STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
stylethread site home page -> stylethread forum -> general interest polls -> Do you believe in ghosts?
Post Info TOPIC: Do you believe in ghosts?
boobaby


Kate Spade

Status: Offline
Posts: 1134
Date:
Do you believe in ghosts?
Permalink Closed

So, it's October and there are lots of ghost specials on tv. Do you believe in ghosts or have a good story?

I lived in an old house that had been converted into two apts. It was a really bad conversion and had a creepy vibe. There was literally a staircase that led to nowhere off my bedroom. Sounds/conversations from the upstairs unit sometimes sounded very clear, as if they were happening in my unit.

We had the only access to the basement, which was straight out of a horror movie set. There was a huge hole in the wall, mice and a room with rusty hooks all over the walls in a seemingly random pattern. We had a washer/dryer, otherwise I would have never gone down there. I always felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck when I was doing laundry, but brushed it off because obviously one would feel creeped out in a place like that. One time, a friend offered to repair the washing machine for me. When he came back upstairs, he was spooked. He told me that he would never go down there again - he felt like he was being watched and said he felt a cold presence pass through him. I laughed at him, but he really was scared.

One night, my upstairs neighbor who was a college kid like me invited me up for a beer. He offered to show me the attic, which was as creepy as my basement. It was full of old furniture, dolls, a dress form, etc. The landlord told him that stuff was there when she bought the place. After we left, we were standing in the hallway talking. I jokingly asked him if he ever thought the place was haunted. Right after I said that, knocking came from inside the attic door. I asked him if he heard that and he said he did. I wasn't sure if he was messing with me or what, so I thanked him for the beer and booked! I never brought it up again and blocked it out of my mind.

It only came back to me after I met one of my good friends. She has had a lot of experiences. When she bought her house, she kept falling down the stairs but she insisted everytime that it felt like she was pushed. She actually had the house blessed and hasn't had anymore experiences. FWIW, her husband thinks she's nuts. When I first met her, she lived in an apartment and the first couple of times I was there I saw a cat running down the hall. I asked her what her cat's name was and she freaked out because she didn't have one but always thought she saw one. And one time I was using her bathroom and the door creaked open and the toilet paper started slowly unrolling. It was weird but it didn't scare me.

I always assume there must be a logical explanation, like that house was old and creepy, sound carried because of the crappiness of the conversion, I had had a couple of beers, my neighbor was messing with me, my friends are nuts, the cat was just a weird shadow being cast from a window, the toilet paper roll was unstable, etc. etc. I guess I wouldn't be able to cope if I thought without a doubt that these were truly paranormal experiences. weirdface

Anyway, do you have any stories?

__________________
Kelly


Hermes

Status: Offline
Posts: 5919
Date:
Permalink Closed

I didn't read your stories, because it's near midnight and I live alone in a creepy house in the middle of the woods (I love it 99% of the time, but inevitably when people come over at night they say "wow, this is kind of scary down here" so it definitely has that unlovable element) so I don't want to freak myself out too bad! But I wanted to say that I'm not sure if ghosts exist or not. I definitely don't want to believe it, both emotionally and logically, but I've heard a lot of creepy stories in favor of ghosts existing and they can't all be explained away as easily as I want them too.

__________________

Fashion is art you live your life in. - Devil Wears Prada | formerly ttara123
Collette


Chanel

Status: Offline
Posts: 4387
Date:
Permalink Closed

I 100% believe ghosts are real. I've had a few experiencs in my life that are unexplainable by anything else.
Growning up the bedroom I lived in had a ghost. I used to hear people in my room talking in the middle of the night. Usually about me and my life, especially hen things were rough, it was like they were warning me. I was tested numerous times because my family started to think I was schitzophrenic. Then the temperature changed, permanently. It was typically almost 20 degrees colder in my room then any other room in the house.
Strangest experience. When I was 11 I was woken in the middle of the night by a bright light coming from my doorway. Now I always closed and locked my door at night for other reasons. There was a women standing there directly next to my bed and she said to me "don't worry I'm just going to watch you sleep" and for some reason I just went back to bed. I wasn't afraid at all. The next day I woke up and I just knew this was my aunt that had visited me. We hadn't spoken to her in early 6 years ( crazy italian family crap) so I woke up and walked over to my Dad and told him his sister is dead. Literally 2 minues later the phone rang, it was the hospital calling thinking my Dad was my grandfather to tell them that Kimmie ( my dad's sister) was killed in car crash the night before.
I've had a few other weird experiences like this as had my grandmother. My grandmother has a tendency to be able to predict when someone is going to die. It's really freaky and she's never wrong.

__________________
I'm thinking balls are to men what purses are to women. It's just a little bag, but we feel naked in public without it. Carrie Bradshaw
Kelly


Hermes

Status: Offline
Posts: 5919
Date:
Permalink Closed

My cousin's and her children say they've had experiences like yours, Collette. When her first child was a baby, she often didn't know how to get to to stop crying or what was wrong, etc. In frustration, she'd give up and go to bed. She'd have a dream in which a women would come, and tell her what to do. Inevitably, when she woke up and did whatever she was told (check the temperature, give the baby another blanket, whatever) the baby would be calm again. One time, while looking through some family pictures, she gasped when she saw the woman in her dreams. It was our great aunt.

With her successive children, the oldest would often reference their "ladies," usually when the baby stopped crying, or whatever. For example, she'd say "Mommy, my sister is better now because her lady came." She recognized the pictures that my cousin did, too.

Anyway, my family is huge and a lot of people died within a couple years a while back. She said that a couple months before every death, she'd have a dream that that person came to her like a ghost. When she told us this story, she said that she had recently had another one of those dreams but didn't want to tell anyone who she dreamt about. I never did ask her if it came true.



When my grandma was alive, she'd always joke about how she was going to come back and knock on my aunt's door three times in the middle of the night to let her know that she made it to heaven. One night a few weeks after she died, at like 3 am, her bell rang three times. Her husband got up to see what was going on, but no one was there.


Ever since I read this thread (which I did eventually do, once daylight came!) I've been kind of freaking out. I've been having these really weird dreams lately where someone is choking me, but I can't see them. I'm always in my bed. The first time, I figured that maybe I woke up choking on a bug or something nasty like that, but it's happened repeatedly. And I always can't breathe, and try to scream for my dog, but I can't do it. At the end, I finally take one breath and I'm fine and go back to sleep. Like I said, I just assumed this was a dream, but now you have me thinking that I have ghosts who don't want me around wink.gif

-- Edited by ttara123 at 12:06, 2007-10-22

__________________

Fashion is art you live your life in. - Devil Wears Prada | formerly ttara123
tri_sarah_tops


Marc Jacobs

Status: Offline
Posts: 2386
Date:
Permalink Closed

I believe. I've always thought that maybe ghosts existed, but was never 100% sure until recently.

My grandpa passed away at the beginning of September. All my family lives in eastern Wyoming/western Nebraska, and we live in Wisconsin, so we don't see them often. We went last year for Thanksgiving and had planned on visiting for Thanksgiving this year. I knew that Grandpa wasn't doing well, and I felt so bad because he'd been asking to see the baby (my 17 month old daughter, his only great-grandchild) but we absolutely couldn't make the trip any sooner and I just hoped that he'd be well at Thanksgiving.

My mom said that about a week before he died, he asked to see his pictures of Inara every time someone would visit him (he was in a VA home), and he'd talk about how much he loved her. Inara adores dogs, and he talked about how much she would have liked Sarge, the dog he had when I was a kid.

The day after he died, we drove out for the funeral. We had stopped for gas and I was standing near the car, holding Inara. Out of nowhere, she smiled, like she saw someone, and said, "Oooh, hi! Look, a doggie! Woof woof!" No one was around, and there was definitely no doggie. I said, "Where's the doggie?" and she pointed and said again, "look, doggie!"

A few hours later, we stopped for the night. Inara and I were in the hotel room, and my husband was outside, unloading the car. We were sitting on the bed, playing with her bear. The room was quiet; the TV wasn't even on. Again, out of nowhere, she pointed toward the ceiling and said, "Hi! Doggie, woof woof!" She was excited, and seemed engaged - something had caught her interest but obviously there was no doggie in the room, or anything that could be mistaken for a dog, even by a baby. Then she said, "bye bye," and went back to her bear.

Later, after we arrived, my mom sat with Inara, showing her photos of family members. When she was shown the photo of my grandfather, which was a professional head shot, she looked at it for much longer than the other photos, touched it, and said, "doggie?" Then she kissed the photo. I'd wondered if maybe he had visited her, but her reaction to his photo made it undeniable. I told my mother about the random dog "sightings" and suggested that maybe he had visited her, bringing Sarge since he knew she loved dogs, and that's when she told me that he'd talked about how much she would have liked him.

I was very close to my grandfather, and I feel so guilty about not visiting when I knew he wasn't well, especially since he wanted to see Inara so badly. I'm still sad, of course, but it's comforting to think that he was able to see her and is with her.



__________________
boobaby


Kate Spade

Status: Offline
Posts: 1134
Date:
Permalink Closed

I've been watching this sci-fi channel show called Ghost Hunters (the American version). I tivo it every week and while granted that is a really nerdy confession, it has really helped me be less afraid. I used to be very afraid and any spooky occurence (like the 2 yrs I spent in that creepy apt), I would block it out immediately. I used to roll my windows up when I drove past cemetaries because I once saw an episode of Unsolved Mysteries that paralyzed me with an irrational fear that lasted for months.

I know it's a tv show and there is a chance for fakery, but the premise is two plumbers by day who help people who believe they have a haunting out at night. They believe in the paranormal, but they also believe that the majority of hauntings can be explained - plumbing issues, air ducts carrying noises, etc. Take my spooky laundry room. They believe that if appliances or wiring are giving off high electric readings, it creates what they call a "fear box", which can cause someone to feel paranoid, hallucinate, and even experience physical effects like skin irritations and so on. I like to think that might have been what was happening to me there.

Collette, they also break down the different types of hauntings. Yours sounds like the poltergeist kind, which usually occurs around teens or preteens, especially girls and usually only last for a few months or a few years.

__________________
brazilian


Dooney & Bourke

Status: Offline
Posts: 739
Date:
Permalink Closed

Trisarah- I just wanted to say your post brought me to tears. Try not to get down on yourself. It's nice to think that he finally has met your daughter. (bonus if she got to see Sarge too smile)

__________________
Suasoria


Chanel

Status: Offline
Posts: 3120
Date:
Permalink Closed

Me too! I was brought to tears by your story, Tri_Sarah_tops. How wonderful to think your daughter had this experience of her great-grandpa.

I've never experienced a "ghost sighting" as we know them, but my mom has, and I believe her story. I think the conventional concept of ghosts and hauntings is just a fraction, a very limited reflection, of our connection to a larger spiritual world.

I've felt an unnaturally close relationship to some dead relatives. Although I don't remember any of this, when I was a kid, apparently I could tell stories about some dead family members as if they were current. I had no way of knowing some of these stories, and I would say lots of things that my grandparents didn't know were true or not.

For example, long, long ago my great-grandparents took in a neighborhood kid named Toby, who became like a brother to my grandfather when they were children. Somehow I knew all kinds of things about Toby's life, even though he died long before I was born, and by the time I came around no one in my family ever really talked about him.

Apparently when I was about four years old, my grandma was showing me a photo album and I looked at a random picture and said "Look, it's Toby," as if I knew him. I proceeded to tell my grandma all about Toby. even though nobody had told me anything about him before.

__________________
ILoveChoo


Hermes

Status: Offline
Posts: 5131
Date:
Permalink Closed

I had a similar experience when my great grandmother died. I was about 5 and I had this amazing dream about this little girl who was in a room (almost like an office cubicle) filled with the most beautiful flowers. Everone around her was kids too and they were all really happy, singing and playing. For some reason, the dream really impressed me, so I told my Mom first thing when she got home (she worked nights at the time.). I described the girl, and mom showed me a picture- it was great grandma when she was young. Also turns out that mom never went to work that night- she visited her grandma at the hospital on a whim and was with her when she died. We're convinced it was great grandma saying good bye and shoing me that she was young and happy.

totally different, but I swear one of my apartments had a ghost that would have sex with me while I slept. It would aloways wake me up. I brushed it off as dreams for the longest time, but then one night I got up to pee and i left the dooor open...and I saw someone walk out of my bedroom and into the living room. Went to the living room to investigate and noone was there, the door was still chained from the inside, etc. That was the last time that one visited me too.

__________________
"Life's too short to wear ugly shoes."

My recipe blog: healthy-delicious.com
boobaby


Kate Spade

Status: Offline
Posts: 1134
Date:
Permalink Closed

OMG, ILoveChoo, I don't know whether to be scared or jealous. JK! What a weird experience!

__________________
Kelly


Hermes

Status: Offline
Posts: 5919
Date:
Permalink Closed

ILoveChoo, that is officially the creepiest ghost story ever!

__________________

Fashion is art you live your life in. - Devil Wears Prada | formerly ttara123
Elle


Hermes

Status: Offline
Posts: 7139
Date:
Permalink Closed

I believe, too.  I had a few experiences after my grandmother died that just can't be explained any other way IMO.

These two were the most pronounced:
When my aunts and uncles (so my Grandma's kids) were meeting with the pastor who would perform her funeral service, one of my uncles mentioned something about how stubborn my grandma always was.  Said lovingly of course!  As soon as those words left his mouth, a big book fell off the bookshelf right behind him.  The pastor went over and picked it up - it had fallen open on a page that talked about how stubborness in a person showed great strength!

The next happened in my grandma's apartment.  A few aunts/uncles/cousins had shown up to begin packing and sorting some of her things, and 3 or 4 of us were working in silence in the dining room and kitchen.  Without any prompting at all, a music box across the living room played a string of notes and then fell silent again.  The words that went with those notes are 'We will be together again someday'.

Seriously.  A couple other things happened to me by myself as well, but it was all very comforting at the time.  I'm really glad I haven't had any scary ghost experiences though!

__________________
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment ~ {Ralph Waldo Emerson}
squishy


Coach

Status: Offline
Posts: 1540
Date:
Permalink Closed

ILC, that's so freaking creepy. and yet, elle's stories are so endearing. :conflict:

__________________
nonsense!
boobaby


Kate Spade

Status: Offline
Posts: 1134
Date:
Permalink Closed

ttara123-

I told my friend about the story about your grandma and your aunt. She said if she dies, she will ring my buzzer three times at 3am to let me know she was in heaven. I told her to please don't! My buzzer ringing at that hour would give me a heartattack. My neighborhood's kinda scary biggrin

__________________
luckyclover


Dooney & Bourke

Status: Offline
Posts: 702
Date:
Permalink Closed


ttara123 wrote:


I've been having these really weird dreams lately where someone is choking me, but I can't see them. I'm always in my bed. The first time, I figured that maybe I woke up choking on a bug or something nasty like that, but it's happened repeatedly. And I always can't breathe, and try to scream for my dog, but I can't do it. At the end, I finally take one breath and I'm fine and go back to sleep. Like I said, I just assumed this was a dream, but now you have me thinking that I have ghosts who don't want me around wink.gif

-- Edited by ttara123 at 12:06, 2007-10-22


Our old house always creeped me out to be alone in. DH had lived there with his parents for some years and later they moved out of state and rented it to us. He always swore there was a ghost in one of the rooms and later his mother told me that his brother had stated the same thing. Well our bedroom was just on the other side of the wall from that room and it could have been me just creeping out thinking about it...I don't know. Anyway I woke up with a man standing over me...I thought it was DH until I looked over and DH was asleep next to me...I looked back and he was gone. I described him to DH and he seemed to think it was his grandfather whom he says watches over him and has a few stories to go along with it. I dunno. This happened a couple of times. I have always had very vivid dreams/nightmares and one night I was having one and then I saw this man a few inches from my face and started screaming. Next thing I know I really wake up and DH was holding my arms so tightly trying to wake me up that they were actually bruised asking if I was ok. Apparently I kept screaming that I couldn't breathe. Creepiest thing ever. He did some research and it showed all the characteristics of a sleep disorder.

 http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa112000a.htm

I haven't really told my family because they would freak out but I did tell my sister when something brought it up and she was creeped out. She deals with cancer patients and she was saying it was too creepy with all the stories you hear about the grim reaper and such...that freaked me out too lol. Anyway after we had lived at our new house for a year or more DH pointed out that it hasn't happened since we moved...I hope it stays that way!


-- Edited by luckyclover at 14:23, 2008-06-22

__________________
"Thanks to Stephenie Meyer everytime I hear thunder, I imagine vampires playing baseball."
Kelly


Hermes

Status: Offline
Posts: 5919
Date:
Permalink Closed

luckyclover - I found that out a couple months after our discussion last November, and needless to say I was pretty relieved! I was telling a friend about these experiences, and she told me she'd heard of sleep paralysis and when I went home and googled it, it all made sense. I felt crazy telling her about it, but it had happened so many times that I was so freaked out and had to tell someone! I started a thread on ST and another forum about it, and a lot of women said that they experienced the same thing. I think mine is connected to sleeping on my back (which apparently makes it more likely), because every time it's happened I was sleeping on my back. Now I make a point to always sleep on my side, no matter how uncomfortable it is that night, and it hasn't happened since!

__________________

Fashion is art you live your life in. - Devil Wears Prada | formerly ttara123
luckyclover


Dooney & Bourke

Status: Offline
Posts: 702
Date:
Permalink Closed

lol here I am digging up old posts again....side effect from being gone so long LOL . I understand about feeling crazy...I have only a hand full of people who know...it's one of those wierd things you usually just don't mention lol..but I did find out through forums that it is pretty common. Good to know you figured it out and a way to stop it smile.gif

__________________
"Thanks to Stephenie Meyer everytime I hear thunder, I imagine vampires playing baseball."
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
stylethread site home page -> stylethread forum -> general interest polls -> Do you believe in ghosts?
Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard