What is your story about the paranormal?

[AllynCrowe]

Hey guys,
I'm writing a novel that heavily involves a supernatural/paranormal theme. I've been wondering, did you ever encounter something you believe to be supernatural, or just strange in general that you'd like to share?

My own story is that the day before a large housefire, I got this eerie feeling to pack all my school books. If I hadn't I'd have lost them all in that fire. I've also had déjà vu for all my life, where I recognise things in real life as if I dreamt about them.

So, what is your story?

[Mari]

I have some sleep paralysis stories before I got sleeping pills if you want them, even if it's technically not anything paranormal.

The one I was most freaked out about was where a burned little girl screamed white noise and teleported around the room like an old tv would look like when it got in and out of signal. Then there's the basic ones where a dark shadow man would loom at my bed or my doorway.

the only actual paranormal-ish thing was when my cat was on my bookcase staring intently at my door and I said jokingly "Thanks for warding off evil spirits for me boo" and she just snapped her head to me and let out a low growl xD I had a hard time sleeping that night

[AllynCrowe]

Yeah, those stories work too!
I've had sleep paralysis twice, and both times it was ridiculously scary.
The first time I dreamt that my dad kept a burnt child in my nightstand, which he had put together again with wire? I don't know what my mind was thinking with that, but I 'woke up' paralysed in my bed, unable to move, while this freaking thing crawled out of my nightstand. I only woke up when it bit me, and that hurt.

The second time was somehow even worse. I didn't even really dream, it was just dark black and I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was choking for I don't know how long, just dying, unable to get myself to wake up. I think strangely enough that was the only time I ever truly thought I was going to die right there and then. At first I just thought about how embarrassing it would be to be found in my underwear, but as it went on I was only afraid of not being found/helped to begin with.

Needless to say, sleep paralysis can piss off right back to hell.

[LordVincent]

Hoo boy

• Mother's experience, not mine (or more like I can't remember it) but when I was little mom once walked into my room and saw a toy hovering above me.
• In the same house, the story tapes I had in my radio to fall asleep to would change sides during the night on their own. You know those who have one track on each side, so if there's a story on it you would need to switch from side A to B to continue the story.
• When our family dog had been put down I would hear her paw steps on the floor for weeks afterwards. Especially near where her food bowls had been.
• Mom and dad's current house had spirits in it for a while, that seem to be gone now. Makes sense since this whole town is on "old ground" and there are a lot of ancient graves around here. So they kind of move in and out.
  Those spirits did the following:
  • Threw a hand mirror across a room
  • Opened my old wooden cabinet doors (difficult to open even for a living human. Would be impossible for the cats to open)
  • Footsteps could be heard on the upper floor regularily. Said footsteps are not heard anymore so it's not a natural house sound.
  • My sister's room was unexplainably much colder, all the time. The upstairs living room had very heavy energy and felt extremely uncomfortable to be in.

Aside from all the things mentioned above, there's also a whole extra event in which my sister pissed a spirit off. She got tired of it walking around in her room so she loudly exclaimed "Fuck off!" to it.
The next two days the footsteps escalated, the air felt heavier, there was a point at which we could hear some form of music from her room when there was supposed to be none. She also saw a shadow being moving into her room at one point (the only time I know of that they've shown themselves to us visually).
A more occult savvy friend told her to put a recording device in her room (the room that saw the most activity during this event) so she put her phone in there. Problem is walking into her room felt like walking into a brick wall and it just felt extremely threatening, so she just put it in there and left as fast as she could, not putting the phone to charge. So the recording came out corrupted. (This last bit has an obvious scientific explanation: Battery dead = ongoing recording goes corrupt. No biggie.)
The more important part of this is, that the next day when she tried to look at the recording, I decided to go grocery shopping... only to come back a couple hours later seeing my sister sitting on the couch downstairs, frozen and terrified, together with two scared cats. These are mom's cats and they are usually extremely lazy and calm (they're ragdolls. Duh. If it had been my kitty marcel I wouldn't have considered this out of place.)
I asked her what was up and she said the whole time I had been away, there had been knocks on the windows, rattling door handles and a random beeping noise with seemingly no source in mom and dad's bedroom.
Later the same day the cats started playing with seemingly nothing. Once again, calm lazy cats. They don't play unless they have an object, person or creature to play with.

On top of all this there was always a feeling of a presence of sorts. I thought this was just my imagination, but when I moved out and noticed that I never had this feeling in my own apartment or other places I began being able to tell that there was a noticable difference.

I used to consider myself a skeptic and refused to let myself believe things like these were paranormal, but after a while things just pile up and it's no longer "skeptic" or "logical" to deny it, but rather ignorant and stupid. I can't deny the existence of the paranormal anymore.
I've had so many paranormal experiences that I can most of the time tell precisely whether a feeling of discomfort is caused by my own paranoia or by a paranormal source. There is a difference between the two that you become sensitive to after being exposed to them enough times. I've also begun learning how to politely but sternly indicate that a spirit is not welcome to watch me while I sleep. I had to do it a lot while sleeping over at my parents place the last few months that their house was still haunted.

[Cavechan]

I experienced sleep paralysis once and it was awful. I was sleeping next to my husband (then boyfriend) and woke up unable to move. It was incredibly scary. I just wanted so badly to reach out to him and say something but couldn't.

I haven't had anything too crazy paranormal happen. I saw LOTS of orbs when I was staying at my grandparents' house when I was in high school once. I tried rationalizing it by thinking it was lights from the small shopping plaza next to their house, but they moved around weirdly so it didn't make sense.

I do have a not actually paranormal, but funny story... actually a couple. My friends and I used to go on ghost hunts fairly often. One time, we were in two cars and driving around late at night looking for a graveyard and had some trouble finding it. We pulled into a gas station together (this was before cell phones were commonplace) and then a cop car pulled in behind us. And then another! So... that must have been an interesting night for them too as we had to explain that we weren't drug dealers, we were ghost hunting...

Another time, we were going to an abandoned mental asylum but my friend was getting lost driving there and he didn't want to admit it (again, before smart phones existed). He kept taking wrong turn after wrong turn and my other friend suggested we just go home. He kept refusing, claiming he knew where he was, then he turned into a cul-de-sac and then he said, "This shouldn't be here. The spirits don't want us to be here. They made this illusion to keep us from going there." Needless to say, we then were able to go home.

[ISNEKO]

I nearly overdosed on pills and my cat yelled at the reaper or a spirit or something that was eyeballing me in my sleep.

I think.

[AllynCrowe]

That sounds awful, glad you're still around! Good thing the reaper listened to your cat.

[ISNEKO]

Yeah, that cat doesn't like me too much, but he's slept next to me every night since that incident.

[Harmony-S-S]

No wonder all your comics are supernatural. You're the basic definition

[AllynCrowe]

Ghosts like that must be so freaky to deal with, whether it's real ones or not, it's still scary. Makes you wish they were more the Hogwarts variant.

[LordVincent]

Haha actually if you have experience with ghosts you will realize pretty quickly they're just like the living. There are nice ones and then there are nastier ones. And in some cases it's just a matter of personal chemistry. A "good ghost" can go "bad" if you anger them (like my sister did) because, well... Wouldn't a living person too? If you go over to your neighbors place and tell him his wife is a cocksucking whore who isn't worth half a dollar, you can bet your ass he won't be nice back to you.

The one time I found it very uncomfortable was when I needed to sleep. But I've found that a thing that helps is to focus on imagining that theres a glass bubble around you, keeping everything else out. Sometimes you may feel a pressing energy despite this, but if you are dealing with an average spirit simply thinking sternly "you are free to be around but right now I want to be alone" or "don't bother me when I sleep" can be enough to turn them away. The glass bubble method is recommended by some mediums generally for people who are naturally open to spirits and need methods for keeping them out occasionally.

Of course such a method may not work if you are dealing with a spirit that is more powerful and either doesn't respect you or doesn't like you. In such a case I currently have no idea what to recommend because I've never needed more than that so I haven't researched it or attempted anything.

[AllynCrowe]

In that case I think you burn the house down and call Ghostbusters.

It's funny, because my own story is about ghosts very similar to that, but set in 1860s. The main character is a Paralogician: he actually tries to use scientific methods to find out what works to deal with ghosts and all sorts of supernatural stuff. One day a blacksmith begs for his help to deal with a ghost, and everything goes tits up.
Of course that's only fiction, but I feel there's several similarities between what you're saying and the way I imagined ghosts to be.

[MK_Wizard]

I think the freakiest thing that ever happened to me and I am truly 100% convinced it was paranormal was that one time late at night when I was still living with my parents, I was watching TV and I noticed there was a cat outside on the balcony (we had sliding doors). It was very dark and the balcony lights were off plus I barely had any lights on to really get the feel of watching my movie, but I could still see it was a cat... at least, it looked like a cat. But for one moment, it turned its head and looked at me grinning and I'm talking about Cheshire cat. I mean, you could make out that it had a human face and it was then also that I realized it had human hands and hind legs were bent in a way that human legs usually are, then bolted away. I was completely freaked out and went to my room locking the door and leaving the lights on all night. I barely got any sleep, but when morning came, I began to have second thoughts about what I saw thinking that maybe it was just my imagination because I was also very tired. That was until later that day, my mom was a little upset because she complained that one of her flower beds was trampled on and the flowers were dying. She thought it was my dad out of carelessness while working in the yard, but when I checked the area, I was freaked out to see that it was the spot where the thing went before disappearing. Here's where it gets even more creepy, in that same exact spot to this very day, nothing will grow and when my mom has tried putting stuff there, it always withers or is unhealthy.

I am convinced that what I saw was some kind of demon so what I do now in my own home now that I am married is keep an icon in every room (I'm an Orthodox Christian) and I make a point of going to church at least once a month. I can't help, but notice that I never saw anything like that again, but there are significantly less bumps in the night now.

[AllynCrowe]

That sounds so creepy!
I'm an atheist myself, so it may be a bit weird that I put up a post like this, but I really like hearing what other people believe in/saw. It must have been really freaky when you found that trampled spot. At least it seems you have a method that works!

[alliascompany]

I don't exactly have one, but where my mother grew up there's a lot of weird stories.

One urban legend is that there's this small bridge where little elves supposedly come out from under at night.
My aunt claims that one night she was traveling home with the local doctor and figured they could save some time by going over this small bridge. As they were crossing the bridge, they saw several small figure walk around the stream in fancy vests and purple hats. To this day my aunt convinced they were the famous elves.

[LordVincent]

Not that weird at all, it's a good thing that you are open to hear others out. It's also completely reasonable to hear those things and not change your beliefs, because with things like this it's often a case of needing to see and experience it yourself to believe it.

As long as you are respectful and don't call people dumb all's good lol

[AllynCrowe]

The thing is that I learnt to keep what other people think is real separate from what I think reality entails. Even if I do not believe the world works like that, who am I to judge if you do experience it in such a way?
It doesn't really matter that I don't believe the same things, as long as I can sympathise with how it would feel for someone else that does believe it. It makes no difference if a ghost is real to me or not, if someone else thinks it is that is still scary for them. So I shouldn't judge on such things.

I feel it works on two levels? If we were debating/discussing I'd gladly reason from my perspective, but in a setting like this it's about sharing, and not about who is supposedly right.

[silverraven0]

For some weird reason, all of my family members seems to have encountered something supernatural except for me. Either splashing ghost (?) on the bathroom, encountered some flying entity on the dark night, etc. :v

But about déjà vu, I have it all my life. At the very least I will have one déjà vu every other week., and more than often the déjà vu is repeated.

[AllynCrowe]

To be honest, a splashing ghost in the bathroom sounds like a variant of the elusive ghost shit.

And déjà vu is mostly annoying to me, since it's for very mundane things that make no difference whether they would happen or not. It's like my latent sixth sense is knocking on my mind going 'hey, remember me?'

[kaiwang868]

Hmmm, not in particular. But once when I was in Japan, I saw a forest entrance that was so quiet and eerie that it inspired me to write this story. I still remember it to this day.

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