Encounters with the Supernatural

Wow, these are great stories everyone. And even better, they're giving me some potent ideas for my game. I might have to print this thread out later to review.

BTW, my girlfriend has her own bizarre sleep stories. I actually heard her wake up one night at my first apartment, saying something like "What are you doing up?". Then she went back to sleep. In the morning, she asked me if I'd gotten up in the middle of the night. I said no, but I'd heard her wake up and try to talk to me. She said that she'd woke up to see a figure of my build standing over her, leaning towards her face. Apparently it had really freaked her out.

I once had a conversation with her while coming to bed late one night, after she'd been asleep for a couple hours. She was actually asleep through a somewhat disjointed 30-second conversation with me while I got ready for bed. I didn't even realize she was dreaming until she asked, in a rather concerned tone, if Gwenhyfar (sp?) was OK. This was a character in Mists of Avalon, which she was reading at the time. She was having a dream about the book, and I had somehow intruded on the dream, and she just rolled this sleeptalk conversation into the dream.

The closest thing I have to paranormal experiences are the small things that happen frequently (or have happened on more than one occasion).

The first thing happens on a regular basis, at least once a month or two. Many times, I'll be minding my own business, and suddenly a song pops into my head. It's not the ones they play non-stop on the radio. These are generally considered retro tunes. I don't have to particularly like the song, but in many cases I do, so when I think of it for no particular reason, I think, "Yeah, I'd like to hear that song." No more than a few days later, the songs comes on the radio. This sort of thing wouldn't stand out if I listened to the radio everywhere and all the time, but I only like listening to the radio in my car, and I don't usually drive for more than about 30 minutes at a stretch.

I also frequently get deja vu. I can be looking for something I misplaced or just don't know where it is, and I get this funny feeling that I'd been doing that before. I can have a conversation with someone and get a vibe that says I've heard it before. I'm not talking about the general idea, but usually a turn of phrase in casual converstion that have are not common gestures on the speaker's part.

On two occasions, I was talking with someone, and I thought of a phrase, and not a minute later, the person says the phrase exactly as I thought it in my head. I don't mean things people commonly and casually say in conversation. Once while I was on this field trip in high school, I was sitting down on the floor. One of the guys on the field trip with me walks over to me. He starts to sit down when I think, "sinking to my level." As soon as his butt hit the floor, he says, "Well. . . I'm sinking down to your level." The other incident has been forgotten, but I know that it has happened twice.

I've also had dreams where the basic events had come to pass. The two times I remember this happening were the most vivid because I remember the dream. Once, about 3 years ago, I had a dream that my grandmother fell very ill and died. That summer, on the 4th of July, my grandmother passed away due to a stroke. It wasn't the grandmother I dreamed about, though. It was just weird. Then, the following year, when I was getting ready for my trip to Beijing (obtaining visa, etc), I had a dream I was in Beijing on business (in reality, I was going to study), and I get a phone call saying that my father fell ill. The whole dream I was running around like a madwoman trying to get home. I don't think I made it. Anyway, after I return from my Beijing trip, my mother tells me that my father had been in the hospital, and they didn't tell me because they didn't want to upset me while I was on my trip.

As a result, I'm learning to at least acknowledge gut feelings more often. After a while of practicing this, surprise at certain events in my life is rather infrequent.

Andrew Gable and Terrasim: What you guys have been saying about hyponogogic dreaming is dead-on. Full paralysis (sign of still being in a REM sleep-like state), feeling awake (but possibly arguably still in some stage of sleep), seeing humanoid/tall shadows near/bending over you, etc. I remember reading about a psych sleep study done a few years ago where they induced hyponogogic dreaming by putting electrodes on a person's head and passing low current into certain brain areas. In the five cases they did, each person reported the same thing- basically the alien abduction experience. However, the people they did this experiment on all had sleep disorders, so its not known if it generalizes to most people. Kinda discredits the whole alien abduction story though.

I am a skeptic, but I also find amateur ghost hunting really fun. I have been to probably 20 locations, never seen anything convincing, but I have heard noises and had strange things happen. A few of the more odd:

I was driving on a remote two-lane highway at night, and there was an old 50's era car about 300 feet in front of me (had the tailfins). Anyway, I was going downhill, and I was messing with the AC. I can't be sure, but I glanced out the windshield, and thought I saw the car get to the bottom of the hill, but fail to make the 70 degree left turn and go off the road into a ravine. I got to the bottom of the hill about 10 seconds later, and pulled over to see if the driver was hurt. There was no car in the ravine, no tire tracks or disturbance in the grass where it would have left the road, and the road after the left turn was straigt for about 1 mile after that- and that car that was only a few seconds ahead of me was nowhere in sight. Pretty unnerving.

Our family business is supposedly haunted. There have been dozens of incidents reported there, some from not-so-reputable employees, but many from reputable sources, including my dad. Some of the things include: seeing an old man out of the corner of the eye walking around with a clipboard, a light touch on the shoulder when some people are in the freight elevator, footsteps, voices, low rumbling noises that sound like freight carts moving after business hours (which always remain in the same place), moved objects, damaged light fixtures (by damaged I mean pulled out of the ceiling), and one case of a cop who was scared silly by something when the alarm went off at 2 am one night and my dad let him in the building to check for intruders.

After my parent's Scottish terrier died at 14 years from cancer, something strange happened to me. They had to have him put to sleep because he was in a lot of pain, and I wasn't there to tell him goodbye. I was really upset- this dog followed me everywhere when I grew up, but I was in grad school and lived 150 miles away. He used to sleep on my bed at night, cuddled up with me. The night after he died, while I was half-asleep, I thought I felt something settle on the bed next to me where he used to lay. I almost immediately dozed off, but I remember feeling completely at ease and comforted. The really odd thing was that when I got my current scottish terrier, the first night I had him- he settled in to sleep in the same place, and always sleeps there every night.

Thats enough for now. I'll post more later

The only one I've personally experienced is the street light thing. For some reason, lights will sometimes turn off as I pass them. But, only specific ones.

My most recent example was about a year ago. I worked for Dell's phone tech support, and usually got off work between 11 pm and 1 am. It was about a mile walk home, and I would pass this pharmacy on the way. After a few trips, I noticed that the street light in front of the building would always turn off when I walked past.

It wasn't a timer, because I would pass the lamp at various times of night. It wasn't motion sensitive, because cars would drive by or pull into the parking lot and not affect it. Yet, when I walked by on the opposite side of the street, it would turn off. Got to be a kind of ritual for me on the way home.

For other stories I've been told...

1) The Man in the Room

This one really freaks me out. I remember my mother telling me about this a long time ago... see, when I was about three or four, I had a certain nightmare (which recurred until my late teens). At this time, I got up and went to my parents bedroom, but I didn't want to wake them, so I stood in the doorway, trying to decide what to do.

That's when my mother screamed.

I don't remember anything until a few minutes later, when I was in the bed with them crying. Mom told me years later that she had woken up and saw a young man (in his twenties) standing in the doorway.

Move ahead to just a few years ago. I was sleeping downstairs when I heard my mother scream. Ran upstairs where my father told my sister and I to go back to bed, mom had just had a bad dream.

About a month later, I was awakened by my sister's scream. Ran upstairs where she was crying, telling my father she had seen a young man standing at the foot of her bed, then he had disappeared. He finally calmed her down and got her back to sleep.

The next day, my mother confided in me that she had seen the man that night she screamed as well. At this point, it just sounds like the sleep paralysis you folks had mentioned.

However, according to my mother, the person she saw was an exact match for the man my sister described, right down to the clothes he was wearing.

2) Ouija Boards are EVIL!

I've had two friends tell me about problems with spirits they contacted while playing with Ouija boards. For one, it was his sister and her friends that played with the boards. They told him that whatever they contacted became surly and rude while they were talking with it via the board... then a few girls complained of scratches on their bodies.

For years after that, various people in the household complained of strange sounds, doors opening on their own, and occasionally of the feeling that something just shoved them when they were at the top of the stairs.

My friend himself said that one day he brought another guy I know home to play video games. He noted that, oddly enough, all the doors inside the house were open, when normally they were kept shut for cooling the main rooms. Just as he was getting a drink for his friend, every door in the house slammed shut simultaneously... and he says they heard the chainsaw in the garage start.

They ran outside.

I spoke to the other friend later, and when I asked about it, his eyes got wide and he just refused to say anything but, "I'll never go in that house again!"

Another person I spoke with said he and some friends had contacted something via a board in college. After that, they all experienced strange sightings and bad luck. At one point, one of them decided they should destroy the board to get rid of the thing. They did, but a few weeks later, one of the group was killed in a car accident. My friend believed it was the spirit's fault, as the driver was known for being cautious and had just had the car worked on... yet the brakes had failed at an intersection, and the truck driver that struck him said he never even saw the car until he hit it.

Later, my friend and his colleagues got together with someone known for her abilities to do a banishing ritual. He said that after that, it was finally gone.

Of course, at the very moment he told me that, the street lamp above us burned out with a loud 'pop'. We decided to go home right then and there.

3) Tarot, On the Other Hand, is Pretty Cool

Haven't done it in years, but a friend introduced me to tarot cards. I had no idea what I was doing, but she asked me to perform a reading for her and the friend I mentioned with the Ouija board problem. According to them, my reading was frighteningly accurate. The Ouija board friend needed a cigarette afterwards to calm himself down.

Okay, so I did a little research, and now I'm afraid.

After the time of the two dead girls and their dead doctor (all TB cases), but before little ole' Dave came along, there was a family of people living in a house just a couple yards to the right of the graveyard. The family, the Wheelers, were quite - strange. Not anything overtly strange, but just a general creepiness. Eventually, all the Wheelers were dead, and the house was abandoned since no next of kin could be found to claim it.

Then, in the Model T era, two girls were driving through here in said car. They were in their early 20s, and the place I live was merely a couple of homesteads at the time. The weather got bad, and they needed a place to stay - the abandoned Wheeler house was perfect.

Or, not-so-perfect, as both girls were murdered by an unidentified source.

I went on a walk to check for a foundation, and I found one, with bloodstains all over the masonry of the basement.

I'm so glad I'm moving in May.

Um, wow that was freaky. I was walking around last night(I'm an insomniac, I'm suspended from Target[gonna find out my status tonight], and my family's hassling me) and I walked onto this one stretch of road near the Target; it's right by the VFW hall for Angcuru and RingXero's benefits, it's the section surrounded by woods and not very well lit, between the apartments and the VFW. I was playing with my box cutter, cutting my forearm to keep myself awake, when I noticed two things:
1) I saw a shadowy figure dart under the bridge; now mind you, this is about midnight so who else is walking around at midnight, and what are my chances of meeting them on that road?
2) I was cutting a set of words into my forearm; I'm gonna show them to Angcuru when I go to his house in about an hour but they seem to spell out the words "WANTED DEAD" with a backwards "E" on "WANTED". Wait a second; AUGH! The words are actually fading off my arm; you can still see where I cut myself nearer to the elbow, but not really the words; they're a lot more indistinct than they were last time I looked at it, which was about half an hour to an hour ago. Still, suffice to say that I took off running like an Indian at a Klan rally when I realized what my hand was doing and what I had seen; although I've seen the figure darting underneath the bridge before.

Oh, and RingXero, I work the overnight shift and my bosses don't like us talking about "bull like ghosts and hauntings", either at work or with people outside of work; I heard that they've caught some people trying to sneak into the backroom during the day and night shifts to see that stuff, although the red static used to be easy to see, it was in the electronic's department right when you walk in the door.

You gots problems, man. You're supposed to punch yourself in the head, not cut your arm.

My head is worth a lot more than my hands buddy; unlike you I wouldn't die of frustration of a certain nature without your hands.

And haven't you always known that I had problems? But carving words into my flesh was NOT one of my problems.

Great thread, btw!!!

A little bit of history, i'm a ridiculously religious person (hindu), and as it stands in my faith, paranorm / mind powers / all that junk is perfectly legit. (even ufo's fit into the cosmology of my particular branch of hinduism)

I don't want to go too long, but things like this always happen to my family.

My mom is a ridiculously empathic person. (we are usually on the brain wave deal, but partly due to use spending alot of time with each other) My dad, he is reliably clairsentient. more often than not if he has a hunch you have to listen to him. (from airplane disasters to what to study the day before an exam)

we lived in a very remote rural area. it was a good 5 hours to the city with a hospital in it. my mom was 7 months pregnant with me, and was coming in to town for a check up. she wanted to come back with dad that same night, dad said no, and that she has to stay in the hospital that night. needless to say i was born that morning around 5, mom was having a complete renal shutdown, and we both would have died had we not been in the hospital then.

other things just about my dad: he has accurately influenced the name of 95% of my cousins and siblings. (even to the point that when all the family was picking a name out of a hat for my cousin (who was just born) when he was not around they picked the name he wanted. then tried again another two times -- of course the name my dad wanted popped up each time. and after then they decided not to fool around with my dad's powers)

again, dad on the road at night in a rural area of canada (in newfoundland), mom sleeping in ottawa. (almost the distance of los angeles to milwaukee - with a body of water in between) the car he was driving was hit by a moose and he almost died. of course, mom was having a dream that night about a moose.

dad also gets 'feelings' of ancestors watching over us, and communicating to him their feelings. out of no where at breakfast he'll casually announce that his father in law visited and said things are a-ok. or whatever.

while alot of this is interesting ... it only gets more interesting.

my olderbrother used to get tons on nosebleeds as a kid. (this is usually a sign of alien abductions, along with missing time) back when we were little kids in that remote area of the world dad, and his psionic buffer wouldn't always be around. brother used to wake up in the middle of the night (3 am, btw) alot. these things would never happen if dad was around though. {also of note when i really got big into exploring ufo's etc i used to be so crazy paranoid that i would had to take medication. i would never have to when dad was around because i knew his 'powers' would protect me no matter what.}

also my dad seems to have passed on alot of things to me too. i get ridiculous deja vu, 4 out of 7 days a week. i also have some minor testible esp (as opposed to his major testible esp). no psychokinetic powers though (unfortunately). but dad and i do share a common psychic link -- similar to luke and darth vader and how they can sense each other when no logical explaination exists for them to do so.

dad lived and worked in another city. he would just drop in to visit without telling anyone. those days i'd just know not to go out, but wait for his call from the airport so i could pick him up. (not even miss empath / mom could pick up on it, but i could)

as for missing time, i think we all experience it, but are kind of told, mostly by our logical brian, to disregard it. countless times i'd wake up in the middle of the night at the same time each night. (usually 3am or 2:59 or something like that . . .) also during highschool, i suffered a head injury during a rugby match. silly things like that can jog latent talent. (esp. with it being around puberty and so forth)

after the mri's and ct scans things kept on popping up and out of my head. (but not like alien implants, just like growths in my head in areas of the brain which were ill-defined --non-traditional areas, like the underunderstood limbic system) a little after that i went through a phase where i have a very low will to live.

or something like that.

very poor will saves.

up till the end of highschool to a few years ago i'd feel crushing sensations which pinned me on my back in bed, when awake, when resting, when on the phone with my then g/f, when asleep. in my dreams i felt like i had no option but to just let things 'happen' to me. i felt hopeless. it felt like i was drowning. i just want it all to end, i wanted to just, well, i guess, die. somewhere along the line i developed this will to live and fight though. i kept reading my holybooks and meditating. i kinda also picked up on 'new age' stuff (which is actually quite old stuff -- much of it in the vedas). i turned to 'lucid dreaming'. i made it so i was able to control my brain when i felt this drowning / paralysis.

i remember (sorry i'm rambling right now) that i also felt incapable of speech, i couldn't make a sound if my life depended on it, and it lasted moments after i regained use of my limbs. it was so terrifying, i wouldn't even be able to call out for help if i needed it.

eventually all the meditation / mind power harnessing helped and i was able to immediately wake up / move about / shout out / wriggle in bed whenever it used to happen. (like mom would be cooking in the kitchen, making breakfast, and out of no where there would be this commotion upstairs) (yes, mom used to make breakfast at like 3 am . . .)

those things don't happen to me anymore. (and back when they did, didn't happen when dad was in the house)

since then i've really been trying to harness the latent ability i think all people have.

my wife and i are a bit telepathically linked, though i feel like our offspring would be so much more diluted than i myself am, from the obvious power my dad seems to have. (he's also very charismatic, making trusted friends and people willing to help him out of strangers)

as far as other stoopid stuff, well, back in the late 90's there was a dedicated miracle, as it was called, which occured to faithful hindu practicioners accross the globe. in india, the us, canada, uk, australia and africa sold stone, bronze, marble, etc statues of the various avatars of Hindu gods and godesses began to attain a funny ability. if offered holy water / or milk from a spoon to their mouths the statue would 'drink' it.

funny stuff.

absurd stuff.

and it happened to me too. of course, the first few tries failed misrably. (going in order of the Gods one must when performing rituals) after a while i said "c'mon..." at how dumb my luck was. here i was, trying to get some miracle to happen, feeling stupid. and so forth. i got to the statue of the Lord Shiva (Shankar, Mahadev, Bolenath...) and took a deep breath. the day hindus are supposed to devote to the Lord Shiva is monday. i was born on a monday. i was also named after one of the avatars of shiva. his sacred mountain in the Hymaliayas has a naturally occuring formation which is also his symbol. he is also supposed to be really really easy to please.

regardless of my past failures i was going to go on with my ritual. of course, because God felt my faith waning, the statue of the Lord Shiva drank the purified offering i gave him.

cool stuff, huh?

too bad i didn't really go nuts over it like i should have. i felt more like homer simpson in the 'poochie' episode where he is auditioning for the part of poochie. "ooh, so i get the job now, huh?"

i pretty much said aloud in english (ceremony i was performing was in sanskrit) "OOhh, so now you drink the milk, eh?"

=========================

anyway, regarding the people who get the flickering of street lights . . . usually happens to very positive people, upbeat people, usually to people who have something like a 'guardian angel' over them, but not mutually exclusive to those people.

all people do radiate a specific 'aura'. yours just is attuned to something more electro-positively charged i guess . . .

all this psi/ghost/ufo/parapsych stuff is fascinating, and with the internet there is alot of info on it, if people are really interested in it.

check out

http://www.rense.com

archives are great, also has live streaming radio programs with jeff rense. good stuff.

and thanks again for starting this thread.

blackshirt5 said:

And haven't you always known that I had problems? But carving words into my flesh was NOT one of my problems.

Click to expand...

You have more problems than a Sand Merchant in the Gobi Desert.