by Brianne P.
I believe that I come from a long line of highly sensitive people. My mother is very in tune with her abilities to recognize spiritual activity and my entire family has experienced varying degrees of ghostly/spiritual encounters.
For me, it all began after the death of my father when I was four years old. My parents had been divorced, and my father had ongoing addictions to alcohol and drugs. The first specific encounter clear enough to share was on a trip I took with my mother and aunt when I was seven, four years after his death. We were in Burney Falls, CA, staying in a rather unsavory motel. There were no locks on the windows or doors of the room, so my mom did her best at rigging up the place to warn us of intruders. That night, I slept between my mom and aunt.
Now, my mom is a very light sleeper, always has been. This particular night, she awoke with a start to see a man standing over the bed; over me, to be exact. Naturally, she jumped up and began asking. "who are you, what do you want?", thinking it was someone who had broken in. She was able to see in the darkness that the man was wearing a flannel shirt and a baseball cap, and he did not answer any of her questions. She followed him into the bathroom where he then vanished upon her turning on the light. He never returned. What makes this story so chilling is the fact that when my parents were on their honeymoon, they made various stops in California, Burney Falls being one of them. I have a picture of my father on that very trip wearing a flannel shirt and a baseball cap...
In 1990, my maternal grandfather passed away after suffering a previous cardiac arrest, and ongoing dialysis for kidney problems. After his passing, many strange occurrences began in our condo. Besides the many dreams that both my mother and I experienced, one particular event stays ever-present in my mind. In the living room, we had one of those touch-sensitive lamps, the kind with three levels of light (one touch would bring the first level, etc..). Well, my mother woke up around 1am one night, to discover that the light was on the first level in the living room. Assuming that I had left it on prior to going to bed, she thought nothing of it, turned it off and went back to bed. An hour later, she woke again only to find the lamp was back on, this time on the second level of brightness. This gave her a moment's pause, but still she assumed that perhaps I had gotten up and went into the kitchen, forgetting about the light. She once again turned it off, and returned to bed. Once again, she woke up an hour later to find the lamp was on the third level of brightness. Now, she began to wonder what was going on. At 1am, it was on the first level, at 2am, the second level and 3am, the third. She asked me the next morning if I had been up during the night, and of course, I hadn't. How do you explain that? Especially with the common knowledge that much spirit activity is conducted through electricity?
I have many, many stories I could share, but I will share only two more, which I think are very relevant. My interest in spirituality peaked around 1996 when I was 15. I began heavily researching life after death, ghosts, paranormal activity and psychic awareness at this point and this was also when I acquired a Ouija board. I experimented with it many times, but it was my mother who had the most in depth experience with it.
One night, after weeks and weeks of non-stop paranormal activity in the house, she decided to try to communicate by way of the Ouija. She sat in darkness, with only the light of a single candle, closed her eyes and concentrated. Now, despite all the activity we have experienced over the years, my mom is still ever-aware of the possibility of hoaxes and the like. So, to be sure that she did not influence the outcome of the board, she spun it around, eyes closed so she could not subconsciously influence the results. She first asked if there were indeed spirits in the house. Now, this being the first time she had seriously attempted a seance of any kind, she was baffled at the pulling sensation the Ouija created as it guided her directly to the word yes. To this day, she can't believe it really happened. Her next question, naturally, was, "Who?" The board guided her to the letters, "F, T, G, and R." My mom had a dear friend who she shared all her spiritual beliefs with named Frankie; my mother's father (who we suspect was turning on the lamp) was named Theron; my mom had a close friend in high school who passed away some time ago, and she had many dreams about him, who is named Guy; and lastly, our cousin, Rick died at the young age of 38 of cancer. Some may accuse us of reaching for answers. For me, however, I have no doubt in my mind that the spiritual activity that surrounds us is indeed the energy of our loved ones just letting us know that they are with us always.
The last experience I will share is one that still haunts me to this day, as I cannot understand the meaning behind it, nor am I sure that it was generated by someone I knew. I was in bed one night, watching TV (not asleep, as one may assume). Now, I have a habit of sleeping with my door completely closed, as I do not like to see into the darkness out in the hallway. This particular night, my door was still open a crack, and I simply hadn't bothered to get up to shut it. As I have said before, my mother is a VERY light sleeper and is up at various times of the night. Well, as I watched TV, I saw my mom pass by as if going back to bed, and she closed my door, slamming it as she did. Now, keep in mind, she always has a tendency to check on me, and she knows of my desire to sleep with my door closed, so I thought nothing strange of it, other than the fact that she slammed it. I chalked it up as an accident, and thought nothing more about it. The next morning, she asked me what was wrong -- why I slammed the door (thinking I had been arguing with a boyfriend, or something). You can imagine my surprise at this question, as I clearly saw someone walk by towards her bedroom. I told her that I had planned on asking her why she slammed the door as she walked by, as I watched it slam while lying in bed. We just looked at each other in astonishment, as she wasn't the one who closed the door. Who was it then, and why did they feel the need to slam it?
These only skim the surface of the unexplainable phenomena that has occurred over the years. After reading the other stories, I simply felt compelled to share mine as well.