My Personal Paranormal Experiences

There have been unexplained events in my life that I consider to be paranormal. I cannot find a logical or natural explanation for these encounters. Here are but a few examples.

I would say the first event happened when I was 8. I remember my father asking my sister and me to sit down; he had some bad news to share with us. I knew immediately my grandmother, a truly remarkable woman, had passed away. She had endured a long and painful battle with cancer and though I did not see her in her last days, I knew somehow her fight had ended in her untimely death before my father could find the words.

My grandmother sent many messages from beyond to the people she loved (three knocks on the door to tell her brother goodbye, a gift of flowers to her daughter that bloomed for the first and last time, appearing in dreams to say "everything is alright", and the list goes on...). To my knowledge, I am the only person she appeared to as an apparition.

It was several months after her passing and I had an extremely difficult time dealing with her loss. It was the first time I had ever lost a close loved one. I could not bear the thought of sleeping alone at night. I slept in my sister's room and remember waking to see my grandmother in the window dressed in the gown she was buried in. She said nothing and her face showed no expression. I was not frightened. I felt comforted by her presence. I fumbled with the covers in an attempt to wake my sister, but within a matter of seconds I became overwhelmed with grief, tears began to fill my eyes, and she slowly faded away.

Then there were a series of events in (and about) the old three-storey brick house that had been past down our family for generations; the last owners being my grandparents. For one, I never felt welcomed in that home nor did other members of the family even though we had no real reason to feel threatened. I loved my grandparents dearly, but the very thought of being left in that creepy house alone even for a moment downright scared me. I still get chills when I drive by.

I always got the sense that someone there was (and is) watching me. I never saw anything. However, there were some mysterious happenings. For another, this fear (of the house) gradually began to manifest as a terrifying reoccurring dream. It started with me getting a bad nose bleed at the entranceway to the house. Then I would hear my name being called from a distance. I would walk to the living room and I would hear the voice again calling from upstairs. I would climb up the stairs and hear my name; the voice growing louder and more impatient.

I would proceed around the banister to my grandparent's bedroom at the end of the hall and I would hear the voice, its urgency, coming from inside their closet. As I opened the door, there was complete darkness (almost like peering into a large walk-in closet with no lights, no visible walls, and no end) and I would awake, startled, my heart beating rapidly, paralyzed with fear... This dream tormented me for many years. I tried to interpret the dream to uncover its true meaning without any success. I could never recall if the voice in it was male or female and my grandparent's closet in fact was quite small in size.

After my grandfather died, I confided in my sister and told her about the dream. She was completely shocked and shaken by the entire experience; she explained she was haunted by the exact same dream. It would replay in her mind - calling out her name - over and over again. It was eerie!

You can imagine our surprise the day our parents renovated the house in preparation for the estate sale... They decided to remove the worn carpet from my grandparent's bedroom only to have the hard wood floor below reveal the outline of a large walk-in closet! Apparently my mother had forgotten all about it, since it was torn down during her early childhood.

There was also an event that took place when I was still living at my parent's house. My bedroom was adjacent to the kitchen and my bed was next to the wall between the two rooms. The wall is thin and I had left my door open. It was a restless night of tossing and turning when all of a sudden I heard a noise coming from the kitchen. I could distinctly remember what sounded like someone shifting in a chair at the kitchen table and a silver spoon hitting the side of a cup repeatedly, like in a stirring motion. I was convinced someone must have gotten up to make themselves a cup of tea or cocoa, but there were no lights on. I would have seen the glow from my doorway. I shrugged it off. I thought maybe they did not want to disturb me and I drifted back to sleep.

I was the first person up the next day, and during my morning routine I noticed there was no cup in the sink or on the table. I asked each member of my family if they were up during the night to get a drink and the answer was a resounding "no". I was about to dismiss the whole thing, but a few nights later, roughly around the same time, I heard footsteps on the stairs. This time I got up to investigate, but no one was there.