Failing Relationship/Haunted House?

[henry]

I should explain that this has been very difficult for me to approach for a number of reasons – because, it records events in my life that were very distressing, both for the sheer disquiet I felt due to the phenomena experienced, and also because it follows the final disintegration of my relationship with my then-wife and involved our newborn daughter. As the two sequences of events occurred (partly) in parallel I find it hard to believe that one did not influence the other.

Ill refer to my ex as Helen, and to our daughter as P. P was born in early April 2004, when Helen and I shared a rented terraced house in Prestwich, North Manchester.

First Encounter
I have no date for the first episode, but it would be about the third week of April 2004. It was only after subsequent incidents that I realised I ought to be making notes.

I was asleep in the downstairs lounge of the house with P in her small travel cot in the same room, Helen was asleep in the bedroom upstairs – I was on a night-shift with P to give Helen a break.

At some point in the night I found myself rousing from an incredibly deep sleep on the sofa, my face pressed into the cushions on the back. It felt like I was rising from the depths of supreme exhaustion (I must have been really tired). As I gradually surfaced I was aware of footsteps coming down the stairs, during the few moments they took to reach the bottom they became so thunderously loud it sounded like 100 people running, a stampede. I heard and felt them reach the bottom of the stairs and charge through from the dining room into the lounge where I was. At the very last moment I pulled my face away from the cushions of the sofa and cried out or rather gave out a terrified moan. There was nothing in the room and no sound was heard. Perturbed, but being a rational guy that seldom encounters the paranormal I reasoned that I must have dreamt it and roused myself from my dreams with the cry.

I checked on P and turned back into the sofa and fell asleep.

Later on I became aware that I was awake and facing the other way, ie outwards, with my right arm hanging off the sofa. I suddenly became aware of a figure leaning over me and reading the words of the tattoo on my right inner forearm. I jerked fully upright but there was nothing and no one there.

There then occurred another similar incident to the one above that I have no details of.

Finally, I lay there, half-awake, half-asleep and got the distinct impression of a woman walking into the room from the kitchen and walking right up to me and saying “Are you alright?”

At this point I got P and we went to sleep upstairs.

24 april 2004
I was once again asleep on the sofa in the lounge with P in her travel cot next to me on the floor. I gradually roused from sleep with the impression that a woman had been standing over P and I, as if she had just come in from the kitchen. It felt like she had been there for a long time just watching us. I had a visual impression of a woman in her late 30s or maybe her 40s with huge hair, parted in the middle in two big bunches on either side.

4 may 2004
At about 6pm I arrived to the house after work, pulling up across street as there was a car already parked immediately outside it. I saw Helen in the front room of the house (the dining room and not the lounge), at the back of the room by an old glass cabinet we had, it looked like she was getting something out of it even though it was always empty, or maybe cleaning it. She waved at me and I waved back, still in the car. I got out, crossed the street and walked up the drive expecting the door to be opened, but it wasn’t. I knocked quietly assuming Helen knew I was there. A moment passed and through the opaque glass window in the door I saw Helen emerge down the stairs and open the door. She said she had been upstairs the whole time and hadnt seen me.

11 may 2004
Helen and I were sat on the sofa in the lounge watching a VHS of Saturday Night Live while P slept in her little cot in the same room. Again, being incredibly tired I was drifting in and out of sleep. There was a small bar across the room from where we were sat, behind and to the right of the TV. When I say bar, it was actually a section of an antique pub bar we had got from a second-hand place along with pretty much all the furniture in the house (were both charity shop hawks). At various points during the show I became aware of the top of a childs head visible above the level of the bar, as if someone was stood behind it. It was incredibly terrifying and I still to this day have not told Helen what I saw, only that I was deeply disturbed by it. Again, Im dealing in impressions, it seemed to be the tousled head of a 8- or 9-year-old lad. It remained there through various falling-asleeps and awakenings.

21/22 may 2004
Again I was on a night-shift downstairs with P while Helen got some sleep upstairs. At 4am P awoke and was hungry. Even then she was an incredibly well-behaved kid, and never used to cry, just grumble a little. I prepared a bottle of milk in the kitchen and came and sat on the sofa and fed her. We were like this for about 15 or 20 minutes as she drank from the bottle, had a little rest, drank some more.

The room had been in total stillness and silence for a while when suddenly Ps Fisher Price clockwork TV sprang into life and began playing its nursery rhyme music and spinning its pictures on the “screen”. It didnt just stutter, it came on strong as if had just been fully wound up. I looked at it horrified and waited a moment for it to stop. When it showed no signs of doing so P and I shot upstairs. Helen awoke to find me crying my eyes out, I was aware that my mouth was making a horrific petrified square shape that I couldn’t do anything about. I don’t recall ever being this afraid of anything in my life.

I explained what had happened and Helen said the Fisher Price TV had come on for her a couple of times that day and played a few notes and that it was probably just air movement that caused the mechanism to play. She also said I needed to go back downstairs and get Ps changing things for the remainder of the night.

Eventually I went down. The room was silent and still. I got the changing mat and box, which were sat right next to the musical TV set. While I was picking them up the toy TV came on again for 3 notes and stopped.

6 july 2004
I was lay in the upstairs bedroom on my own during the day, mid-afternoon. I was lying upside down on the bed and facing the door half asleep when I became aware of someone walking through the open door and between the foot of the bed and Ps cot to the window and saying to me “You can get up now.” I jerked awake and of course there was no one there. The impression I had was this it was the same woman.

Final Encounter
At some point over the next week Helen and I were in bed in the upstairs bedroom. It was about 7 or 8am. I was awake and Helen asleep, as usual. Helen turned over and the shape of her hair on the pillow, was that of the woman I had had the visual impression of. It was centre-parted and in sleep had been puffed out to resemble an old-fashioned hairstyle.

Not long after this Helen left me and all of our lives became massively more complicated as some of you Im sure can imagine. P is now an extremely articulate 2-and-a-half-year-old who has, through unswerving determination on my part, a firm attachment to both Helen and I. In terms of these events Ive never had anything remotely similar occur before or since.

Some points:
·These events were reconstructed from notes made in my (ever-present) notebooks of the time, which in hindsight became particularly fixated on ghosts and hauntings over this period

·Mostly these events happened when I was half-asleep or susceptible to exhaustion, at a time in my life when Ive arguably never been so exhausted. However I was able to realise that the quality of these events was markedly different from other dreams etc, half-awake states that Ive experienced

·The house was full of crazy ephemera and the furniture was all old stuff. It occurred to me that the sofa may have been haunted. However, before P was born I had spent a few nights on it, off and on, with no problems

·Even though I refer to it as our house, I own a flat in the city centre and we frequently (2 nights a week, say) stayed over there with no such events

·One of the things I brought to the house for Helen was a pair of huge (18”) Spanish Dancer figures, kind of kitsch, a guy and a girl. The girl dancer seemed to have a similar hairstyle to the one I “saw” on the woman, and where the Dancers were positioned was on the kitchen side of the lounge

·Long-standing neighbours and landlord reported absolutely no history of any disturbances

·It occurred to me that something with a little amount of energy to wield may be able to influence people when they are in states of suggestibility (half-asleep, plain exhausted etc) or may, under the correct conditions, be able to physically influence a clockwork mechanism, for instance

·That house was overrun with huge spiders, which was unsettling as were both arachnophobics. It seemed that several times a day we had to battle huge spiders on walls, doors, beds, clothing, Ive never known anything like it

·When I first brought these things to light to Helen she said that she had “felt things” in the house. However, she was not a party to any of the events as I experienced them

·Later if occurred to me that Helen kept Ps health records on a shelf under the bar – and that this could in some elliptical way be related to the vision of the child (although it felt like it was a boy).

 

[stu neville]

Thank you for the accounts, Henry - and sorry to hear of your distress. Never a good time .

We used to have a Fisher Price clockwork television that would suddenly spring into life, too - it freaked me out like hell to start with, but after a while I worked out that the mechanism was prone to sticking. If the room warmed up, just a little, it would often start up.

I had all sorts of weird sensations (and incredibly vivid dreams) when our eldest was a newborn. We were at the time living in an old cottage in a rural area, with many dark corners and nooks, which helped no end . One thing I won't do is ascribe all of the things I felt to sleep-deprivation, though - Mrs N and I both independently saw odd shadows in one part of the house, and the bathroom had a decidedly strange atmosphere: not oppressive, just intense. Perhaps the presence of a new baby, coupled with being seriously run-down and terminally knackered leaves you receptive to things you wouldn't normally be.

Ghosts are sometimes ascribed to echoes of extreme emotion - perhaps emotional crises put people on the right wavelength to pick the echoes up?

 

[zoltan_g]

I had all sorts of weird sensations (and incredibly vivid dreams) when our eldest was a newborn. We were at the time living in an old cottage in a rural area, with many dark corners and nooks, which helped no end . One thing I won't do is ascribe all of the things I felt to sleep-deprivation, though - Mrs N and I both independently saw odd shadows in one part of the house, and the bathroom had a decidedly strange atmosphere: not oppressive, just intense. Perhaps the presence of a new baby, coupled with being seriously run-down and terminally knackered leaves you receptive to things you wouldn't normally be.

It's funny, my wife and I experienced some odd things around our old house when our first child was born.
We lived in an old house that was converted from an old village sports pavillion at the time.

A couple of days after coming home with our daughter we began to hear the sound of another baby crying, we both heard it very clearly on different occasions and in different locations in the house.
We found it quite creepy to be honest.

We also both began to see shadowy figures in doorways. My wife called me on more than on occasion after hearing a voice that she thought was mine.

 

[glamour_dust]

I remember when my baby sister was born and I was 7 years old. My granny was babysitting myself, brother and the infant one night, and we the older kids were just playing around and amusing the baby. We had a fisher price music toy that played when you pulled a string taut, which gradually shortened until the string wound back up and then the music would stop. I distinctly remember pulling it myself, not even all the way, and playing it for the baby until the string was completely rewound and the music stopped. Granny and brother saw me do it. We then all decided to go downstairs because baby wanted milk. While in the kitchen we heard music and were each quite surprised. I remember how even my granny crept gingerly up the stairs to determine the cause. On the floor in the upstairs hallway was the toy, playing away to its hearts content with the string pulled all the way out. It shouldn't even have been there because I clearly remembered leaving it in the bedroom we were in before, and it definitely should not have been playing. We all stared at it for a long moment, but being the precocious young thing I was I marched up to it and put it back in the bedroom, admonishing it for being naughty. What I remember most about the incident though was the utter bewilderment on granny's face mixed with a hint of fear that even my 7 year old mind could discern. Nothing at all was said about the incident as far as I recall, but I retained a curious unease about such musical toys for a long time. Fortean phenomenon or strange physics at work I'll never know.

 

[TheQuixote]

HenryFort, I'm sorry to hear about your experiences My friend had a whole sack of weirdness happen to her in her house when her second daughter was born. There had been a lot of disruption leading up to the birth and after and I was there during one incident although I didn't see anything happen, I saw my friend's reaction to it and that spooked me.

I'll explain it tomorrow when I have more time.

 

[silvereye777]

While I can't explain all of the phenomena you mentioned, I think some of them could be sleep paralysis. When I was about twelve I used to wake up in the middle of the night paralyzed and feel presences and see people around me. This usually happens when your mind wakes up during the dreaming stage of sleep but your body is still asleep.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Great account, HenryFort!
A possibility may be that 'Helen' may have been a sleep-walker, and came down to check on you. By the time you woke up properly, she'd probably gone back upstairs.
If it was a ghost, it wasn't evil - it did ask you if you were OK.
The clockwork toy - those clockwork devices do have a tendency to stick and then go off at random times. Happens all the time - I've experienced it myself with wind-up alarm clocks and toys.
I can't explain the other things that happened, such as the small boy behind the bar or the illusion of 'Helen' being in the lounge when she was upstairs.

 

[frank_poulankh]

Thank you for sharing this fascinating and moving story from what must have been a devastating time in your life. I hope things are going better for you now.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Let me recommend the various writings of the late Fortean, paranormalist, psychical researcher and (especially) psychoanalyst Dr. Nandor Fodor. He not only theorized but documented a strong connection between psychosexual tensions and hauntings.

 

[henry]

Finally getting back on some of these points:

We used to have a Fisher Price clockwork television that would suddenly spring into life, too - it freaked me out like hell to start with, but after a while I worked out that the mechanism was prone to sticking. If the room warmed up, just a little, it would often start up.

I hear you on this, and I did try to rationalise at the time. The fact that Helen said she had had the same thing happen to her that day supports this. However, during the separation I got custody of the F-P TV and can say that in the subsequent 2 years there has never been a recurrence of it coming on by itself.

Also, and this may not make much sense to anyone else, until a few months ago I had not actually had a TV since 1991 when I left university, I just never got one and over the years became more staunch about it. There was a TV in that house, but it wasnt mine, and I was ambivalent about it. I felt that, of all the kids toys that we had that could have sprung to life at 4am with the predictable effect, the TV was somehow a reference to me, displaying knowledge of my life. I explained that to Helen at the time and she couldnt follow my logic, but I did feel that.

While I can't explain all of the phenomena you mentioned, I think some of them could be sleep paralysis.

Ive never actually experienced S-P, as I understand it. Helen used to suffer from it every few months, the classic scenario but with no malevolent visitations. The hypnogogic and hypnopompic states I think were clearly factors, but in the sense that they made me more receptive to whatever caused these events, rather than them being the causes. But I dont rule that out, either.

A possibility may be that 'Helen' may have been a sleep-walker, and came down to check on you.

Thatd never actually occurred to me, however she wasnt there when I sprang off the sofa at 1000ft/sec. But on this subject, I do have two notions about the causes of the events:

·That somehow these events were an externalisation from Helen - subconsciously or otherwise

·That the arrival of a newborn baby and possibly the growing tension in the house caused something to stir and take an interest, if fleetingly, in those involved

I hope things are going better for you now.

Well the inexplicable phenomena has eased off a little. It was a hard one to write out, as I didnt really want to go back to that time at all, but of all the possible ways the situation could resolve itself, I think it worked out the best for all parties, particularly the little one, who is just incredible and a very happy kid, almost two-and-a-half and the image of me!

 

[Richard_Cheese]

I know a family who went through a lot of strange activity,and eventually split up.
I don't know if the weird stuff had anything to do with it but it definitely added to the stress of the situation.
I often wondered if the strange things were a product of the stess or if it was causing the stress to some degree, hard to tell.
All I know is the more stuff that happened the worse the family situation got,or vice versa.
Lots of arguing,headaches and accidental injuries all close to the instances of strangness.
Things would "fall" off shelves that should have broken but didn't, and sounded like they were thrown or dropped hard but were never damaged or far from the shelves.
A dark shape(s) like 3-d shadows moving through the house, sometimes floating and sometimes moving very fast.
At tims they said it looked like a persons shape and other times like a large dog running through the room into the hall but always disappearing
before they could catch up with it.
Sometimes they saw people in the house when no one should have been there,and hearing voices when they were sitting quietly reading or resting on the sofa or in bed but awake.
both the male and female saw the same stuff,sometimes apart,other times together. They had several cats and dogs that stayed outside and 2 cats and 1 dog died during this period, they showed no signs of being ill but could have been done in by a neighbor or something.
All I know is I knew them fairly well and I saw some of the stuff myself when I would visit , which I did less of after seeing the dark thing and hearing sounds in the house when all three of us were outside at the time.
They broke up and divorced after a few months living there after about 12 years of marriage.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I trust the following story won't be considered too off-topic, since it relates directly to sexual stresses in relationship to hauntings.

I have no reason to believe that the follwing report isn't authentic, or merely an Urban Legend, since I heard it directly and in-person from a woman who was a member of the New Zealand church involved, who'd learned it from her pastor, the main witness. I heard the details around 35 years ago, apparently within weeks of the original events.

The Baptist pastor received a call from a young married couple who were but occasional attendees at his church. They complained that their children were plagued by "Faces" which appeared around them in their bedrooms at night. Moreover, the parents themselves had several times seen the Faces while in the children's bedrooms.

When the pastor arrived at the home the parents wanted him to see the Faces.

"I'm much more interested," said the pastor, "in working on the obvious problems with your marriage."

The counselling session proved successful. The couple re-committed to their marriage vows, and just as they clinched in a romantic kiss, voices erupted from the children's bedrooms:

"Mommy! Daddy! The Faces are GONE!"

 

[Malfinka1]

At about 6pm I arrived to the house after work, pulling up across street as there was a car already parked immediately outside it. I saw Helen in the front room of the house (the dining room and not the lounge), at the back of the room by an old glass cabinet we had, it looked like she was getting something out of it even though it was always empty, or maybe cleaning it. She waved at me and I waved back, still in the car. I got out, crossed the street and walked up the drive expecting the door to be opened, but it wasn’t. I knocked quietly assuming Helen knew I was there. A moment passed and through the opaque glass window in the door I saw Helen emerge down the stairs and open the door. She said she had been upstairs the whole time and hadnt seen me.

Okay, this "simulcra" phenomena absolutely terrifies me. You hear about it a lot in hauntings....the victim thinks they're seeing their wife/husband/child/mother but turns out it was just a replica. WHAT IS THAT?? Has anybody ever heard an explanation for how and why "spirits" do this? I never have in all my reading.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Counterfeit

I've just had this (to me) bone-chilling thought that "counterfeit" may be a more operative word here than "simulcra" or "replica."

 

[Richard_Cheese]

Maybe the entity wants them to come in. Few people would go in if they saw a gargoyle walking through the house.
Who knows what the real purpose could be?

 

[henry]

Okay, this "simulcra" phenomena absolutely terrifies me. You hear about it a lot in hauntings....the victim thinks they're seeing their wife/husband/child/mother but turns out it was just a replica. WHAT IS THAT?? Has anybody ever heard an explanation for how and why "spirits" do this? I never have in all my reading.

To be honest, of all the events related to this, that one was the least terrifying. Maybe because of the distance involved - I was in a car, "Helen" was in a house across the street - so it wasnt like she was standing right in front of me. Was it a trick of the light, a trick of the mind? Was it Helen playing a trick, did she wave and then dart upstairs? I dont believe that for a moment, but its a possibility.

 

[PeniG]

The doppelganger, fetch, or forerunner seen by family members in most cases is a benign, even mundane phenomenon, and may be read as an astral projection, reflection, or simple time muddle.

It's only when you see your own fetch that it's a harbinger of death, and Goethe saw his twice (coming and going) without any ill effect.

Granted, one of the most chilling literary devices of all is the "evil twin" or the entity masquerading as someone familiar, but the image of Helen did nothing menacing.

I'm afraid I have characterization problems with Mr. Radio's counseling story. A deep-seated marital problem is solved - if it is solved - gradually, over time, not kissed away even after the most expert counseling session; and these difficulties leave scar tissue across even the deepest committments.

I'm afraid you'll just have to trust me on that one.

I don't call your FOAF a liar, but it's in the nature of stories, even true ones, to simplify and tidy up over time.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I'm afraid I have characterization problems with Mr. Radio's counseling story. A deep-seated marital problem is solved - if it is solved - gradually, over time, not kissed away even after the most expert counseling session; and these difficulties leave scar tissue across even the deepest committments. I'm afraid you'll just have to trust me on that one.

With all respect, Peni, I have to disagree with you on this one, since your view disagrees with the two religious traditions in which I was raised - Roman Catholic and Baptist. Christian History is a cataloogue of IMMEDIATE healings, from St. Paul onwards. Christian healings are NOT slaves to time, since God works entirely outside of that continuum.

And I doubt that this can be considered a FOAF tale either, since I was but one step from the original witnesses and the readers of my post merely two.

Again, I apparently heard the details within weeks of the events, "with the glory still on the rose," and made notes at that time.

Very Sincerely,

George Wagner (Cincinnati, Ohio)

 

[OldTimeRadio]

The church in question is located in Dunedin. Alas, I don't know the name of the specific congregation. The two main Baptist churches there are Hanover Street and Dunedin City.

It had been the home church of my own pastor, Dr. George Munro, before he emigrated from New Zealand to the United States to become professor of English at the University of Kentucky. (It was only afterwards that he felt a call to the ministry.)

 

[PeniG]

Ah, sorry. If we're entering the realm of miracles my experience is irrelevant. And I don't say that snarkily - if miracles can happen at all, then they can happen in modern times and work through perfectly ordinary human beings, and if bodies can be healed then hearts can, too. My inability to believe in a given miracle has no bearing on its reality and may reasonably be regarded as my own loss.

It is a sweet story, and I'll probably find myself using it in the future just because that's what I do - it's compost in the jungle of my brain now and there's nothing I or anyone can do about that (Bwaheehee).

Another sourceless truism sends up its shoots - can anyone tell me who it was said "Poltergeists don't happen in happy families?" Or words to that effect? I believe the person who said it subscribed to the theory that poltergeist phenomena are the result of spontaneous psychokinesis expressing the suppressed emotions of family members; it could equally be used to support the theories that stress increases sensitivity, attracts entities, or causes people to act out by playing tricks on each other.

But how sound is the generalization?

 

[OldTimeRadio]

It is a sweet story, and I'll probably find myself using it in the future just because that's what I do - it's compost in the jungle of my brain now and there's nothing I or anyone can do about that (Bwaheehee).

Peni, many years ago the science fiction author Gene Wolfe kindly read one of my attempts at amateur fiction, page by page and line by line, sometimes entire paragraphs aloud.

He got to a point where my first-person narrator felt himself (mentally or spiritually) sinking deep into the earth. "Stones rose up past me like air bubbles rising through the sea."

"George," Gene said, "that's MY line now and there's nothing you can do about it."

Then he laughed.

 

[again6]

Hi HenryFort: thanks for sharing your experiences ... great post.

I believe you. I believe you experienced it just as you've described it. You're clearly intelligent. You've obviously pondered it and subjected your experiences to as many theories as you're aware of. It's made a deep impression on you and I guess has altered the way in which you regard life, death and the less-familiar side tracks.

There's a tendency, when something out of the ordinary occurs, to blame circumstances; our state of mind, etc. If we're involved in a traffic accident, we might afterwards claim it occurred because we were worried, tired, suffering from the flu or distracted because we were running late or had just had an argument with someone at work. We tend to forget or discount all those times we did NOT have an accident under similar or worse circumstances.

You're in your 30s, have lived a life. Presumably you've been under physical, mental and emotional strain on numerous occasions in the past, yet did not experience phenomena such as is described in your post, all within a reasonably brief period of time, within the same dwelling? If you had, I feel you would have mentioned it. Yours is a strange and fascinating account ! There surely aren't too many people who'd write it off as being of no importance. It's probably something you'll remember until the end of your days and to which you'll devote thought from time to time.

It's probably just a coincidence, but your mention of the spiders stopped me for a second, because years ago, in a house in which my family experienced some very strange things ........ there were an extraordinary number of large spiders (of the Huntsman variety); a situation we've never experienced before or since. I'm not talking about one or two per year or month - they were frequent and a nightmare! One evening, I arrived home with my children and there were five of them on the walls of the living room. They were a good few inches across, big bodies, hairy and aggressive if you tried to get rid of them. It was so bad, I had the pest control people in three times in a six month period. They did the usual spraying all over, which failed ( though usually apparently, it got rid of everything). Next time, they gassed the entire attic -- still didn't get rid of them. Finally they stuck probes into the wall cavity and injected powders and gas in there as well. They said that was all they could do. No-one else in our street had a spider problem. The spiders lived through everything science could throw at them and the paranormal stuff kept rolling as well .. all of it for as long as we lived there.

A similar but watered-down repeat occurred when we bought another house in the same street a few years later.

There are a thousand theories which could be used to dismiss what I know happened in those houses. Same could be said of your experiences. But the fact is, there was only one paranormal incident in the house we later owned and lived in for five years and none at all in the one we've lived in now for the past five and a half years. We're the same; we have the same ups and downs as we did in the two affected houses; we've suffered the same mental, physical and emotional problems, yet these have not resulted in high-weirdness.

This may seem overly simplistic, but maybe it IS simple; maybe high-weirdness chooses us and is not caused by us. Maybe it's all about time and place. Yet we're encouraged to seek solutions within ourselves, so this is what we tend to do when confronted by paranormal phenomena. When we do, others approve. Usually, we like approval. So we nod and agree when people say: ' It's just you; you're tired, you're stressed, you're upset, you're on edge, your imagination is playing tricks on you; it's a trick of the light; maybe you need to get your eyes tested; you were half-asleep; you're seeing things; you're jumping at shadows; you shouldn't have watched that Stephen King movie; you shouldn't have listened to that silly old woman down the road with her nonsense stories; you inherited this superstitious rubbish from your grandmother; you were always a strange child; you need to get out more and stop dwelling on your problems ... ' etc.

We grasp at these explanations, often desperately. But we know what we saw and/or experienced, and even though platitudes reassure us in the short-term, our experiences often nag at us ... and the reason for this quite often is that the 'explanations' just don't hold water and deep inside, we know it.

For example, men flew often dozens of missions in the war. They saw people around them dying. They grew used to it. They developed philosophies to deal with it. Then one day (or night) a few of those war-hardened men briefly saw what they immediately knew, or later realised, to be a ghost or spirit. Some of them allowed themselves to be talked-out-of their belief that they'd seen a ghost. Others were perfectly willing to be persuaded they hadn't seen what they'd seen .... except their own experience was far more convincing than was others' 'logical explanations'. So, despite ridicule, censure, scepticism and others' frank disbelief, those men accepted that for the rest of their lives they would carry with them a memory which did not necessarily conform with their beliefs -- but which was nevertheless undeniable. They had seen a ghost, whether or not they actually believed in ghosts.

A lot of us are in the same boat.

I don't mess with my head any more than necessary. I suspect most people are basically the same. We're not stupid. We don't need unsolved paranormal problems. We don't need 'the attention'. We don't want to feel frightened. We like peace of mind and security and a sense of all-is-well. If we were adventurers into the unknown at heart, we'd be paddling down the Amazon instead of safely at home tapping away on a keyboard. Like most others, I don't see flying pigs (nor do I ever expect to). So, I've never claimed to see a pig flying -- although if I do, I'll say so. I've never seen things float around a room and have never claimed such, although I accept that others have experienced it. I've never seen a wailing thing wearing a shroud; don't expect to; have never claimed to. But when I do see something out of the ordinary, I'm not the sort of person to plunk my head in the sand or to make a liar of myself. I don't see things that aren't there. I know what I see. I know what I've experienced. I may not like what I saw and experienced; it may frighten me short and long term and it may be that no-one I know believes me. I put my weird experiences to the test of others' theories and 'logical explanations' and if these do NOT compute, then I'm not going to try jamming round pegs into square holes in order to reassure others or myself.

I suspect you'll reach the same conclusion. Because I'm not convinced that you (a) had sleep paralysis AND (b) imagined all that you experienced AND (c) Helen was playing jokes AND (d) sleepwalking AND (e) projecting AND (f) the FT toy was malfunctioning AND (f) Helen was ALSO doing all or some of the above when she saw what she saw and felt AND (g) all or part of your experiences were caused by mental, physical, emotional stress and a new baby that as you say, was no problem anyway.

Gets a bit contrived, doesn't it, when we or others attempt to explain away that which makes us/them uncomfortable? Simple is best. If you believed at the time you were experiencing these phenomena, then you most probably were. And if you WERE, then it's interesting; you've had some extremely interesting and thought-provoking experiences ... and shared them with others (many of whom have had similar experiences, whether or not they've ever had the courage to tell anyone).

It may, as you've said, have BEEN Helen you saw, or at least an externalised projection of her worry about and affection for you and the baby as she (Helen) slept upstairs. Or, the woman you saw may in some way have been connected to the house itself or to an item of furniture or the statuette (of woman with bushy hair). Your circumstances may have resulted in your being more than usually sensitive and open to things you usually screen out. When you saw Helen downstairs while she was actually upstairs, it may be that while she was upstairs -- she was thinking of something she needed to do downstairs. Maybe Helen is prone (or was during that period) to bi-location (?) ... is that the term for it? Still fascinating but far less alarming, if that's what it was. Doesn't explain why Helen herself would see the shadowy form she says she saw, though. Unless that shadowy form was a projection of you?

Sounds as if you and Helen have a very deep connection, regardless of what's happening now. And it's really lovely to hear a man speak about his daughter the way you do ... she's blessed, you're blessed ... everything will be ok

 

[amarok2005]

Hello, HenryFort! I also hope your life has improved (by a couple of magnitudes of power)!

I've considered writing something about hypnogogic/hypnopompic phenomena and false awakenings before, but I've not been quite as struck by anything on the FTMB as much as your tale. That's because, after just a few lines, I could almost predict what you were going to say! (Excluding the truly strange spider, doppelganger, and toy TV things.)

My night life has revolved around going to bed and NOT having hypno-experiences, "haggings", and false awakenings. The first time I read David Hufford's "Terror That Comes in the Night," I was flabbergasted that he had to explain to the reader what a "hag experience/sleep paralysis" was; I couldn't believe there were people who didn't have them.

Oh -- and I'm not trying to explain away your experiences, as you'll see.

But the mention of sleeping on the sofa, and "incredible" exhaustion, and your odd position (facing the cushions) made me think a hypnogogic experience (I'll write HE from now on) was coming. Yes, the sound of footsteps getting louder and louder is a typical one -- mentioned in Hufford, and I've heard it myself. Lurching up with a moan is often the only way to escape the episode -- for me it's the feeling that I'm about to smother that gives me the strength to break the paralysis.

But you mentioned going right back to sleep. I almost yelled at the screen "It's going to happen again!" And it happened twice -- a "person" leaning over you and even speaking is far more common than the "footsteps".

Half asleep watching SNL: I reached a point around the age of 30 that I would go into "microsleep" when I was up too late or doing something incredibly boring (like typing addresses of a million letters into a computer at the Post Office). "Microsleep" means you literally fall asleep and even dream for a few seconds at a time. At the Post Office I'd notice George of the Jungle and Ape in the background discussing people's odd addresses -- a definite tip-off I wasn't quite with the program.

6 july "I was lying upside down on the bed and facing the door": Depends on what you mean by upside-down. I slept with my head at the foot of the bed a couple of times and had the weirdest HEs/false awakenings ever (Suffice to say it had tentacles -- and it sounded like Beaker from "The Muppet Show"). And a feng shui book I glanced through said having your head/face in the "way" of an open doorway was very bad.

HE's caused by stress, exhaustion, sleeping on a sofa, trying to sleep in the daytime (if you're not used to it), trying to go back to sleep immediately after such an episode, all sound quite familiar to me, and I've never thought my experiences were paranormal (unless I'm haunted by George of the Jungle). But I'm still not belittling your account:

G. M. N. Tyrrell's "Apparitions" is one of the most influential books on the paranormal. His theory was that ghosts/spirits are totally without form; when a person "sees" one, the imagination creates a form for it, guided by the disembodied intelligence's telepathic instructions, down to the sort of clothing it should wear and the hairstyle it should have, the voice it should speak with and the noises it should make. I say, there appears to exist a mechanism in the human psyche that "creates" very vivid "entities" complete with noisy sound effects and, when coupled with sleep paralysis, a very "captive" audience.

If an intelligence of some sort is trying to make contact, why try to build an image in your mind from scratch, when this "entity creating mechanism" is right there? I suggest there are paranormal and non-paranormal versions of HE's and "haggings".

I'm glad I've only had the non-paranormal kind!

 

[again6]

G. M. N. Tyrrell's "Apparitions" is one of the most influential books on the paranormal. His theory was that ghosts/spirits are totally without form; when a person "sees" one, the imagination creates a form for it, guided by the disembodied intelligence's telepathic instructions, down to the sort of clothing it should wear and the hairstyle it should have, the voice it should speak with and the noises it should make. I say, there appears to exist a mechanism in the human psyche that "creates" very vivid "entities" complete with noisy sound effects and, when coupled with sleep paralysis, a very "captive" audience.

the imagination creates a form for it, guided by the disembodied intelligence's telepathic instructions, down to the sort of clothing it should wear and the hairstyle it should have, the voice it should speak with and the noises it should make.

So the above author's theory takes as a given (1) that ghosts exist and (2) that they are able to control and influence the living human mind. That's apparently the author's theory.

How does it compare with fact? As detailed in my posts of yesteryear, a ghost utterly unknown to me appeared within my locked house. It didn't speak and I still have no clear recollection of its actual interaction with me. If we stick to what I do very clearly remember, the situation was as follows: it appeared, in full colour, looking very much alive and healthy to the point it had a deep flush on its cheeks and shine to its eyes, lips and hair relative to the light hitting those items. Where the light hit the ghost's hair for example, it shone slightly auburn, in contrast to the rest of the head that was dark brown. The ghost was tall -- this was later confirmed. The ghost had no visible legs below the knee area, approx. yet this did not affect its overall height, nor did the non-visible portion of the legs seem unusual (to me) at the time.

The ghost wasn't interested in me. The part I can clearly remember includes the ghost staring at (or studying intently) some object a few metres from it, on the same side of the room. The ghost had its hand raised to its cheek, as if in puzzlement or confusion. The ghost appeared to be trying to work something out; make sense of something. As for me, it appears my usual mental processes were almost entirely suspended during the ghost's visit. Uncharacteristically, I experienced no surprise, shock, fear, etc. I must have been stone-like, with my eyes simply recording, similar to a camera. The ghost came and departed of its own accord. I don't remember either. After the ghost's departure, I robot-like attended to clearing away household appliances before preparing for bed, after which I slept. The following day, I remembered non of the above for several hours, at which point the event suddenly flooded back. I immediately described the situation to the person next to me. Within half an hour, a woman whom we knew very superficially (Mrs. Jones) produced by chance a photo of her daughter's wedding. The groom in the photo was the ghost I had seen the night before. Within ten minutes, the woman informed my friend and I that the groom (the ghost) had died suddenly and totally unexpectedly some months before. He was only in his mid-30s. My friend and I were then informed that the groom's (the ghost's) death had never been explained, and his organs remained in a laboratory, being subjected to tests, analysis, etc.

Upon returning home, I soon realised that what the ghost had been staring at so intently the night before was two cardboard cartons on a chair placed hard up against the wall. Within those boxes were several pairs of men's trousers. Those trousers (I now realised) had belonged to the ghost. I had not known the trousers belonged to a recently deceased man when I agreed (a week earlier) to shorten their length by approx. 2 inches. Instead, I had believed without question that the trousers had belonged to Mrs. Jones, whom I'd met very briefly only once or twice before. Mrs. Jones was the groom's (the ghost's) mother in law. Mrs. Jones daughter had sent her deceased husband's clothes (the ghost's clothes) to her father. They were too long. Mrs. Jones offered to pay me if I shortened them. She did not tell me their history. I accepted.

So there we have a ghost appearance. Not theory; fact. What other explanation for the ghost's appearance in my locked home can there be, other than ...... he had 'tracked' his clothes to the home of a total stranger, after his physical death ? His wife had sold their home and dispersed his possessions. That's a fact related by the ghost's mother in law, Mrs.Jones. People do that all the time, every day, believing it's better for someone get some use out of the deceased's possessions. Other items belonging to the deceased are often given to charity shops, where they're purchased and taken home by strangers.

In many instances, people are expected and expect, to die. Maybe they're aged or suffer terminal illness. In which case, the deceased presumably 'move on' without a backwards glance. Those who die suddenly and unexpectedly on the other hand, may (we're advised) not have been provided the time in which to accept death; may not realise they're dead; may wander around in a daze trying to make sense of their fuzzy thought processes and of what's going on around them. Or -- some people who die may resent the fact they're dead; may have died reluctantly and may bear grudges against individuals or against the entire world. So they may refuse to acknowledge they're dead.

The cited author (Tyrrell) in the above post, theorises that ghosts are able to control (in other words, 'take over') the minds of the living. I agree with this. I don't like it, but that's what happened to me. Clearly the ghost controlled the larger part of my mind, because all that was left of my mind was a basic recording device; a camera. If I'd been granted use of even half of the rest of my mind, I would have reacted; whether by screaming, running, fainting or whatever in shock and fear. As it was, I sat like a stone, presumably.

I dont' believe I was responsible for my altered-state. When the ghost appeared, I was in the process of drinking a cup of tea and smoking a cigarette. I didn't know the ghost; had never heard of him; had never at that point seen a photo of him; had no reason to 'clothe' him or concoct his physical appearance; had no reason to expect him to appear. He wasn't in my world; I was unaware of his existence.

After thinking about this on and off for twenty odd years, I've been forced to the conclusion that the ghost --- intentionally or not -- was responsible for my altered-state and/or was responsible for my being able to 'see' him -- whether or not I 'saw' him with my physical or 'other' eyes.

However -- the subtle light in that room high-lighted the ghost's hair; brought out the underlying auburn tint in that hair at the spot where the light hit it. How is that explained? Why would a ghost who didn't know me and who had no use for me, take the trouble to programme (as per Tyrrell's theory) my mind to not only see him as he'd appeared while he was alive (and I'd never known him when he was alive) --- but to also include subtle nuances such as a high-lighted patch of hair? Why did the ghost I saw bother to make me see him at all? All he wanted, apparently, was to locate his trousers, possibly in an attempt to understand his situation.

What we hear from Tyrrell is that ghosts exist and their 'powers' are more powerful than our own. Tyrrell is confirming what many people have been saying for thousands of years, which is why people fear (and subsequently often attempt to debunk) ghosts.

Quite obviously, we know very little about ghosts and other paranormal phenomena, despite all the theories. Meanwhile, people continue to have experience of ghosts unique to them alone -- and quite probably as unique as each individual ghost.

There is NO one-size-fits-all ghost and/or paranormal experience -- just as there's no one-and-only way to experience all other aspects of 'life', be that marriage, falling-in-love, orgasm, parenting, painting a tree, falling off a log, pre-interview jitters, etc.

Everyone's reported paranormal experience is valid. It's theirs. Ours may be similar, but it can never be identical -- in the same way you will view an accident scene somewhat differently to me despite the fact we are standing shoulder to shoulder. I've seen a few other ghosts. These comprise such a tiny fraction of my total life experience that they're negligible. The ghosts behaved differently each time, and so did I. So there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to ghosts/paranormal, even within the same person.

There is no-one on the face of this earth at all qualified to interpret anyone else's paranormal experience, let alone presume to categorise it. Theories sell books and tv-shows, because we're all desperate to be provided answers that we can accomodate or which will grant us a modicum of reassurance. A theory is nothing more than someone's opinion. And when it comes to the paranormal, opinions (theories) abound, but to all practical purposes may be entirely useless to virtually everyone except the theoriser and his publisher and agent.

The paranormal demands of each experiencer that he reach his own conclusions in full knowledge that these may be confirmed partially or fully after his own death -- or not at all.

 

[hokum6]

Christian History is a cataloogue of IMMEDIATE healings

Got any proof?

 

[PeniG]

Proof that someone like me will accept unequivocally that these immediate healings actually happened for the reasons claimed? Naw.

Proof that such healings are recorded to the satisfaction of significant numbers of Christians? Sure. I was raised a Christian and don't personally need to be shown that.

Keep track of what's happening in the exchange. I was calling into question the accuracy of the account based on my experience and observation about how counseling works, on the assumption that the only paranormal element in the story was intended to be the presence and disappearance of the faces. Mr. Radio, however, was telling the story in a framework that permitted faster - indeed, by my standards, miraculous - results than I had allowed for. Once I understood the premise of the telling I withdrew the objection.

This doesn't mean I believe the story as an objective reality, but I'm an agnostic - all my own beliefs are provisional and can be suspended for the duration of the story. I'm much more interested in grasping the meaning the story has for the teller than I am in determining undeterminable things, like what I would have seen had I been in the room.

You are free to approach it differently, but I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page. When two people whose standards of proof are different get into a discussion they tend to speak past each other without noticing it, and then there's frustration, yelling, and it all ends in tears.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Got any proof?

Surely. It's called Church History. Go to any public library (even small ones) and look down the shelves. If the library uses the Dewey System they'll all be in the 200s. Don't forget to get stacks permission.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I'm much more interested in grasping the meaning the story has for the teller than I am in determining undeterminable things, like what I would have seen had I been in the room.

What I found especially interesting about the account was the pastor's complete lack of interest in seeing the "faces" for himself. This surely indicates no fear on his part but rather the knowledge that there were much deeper issues at hand.

 

[henry]

But the mention of sleeping on the sofa, and "incredible" exhaustion, and your odd position (facing the cushions) made me think a hypnogogic experience (I'll write HE from now on) was coming. Yes, the sound of footsteps getting louder and louder is a typical one -- mentioned in Hufford, and I've heard it myself. Lurching up with a moan is often the only way to escape the episode -- for me it's the feeling that I'm about to smother that gives me the strength to break the paralysis.

Is S-P and hypnogogia the same thing? Although Ive experienced, at various times in my life, what I think of as hypnogogia/hypnopompia, Ive never once had the feeling, in dreams or sleep, of being trapped/smothered/unable to move/flee etc, which is what I understand by S-P.

Ive always described myself as a really good sleeper, like its one of my god-given gifts - I can pretty much sleep anywhere under any conditions and have rarely if ever had problems sleeping. Im also a fairly light sleeper, and capable of picking up on the slightest of noises and rousing.

I should point out that I sleep on more sofas than a 36-year-old guy has a right to, and I pretty much always sleep facing into the cushioned back. I recently spent three nights sleeping in the back of a rental car (Id put up my tent but couldnt face the airbed!) that way, and its fine by me. The feeling I had of rousing from a great depth was just that - I felt like I was surfacing (although no "stones rose up past me like air bubbles rising through the sea"), but not especially slowly, and there was no desparation - the "moan" that I gave was out of sheer fright at my awareness of the sound of a thousand things rushing into the room

"Microsleep" means you literally fall asleep and even dream for a few seconds at a time. At the Post Office I'd notice George of the Jungle and Ape in the background discussing people's odd addresses -- a definite tip-off I wasn't quite with the program.

Again, Im with you, and this could explain the SNL encounter. But to me it doesnt fit the classic case, it was so consistent, just that one image, that seemed to be there for pretty much the duration of the show (95 minutes). It also fits the context of the other encounters, in a way, in that it involved seeing/hearing/being aware of/experiencing (the F-P TV set) one or more persons in the house.

Depends on what you mean by upside-down. I slept with my head at the foot of the bed a couple of times and had the weirdest HEs/false awakenings ever

Yes, sorry, I was lay on top of the covers, with my head at the foot of the bed, pretty much between the door into the bedroom and the front windows. I was just lay there, Helen and P had not long gone downstairs. I guess I dozed for a moment and felt/heard it.

One thing I mentioned before, Helen used to suffer from fairly bad S-P, pretty regularly, in all the places we lived together. I would only ever become aware when I noticed her breathing becoming hurried and she would begin to make a whimpering noise, very low in her throat. Her body would be rocking/shaking very slightly (she would usually sleep in utter motionlessness, like an Egyptian Queen of the Dead!). This would be enough to wake me pretty quick (or so I thought, to Helen it apparently took forever). Once shaken she would be freed from whatever state she was in. Apparently if she ever had it on her own she had to will herself back to sleep, there was no way for her to wake herself.

If that is S-P I can safely say Ive never been anywhere near it.

I may call at the house, take a photo and have a quick word with the current occupants.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Hypnogogic Images

My understanding is hypnogogic images are the little color motion pictures or still photographs which play out on the backs of our eyelids as we drift off to sleep. Speaking from personal experience, they are rarely if ever frightening or even disturbing. And that's said by someone who's had nightmares, bad nightmares, all his life.