaning but could be mistaken in the assumption. "you mean its terminal?" I wrote back. He affirmed. My sister arrived later, naturally tearful and upset, to collect stuff for hm and with bags of shopping to take in...and she elaborated (having spoken to the eldest) that as they don't know the source of hte primary cancer they can do nothing and that its a matter of months, unless the source is his prostate in which case longer.

You may wonder why I'm telling you all of these private matters in such detail. Only this....

In searching my facebook conversation for the original account of the "my brother had died" dream from June 2013 I accidentally stumbled on a dream recounted to the same person one month earlier - May 2013. From the content and the timing (my elderly mother had spent the last two years going in and out of hospital and I was constantly assuming she wouldn't be around much longer) I naturally interpreted it at the time as being about my mum. But in the context of all I've just described about today its worth re-considering, and recasting.....

02 May 2013:
“Last night...or rather this morning I had a particularly striking dream. It started with me looking after the local chemist shop out of hours (I popped in there yesterday for a prescription so this maybe no more than that, but it ties in with the medical theme of the rest of it...) I get home. I'm waiting for the carers who see to my mum. She herself is sitting at the front door talking to the neighbour and tells me to do some chore, clearing something up in the back yard... I'm suddenly aware, and excuse myself because of it, of pain in my lower back. I'm in the living room and the phone rings....

During the course of what happens next my dad walks in with some shopping (he's always casually appearing in my dreams) and there's an element of waiting for me to explain what the phone call is about, or me to pass on the news. What's happening is the GP (or possibly the hospital doctor) is on the phone and asking me "what's this about you being on general anaesthetic?" No I explain, that's for my mum, they give it her when they put the tube back in. (Which they did in real life yesterday. She was apparently fine last night). The doctor gets hesitant...asks a few questions...the main thing here is I can barely hear him and have to keep asking him to speak up and repeat himself. He says the thing is this (the anaesthetic..perhaps by association medical treatment) would make her very tired and..you know...4 and half months . Was he saying she'd have to go through it all again in 41/2 months or that it was hardly worth putting her through as it would only buy her 41/2 months? My distinct sense was the latter...a sense corroborated by the fact the infuriatingly quiet and hesitant voice on the phone started sobbing. I found myself in the ridiculous situation of comforting HIM while wondering if he was tearful over his own private life or because he was trying to tell me my mum was going to die “

The parallels are obvious. The most startling thing in rediscovering this dream record today was that small forgotten line "I'm suddenly aware of pain in my lower back".
 
Also very sorry to hear your news, Gattino. I hope you have love and support close at hand to go with the love and support for you on this board.
 
Thank you.

I'm aware I sound unnaturally detached with my "my brother is dying, but here's what's REALLY interesting" approach. But its a combination of it not being entirely a surprise and the knowledge from facebook statuses past that there's nothing anyone can say, nor any worthwhile response to those that do. Above all of course I don't want to make it about me, as if I'm the one in need of sympathy rather than him. I find I can only confidently talk about it in detached observational terms... which on this forum means the fortean aspects of it.

The brother himself has long insisted - even before he took ill - that he has absolutely no fear of death, and more than that expressed bewilderment at people who did. He's also convinced of survival in some form. Whether such convictions ..er..survive the knowledge of the hour approaching is anyone's guess, as we can't experience what its like in someone else's head.

The thing of most interest in the terms of these forums is that when he moved back in here last month after being discharged with the news it was likely to be cancer his very first conversation with me was trying to decide what sign or symbol he would use to communicate his survival from the other side. I can't tell you what it was of course but realised it had to be something which wasn't going to be turning up around me ordinarily, or be guessed at by a tuppeny ha'penny cold reader. Nor could it be anything associated with other people. Eg it would be kind of useless if he were to "come through" via ,say, a pigeon...or I'd be reading his presence in to every pavement and garden! Similarly a balloon (the deceased friend) or cross/robin (my dad) have been taken.

I think we settled on a reference that is possible but suitably improbable.
 
My brother passed away last night. It will seem to some, perhaps, odd or cold that I'm writing this update in a casual tone on the day it happened. But as per the dream I find myself, for the moment, oddly unemotional. Perhaps it will sink in later as the dream suggested.

I update it now to express some thoughts and observations while fresh about the expected - and failed to arrive - fortean aspects of his passing.

What the future may bring, who knows. And we have the secret "sign" we agreed upon. But anticipating his death, and given both my interest in all we discuss here and his conviction about survival, I expected more. I actively anticipated I would at least have a vivid dream before his parting. There was none. That my sleep would be disturbed, that a farewell visitation of which I've read so much from others, would occur at the moment it happened. Nothing. At the very least that our mother, thanks to dementia unaware and uncomprehending that she has lost a son, would in the morning act strangely or say something aptly odd that would pull me up in my tracks. That never came to pass. The day is ordinary and his passing heralded only by a morning phone call from my sister.

And there is in that silence a certain loss of faith, if you can call what I had faith. Surely, some part of me thinks, if all these tales I read are true, here's where it would manifest for me and remove all fear of death. The newly dead are doubtless busy...but as we hear they are not always so, then why him, why now?

Maybe a sign will come in due course. But I'd have liked a clear goodbye. That would have settled it for me forever. Maybe.
 
Gattino, so sorry to hear about your brother. :(
Hugs, man.
 
Yes, every sympathy.

Your brother may not have been mentally fully alert when he died. He may have been heavily sedated to control pain.
I suspect that it may take some time for some people to "come to their senses" when they've died. He may not have been sending out any mental signals.Be patient.

I go to the Spiritualist church, but didn't receive any sort if communication from my much loved mother until about a year after her death.
 
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Something, perhaps minor and easily explained, did just occur now which gives me a moment's pause. It certainly startled me till I rationalised it away.

Speaking to my sister over the phone I was in my brother's room (he'd been staying here since his diagnosis) and absent mindedly picking up letters and documents from the messy cluttered sideboard there, occasionally putting them on the bed to read out..eg searching for his national insurance number etc. Just as absent mindedly as I continued talking I put them back on the side board. I turned back to face his bed and was jolted to realise I was looking at a book - which had not been there before - sitting in the middle of his duvet. A book I had lent him months ago, on the subject of Deathbed Visions. It was called One Last Hug Before I Go.

Now, rationally, we can assume I picked it up with the a couple of the papers unwittingly and unaware it was directly beneath them. But this is mere - if logical - supposition as I have no recollection of doing so and can't think why I would pick up a book in order to pick up a letter. It's almost certainly what did happen, but its a hell of a lucky choice and at least gave me pause for thought, however briefly.
13219898_10154824013778572_1005216117_n.jpg
 
So sorry about your brother Gattino and good that you're here talking about it and conversing with others about it too... that's a normal healthy reaction ... much better than keeping your thoughts all to yourself. It's very cathartic to talk about it.
 
Gattino: X .. plus there's no right or wrong way to react, you don't sold cold to me at all ... I'm sorry for your loss.
 
Truly sorry to hear your tragic news.

The symptoms sound not dissimilar to my brother-in-law's wife, who died from Non Hodgkin's lymphoma.
 
so sorry to hear this Gattino, remember to take time for yourself during all this
 
Swifty said:
Gattino: X .. plus there's no right or wrong way to react, you don't sold cold to me at all ... I'm sorry for your loss.
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That's absolutely true and I entirely agree on that. In fact, I've always been one to never cry at funerals and this includes when they have been for close family members. Yet, I'm always one to cry when watching emotional scenes in movies, so go figure. We all react and behave differently when a loved one dies and often when it comes to the death of someone who was very close to us, we sometimes just need more time than others to process it before the tears start to flow.
 
Thanks all for the condolences.

I remain strangely unaffected but there's no point dwelling on it, no doubt there'll be moments, and perhaps his funeral will be one. One of my other brothers - who seems emotional about the current loss - tells me he felt exactly the same when my dad died...being at his funeral and just thinking "why aren't I crying?" It clearly fascinated him just as much.

Back to the theme of this arena...I've just heard from my sister, who was with him, about the details of his passing. Nothing so dramatic as speaking to the invisible dead, but nonetheless he was both staring at the ceiling (in isolation I might put that down to loss of focus) and,more intriguingly, doing the much reported reaching out/up to something. A familiar description from accounts of Death Bed Visions etc. I did just google it in case there's a widely known pathological reason for this action in the dying, but all results are entirely in terms of the mystery it represents.
 
Bloody hell Gattino, that's ghastly news. It might seem asinine of me to point out that in time your loss will become more bearable, but there it is. I'm terribly sorry.
 
I was never close to my brother. And I haven't seen him for about 20 years. And in recent years he's even given up emailing me. I don't know how this might relate to Gattino's circumstances.
 
rynner2 said:
I don't know how this might relate to Gattino's circumstances.
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Sorry to hear that, about you and your brother. I guess you're wondering if my stated sense of calm detachment reflects a lack of personal attachment while he lived?

No, not at all. There were 5 of us - I'm the youngest, he the middle one - with generally two years between each. He certainly had all the growing up attributes of the middle child, but both as kids and as adults we all get along perfectly well. We're not bosom buddy close, involved in each other's private lives/socialising together, as siblings on TV often are, but there's never been any falling out between us either. And as I say he spent his last several months living back here with me and his mum. So it reflects no tension, no, that I don't feel as overtly upset as seems normal. Like I say the simplest explanation is that both his death and the outward mourning of others is all happening at a distance so I've had no reason to *FEEL* anythng has changed. I don't wish to paint my self a sociopath who hasn't shed a tear either!

Having said that though I've only had 3 previous encounters with loss before in my life and each time I noted my own swiftness at "getting over it", so maybe there is something in my mental make up. I'm the same with other emotions like anger... I can't maintain it, and a grudge is impossible.
 
gattino said:
Sorry to hear that, about you and your brother. I guess you're wondering if my stated sense of calm detachment reflects a lack of personal attachment while he lived?

No, not at all. There were 5 of us - I'm the youngest, he the middle one - with generally two years between each. He certainly had all the growing up attributes of the middle child, but both as kids and as adults we all get along perfectly well. We're not bosom buddy close, involved in each other's private lives/socialising together, as siblings on TV often are, but there's never been any falling out between us either. And as I say he spent his last several months living back here with me and his mum. So it reflects no tension, no, that I don't feel as overtly upset as seems normal. Like I say the simplest explanation is that both his death and the outward mourning of others is all happening at a distance so I've had no reason to *FEEL* anythng has changed. I don't wish to paint my self a sociopath who hasn't shed a tear either!

Having said that though I've only had 3 previous encounters with loss before in my life and each time I noted my own swiftness at "getting over it", so maybe there is something in my mental make up. I'm the same with other emotions like anger... I can't maintain it, and a grudge is impossible.
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You're not a sociopath Gattino and what you're having to deal with has been studied, it's been called the seven stages of grief, all emotions (or seemingly lack of) can and will happen, it's by no means correct because, again, everyone deals with grief differently. We were trained in this on the hospital ward I worked on because grieving relatives were sometimes part of our duties. I wouldn't attach too much significance to this link to yourself but some of it might help a bit, it's not a blue print of your mind, just a recognised pattern we all used to loosely work with .. again, sorry for your loss fella.. X ... by stating science, I don't mean to be cold or sociopathic either, your feelings are just as important.

As you've described your feelings at the moment, the first stage in this theory is to feel emotionally numb, the next stage will to feel guilty somehow and so on ..

http://www.recover-from-grief.com/7-stages-of-grief.html
 
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The hell I'd experience if my brother passed suddenly would be protracted. Yours has been brief, as reported online. You're inwardly disturbed by the rapidity of the grieving, yet your condition enables you to overcome the heartache sooner than others. We're all individually prepared in different ways for the experience of loss. Please don't feel that you need to be aggrieved at length to be 'normal'. You're you and deserve to mourn in your own way. I offer condolences, distantly as they are. Hang in there.
 
I'm amazed by the quality of the feedback this thread has received... and this from the viewpoint of someone who is currently on sabbatical in a post-graduate Psychotherapy/Expressive Therapy program. Rest assured Gattino, you're in good hands being in a forum like this one that's chock full of wonderfully sensitive and empathetic souls. :) Everything they are saying is right on target.
 
My sympathies go out to you, Gattino. May your brother rest in peace X
 
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