My Personal Experience

[AlienEsq]

I posted this in the "Ghost Stories" section but didn't get much of a response; however, I'm interested to know what you all think so here it goes.

I am curious to hear if anyone has had a spirit-related experience in a newly-constructed home or otherwise. Please feel free to comment on my experience and share your own.

My encounter occurred in the summer of 2006, shortly after my parents purchased a brand new home in Middletown, Delaware. At the time, my entire family consisted of my two parents, my younger brother and sister (then 10 and 11), and our dogs. My bedroom was pretty big and my bed sat in the middle of the room between the door on my left and a set of windows on my right.

After working my summer job and coming home, I decided to go straight to bed at around 9:00 p.m. It was around 2:00 a.m. that I awoke and noticed that my room was exceptionally cold. I was facing the windows with my back to the door and tried to fall back asleep when something unexpected happened. What felt like two fingers (middle and ring) pressed on my left temple three times. Immediately startled, I sat up and proceeded to hear two sets of feet run from the right side of my bed (by the windows) around to the left (the door). My door remained closed the entire time. Needless to say, I did not sleep the rest of the night.

The next day I confronted my mother about what I believed to be a cruel trick by my younger brother and sister. To my surprise, they had both spent the night at my grandparents house nearly 30 miles away.

Thoughts?

 

[Randall]

I posted this in the "Ghost Stories" section but didn't get much of a response; however, I'm interested to know what you all think so here it goes.

I am curious to hear if anyone has had a spirit-related experience in a newly-constructed home or otherwise. Please feel free to comment on my experience and share your own.

My encounter occurred in the summer of 2006, shortly after my parents purchased a brand new home in Middletown, Delaware. At the time, my entire family consisted of my two parents, my younger brother and sister (then 10 and 11), and our dogs. My bedroom was pretty big and my bed sat in the middle of the room between the door on my left and a set of windows on my right.

After working my summer job and coming home, I decided to go straight to bed at around 9:00 p.m. It was around 2:00 a.m. that I awoke and noticed that my room was exceptionally cold. I was facing the windows with my back to the door and tried to fall back asleep when something unexpected happened. What felt like two fingers (middle and ring) pressed on my left temple three times. Immediately startled, I sat up and proceeded to hear two sets of feet run from the right side of my bed (by the windows) around to the left (the door). My door remained closed the entire time. Needless to say, I did not sleep the rest of the night.

The next day I confronted my mother about what I believed to be a cruel trick by my younger brother and sister. To my surprise, they had both spent the night at my grandparents house nearly 30 miles away.

Thoughts?

Strange things happen and there aren't always mundane explanations. That breeds a litter of theories that grow and take on a life of their own. I can't say I know the cause of your experience. A relative of mine has something she calls "Night Terrors" where she experiences vivid dream imagery after she wakes up, sometimes for a few minutes. Maybe you were experiencing a tactile version of the same type of thing.

 

[Polterwurst]

Thoughts?

What's interesting, is that you had no problems sitting up. If this was "only" a hypnagogic event, your body should probably have been in sleep paralysis and unable to move. Another unusual thing would be the distinct perception of being touched by two fingers.

Do you think the "exceptional cold" was physically real or could that have been your subjective impression?

About the footsteps you heard: were they in accordance with the floor material, e.g. muffled by a carpet, naked feet or shoes on wood, tiling etc.? Does your suspecting younger family members mean that they sounded more like children's footsteps than a grown-up person's?

And why do you think this might be spirit-related at all? Most people would probably shrug it off, if it happened only once. Has there been other evidence? Or has there been a death in your vicinity?

I've heard of alleged hauntings in newly built houses once or twice, but I can't remember how credible these were. If it's true, though, what some psychics say, that spirits hang out around people rather than in old houses, castles or graveyards, it wouldn't be that surprising.

 

[AlienEsq]

I appreciate everyone's input.

The cold was unique given the time of year. I really dont have an explanation for that. The footsteps were over carpet, as if they were running. I believe they were small steps because of the number of steps I heard moving from the right side of my bed to the left.

Normally, I would have dismissed it as a one-off, especially considering I have not had an experience since; however, the feeling of the two fingers on my temple left a huge impression on me and compel me to believe this was something paranormal.

 

[marduk]

Thanks for this, AlienEsq.

My visceral response was a memory of my own. In the house I was a teenager in we had similar strange events occur, and one on an exceptionally cold night.

My parents were away, and the whole house was cold and blizzarding outside. I'm not sure if there was something wrong with the furnace or what, but my sister and I ended up downstairs in the basement where my Aunt was living with us. We lit a fire in the wood burning stove, and just kind of hung out.

We heard a commotion upstairs -- the door open and close, people stomping around upstairs, talking, the whole thing. We assumed it was my parents coming home, and called up to say that we were downstairs.

Everything went silent instantly.

We waited a few minutes, then went upstairs. No-one was there, and there were no footprints in the snow, nor snow in the house (it was coming down pretty good). All 3 of us heard it, including my adult Aunt. Plus the cat, who looked up but refused to go upstairs.

To this day we talk about it sometimes. Clear as day we heard it.

My parents came home a few hours later.

 

[Constance]

@AlienEsq, I haven't read much about what we call 'hauntings', but I have read that they occur in new houses as well as old ones. The hypothesis is that it's the ground rather than the house that's built upon it that might account for the presence of discarnate spirits apparently still attached to that place [and notably physically present to some degree, given the sounds and the touch]. This seems to represent something long felt in human experience, the reason why many people will not leave their ancestral grounds even if it's advantageous to do so. By comparison, we seem in our time, at least in the West, to be comparatively rootless in regard to where we live. That and the consequent loss of a stable sense of historical community could, imo, account for a significant amount of the 'anomie' recognized to exist by the 1950s in the modern industrial/corporate-dominated world.

 

[Constance]

Thanks for this, AlienEsq.

My visceral response was a memory of my own. In the house I was a teenager in we had similar strange events occur, and one on an exceptionally cold night.

My parents were away, and the whole house was cold and blizzarding outside. I'm not sure if there was something wrong with the furnace or what, but my sister and I ended up downstairs in the basement where my Aunt was living with us. We lit a fire in the wood burning stove, and just kind of hung out.

We heard a commotion upstairs -- the door open and close, people stomping around upstairs, talking, the whole thing. We assumed it was my parents coming home, and called up to say that we were downstairs.

Everything went silent instantly.

We waited a few minutes, then went upstairs. No-one was there, and there were no footprints in the snow, nor snow in the house (it was coming down pretty good). All 3 of us heard it, including my adult Aunt. Plus the cat, who looked up but refused to go upstairs.

To this day we talk about it sometimes. Clear as day we heard it.

My parents came home a few hours later.

How do you account for the veridicality of that experience, witnessed by four people and a cat and lacking any physical evidence to support a prosaic explanation?

 

[marduk]

How do you account for the veridicality of that experience, witnessed by four people and a cat and lacking any physical evidence to support a prosaic explanation?

I don't, I have no idea.

A series of strange experiences happened in that house that account for a sizable fraction of my paranormal experiences. Lots of people did.

Odd for a relatively recent house with no deaths or anything that I'm aware of.

 

[Polterwurst]

To this day we talk about it sometimes. Clear as day we heard it.

My parents came home a few hours later.

So what did it sound like when they arrived? Was it similar to or rather unlike the sounds you heard before, the talking, the "storming" upstairs?

The reason I'm asking is because the story reminds me of a vardoger. Which is a type of experience where people say they have seen or heard somebody arrive, often unexpectedly, just before (sometimes hours before) he or she actually does.

For some reason, this phenomenon allegedly is reported mainly by Scandinavian and Scottish people (as the name suggests, it's part of "northern" mythology at least), so it would be interesting if your family has any roots there.

 

[marduk]

So what did it sound like when they arrived? Was it similar to or rather unlike the sounds you heard before, the talking, the "storming" upstairs?

The reason I'm asking is because the story reminds me of a vardoger. Which is a type of experience where people say they have seen or heard somebody arrive, often unexpectedly, just before (sometimes hours before) he or she actually does.

For some reason, this phenomenon allegedly is reported mainly by Scandinavian or Scottish people (it seems to be part of "northern" mythology at least), so it would be interesting if your family has any roots there.

OK you're freaking me out. I'm both Scandinavian and Scottish.

It sounded just like my parents came home, except they were very loud, stomping around like they had boots on, and like some kind of party was going on.

Which was unusual for my parents. So kind of yes and kind of no.

 

[Polterwurst]

Interesting. If this was a vardoger, why should a phenomenon / experience have anything to do with certain ethnicities? It's a bit like the high percentage of Irish / Cherokee descended people having abduction experiences.

And if it wasn't, why did it sound like them, just a bit unusual? Doesn't make too much sense.

 

[marduk]

Interesting. If this was a vardoger, why should a phenomenon / experience have anything to do with certain ethnicities? It's a bit like the high percentage of Irish / Cherokee descended people having abduction experiences.

And if it wasn't, why did it sound like them, just a bit unusual? Doesn't make too much sense.

This is utter and complete speculation on my part, but just thinking out loud, perhaps certain genetic traits give rise to certain brain phenotypes that would make certain ethnicities more sensitive to fields that create this kind of phenomena? Or the entities that may or may not be behind it?

Pure speculation, of course.

 

[true believer]

Hi just thought id add this, last year i was walking my dog up a quiet hill at about 1030 pm, i spotted something in the sky that freaked the shit out of me, it was a star moving very slowly, i presumed it was a satalite, but incredibly it changed direction very sharply and in the distance behind it i saw two more smaller star like objects one on either side, now move from east to west on a steady line, i watched untill they vanished behind cloud, to this day its in my head, anyway thats when strange things started happening from, shadows in the sittingroom, my dog growling at a wall things like that, things missing and reapperaing in the same position days later, but it got very strange last september while away in portugal on holidays, i was asleep and having i presume a crazy dream but in this dream i was literally on my back and floating up and up and i could feel this lightness, and i was shouting no no , and i woke and looked over my wife and standing in the corner of the room by the bedside locker was this thing it had a pure white face with black deep set eyes i closed my eyes in fear and wouldnt open them again but it was just an insane tense night and a very scary feeling, i eventually drifted off and told my wife about it next day only for her to laugh it off and take no notice, next night i woke to find my wife literally clinging to me like i was being smothered, next morning she told me she felt someone tap twice on her foot ( which is always hanging out of the bed) so thats my story theres been few more very strange events but another time