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The Night A Lady In White Came To Visit

 

Over the course of my childhood, I came to experience a lot of strange occurrences while living in my home. Things would go missing, only to be found later in very strange places, doors seemingly locking themselves during the night, footsteps being heard when no one else was home, faint voices being carried up through the old heating vents from the basement...etc. The experience I would like to talk about is my most vivid one, and has haunted me ever since it happened.

I grew up in a relatively old colonial style brick house. What is now the kitchen, was built in the late 1600's (originally a one-room house) and the rest was added on in the mid 1700's. This property was originally owned by a couple who worked in Philadelphia and it sits on an old farm estate in New Jersey, which was also home to the Lenape tribe of Native Americans before that. During those times, it was common place to be born and die in your own home. Maybe that is why there is so much energy tied to the house.

One night when I was 7, I had been fast asleep in my room when a nightmare woke me up in the middle of the night. This was pretty common for me at that age and after some time I would normally just fall back asleep. Because of the nature of the dream, this time I was pretty riled up and could not fall back asleep. I lay awake in my room looking at all the shadowy areas expecting to find something "scary" hiding.

I remember doing a full scan of the room and finding of course nothing, but at some point my eyes scanned towards the door again which was wide open (I can't remember if it had previously been closed or not, but there was definitely nothing out of the ordinary during the first "scan"). It was then that I was confronted with a woman standing just outside the door, and she was staring directly back at me with a completely blank expression. I didn't quite understand what was happening at the time. I knew something was definitely off about this woman, aside from the fact it was the middle of the night and there was a complete stranger standing in the dark in my doorway looking directly at me.

I remember staring back, almost in a frozen state of shock. I don't recall any movement whatsoever actually, but I could make out all of her features clear as day. She was very pretty, her dark hair was slightly longer than shoulder length and it had slight waves at the bottom. She was wearing a long white nightgown... Cliché, I know, but that is what she was wearing. The longer she stared at me the more afraid and confused I got. After a few seconds of this, I remember throwing the covers over my head and hiding while thinking over and over "please go away". When I finally emerged from the sheets, to my relief, there was no one there. I don't know why I didn't call out to my mom as I usually did when I would have bad dreams. I ended up falling back asleep and brought it up to my parents days later.

I am 29 and to this day, even when I go home to visit my parents, I still sleep with the door fully closed:-)

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, VickyPollard, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Ghoststories101 (2 posts)
 
8 years ago (2015-11-07)
Hi I am sorry this is so late I just made the account today but I had experienced th same thing. I was like 11 or 12 sleeping in my room woke up about 3:30 and then their was someone all white standing in my doorway and than we just kept looking at each other. It was really scary and I still see ghost to this day.
valkricry (48 stories) (3257 posts) mod
 
8 years ago (2015-11-01)
Hi Vicky,
"Things would go missing, only to be found later in very strange places, doors seemingly locking themselves during the night, footsteps being heard when no one else was home, faint voices being carried up through the old heating vents from the basement..." Do you feel that the Lady was responsible for any of that?
I'm also curious to know if anyone else in the household experienced these things as well?
From your narrative, it sounds as though you only saw the Lady the one time. From that bit, I don't think we can really say residual or intelligent.
Bibliothecarius (9 stories) (1091 posts)
+1
8 years ago (2015-10-31)
Greetings, Vicky; welcome to YGS.

Sorry you've not had the benefit of a fully diverse set of comments, as yet; several established members appear to take a time out in the buildup to Hallowe'en. Young fiction writers like to experiment on this site, much to everyone's annoyance.

SDS is a dependable, level-headed individual (as always); his clear thinking -and his subsequent debunking of misunderstood events- is one of the reasons I joined YGS. Much of what I wanted to say as I was reading your story is already in his comments.

[Sidenote: sleep paralysis, Alexthecat, is identified by the individual's inability to move!]

I'd love to know if your parents have encountered this woman. From your description of her hair length, she'd most likely be from between the late 1930s and your parents' purchase of the house. Women's hair has been subject to a number of bizarre hairstyles,; until the flappers of the '20s had "bobbed" cuts, fashionable women's hair would be mid-spine length and worn in the style of the period (braided, pinned, whatever). Hair styles got longer (chin-length) in the early 1930s, shoulder-length in the '40s, etc. Your description suggested a relatively affluent young woman (late teens through her mid-20s, perhaps?), so I'd guess she'd follow the fashion trends of her peers. Depending upon the age of your parents, and where they were raised, they may even be aware of gossip/myths about her identity.

If I have misunderstood your description of her, please correct me! I've been relaying the description of her hair to my wife (a well-informed amateur fashion historian) to verify that I'm getting the details of my analysis correct; if i've muddled up your description, though, my guess is useless!

Please let us know what you find out when you mention to them that you were telling ghost stories at Hallowe'en, and some of the other people asked questions which made you wonder...

Take care,
-Biblio.
sds (14 stories) (1436 posts)
+1
8 years ago (2015-10-30)
Hi VickyPollard, I respectfully disagree with Alexthecat as far as the sleep paralysis aspect is concerned. Because if it were a sleep paralysis, you would not have thrown the bedcovers over your head and prayed for it to go away. Hence, I am ruling out this aspect.

Secondly, I want to ask you what was the reaction of your parents when you disclosed your sighting to them days later. You did not inform us their reaction or reply.

Thirdly, you say that even now you visit your parents' house and if possible, why don't you once again bring up the topic with them and discuss the issue and ask if they had any experience such as yours or sighted a lady with a white gown. If they do have their own experiences or sighting of this lady, please try to ascertain the timings of their sighting, the date, if possible etc. I feel that it might be some residual haunting. I might be wrong. But this is what I feel.

However, if there is nothing that could come out of your investigation that you are going to do, it will be quite difficult to comment about your experience except that it might be a random paranormal sighting.

Please do respond and welcome to YGS.

Regards and respects to you.

SDS
Alexthecat (3 stories) (8 posts)
 
8 years ago (2015-10-29)
Hello Vicky,
Thank you for sharing this story. Now, I am a sceptic, but I also have been in many parinormal situations, so I'll give you two answers. One scientific and the other much less so. The scientific one is that you were experiencing a common side affect of waking up in the middle of the night called sleep peralisis where your body is awake but you brain not quite so or vice versa. This can lead to mild hallucinations and/or intense feelings of fear. Now, I'm not saying this is the cause, but it is a possibility.

The less scientific answer, and maybe the more possible, I don't know I wasn't there is that a spirit of previous owners of the house are making sure that everything in the house is going well. As she did not try to scare you, she probably just was "checking up" on you.

Tell me if this helps or not!

-Alexthecat

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