Ghosts..., ... Or whatever you choose to call them! Options

[Miss Ross]

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This isn't really about ghosts, but it's still rather weird, so here goes...

About a year ago, my dad was at a concert a couple of villages away from ours one night. He hadn't been out in ages as he'd been so tied up with work, so it wasn't a regular thing for us not to have him at home.
Both he and I have always been more aware of things - deja vu, knowing when the phone's going to ring, who's going to call etc - and also seem to have some sort of connection between us.

Anyway, on this particular evening, my Mum became seriously ill. Usually I know how to deal with it, how to bring her round, but this time I couldn't. With my little brother in bed, and Dad 20 miles away, the only thing I could do was call for an ambulance. It took them about 20 minutes to arrive, during which time I tried to call Dad, but his phone was switched off. I gave up trying and went back to tending to my mum. Half an hour later, the paramedics had brought her round, so I tried to call Dad again. This time he answered, and told me he was on his way home. The concert wasn't even halfway through, so I asked him why he was coming home, and he said that he'd been feeling really panicky all evening and knew that something wasn't right, so had decided to come home.

I don't know if anything's ever been proven, but there have been a number of events like this in the last year, and either my dad or I can sense how the other is feeling, even if we're at opposite ends of the country. Has anyone else experienced something like this?

As for ghosts, well, I think my bedroom's haunted (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif). When I start a new piece on the violin, one which is particularly expressive or in a minor key, I quite often feel someone walk past me, or the door will close or I'll think I can feel a hand on my shoulder. It's probably just my imagination running away with me, but a number of times I've been convinced someone is listening to me.

[maggiemay]

No I wasn't scared, the ghost obviously was able to do something that I couldn't.

That's a great story Beverley.

The one I remember was one February day in 1993. We had just returned home from a job posting overseas, and our cat had been staying with grandparents while we'd been away.

I was upstairs in a back bedroom unpacking and putting some things away, when out of the corner of my eye I saw our cat race up the garden towards the house. I turned to look properly out of the window -
Well I was jet lagged and a bit tired after a long journey across the world. I shook myself and reminded myself that Sam was 120 miles away in the west country. Maybe a neighbour's cat - although our neighbours didn't have cats, hadn't changed in our absence, and it was rare to see another cat in our garden. Maybe brain replaying old tapes - there was something about the speed and bounds of the movement that was just so familiar ...

Later in the day grandad phoned to tell us that our cat had died 3 days before.

[The Old Lady]

Maybe he was saying bye bye Maggie.
Bev. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Petra, did you ever have anymore trouble??
Bev. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

[maggiemay]

Maybe he was saying bye bye Maggie.
Bev. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

that's what I thought, and what I still think
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[DaisyChain]

I had a dream the other night that my cat came back through the catflap. But even in my dream I could hear myself asking her if she was really back for good. Of course, she's not returned, so maybe that was her way of saying bye bye too. Who knows? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mellow.gif)

I've had a couple of "Twinny" things happening with my twin sister. She was away on a Brownie holiday when we were about ten. She went out to collect some wood. When she went to stand up, she hit her left eye on a tree branch. I was at home, and dropped something in the kitchen. When I went to stand up, I hit my left eye on the door handle- on the same day!! She went to Austria with her husband. During the time they were away, it was Mothering Sunday. When she came back, she gave our mum her gift...a cut crystal rose vase..identical to the one I had bought here in England! The year our dad died (1983) we bought him the same birthday card.

I don't think I have seen a ghost, but I certainly "sense" things. I often smell my nan's perfume, and my eldest sister had a house, which is the only house I've ever been in where I would never want to spend the night on my own... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif) When I was washing up one day in the flat I used to live in, I got a very sharp prod on my shoulder..when I was home alone.

[notmusimum]

Our house is really old and when we first got it the garden was very neglected. When I was expecting the eldest my other half did some digging in the garden and uncovered osme old paving stones. I was sat on the patio and turned to see an old lady standing in the lounge windows looking out. I didn't actually see her face just a wrinkled pair of stockings I was too scared to look any higher.Our old lab spent the rest of the day in a right state barking and growling when she was usually very quiet. I've never told the girls because it would scare them.

[hazel]

I'd never believed in ghost stories but then two things happened to change my mind:

We moved house about 10 years ago, to a 300 yr old farmhouse; one of the rooms had no proper floor, just compacted earth with a carpet laid over it (and yes it was quite smelly and damp). Within days of moving in, I saw a huge ginger cat rushing through the room and out of the door to the kitchen several times, but even if the other doors that led out of the kitchen were all closed, I could never find it or work out where it had gone. I also saw it curled up in a patch of sunlight in the garage a couple of times. I contacted the previous owners who live nearby but they knew nothing of it. About a month after we'd moved in, I saw the neighbour's cat (a white, evil thing) having a vicious scrap on their lawn - with nothing! And the next time I saw "our" ginger cat, it had a torn ear. Shortly after this we had the floor dug up, a damp proof membrane put in and then a proper floor laid (a condition of the mortgage, nothing to do with the cat), and I never saw the ginger cat again.

About 8 years ago, we went to Fountains Abbey in Yorks. All the displays about the monks who lived there showed them in brown robes a la Cadfael. Whilst we were looking round I saw what I thought was a visitor in a grey-hooded coat at the top of the tower, so I set off to find the stairs to climb up myself - got into the tower to find it was a ruin with no access to the window where I'd seen the person. My hubby was convinced I'd just seen a pigeon (!!), but I mentioned it to one of the volunteers in the shop as we left and she said that the displays around the place were wrong, and that the monks had worn grey cloth robes and hoods, not brown, so I think that's what I saw. We went back in February this year, saw lots of pigeons but no ghosts (probably due to the noise the kids were making), but noticed that all the displays had changed and now showed monks in grey gear.

So I'm a bit less sceptical now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Steinway]

Wow, some very interesting stories so far.... Thanks everyone! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It was interesting how several of you mentioned perfume as well - seems to be a very common one...

[lottie]

Ten years ago this year I had to have my beloved little dog put to sleep at only 2.5 years old. She had epilepsy due, we believe, to a tumour in her brain and had over fifteen full blown fits on her last day. We had tried eveything under the sun to help her, taking her to vets all over the country, traditional and homeopathic, but she was dying. We made an appointment with the vet and spent the day taking her to her favourite walks and feeding her her favourite food (I'm now blubbing all over my computer (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) ), it was the worst day of my life. Anyway, every time I looked at her that day she stared deeply into me with her clever dark eyes and I've worked myself into a state hundreds of times trying to work out what she was trying to tell me and ten years on I'm still not sure; did she think I could have done something differently?

As we drove her body to my family garden there was the most incredible rainbow in the sky. We buried her with her ball and some digestive biscuits and planted a beautiful tree.

But for years, just every now and then, she would appear on my walks with the other dogs. And I mean really appear, I actually saw her, not just a shadow. Just trotting along sniffing about for a few moments then she'd be gone again. I also felt her press her feet into the back of my seat in the car just like she used to do. She was definitely there, but not solid.. more ephemereal and fleeting.

I know some people will scoff and just think this is an emotional reaction but I'm a rational human and I know she was there. Gradually over the years she faded and she's gone now. But what a comfort those little appearances were because I beat myself up about not doing more to help her, or trying to keep her alive longer. But I know she rests in peace now. Sleep tight baby Chloe.

[anacrusis]

I don't believe in ghosts.

About sixteen years ago, I was walking with a colleague towards the lifts in the hospital where we were junior docs - this was a new hospital, so didn't really have time to accrue a "history" - we could only see one of the four lift doors from our position at the ward doors, and a figure hurried forward, entering that lift. Thinking we'd missed the lift, but would get another, we pressed the button for a lift, and the same one opened again.....

....but there was nobody there. We looked in all eight corners, but found nobody. There had been no time for the lift to go anywhere else (they were awfully slow), and the person couldn't have gone into any of the other lifts. As our lift set off, my colleague asked tentatively, "did you see....?" and I replied, puzzled, "yeees, I did...!"

Still don't believe in ghosts, but at least two of us saw, or thought we saw, the same thing, so it can't have been the sleep deprivation (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) .

[Miss Ross]

Lottie, I'm shocked by how closely I can relate to your entire post, and I'm now crying onto my keyboard too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:http://geeks-have-feelings-too.net/images/smileys/crying.gif) *Passes box of tissues*

I'm also a rational human, and having lost my Grandpa and his dog in relatively close succession I still see them sometimes. Usually they're together, sometimes it's just Gemma on her own.

Gemma had cancer of the spleen, yet we were told she was just overweight. I'll sound insane here, but she used to smile at me. The last time I saw her she didn't smile, and I knew I wouldn't be seeing her again. I can still see the look in her eyes, and I believe she wanted me to help her. I didn't though, I left the house and walked home. She had to be put down the next day, and I miss her dreadfully.

Someone reading this, and probably Lottie's post too will be thinking, 'but they're just dogs'. They're not, they're much more than that.

[Steinway]

My sister took a photo in a castle when we were children, and the uncanny thing is, it looks like you can see faces and figures - loads of them, but yet we were the only ones in that area of the castle at the time....... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

One of my sister's work colleagues had something similar to that when she got her photo taken at the harbour in town. It was only herself (and the person who took the photo of course, though they never saw anything) when it was taken, but when the film was developed, there, standing next to her was a little boy! Very strange that photos seem to capture this.

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Thank you! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

I remember once going for a walk with my sister late in the evening (11pm, pitch-black) and our 4 dogs (before the real cd....) and we were intending to walk down and round the campsite as we often did at that kind of time as it was closed for the winter season, but as we walked along the main road, I started to get a really uneasy feeling about it, but hesitated to say anything in case she thought I was being stupidly paranoid.......after a while I decided to speak up, and she said "I'm so glad you said that because I'd had exactly the same feeling but thought you'd think me daft...." needless to say, we changed our walk to the local playing field instead..... I'll never know what would have happened if we'd gone down to the campsite - maybe nothing....but it was a bit uncanny the way we both had exactly the same thought at the same time.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

My sister and I get that as well sometimes: we seem to be able to read each other's minds! But when we have the same thought at the same time (which is quite rare!), it is a bit worrying... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[Steinway]

Lottie, what an amazing post... And so sad... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
Thank you for sharing that with us. I couldn't believe how young your little dog was... It must have been so awful for you... I have a dog myself whom I love to bits, so I know how you must feel to a certain extent...

That was really nice when you mentioned the incredible rainbow also, as that must have been an amazing thing to have seen at the time?

[asgirl]

I've seen angels before. When I was younger (7 or 8 i think) there was a major accident out the front of our house (a car went under a truck) and my parents were the first on the scene and when mum came up to ring the ambulance and that and I was awake she sat me out on the verandah (I couldn't see what was going on (we lived a fair distance from the road but we were the closest) but I couldn't sleep so I just sat out there) and before I knew how many people were killed in the crash I saw 3 angels above our tank. Later when I told mum and dad what I saw they told me that 3 people had been killed. For many years I could still draw the angels that was how vivid it was, but not anymore.