P.s Apparently my city has the highest amount of paranormal sightings in Texas, as stated in the police records.... Who knew????
 

The closest I've come to is that a handful of times in my life I've had a sharp image or dream of what was about to happen and then it did. Since it doesn't happen often or regularly, it may simply be a statistical probability. I mean, my mind is constantly thinking about things that have happened or might happen. Got to get lucky sooner or later, right? Still....one time when I had an image of running into some friends of the family's I even had the clothes they were wearing correct in my head.

Lynda
 

the following day my neighbor informed me there are two horses buried on this prpoperty, One of which was put down after severly fracturing her legs. I did check the property to make sure nobody elses horses were visiting and there was nothing around.

Also when my mother's horse that she'd owned for twenty years died she heard hoofbeats racing around the house. She went outside the following morning to find Randy dead and not a single mark in the snow by the house
 

I don't have any good ghost stories. That could just be a result of my innate talent for exorcism, though

Plenty of miracles and stuff, but that doesn't really fit in the Horror category (except maybe my natural exorcist characteristic).
 

[This message has been edited by Hookt_Un_Fonix (edited January 20, 2007).]
 

I learned only a couple of years ago that my grandmother had confided in my mom that shortly after his death, my grandmother woke up in the middle of the night to see my grandfather standing at the foot of her bed. He apologized to her for killing himself, but told her "I had to do it, or I was going to hurt you."

That put his suicide in a whole other light for me. The house they lived in has now been turned into a Bed & Breakfast and the caretaker, Cindy, who lives there tells me that once the owner, Matthew, was working in the shop out back, where my grandfather spent much of his time. Matthew bent over to pick something up, and while he was bent over he saw a pair of boots walk by. Startled, he stood up and looked around... no one else was there. Cindy says they all believe my grandfather now haunts the property.

They did some research into that room in their motel records and as it turns out, several years ago (I don't remember, but it was at least seven), one of their customers committed suicide in that room. And another few years before that, there was also a customer who had committed suicide the same way--if I remember right, it was by gun shots to the head.

Nowadays, they will not inflict that room on nice people. But if they take a disliking to somebody who comes to stay a night, Room 1 is what they get. Each time, none of these customers ever gets a good night's sleep, and I don't think they ever return for another visit.

I'm a bit skeptical myself. Their whole family is convinced about the room being haunted, but the wife is also a huge fan of the horror genre, and she inflicts that love on all her family members, the husband from marriage and her kids from birth. I can see some of that fanaticism carrying into real life.

Besides, I also worked there for a little while before the management changed and they took over. Of all the rooms I ended up cleaning, Room 1 was one of those I spent the most time in, and I didn't get any more funny feelings in there than I did about the place in general. It was a real dump before it changed hands, and the folks who came around were some of the worst spot was like picking the rottenest fruit in a barrel of black apples. It was only after my friends cleaned it up that Room 1 got to be a fixation.

Even though I don't believe in much of the supernatural aspect, I still used that particular motel as the setting for a ghost story I wrote a while back. It left that kind of impression before I quit.

[This message has been edited by Ray (edited January 20, 2007).]
 

The house I grew up in was a 200 year old farm house. My room had been a hallway, then was changed into a bedroom when the house was enlarged. An old grandmother (and we knew which family she was from of those who'd lived there) died in my room and haunted it for many years. I wouldn't go in there unless someone turned the light on first, and I wouldn't sleep with the door closed until my own grandma died when I was 8. After that, my grandma was in that room with me, and I was never nervous again. The other grandma didn't do anything scary or hurtful, she was just THERE. Every so often, I'd feel a chill, and my collie and my cat would both have the hair stand up on their backs and they'd go running out of the room. After my grandma died, both my collie and my cat were content to stay in my room as long as I wanted them there. When I left for college at age 17, my grandma apparently thought her job was done, and left. The house was no longer haunted after that. And I felt a warmth when she was around, not a cold chill.

When I was in college, I went with friends to Charleston SC for a weekend. One friend lived in one of those gorgeous old mansions on the Battery. I stayed in his girlfriend's parents' house, one of the mansions on the Candlelight Tour at the time, again on the Battery. I arrived late in the evening and met my friend's girlfriend (who I didn't know) and was escorted to the third floor, where I was given a guest room filled with fabulous antiques. She left me alone there to go to bed, but she didn't show me where the bathroom was, just said it was "down the hall." So I went down the hall trying to find the loo, and opened doors here and there. One door led to a huge room that was a butler's pantry, and also included a bathtub. I thought the other door into the room might lead to the room with the toilet and opened the door. When I opened the door, I saw a huge room with a big white couch on which a woman sat with her legs up, reading a book. Her dark hair was piled up on her head, she wore a white ruffled blouse, a long dark skirt and had dark shoes. I apologized for disturbing her - I was certain it must be the girl's mother - and backed out of the room. She never looked up. I finally found the loo and went to bed. The next morning, I apologized to my friend for disturbing her mom, but then I met her mom - a short, cuddly lady with bright red hair. The woman on the sofa was tall and slim. I told them about what I'd seen and they were so excited. Turns out she was their resident ghost, who nobody had seen for two years. She was a novelist from the 1930s - Sylvia something, I can't remember any more, sorry.

Meanwhile, my boyfriend and his buddies were in the other house on the Battery. The girl I was staying with took me there later that day and my boyfriend and I enjoyed exploring another beautiful townhouse. But when we were upstairs, we heard five footsteps behind us, then felt a cold chill. This happened several times. Also, the butler bells went off all over the house the whole time we were there ("butler bells" were in each room and called the butler to that particular room - the master panel was in the kitchen, so he'd know where to go. This house also had an antique elevator - but they had no butler.) Turns out this house was haunted by an old ship's captain who's the randy sort - he only became active when a woman was in the house. Some of the people with our group decided to have a seance. I told my boyfriend that no way was I going to be in that house for the seance. I could tell the spirit there was malevolent. During the seance, which was on the fourth floor, a candle was lifted from the bureau in the room and was carried around the circle by NOBODY VISIBLE, stopping over each woman's head in turn. One woman was pregant - I'd tried to talk her out of staying for the seance, but she thought it was just a game, stupid woman. She wound up losing her baby. The candle stopped over one girl who leaped up and ran to the balcony. She was going to throw herself over the railing to the cobblestones below in front of the carriage house, but the boys managed to stop her. The ghost wanted a woman. I told my friends they should get him together with Sylvia from the other house, but nobody knew how to make such things happen.

My very beloved cat, Hank, died at age 16 in the fall of 2005, and I grieved for him terribly. For two months after his death, I would catch glimpses of him in the house, and no, we had no other white cats around. After I got my new cat, Jake, Hank disappeared. My daughter lived in a house built in 1855 in Maryland for 3 years and heard ghost cats playing in the hall, with a jingly toy dropping down the stairs one by one. She also heard parties in the ballroom in the house. After she and her husband lived there for a while, the ghosts apparently decided the house was occupied by loving, happy people at last and left. Then her cat died and came back to visit several times, seen by not only my daughter, but her other cats as well.

I sense ghosts various places, but the only ones I've seen were Sylvia and my cat, Hank. I'm just as well pleased to not see them. Hank didn't frighten me - I knew he was there because I still needed him. My mama came back once after she died too - I did see her but I was hurting too much to talk to her. She's not haunting anything, she's in heaven with my daddy. She just came back because I was in such pain over her death. I believe she visited my father too, but he was embarrassed to admit it.

The story I told you about the painting being distorted somehow - I've seen photos of haunted objects that have the same appearance. If you get the chance, there are "ghost tours" in big, historic cities like Savanna GA, Charleston SC, and Key West FL. We went on one in Key West. The guide walked us around various places, showed us pictures of haunted objects from the houses and told us ghost stories. Some of those were just stories, but the true ones always give me goosebumps, and there were a couple of her stories that did that for me (as did several of the stories listed above here). Check the tourist info for your area - if your area is supposed to be that haunted, there's bound to be at least one "ghost tour" company there.

Lynda, who isn't as crazy as she sounds. . .
 

I had a friends house that one picture out of three would fly off the wall and land several feet away from the wall, it didnt matter where you put the particular picture in the set of three it was allways the same one. Her bath tub would fill up over night not a drip but a full force fill and then it would stop when it was just ready to overflow.

Just before I was married my Fiance was overseas and my parents were in Hawaii. I was asleep and dreaming about my parents taking a group picture that when it was developed there were ghosts in the picture. it was at that time that I actually HEARD ukulele music in my bedroom and something sat next to me. it was ice cold like dry ice (I can still feel where it touched me even now 16 years later.) I told it three times to go away and it disappeared after the third time, by then I was fully awake and sar up and commanded it to go away. When I told my friend about the experience she broke out in goose bumps all over her body and shuddered. I take this as an I belive you.

I invited some friends over for dinner one night. One friend had been having trouble with a "witch" who lived downstairs from her (all sorts of water problems). A week after the party I was in my bathroom and saw something run through my living room and into my bedroom. I told my DH about it and we got rid of it. I told my friend about it and she said that she had had her house exorcised just days after the party. then I called out of curiosity the other dinner guests and they had all had some sort of experience in the last week. one girl saw "minions of demons" whenever she was alone. The others just had strange experiences. They all had thier homes cleansed later that week and it went away.

Those are the three that stand out, I dont do many dinner partys anymore too afraid to send something home I guess?

Destiny
 

Probably its affected my writing...the supernatural / paranormal could be off-limits to me. I can read and appreciate ghost stories...but, unless they're farce or some such, I can't write one. Several attempts at horror novels have crashed and burned...I've turned out a few horror short stories, but they tend to tilt to science fiction and real world horrors. (Or so I think...it's been awhile since I've tried...come to think of it, I've got a semi-horror story in my files waiting for a rewrite...)
 

This morning I woke up from a rather interesting dream. In the dream, I was in a school and for some reason I had an AK-47 (I do not have one of these in real life, nor any varient of one). Before you ask, I'm sure it was an AK rather than a Chinese knock-off.

Anyway, something was approaching the building which was making these really ominous noises, you know, Jurassic park style stuff. I'm popping into the various rooms that have windows looking out that side, trying to find a good shooting position. Then people start fleeing down the street past the school building, and all the students and staff come over to see what's going on (which makes things difficult for me), and there's shooting and stuff, but I still don't have a line of sight or a good position. Finally the culprit appears, it's...pretty lame looking, like a guy in a cheap monster costume, but he does have a shotgun.

I still don't have a good position, but I'm about to start shooting anyway when I realize that I'm packed into the middle of a crowd of people. So I try to work my way out of the crowd, since the "monster" is proceeding down the street, seemingly oblivious to the people in the school. I figure I'll get in a ditch by the road or something, I guess. But just as I'm extricating myself from the crowd, the guy in the monster suit turns and runs wildly up to the building, the wall of which gives way in the way that dream walls tend to do. So, despite the fact that I'm using an assault rifle and he's got a shotgun, I go ahead and open fire right through the crowd. I think I shot him in the head, a lot, but it's hard to know because I woke up at that point.

I had a pretty bad feeling, So I went ahead and came to the forum right away, and found things as they were this morning. Kinda creepy. Actually, it's even more creepy that I would compare the dream situation to the forum situation, but that's just because I have no sense of proportion
 

I had a similar experience when one of the leaders of our church, an apostle, died and I dreamed I saw him at this pizza place in Chicago. He was dressed like a hip-cat, with a beret and scarf. Anyway, he died at night and it was announced in the morning.

I tend to be skeptical about ghost stories because I had a son that died and I've never had any experience of him. I suppose that makes me a grump. My mother sets great store by ghostly experiences. She thinks a victim of a car wreck haunted my brother's truck not 3 weeks ago.

I do believe in supernatural events but... I don't know. I think we live in a rich spiritual environment that most people just don't consider very much. I don't know if ghosts really are what we think they are, just like the people around us are seldom what we think they are.
 

I'm actually rather interested in the question I just asked. Er, the fact that I asked it, perhaps. Basically, it comes down to the fact that most versions of "Bloody Mary" seem to require a ritualized and very clear statement of belief or participation in the legend. Even looking at it naturalistically, such declarations can have powerful and sometimes dangerous effects on the practitioner. Of course, athletes use such ritual declarations all the time to boost performance and drive their bodies past normal threshholds for pain. The physiological effects are very real.

Is there some additional, supernatural component to the game of "Bloody Mary"? I don't know. Certainly it seems plausible, if one believes such things at all, that a person undertaking such a ritual declaration would present increased vulnerability to malevolant spirits or other dangerous parapsychic phenomena. Then again, perhaps the parapsychic nature of consciousness itself is sufficient to explain the effects. You might not be the kind to hurt yourself, but look in the mirror and tell yourself that you really do want to hurt yourself, and that can change. The appeal to a nominally external entity could be enough of a shift in the suggestion to disable or bypass normal defensive mechanisms.

I don't think that the experiment can prove much more than that para-psychic phenomena are real and impact the physical world...but then again, we already know that by virtue of the fact that sentience and free will are themselves parapsychic phenomena. Science cannot successfully determine whether such things are "real" or not, yet we all have them.
 

But I didn't. I must be content to list "finalist" on my future cover letters.

I was just thinking about something and remembered I may have had a death dream about my linguistics professor that died. Though trying to find a journal entry on that feels really daunting.

[This message has been edited by franc li (edited January 30, 2007).]