I am so in awe of those of you who have actually seen a ghost...I've never seen one (though did see 'something' weird once); have only felt their presence. And dang, I can't see the pic Roxie posted either!
There have been a few strange things happen to me over the years. One of the first occured when I was just entering my teens. My bedroom was the only one in the house that was downstairs, and I will admit I used to be very afraid of the dark, so I'd sleep with my head under the covers. One night I was sound asleep but woke up to hear the doorknob to my bedroom turning. I was absolutely freaked out, thinking it was a burglar, so I remained under the covers trembling. I'm not sure now whether I heard the door actually open, but the next thing I clearly remember hearing was footsteps coming across my room to my bed (definitely someone wearing shoes). Then I heard them stop right next to my head, but after that never heard a thing. I must have laid awake for the next couple of hours, frozen in fear, before finally falling asleep again...I never did get brave enough to peek my head out and look around.
In the morning when I woke up I swung my feet over the side of the bed to the floor, and I stopped....next to my bed is (was) an old cedar chest that had belonged to my mother, who had passed away the summer previous. There was a small drawer at the bottom of the chest, and it was always shut. But not that morning. The drawer was halfway open, and inside the contents - letters from my oldest brother, who was stationed in the American army - were shuffled about. When I got up I asked my other brother, my dad, and my younger sister if any of them had been in my room that night, and they all looked at me as if I'd grown a second head. My dad told me I had been dreaming, but of course I knew I hadn't...this was an extremely frightening experience for me. I've since come to the conclusion that the 'night visitor' was most likely my mom's spirit, probably watching over my oldest brother. He was stationed with the 82nd airborne division, having just finished basic training, during the midst of the Vietnam war, and I imagine our mom was taking care of him in her own way.
Another incident happened to me about 5 years ago. I'd begun taking up meditation (or trying to), and I used to have a nightly routine of heading off to bed and then going into a meditative state for 15-20 minutes or so (or until I fell asleep, which happened often). I'd been doing this for a couple of weeks, and then very early one morning I woke up to feel my hand - which was above my head, as my arm was outstretched while sleeping - being tickled. In my groggy state I thought it was the dog, and told Kaya to cut it out. But as soon as I said this to her I realized that she was actually lying at the end of the bed, sound asleep. So I chalked it up to a dream and forgot about it.
About a week later the same thing happened again - at the same time of the early morning - and this time it was a bit stronger. It startled me awake, and I knew I hadn't dreamt it. But again, once I was fully awake and up, I sort of set it aside.
One week later...and I was woken again. Only this time it wasn't my hand being tickled. Far from it. I woke up to the extremely scary feeling of someone's hands wrapped firmly around my ankles, and I was being pulled off my bed. I screamed and jerked my legs as hard as I could, and I felt a release...then I recalled what someone once told me - that if you felt 'something' was attacking you etherically, to call upon Archangel Michael for protection. So that's what I did, and the sense that someone was in my bedrooom immediately stopped. And the haunting - or whatever it was - never returned.
I'll post one more, though there's been lots of things happen...this one was the latest, and last - and probably scariest - thing that happened to me. Perhaps no more frightening in description than the previous story, but when I was going through it I was terrified. (Sorry, it's a bit long to tell.)
Almost two years ago now my sister and I went on a 4-day road trip to New Hampshire. We had booked two nights at a hotel in a small town near our destination, but had neglected to book for our first night on the road, and decided to just wing it. So we were driving through NH and came upon a small town called Littleton. I suggested to my sister that we find a place there to stay the night, and she agreed...and as we entered the town she began to pull into the first motel she saw. I stopped her and said, "Let's go a bit further first and see what's down the road." So we did, and again she began to pull into a motel when she spotted one. Once again I stopped her; for some reason I had this 'feeling' that we were supposed to go further...that something further down the road was our destination, even though we had nothing planned. So as we drove down Main Street I had my head down, looking at the map, when my sister said out of the blue, "Do you think that hotels with bars are noisy?" When I asked her why she told me, "Oh...we just passed a hotel but it had a sign outside that there was a bar in it." So I turned and looked, and there it was....Thayer's Inn. It was a magnificent-looking, turn-of-the-century hotel, and as soon as I saw it a chill ran through me...THAT was where we were supposed to be. I asked my sister if we could go back to check it out, and so we did.
The hotel, as it turned out, had vacancies - highly unexpected as we were travelling on one of the busiest long weekends of the year. And not only that, the rates - which I thought would be through the roof, given the appearance of the hotel - were even cheaper than all the other hotels we'd looked up online. So we booked a room for the night and went up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs I had another one of those 'chill' moments. Right at the top of the staircase was a painting of a young girl, Victorian times, with long blond hair and holding a book. As soon as I laid eyes upon it I was stunned, as I immediately thought, 'Omigosh...that's
me'. I had no idea why that thought/sensation went through me, but it was, as I said, chilling. But I said nothing and we continued on to our room.
I'll skip some of the other odd things involved with the trip, but will describe what happened after we both said goodnight and went to bed. My sister probably fell asleep within 5 minutes, but for some reason I found it hard to go to sleep. Just an odd feeling within me, but I didn't know what it was exactly. Finally, however, I did drift off...and was woken up abruptly just after midnight. Someone was sitting on the end of my bed. I was sure of it. I looked around, saw nothing. Looked over to my sister's bed...she was sound asleep. So I thought it must have been a dream, and fell back to sleep rather quickly.
About an hour or so later, I was woken up again. This time I had the sensation that someone was in the room, and they were lying in my bed. Now that
did frighten me, and I sat straight up. I couldn't see anyone, didn't see anything that might have even caused me to suspect it. But I was getting shaken up, and it took me a good long while to fall back to sleep after that. But finally I did.
An hour later. Startled awake again. This time though, I couldn't move. There was an arm physically pinning me down, and someone was lying next to me. I was so $#@ scared I was beyond being able to scream...for a moment I was in total panic, and then I struggled furiously. And whatever it was disappeared...the feeling of being pinned down dissapated and I was free. I lay there for a very long time, wanting to wake my sister, but I thought, what would be the point? She was the sole driver on our trip and she was exhausted...and even if I did wake her, what could she do? So I lay there for a very long time, absolutely shaken up. And finally...I fell asleep once more.
Four o'clock in the morning. I was startled awake one final time. This time I felt the presence of someone standing next to my bed. And this time I heard a voice. He said, "Take THAT!" I felt a hard shove on my side, then heard laughter and 'felt' the presence running off toward the door of the room. And all of a sudden I realized, it was a boy...a young boy, probably around 10 or 12 years old. Suddenly my fear left me, partly because of that realization, and partly because it was getting so close to morning. And that was the last time I felt his presence. He was gone.
There were some other things that happened in that town which were pretty odd, but I won't go into them. I do know, however, that I didn't pursue any of this until we were back in Canada...I became more and more curious about what had happened and decided to try and contact the hotel to ask them if they'd ever had reports of ghosts in the rooms. But no one replied to my requests, so I let it go. Then one day on the internet I stumbled acrooss a website where people post about the towns or cities that they live in, and on a whim I went in and asked if anyone lived in Littleton or had ever lived there, and/or if they'd ever stayed at Thayer's Inn. I was really curious to know it's reputation, as the Inn's website mentioned nothing about ghosts. Well, the response I got from people was pretty overwhelming. Yes, they told me, they either had first-hand experience or they knew of someone who'd been there...and the posters who actually lived in Littleton told me that it was a well-known fact that the hotel was haunted. One person said he'd seen a ghost of a woman and a little girl wandering the halls, while another said she'd been so unnerved staying there that she wouldn't go back. And for me...it wasn't just Thayer's Inn...the entire town had some sort of connection for me...I suspect a past life. At any rate, while it was happening I was really shaken up. Would I stay there again? Not on your life...though I would love to go back and at least walk through the hotel. In the daylight.
