I grew up in a haunted house? (ghost, prophecy, light)

[MaryleeII]

Looking back, I have reason to believe the house I grew up in was haunted.


First, I lives in the same house all my life, from birth to about age 25. My parents just bought the house a month before I was born.


I always felt apprehensive of the wall next to my bed. The closet was of particular concern. I was convinced a witch lived there! Ok, typical, too much Walt Disney stories


But as time went on, I progresses from my crib to a regular bed, again right next to that wall. I remember one night---I was about 6-8--I was idly running my left hand back and forth the wall. When I attempted to remove my arm, it was like it was stuck! I didn't feel any grasp, or pressure, or any form of contact, it was just stuck there, like an invisible force field! Then I pulled harder and my arm was somehow "released" and flew back so hard it me in the face!


The most scary incident happened when I was perhaps 8-9. It was about 10pm. I was laying in bed facing that wall. A street light would shine from across the alley into my room and on that wall, so that wasn't unusual. But that night, it seemed the light suddenly switched on, forming a distinct rectangular pattern filling up almost the whole wall. There was a random pattern on the wall, it looked sort of like leaves, etc, blowing back and forth. Then, all of a sudden the pattern started "marching" -left-to-right- for...several seconds. Then the whole image stopped, like it froze, then, all the waving pattern disappeared, but at the far end of the rectangle appeared a very distinct skeleton, hanging from a rope, in profile, his head dropped down This lasted a few seconds, then the light turned off and didn't reappear that night. I was frozen with fear and couldn't move. My mother was sleeping with me, I whispered "did you see it" She said yes.....we were both frozen with fear.

The next morning I'd forgotten about it, like a bad dream. But other things happened with that wall. One night my mother and a friend were in my room when the light went out. I didn't hear the light switch---it made a click noise---but the light went out. Then I felt something like a cat or rabbit paw stroke my arm. I screamed, we turned the light back on. Neither my mother nor friend were close enough to me to have touched me and they weren't into practical jokes.


I was also always afraid of the area under that wall in the basement. I often felt I was being watched, and sometimes ran up the stairs.


Well, time went on, I grew up, got married, had my own home, etc. Then, when I was about 32, I asked my mother if anything "strange" had ever happened in that house. She looked a little hesitant, then revealed how before they bought the house a man had committed suicide by hanging himself in the basement. It would have been right under that "haunted wall" in my bedroom.

Its been years since we moved away, they house has been torn down and I've never been back to that area. So, FWIW, does anyone think I had a ghost in my basement?

[MaryleeII]

No replies? Hmmm....


Those incidents I described weren't the only ones that happened in my house over the years. I remember hearing footsteps upstairs when no one else was home. A few times a friend was over and we both heard the footsteps, prompting us to run outside. I have the original abstract of the sale of the house. My mother said a large Italian family lived there when the suicide happened, and the family moved out shortly afterwards. Then an elderly couple bought the house, and moved within 2 years. My parents bought it shortly before I was born.


I wonder if the introduction of a newborn somehow activated some sort of activity? BTW, I never felt uneasy, had trouble sleeping, or feared "bumps in the night", anywhere else but that house. My mother said the resident committed suicide because he was despondent over financial matters.

[cachibatches]

The first memory I have is a nightmare I had in my crib. I must have gotten hold of a deck of cards because I saw the faces of the royal cards looking at me from between the bars of the crib.

I never forgot that. I am now 42.

Originally Posted by MaryleeII

Ummm....I believe I indicated I had progressed from crib to bed, else, how couldI be running my hand against the wall?


If you don't have something to contribute, please don't respond by attempting to pick my post apart. If you don't believe it, don't read it!

I enjoyed reading experiences. I am a lifetime skeptic and believe that there are usually rational explantions, but I respect your right to tell your own story and order your world in the fashion that you see fit. Just a couple of ideas:

Are you sure that the streetlight thing wasn't just some strange play of light and shadow? Does it really make sense that a "ghost" could manipulate a street light to project the image of a skeleton? I am no trying to make fun, but if there are "ghosts," then by what mechanism could it do that? Aren't they suppossed to be non-corporeal? How would even a person with a body do that? Sounds to me like apophenia.

Scary impressions in basements are not uncommon. People are genetically hardwired to feel ill at ease in the dark, because that is indeed where bad things can happen to you for perfectly earthly reasons.

Paralysis happens for a number or reasons.

At what age did you suspect that the place was "haunted?" Because these things become a self fullfilling prophecy. Without the confirmation bias, perhaps a strange light on the wall might merely have been somthing passing past the streetlight--except that you had already decided that the place was haunted.

When did your parents know about the suicide? Did they subconsciousy cue you that something was wrong with the wall? Was the paralysis a fear response?

Again, I am not making fun or trying to infringe on your rights to believe as you like. I am just trying to offer comfort in my own fashion. Perhaps the place was not "haunted," and you can rest more easily with a rational explanation.

[cachibatches]

Originally Posted by Old Guard

You made a post, I had nothing to say. You made a second post about no replies. I posted my thought when I read your initial post and why I did not feel the need to reply.

There is no reason to get rude.

This interests me because I would love to know if this were a real memory or it is something that you remember as a memory, like from a dream or something you saw or heard.

I am not saying that this is not a real memory but I have always been interested at why I do not remember anything before a certain age and I can recall other events after a certain age.

This memory is as real as it gets. There is no point in my life when it was not with me.

People are different.

[Vasily]

Originally Posted by Old Guard

I am not saying that this is not a real memory but I have always been interested at why I do not remember anything before a certain age and I can recall other events after a certain age.

My first memory is at 18 months; my great grandmother caught my finger in one of those folding gates they had to keep me from running out onto the street, and I remember going up stairs to the doctor's office. I remember the white walls and the fire extinguisher on the wall, and being placed on a table with a mirror next to me held onto the wall with those star shaped glass things. The last thing I remember is seeing myself in the mirror.

I had no idea how old a toddler I was at the time, but when I was in my 30s I was telling my mother about it and she said, "Oh my God, you were 18 months old!" She said the doctor ripped my nail out (probably while the doctor and my parents were all smoking cigarettes: it was 1948, after all).

We don't remember much before the age of 2-4 because of what's called infantile amnesia. It's not until about 10 that memory recall reaches adult levels -- before that memories are "patchy". Freud thought this was due to sexual repression (of course), but this is BS. The real cause is thought to be rapid neurogenesis in the hippocampus, which prevents a lot of the memories being stored in long term memory. Infantile amnesia has been observed experimentally in rats so it's not unique to humans. Traumatic events may be stored differently due to cortisol -- which might be the reason that's the only memory I can recall from when I was a toddler.

Next memory I can definitely assign a time period to is from when I was three; I was looking down into my sister's crib the day she came home from the hospital (early December, 1950).

[Jimmyp25]

Look up records on that old house. My wifes aunt was living in a condo . She started experiencing crazy things happening. Slamming noises, and picture fell off wall... We looked it up and it turned out that some guy killed his wife and then committed suicide in the bathroom. This was in her same exact unit!!!! That negative energy stays....

[HappyDogToday]

OP, sounds like a haunt to me and your story freaked me out! Glad the place got torn down.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by FeelinLow

OP, sounds like a haunt to me and your story freaked me out! Glad the place got torn down.

A teardown doesn't always guarantee the haunting leaves the area. Example:

A friend of mine lived in an apartment building that was constructed on the site of an old farmhouse; the house was razed to make room for the building. Apparently her apartment was positioned right where the house's foundation sat.
She began to frequently awaken to find her bathroom light on. She mostly found that annoying , thinking it was a short or something. Then she began to awake to see a man standing in her closet entrance but just for a moment. She said he was a black man, middle-aged and apparently wearing overalls. She said that she should have been terrified, but wasn't; she said he had such a look of profound sadness that it seemed to allay her fear.
She began to figure out that the bathroom light was a precursor of his appearance. I was living out of town at the time, and she let me use her apartment while she was away. Sure enough, shortly after I went to bed on came the bathroom light. I moved to the living room couch.
She sometime later befriended a woman that ran the convenience store next door. She had grown up in the community and was acquainted with its' history. My friend related her ghost story to her; she replied, "That sounds like Mr. Kinnemore. He owned that property." Apparently his daughter went off to the woods and never came home. He set off to look for her and never returned, either. The farm was abandoned; no one ever knew what happened to them.

[Badbird2000]

My mom was raised in a house where the previous owner caught his wife having an affair with a friend. He confronted them both, a fight ensued and they were both stabbed to death. In what was her room. All of my aunts and uncles told me stories of the ghost. There was a closet on the first floor that my grandma would never use. A piano was pushed in front of it. She said it always felt cold when she opened the door. And this was in Florida... in the 1940's. My grandpa had a run in with the ghost one night when he was home alone. When everyone came home from church, they found him sitting on the porch with his gun. He would never tell them what happened. Years later, one of my cousins was playing with matches and started a fire. The house burned, not completely but enough to condem it. When the firemen got to the scene, everyone looked up and saw what seemed to be a figure looking out of the window that was the old bedroom. No one was in the house.

[klmrocks]

Just curious have you ever had any experiences outside of living in that home. Ex could you possibly have a gift?