For Nutsy, Dawn, the insomniac SaDiablo, and anyone else who wants to jump in.

And now I've got code to tweak.  You kids have fuN!

*half-serious*  I love insomnia.

So, like I was telling Dawn on the spawning thread, I had an old lady who haunted the house I grew up in that used to push me down the stairs.

She was only one of the spirits there, though.  That house was a paranormal jackpot.

I remember some thread, a while ago, last year, where Shell had some ghost stories. Very spooky from what I remember.

As for me: NOPE and that's fine with me.

I wonder why "spirits" bother some people and not others. I wonder if anything in the chart shows this? Maybe they think I"m one of them and that's why...

And I consider myself  to be a particularly spiritual/somewhat mystical/Pisces North Node person, but with lots of Earth in my chart... The occult interests me, divination interests me, religion interests me, mediumship is interesting.... I can be very VERY intuitive at times.

But for some reason all of this doesn't extend itself to any ghostly visitation and like I wrote above, that's FINE with me.

The wall (between here and there) so far, for me, has been impenetrable. Despite precognitive dreams about my mother (before she died) and all the longing in the world --

 (Sigh)

Spirits don't bother me unless they want to play games or attach themselves to me.  Then I'm all "Back OFF, motherfucker!" 

Whoa SaD! That is intense. Why do you think she wanted to push you down the stairs??

She wanted her house back.  *nodnodnod*  Spite and fear, it's potent.

I do and I'll have to come back when I can think about it.  I have sooo many.  An old pre-antebellum home near Athens GA, a restaurant called Shades, haunted by old regular customers...  a haunted picture...  Some of the stories I got were later confirmed. 

I was house sitting once for some friends who were going on vacation. My friend (a super Leo with Pisces rising) had been taking some para-psychology classes on reading or trying to see people's plasma auras (ok don't ask me to explain this!..lol)and apparently had drawn some spirits to her home. The place where they lived was built over an Indian burial ground - a BIG NO NO! So anyway, they left and that night was a very warm summer night. I opened the window towards the woods facing the stream that ran from the little hill on that side of the house. The bedroom was up in the loft. When all was still in the dark of night, I had awoken to someone grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the bedroom window. I could not believe the power and strength that I felt from this entity that I could not even see! And just as it had gotten half my torso out the window, I yelled "release me!" and it did! Needless to say I sat up all night with the cat on my lap and the bedside lamp on. And I experienced something there another time too.

SaD: But you were a little kid! geez!

OOOH Lupa do come back and spin some ghost stories!!

Holy shite, Dawn!  That's freaktastic!

No, but I seem to meet or come across people who have ghost stories. The only ghost stories I have are from my crazy dreams. The most memorable one continued where it left off for 2-3 days, which almost never happens.

Thanks, Shannon!  You're Super Awesome, today, man--talk about multi-tasking!  We need to bake you a big Shiny Chicken cake!   

I've got lots of stories, I've known ghosts since I was five years old and I'm still seein' 'em.  So I don't take up this whole thread, I'll post my experiences in increments.  But I want to start not in chronological order (which I'm almost anal about), but with the strongest presence I can speak of.  I didn't experience this one as much as I'd heard about it, because it happened mostly to my Dad during several weeks, when I was about seven years old.  But I'd never seen him so shaken in all my life, and it lasted the entire time he had his 'outs' with our ghost.

When I was five, we moved into a house in South San Jose (which we found out later had been built on an Indian Burial Ground--surveyors sure are pricks about choosing housing locations in the worst spots in this country).  Not long after we moved in, an attic-space door literally burst downward in my parents' closet one night.  After that, we would all hear someone walking around (heavy boot-walking even!) upstairs while we were all downstairs watching TV.  And, sometimes after dark and early, early in the morning, the door to the garage downstairs would open--as if someone was going out there--but almost a split-second afterwards it would slam shut.  Sometimes I'd be the first up, so I'd go and check it, after listening for anyone coming upstairs, and I'd find everything looking normal, garage-door locked.  No signs of life anywhere in the house, my brother fast asleep, both my parents snoring away. 

Eventually, this progressed to kitchen cupboards and drawers opening and slamming late at night, and for several hours.  My parents' room was right above the kitchen, so they heard it the moment it commenced.  Now, before he finally blew his top...my dad woke up one night next to my mom--and we've all night-lights in our rooms because our family seems to have a tendency to stub their toes in the darkness--well, my dad had glanced over at my Mom, because he thought he'd heard something that woke him up, and there was a transparent man lying between them.  When my Dad described it to me, all I can picture (to this day) was someone looking like George Custer (the General who was killed by Indians at Little Big Horn), because my dad said he had what looked like a cavalry uniform on and long blondish hair.  The moment my dad looked at this apparition, it sat upright, turned to look at him, and was gone.  He said he didn't get back to sleep after that.  That shook him up, which kind of irritated him.

So, as the slamming of the kitchen drawers and cupboards increased, he finally lost it one night.  He had gotten used to standing at the top of the stairs in the darkness with his M-1 rifle, waiting for the "intruder" to show himself.  Anyone who'd have come around that corner after opening and slamming the kitchen cupboards would have gotten a hole in their chest.  But no one ever appeared, and when he went downstairs to investigate, everything was calm and still.  One night he said fuck it, and he laid into our ghost with threats and anger and swearing, and he pretty much laid it all on the line and told the motherfucker to get the hell out of there and leave our family alone.

Since the ghost had been there before us, it resented that.  The slamming got louder and more frequent, sometimes my parents had their bed shaken, sometimes lights went off or on, and very, very often my dad's engineering tools would disappear.  Some of them he'd never find again, and he always kept things where he could find them.  This went on for several exhausting, exasperating weeks, and it seemed to be aimed solely at my dad, since it didn't seem to start really going until after my brother and I had fallen asleep.  We (my brother and I) never heard any of it, although it often took me several hours to finally fall asleep, because I always watched our bedroom door move back and forth by itself and it scared the shit out of me. 

Finally, one night, after several nights of very little sleep.  My dad had sat at the top of the stairs, and he apologized his heart out to our ghost.  The way he recounted it, and my Mom acknowledged, he was VERY sincere.  That ended his personal haunting, but it never quite ended the stomping of a walker over our heads when we were all downstairs (sometimes we had company over, and everyone would be hushed with wide eyes and nervous smiles as we listened to it), and my dad's tools still disappeared every so often. We got to understand that the ghost was a nice entity, a protective entity, and I'll give more examples of that in the future...but I've gone on long enough and it's time for someone else to add a tale.

Awesome stories.  I have 3 episodes with ghosts.  The first one started when I moved into a house in a tiny town in Iowa.  Every night when I first went to bed I could hear the doorknob on the door to the cellar turn and an effort being made to open the door.  As if someone in the cellar was coming up to the main part of the house.  The door was locked from myside with a gate hook which gave it a little room for play, so it was pretty obivious to hear.  After figuring out I wasn't being robbed, I would go look, but there was never anyone or anything there.  And it only happened at dark.  During the day I would leave the door opened.  So if something was coming up and down, apparently I was locking it up at night.  In that same house, some nights when I was sound a sleep I would be suddenly woken by the feeling as if someone had just sat down on the side of the bed at the foot, as if to watch me sleep.  As I started to awaken I could feel "them" get up off the bed,  but there was never anyone there.  I tried to investigate if anyone had ever died in that house, but the answers where no.  I often wondered if it too had be built on and Indian burial ground but could find no history of that in the area.  I never really felt threatened , but was very uncomfortable, I felt like I was either living in someone else's house or maybe try to co-exist.  Moved quickly after that. 

My second esisode still kinda happens to me,  I don't think it is so much a ghost as something like my "guardian angel" or a spirit assigned to me.  I can sometimes catch a glimpse of a white, willowy shadow out of the corner on my eye accompanied by the softest lightest breeze.  I is not a threatening or scarry feeling either,  and it seems to appear during periods of high stress.  So it doesn't freak me out. 

Worked for a while at an in-patient hospice facility.  There was more opening doors, moving furniture, light flashings then you could believe.  The staff was cool with it, and suspected who some of the ghosts might be, and talked to them like when they lived their.  Admin thought we were crazy so of course the engineers had an explanation for everything,  the floor is warped of course the door opens,  short in the wiring,  the widget in the toilet must be stuck,  light bulbs do that before they burn out.  We all just laughed at them and kept talking to our ghosts.   No one ever felt threatened by them as we where a place of love and final endings. 

Since I already touched on the most memorable ghost experience my Dad had in our San Jose house, I'll touch on my Mom's, and then, as I'd mentioned before, I'll come back here repeatedly to add in my own expriences over the years.

We were at a party at the house of some family friends, and my Mom had to come back home to get something--can't remember what, but it was important enough for her to go 15 miles round-trip to get it.  It was dark when she got home, all by herself, and she told us afterwards that she went upstairs--wearing heels, no less--and she was in a hurry.  She got what she needed from my parents' bedroom, and on her way down the stairs, one of her heels broke.  She related to us that she'd started to fall forward, and would have plummeted head-first down the stairs (from about 10 steps up) when a force pushed her back suddenly, but somehow gently, and she landed on the stairs two steps higher than where she'd been when the heel busted--completely baffled.

When she returned to the party, with a new pair of heels on, she was visibly shaken.  I remember seeing her, and I think I was maybe six or seven at the time, and she looked like she'd seen a ghost.  Well, she may not have seen it, but she definitely felt it.

Well, this seems a totally appropiate time to tell this story... I was visiting Ireland and staying in a 400 year old restored cottage. This is such a long story- I'll try and make it short...  I'm sitting in front of a the biggest fireplaces I've ever seen, there are two local musicians there... they began playing this ancient song, and in an instant of time- I saw the entire room- filled with people, (well their spirits anyway), everyone that had ever heard that song, in front of that fireplace. over the last 400 years where there.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Lots of ghost stories; most involve my grandmothers old Victorian house. That house has been gone for 25 years and I still dream about it regularly as does my brother and sisters. Will tell a few stories sometime when I'm not so tired, it's not so late and I don't have to get up so early the next day.........(boring, I know; I can't help it, I'm Saturn's bitch!)

Holy crap ghost stories! I know "Paranormal Activity" wasn't a real documentary, but it still scared the shit out of me...

When I was about 9 or 10, my older brothers would have friends over all the time and they played with the Ouiji board. My oldest brother used to use it by himself a lot. My mom constantly complained about hearing noises in the kitchen and yelling to the boys to keep it down when they weren't even home. I used to hear someone whisper my name in my ear while I played with my She-ra and My Little Ponies. :)

One school morning, I woke before my alarm and laid in my top bunk waiting for my alarm clock to go off for school. My younger sister laid sleeping below me. All of the sudden, my bedroom door swung over and I looked over thinking that one of our cats had busted in to the bedroom. Instead I saw a ghostly figure that looked exactly like my sister, run screaming, mouth wide into the bedroom, but there was absolutely no noise coming from the ghost. It ran under my bed where my sister was laying on hers. I looked down, but there was nothing, just my sister sleeping calmly.

That was weird, but I've never seen or heard from a ghost since.

Number one rule for me - never ever allow a Ouija board!  Oy...no way.

My grandmother and my mother lived in various places in rural WV back in the 30s and 40s.  They had boatloads of tales to tell.  When we went back there when I was a kid, Mom wanted to show me some of the more "interesting" of those places, and every one of them was a pile of cinders.  

Mom and I lived in apartments when I was growing up, and everytime we'd move, there was a certain odor in the apartments.  Not a bad odor, but the same one, no matter where we moved to.  At one point my grandmother was with us, and she said "oh!  It smells like Aunt (Whoever - I can't remember the name)...she used to wear perfume like this!"  Mom was like "Ohhhh."  There was comfort in that.

I was about ten or eleven, and we'd been to the grocery store.  Mom had bought three packs of smokes, and while we were putting away the groceries the phone rang.  I finished up the groceries, and she went for her new pack of cigarettes.  Then she started yelling at me, because they were GONE.  I didn't have them, of course.  So she's bitching on the phone to my SIL that I took her cigarettes, blah blah blah, and the cabinet over the stove swung open really slow.  There were the cigarette packages.  At that age, I couldn't reach that cabinet without standing on a chair, and frankly, Mom was five feet nothing on a good hair day, so neither could she.  Harmless prank!

I don't get that stuff much myself, but Mom has come to me in dreams with information.  I was sure my son was going to be a girl.  At about seven months, I dreamed Mom & I were hanging out, and the baby needed to be changed.  When I took the diaper off, there was a penis!  ACK!  I said "It's a boy!  What the hell do I do with a BOY???"  And she said "You love him."  Two weeks later my water broke, and sure enough.  It was a boy, and loved him.

Another dream - she and I were in her car, garage saling like we used to do every weekend in Albuquerque.  Mom was a bit of an ambulance chaser, so while we're at this intersection, an ambulance goes screaming by.  She looked at me and said "That's for Dorothy."  In the shower the next morning, I'm thinking "Dorothy?"  The only Dorothy I have ever known is my brother's stepmom.  I passed it off as just weird.  A few days later, my brother called and said they were just back from Arizona because "Dorothy is really sick; they didn't think she was going to make it."  I didn't speak for a minute, I was so shocked!  When I told Mark, he thought I was kidding him.  

While the Sight has missed me, my daughter has it in spades.  The house we bought when we moved up here was Not Right.  The marriage disintegrated steadily from the time we bought it, nothing worked right, appliances broke down or gave out all the time, and there was a "feel" about it that I didn't like, but my poor baby girl.  As an infant, she hated her bedroom upstairs.  If we slept up there with her, she'd sleep up there.  Alone?  No way!   We finally got her settled when she was about five, but when she was seven, she freaked out.  She saw and heard someone come up the stairs, turn into her room, and walk into her closet.  Her brother was right across the hall, open doors, everything.  Three nights in a row she braved it, and then she came flying down those stairs for the last time.  She wouldn't even go up in broad daylight to get socks from her dresser.  

Do I believe?  Oh, yeah.  This is just the tip of the iceberg...

Okay, now I'm going to start with my youngest memories and work up:

My brother and I shared a bedroom until just before our teens, and we always left our room door open at night so we could stagger across the hall into the bathroom while half-asleep.  Every single night from the time I was five until the time I was about seven, I couldn't fall asleep immediately.  My brother?  He'd hit the pillow and was out like a light almost instantly.  I was like an owl.  Big eyes planted on the door and a "Who?" on my lips as it swung to and fro, slowly and repeatedly.  When I closed my eyes I heard things, like footsteps or creaks or sometimes whispers.  The only time I was safe was when I woke my brother up with some stupid question, just to make sure I wasn't the only one awake, or I had 3-5 minutes of "noise-cover" when the furnace kicked in and warm air came out of the vents, to try to get to sleep before silence (and noises) and heeby-jeebies came back.

I've never SEEN one, but I had what I think was my first encounter with one just last fall.

I went to an old Methodist church with my 8 yo for a photo shoot.  I was entering these pictures in a contest.  I was in full neo-Victorian getup with Tarot deck in hand, and I sat by a couple of gravestones.  That wasn't the weird part...the shoot was fun.

When I got home, the toggle clasp necklace I was wearing had come undone and was about to fall off of me.  I thought this was weird, because this necklace is heavy.  So I took a look at the pictures.  The necklace was still on in the first two, and was falling off in the third one.  The pictures were taken in a span of only five minutes.  That necklace never came open in the seven or eight years I had it.  Six or so months later, DD and I think someone or something was trying to get my attention in that cemetery.  I think it was because of my outfit...I was dressed in head-to-toe black and looked like I was in mourning.  (I'll post the picture of the outfit if anyone would like to see it.)

A month earlier, our family took a trip to Gettysburg.  I'd been wanting to go there for years.  I didn't have any experiences, but my 8 yo did.

It was early October and gorgeous, about 70 degrees out.  We had the windows wide open and no air conditioning on.  When we got to a couple of the monuments, my 8 and 10 yos were complaining about being freezing cold.  I thought that was weird because we didn't put the air on at all that day, but I quickly forgot about it because I was so excited to be at Gettysburg.

The next day, when we were on our way home from this long weekend (we also went to Hershey Park), my 8 yo finally told us a story.  She got out of the car and followed us to one of the monuments.  She said that she felt a hand press onto her shoulder, and she felt very cold.  It lasted about a second, then the feeling vanished.

I was amazed.  I told her not to be afraid, because that was probably a Civil War soldier who died in the battle and wanted to go home.  She might have reminded him of his little girl, I told her.  It was nothing to be afraid of; it only wanted to get her attention, not to scare her.  (Can you tell I watch a LOT of Ghost Hunters?  )  Her story has been consistent when she retells it, so she definitely didn't make it up.

I'd like nothing more than to actually see a ghost.  I better be careful about what I wish for. 

LisLioness,

Definitely be careful what you wish for, lest it be a "bad" ghost...but you never know, you might have already seen a ghost and not known it was a ghost. 

In my Civil War research I've read of situations like the ones you've posted above... A group of children near the Sunken Road at Antietam heard the Irish Brigade distantly crying out "Faugh-a-Balaugh!", a deathly stench accosting the senses of some travelers near Andersonville, and one that always stands out to me of a woman who goes to Harpers Ferry to look at historic sites and a mysterious fellow dressed in old clothes tapping her on the shoulder, pointing toward one of the heights and saying, "That is what you're looking for.", before disappearing a second later. 

One of these days, I'm hoping to tour some of those battlefields, and with my receptivity to paranormal stuff I'm sure I will see, hear, sense or feel something each place I go.

After the incident I described above involving my Mom being saved by our ghost, we agreed it was a friendly ghost and welcomed the presence with open arms.  Although, there were times...

After I got my own room, I started developing Scorpio privacy.  My brother and I fought, are Mom was heavily depressed, and sometimes I just needed to be away from the drama, so I started locking my door.  But it didn't stay locked for the ghost.  My bedroom door could only be unlocked with a screwdriver, there was no key for it.  I'd lock it, it would open.  I'd check the lock--it was still locked--but it would just push open suddenly.

During a Thanksgiving get-together, with family, in-laws, family friends, etc., I hastened upstairs to use the bathroom, locked the door, got ready to do my business, and the bathroom door pushed open.  I check it, it was locked, I shut it, heard the click that told me it was secure, sat down, door popped open.  This happened three times before I called my dad up, he checked it, we tested it.  Nothing.  He went downstairs, door popped open.  That's when my parents started feeling that the ghost was looking our for me.  But it might have been more discreet that day!

I'm really trying NOT to take over this thread...  I wait for others to post, but since I don't see anything since my last post, it's on to the next... (Moon in Aries, remember, it's VERY difficult to rein in my patience...)

We had a skeptic stay at our place with his family just after the episodic battle between my dad and the ghost.  The father of this family had once been a sergeant in the Marines, his wife was a dear and caring person, their daughter was in the Air Force and overseas in Turkey, their two sons were like idols to my brother and I.  One night, we were talking about the ghost with these friends, after hearing the clomp-clomp-clomping upstairs.  The Marine doubted it, thought we were pulling his leg.

About 3AM, the bed that the Marine and his wife were sharing was "kicked" very forcefully, enough to upset them.  He got up, rushed out of the room, and checked to see who'd done it.  He said my parents were both snoring away--and he hadn't given ANYONE time to get out of sight, he told us, when he rushed out of the room--and all us boys were out cold.  He said later that morning that he'd stood over the boys (four of us) for about five minutes, quietly watching if we'd give ourselves up...but we were downstairs, and he was convinced that he'd have seen us flinging ourselves onto our sleeping bags at the speed he was going.  He was also convinced that none of us could've kicked that mattress as hard as it had been struck.

Breakfast that morning was very amusing, as he let everyone know of his "visitor" and for a tough guy like that, it was a sight to see his face filled with surprise, amusement, and a new, shiny, awed awareness.  His eyes looked almost exhilerated by what he'd experienced.  He never questioned our ghost (whom we'd taken to calling "Charlie") after that.

I haven't finished with my stories either and will add one or two more. But have read the above and love it!! Have to run but will bbl!

Our ghost "Charlie" didn't like it when strangers came over and we weren't home.  While we were out of town once, the babysitter who watched my brother and I during the summer was allowed to come over to our house with her daughters and enjoy our swimming pool.  She brought her kids to the house, they changed into their swimsuits, she went out into the backyard with them, and then, when she attempted to get back into the house, she found that the back-door had been locked.  That door can ONLY be locked from the inside.  She had left the front-door unlocked, so was able to get back inside (since she'd left the keys on the table in the family room), but she believed it had been our protective spirit doing its best to maintain the safety of its domain.  No one else had been in the house, as far as she (or we afterwards) could tell, or things might have been missing....aside from my dad's occasionally disappearing work-tools.

I had a friend that lived across the street when I was growing up, his nickname was "Mad Dog".  He had told me on several occasions that, while we were out of town, he would look at the house across the street at night while hanging around outside his house and talking to neighborhood friends.  He said it gave him the chills because he would see drapes move and shadows appear and disappear quite a bit.

During Halloween, even though our house was somewhat decorated and the lights were on, and we were usually waiting to give out candy within, we would often watch persons pause in front of our house, and they'd look it over as if it was the most forbidding building they'd ever seen (which, if you saw pictures of it, you would probably agree it wasn't), but we always got a laugh out of those who looked suddenly frightened and passed our place, looking back over their shoulder at the upper balcony outside my Dad's den and my room.  My Mom & Dad would always joke that "Charlie scared 'em off!"  (More candy for us!)

Wow these are great!! We should compile a bunch and make a book! : )

I don't think "Charlie" liked my last girlfriend.  I found out afterwards, that my family didn't think much of her either.  I was captivated by her.  She was a happy, blond-haired Cancer.  I believe she might have been Virgo-Moon, Sagittarius-Rising (might be wrong on the Moon/Rising, though).  My Dad thought she had an odd laugh, which when I heard it it was like wind-chimes to my ears; my Mom didn't like the way she manipulated me, which can be expected from a Cancer-Mom; and my brother thought she was fat, which I didn't see.

Anyway, her introduction to our ghost was a shock...leave it to a Scorpio to break the news the way I did.  After sex one night in my room, she seemed fidgety and I asked her what was up.  She said she didn't know, but felt kind of odd.  "Kind of like you're being watched?"  I asked.  "Yes."  "Well, that's no surprise, I believe you are."  She recoiled as if I'd turned into an actual scorpio with a stinger poised to strike her, but I reached out to soothe her.  "Don't worry, it's not something to fear.  We have a ghost.  I feel like I'm being watched all the time, that's why I figured I should tell you."  She'd grown up in a haunted house in Connecticut, so she understood ghosts somewhat.

Well, as our relationship continued and we slowly drove each other crazy, she began to feel less and less welcome whenever we went to my house.  One time I excused myself to use the bathroom, and she was at the door within two minutes asking if she could come in because she felt odd.  One time we were on the couch downstairs watching a movie when a heavy, horrid, loud dragging sound erupted over our heads upstairs.  We launched ourselves from the couch, and I instantly went to the cutlery block, pulled out two butcher-knives, and headed upstairs to either find nothing or attempt to cut a burgurgler to pieces.  Of course, there was nothing.  My parents' room was just as it always looked, no signs of heavy furniture displacement or anything.  We left soon after, and I took her home...both of us had been shaken by that eruption.  I'd never heard the "upstair noises" so loud like that, before or afterwards. 

Although our eventual break-up gave me my first (and hopefully ONLY) real heart-break--she was the first of my lovers I actual fell in love with, deeply in love with--it seemed everyone in my family was relieved when we finally parted, and our "Charlie" calmed down instantly afterwards.

Nutsy - will post stories but will take me a day or two.  I went to bed at 5 this morning and had a 9 am meeting.  It's been a long few days :)

I hear ya, Shannon.  Get some sleep!  I look forward to your additions.  I've only got one more to add, really, and I'll do that later...   

Carrie my first boyfriend was Irish--we went to Ireland for Xmas and stayed in his parents' ancient old gigantic mansion (the house had wings for eff's sake) and it was terrifying--

I had to go up to my bed all by myself and I walked past the living room, terrified because his Ma was such a battleaxe, and there she was watching TV...except when I turned back, then said to myself, no I have to go past her--there was nothing. No TV on, no person sitting there and of course everyone though I was insane. That place had a bad vibe AND was haunted!!

@SaD You're too funny!!!

Okay, this one SHOULD be my last.  Sorry to take up so much space on this thread, but these are memories that will be with me all my life, and I tell 'em the way I tell 'em.

Basically, after my brother and I moved out from that house in San Jose, we've moved from Campbell to West San Jose to Anaheim...and each place we've gone, we've heard "another person" in our place.  When one of us is home alone, we'll hear sounds like someone else is home, shuffling through stuff, walking here and there, speaking in low tones, from within our apartment (I know what sounds from another apartment sound like), and whoever's home will usually walk out to greet the other, only to find no one else is there.

My parents stated several times to me, that after we moved out "Charlie" went with us.  Although, there were times when we visited them on Sundays (when we still lived in the Bay Area) where I'd hear the ol' noises upstairs.  I'd usually glance at my Dad, and he'd glance at me with that "Yep, I heard it, too" smirk.  Then, we'd go back to whatever we were doing an instant earlier.  I've also heard voices for many years, whispering or speaking my real name or my nickname.  When I put my headphones on to block out sounds, I'll still hear it.  Usually, it's louder if it's my nickname (Nutsy) and I stop what I'm doing and ask "What?"  But whatever I'm being called for, I never know.

Ever since 2001, I've also noticed a strange sensation when I lie down on my bed sometimes.  When I get migraines, neck-pinches, or just feel like shit, I'll lay down on my bed, close my eyes, and within seconds I'll feel an advancing pressure on the bedcovers.  The only way I can explain it is like a small pet, cat or dog, walking casually toward you.  I thought it was our cat at first, and I'd started talking to her.  Then I'd reach for her, catch air, open my eyes and look toward where the "footsteps" had ceased at that moment, and nothing.  One time I sat upright after such an experience and our cat (a gray cat we call Sunset) was seated outside my bathroom looking at me as if she was about to ask, "Dude, are you high?"

Recently, though, there has been an added development.  Ever since we moved to Anaheim (June 2001 for my brother, and I arrived in July after finishing a temp job in the Bay Area), I have seen a figure in my room.  I'll be seated at my computer desk, writing or surfing the net, and out of the corner of my eye I'll see a figure in the bathroom doorway.  Now, from my perspective at my writing/computer desk, if I'm looking at my computer (12 o'clock), to glance at the bathroom doorway--visible through the mirror on the wall above my sink--you would just need to shift your gaze to the right (2 o'clock).  Shifting that small bit, I've never seen anything that resembles the figure I'd had in my peripheral vision a second before.  And even when I try to "recreate" it in my head to see if I'm just imaging things, I can't see the suspected image.  It's when I least expect it that the figure will be there, but within that short second it takes me to shift my gaze, it's gone.  Happened again last night, as a matter of fact.

I have many ghost stories.  Some of my stories were published last year in a book by Thomas Freese.  So they're now copywritten??  But I'll still tell one or more of them.

The link for the book is      

 http://www.thomaslfreese.com/subpageBookGhost.html 

For some reason, I was unable to insert the link in the box, but the URL above can be pasted.  IF interested, please buy through Elsa's link on Amazon. 

The most interesting story, of mine, in the book:  

This happened at a time when money was a little tight on my parents' farm.  It was the tight money season, before the tobacco crop was sold.  The food freezer was nearly empty and the ground was too muddy to take cattle to market for cash.  Dad got some interesting mail.  He received an envelope with cash inside.  It was enough money for groceries and carried them over until the soil dried out and he was able to take cattle to market.  There was no return address on the envelope.  The address was written in the very distinctive hand writing of his deceased mother.  Grandma had been dead for a couple of years at the time.  

Hey, I couldn't give you guys a scary story.  Well, not this time.  Maybe later.

Nutsy...your stories are amazing...you could be a "ghost writer".

The house I've been living in for the past 17 years is an old house built in 1923. It has a ghost but he's very much a friendly, supportive chap.

We also have an old burial ground one door down from us from the late 18th century. 

We have had various incidents but nothing dangerous or terrifying.  Mostly blow light bulbs, lights turning on by themselves, things disappearing and so on. We feel the energy to actually be welcoming and supportive.  So, we're lucky in that respect.

All this talk of ancient native american burial grounds and so on...some people experience negative energy in their homes and when they move...it moves with them.  Now, that's creepy and I'm glad I don't have that to endure.

PallasAthena,

Your recent post reminded me of a movie, I think it's from 1983, called "The Entity" with Barbara Hershey.  It's supposedly based on events that happened to a lady from Southern California, and, from what I've read in my "Ghost Stories of California" book, the entity goes with her wherever she moves to.  And it ain't a very nice force to be reckoned with, either...  If you see the movie, it's pretty intense.

One of my most dramatic stories didn't actually happen in my house, but a house my aunts had rented.

This house is in one of the not-so-nice parts of town now, but when it was built in the early 1900's, it was a pretty spiffy neighborhood.  Nice, kinda-big, elaborate houses.  My dad and grandfather were helping to update the wiring and HVAC for a rent discount, so I tagged along because a) I love architecture and b) I like learning about maintenance / remodeling.  So while the men were diggling in the basement doing nothing interesting and my aunts were debating decoration, I explored.

The house was three stories and had once been divided into three apartments that were later re-integrated, so each floor had it's own bathroom and kitchen.  While touring the second floor, I started getting that feeling.  Something was there.  I started clockwise from the landing.  Living room, nothing.  Kitchen, nothing.  Hallway, nothing.  Entering the bedroom, I could tell whatever it was was watching.  There was some old works lying on the mantel: broken syringe, spoon, tourniquet.  The closet door was closed and I didn't look inside.
I chalked it up as odd and continued my circle, past the bathroom (empty) and came out on the landing.  As I went to take the first stair to the third floor, I heard a bang from the back of the second floor, so of course I had to go look.

As soon as I crossed back into the living room of the apartment I could feel the whatever following, and when I got to the kitchen all the cabinets and drawers were standing open.  On my earlier tour they'd been closed.  So I closed them, kinda pissed because I don't like being jerked around, and started back towards the bedroom again because it was shorter.
When I entered the bedroom, the works on the mantel were gone and now the closet door was open with a man's suit hanging inside, the tie thrown over the top of the door.  I just shook my head and left, the thing following me as I went upstairs to the third floor and poked around.  Nothing special.
I made my way downstairs and was two steps down to the first floor when something called my name from the second-floor apartment.  I stopped, faced the landing, and said, "Stop it.  I don't care why you're here and I don't want to be bothered.  I'm not playing this game."

Not a good move, in hindsight.

The thing ROARED at me, like a deep roar, and my vision went black for a few seconds.  All the doors on the second floor slammed.  I turned my back on whatever it was and said, "Be pissy all you want.  Leave me the fuck alone," and went downstairs.

I never left the downstairs living room whenever I visited after that. 

Argh, "The Entity!"

Had a homemade tape of that movie when I was a kid.  Unfortunately, someone recorded something else over the middle of it, so I've never seen the whole thing.

It's one of my favorite ghost movies.  I went to get it on Amazon yesterday, but I'm going to wait until I can spend what they're asking.  I'm able to find really good deals on DVDs on Amazon, but that one was just a little too pricy for me right now.  I can't justify spending too much when I'm looking at possible unemployment in the next week or so...  But I can't wait to see it again!  

Has anyone ever seen "Burnt Offerings" (1976) with Oliver Reed and Karen Black?  I've liked that movie since I was about 8.

SaD: that is frickin' hair raising and the one that scared me the most!!! I'll be under the covers tonight!..lol

Ok here is one more: The place where I house sat, well one night she had a birthday party for a friend and we all were going to sleep over in sleeping bags on the floor. After the party died down and we were all snug in our bags I drifted off to sleep. At some point I woke up because I felt a pressure on my back like someone was sitting on me full weight. At first I thought I was having a heart attack. But I struggled under it and it moved. I then opened my eyes and flipped on my stomach and looked at the floor ahead of me. There in front of me was a spinning yellow, irredesent light, really glittery, and it went downward like a vortex. I was so fascinated by it I forgot I was scared. Then it just disappated into a smaller and smaller circle and was gone.

The next day, everyone left but myself. My friend;s husband said he was going down the block to buy some smokes. I saw him leave from the living room. My friend was sunbathing outside on the porch. I went into the beddroom to get my dark glasses and when I came out, I passed the hallway heater vent. I heard her husband calling her name several times, like trying to get her attention. I went out and said I just saw you husband go past you to the store to buy smokes. She said yeah what about it? I said did he just call you from the street or slip back without my noticing. She said no he hadn't come back yet. She was now looking at me like "what is wrong with you?". I said I just heard him calling her from inside the house through the heater vent. She said "oh yeah. That's the ghost. He does that all the time. I didn't want to scare you so I didn't say anything because I didn't know if he would show up with you here". That's when I told her about what happend that night. She said her teacher told her she would attract this sort of thing with her plasma aura classes because it would open up a psychic doorway. I guess I walked through it.

Then when I was young and experimenting with witchcraft (not the dark kind!) I was in my room trying out a spell but had not yet learned about making a circle of protection for yourself ( know! But I was young and just kinda fooling around). I had lit candles and a bowl of salt water on a little alter I had made. In the middle of my incantation, there was a actual wind that blew through my room, blew out the candle and made the whole floor shake making the water toss in the glass bowl like water in a swimming pool during an earthquake. I said "ok I don't know who or what you are...but you are not going to scare me. What do you want?" The lights flickered off and on and then everything settled down. I didn't know how to take all of that but I never practiced again.