I'd Like To Know What It Wants

I'm not all that keen on the supernatural and I've always been kind of back and forth on the possibility. I've a tendency to be a bit of a skeptic and, where "seeing is believing" is enough for some, it's never really been for me. But I'll explain that more in a moment.

I don't think I'd ever considered the possibility of a supernatural realm that can sometimes, at least, overlap with ours until I was a preteen, 12 maybe. I was never afraid of the dark, never worried about ghosts or monsters under the bed, etc. I just wasn't that kid.

When I was about 12, though, we moved into a new home which also happened to be next door (separated by a thin strip of wooded area and a parking lot) to a church and cemetery. The cemetery where my maternal grandfather and his parents are buried actually. I wasn't afraid of the cemetery. Not at that point anyway.

Within a couple of months or so of moving in I had my first "experience" which I won't call supernatural because I don't know that it was. I was young, my parents had just uprooted me and moved me to a different school district, and we had a bit of a dysfunctional home life anyway... I can't say that it wasn't stress or just a half-waking dream, but I will say that it certainly did seem real to me at that time.

Anyway, I was in bed, sleeping - no idea of the time. For whatever reason I woke and my brother was standing at the bottom of my bed. Again, I was maybe 12 and he's two years younger so about 10 or so at the time. I assumed that he'd gotten scared, had a bad dream, whatever and come into my room to sleep. Except he just stood at the bottom of my bed facing forward across the length of the bed and he didn't say anything. That probably lasted a few seconds before it struck me as odd and it occurred to me that whatever I was seeing, it wasn't my little brother. I was immediately just frozen in fear. I said his name, but whatever had been there, if anything had been there at all, wasn't there anymore. It didn't "fade" or flash out or whatever. I just saw it one moment and then didn't the next.

Anyway, I lived in that home from the time I was a preteen to the time that I graduated high school (moved out immediately after graduated). It came to a point where I was terrified of that place, day or night, whether I was alone or whether anyone was with me. I suffered from insomnia. Some nights I would lie in bed for hours without being able to sleep. Some nights I'd lay awake virtually all night.

On a number of odd nights I would wake up once an hour, exactly on the hour mark from the point I had last woke. It's generally at this point in someone's story that I would start losing faith in the accuracy or credibility of it, but I swear with whatever deity you prefer as my witness, on my life, etc that this happened to me frequently. I'd, for example, wake at 2:17 am, drift back off, wake again and the the red, digital read out on my alarm clock would say 3:17 a.m., then again at 4:17 a.m., 5:17 a.m. On those random nights that this happened, it happened no more than 3-5 times each.

Anyway, I had a habit of going into the cemetery and sitting by a particular stone (not a family stone, but one that was old and weathered and in a pretty, sunny spot) and read or write in my diary. At the worst of everything, though, when I couldn't relax in the house for just having the feeling of something being there and I couldn't sleep, I finally became desperate. I went to the graveyard, to the stone that I liked to sit by, and I just bawled and begged whatever it was to just leave me be. Even promised I would come back to "visit", but I just really didn't want anything following me home.

Whether that actually made a difference or if it just put my mind at ease I don't know, but the uneasy feelings stopped. I still had trouble sleeping, but it at least improved. Only problem was it didn't last. I completely stopped visiting the cemetery, didn't go back to that stone because I was thoroughly creeped out by all of it. And so the brunt of the time I lived there I stayed a wreck. Took drugs, started smoking, staying anywhere but home when I could get away with it.

Only ever had one other visual experience, and again, I don't know whether what I saw was real or not. Woke in the middle of the night, as usual, rolled over away from the room to the wall, and then was just instantly terrified. I thought I saw a woman's face in the corner of my room and it didn't click at first. Interestingly though, my idiot friend and I decided to have a "seance" several days before this and, of course, had a Ouija. Otherwise, heard things, felt things, but never saw or thought I saw anything else there.

Moved into the place I live in now with my husband and son a couple of years ago. I've only ever lived in a couple of places where I felt completely at ease and like, when I was alone, I was actually alone. I stay on edge here, only recently began to be able to sleep with my back to the room and the doorway. All this for someone who can't decide whether they actually believe in spirits or not.

Anyway, there's some electrical issue in my son's room. Noticed the light flickering shortly after we moved in. Flickered a little every now and again. In the last while, though, it's gotten to the point that the light flickers virtually constantly when it is on. It just constantly flickers and dims and sometimes flashes bright. I was in his room a few weeks ago or so and it was flickering like crazy and just generally irritating me so badly. I finally just snapped, without thinking about it, and said "Would you STOP that, please?" It flickered again - a few little quick flickers, and then steady light for a second, and then another few short flickers, and it stopped. It's only been a few weeks and its not like I stand in the room and watch the light to make sure it absolutely does not flicker again, but I do keep an eye on it when my son's in there watching his toons to see if it starts again. It's just done for the moment, I guess. I don't know why and obviously it could be a coincidence - probably is, but it has me curious.

Even more interestingly, it seems a bit like a trade off. The lights don't flicker but now, for the last couple weeks, I keep catching quick glimpses of something. Always out of the corner of my eye - NEVER straight on and never clear or long enough that I can get an idea of shape or anything like that, or even really be sure that it's not my imagination. It doesn't scare me, but I'd really like to know whether it's just my imagination or something else.

Last thing - I was laying with my son two or three mornings ago - very early morning hours - in bed. Daylight coming in through the blinds and just me and my son because my husband was at work. I was trying to sleep, but opened my eyes for some reason. I absolutely, distinctly saw something round and black but transparent in front of my eyes. It was bizarre. At this point, I should mention that I had an AVM and a brain hemorrhage a handful of years ago. I experienced a lot of trouble with my eyes and there was both physical and neurological damage, and there were instances for a very short while where, when I first opened my eyes, all I saw was black for a couple of seconds. This could very well have been related to that although I never saw anything like this and it's been several years since I've had any kind of notable visual problems.

I'm just very curious here. If there's something here other than my family and my dog, I would like to know. Thing is, I think I may have shut down that believing, seeing part of myself simply by being just so afraid of it when I was younger.