Ghosts and Ghoulies

[batbat]

I had a conversation about ghosts with my sister the other night. She has this idea, you see, that she has a bit of a sixth sense; she's somehow more attuned to the supernatural than most.

I never know what to say about this topic, because I'm totally conflicted about it: it's the place where, for me, reason and experience collide. That is to say, I

Comments

[alsoname]

I've heard about gas venting from the ground, appearing like hovering balls of eerie light ... Who knows what that was, though. Weird

[alsoname]

I realize that nothing I said really addresses your post, but is just tangentially related. To address your post more specifically, there have been times where I had NO IDEA if something was a dream or not. A long time ago, when I was living with my parents, they had guests staying in the room next to mine. These people were rustling around and chattering away all night, and I was utterly unable to sleep because of it. At maybe 6 a.m. I was delirious from lack of sleep, and I distinctly remember walking up to the wall and unleashing a torrent of verbal abuse and cussing. When I finally got up, I remember being really sheepish, but I didn't have to deal with any of the expected repercussions ... So maybe it was just a dream! To this day I'm not sure what happened.

[batbat]

That's a funny story. I have this similar one, which is a little bit dirty, but I used to share a house with this guy and our rooms were separated almost literally by cardboard. The walls were so thin you could hear everything going on in the other room.

One night he had his girlfriend over, and I have this distinct memory of them discussing having anal sex for about half an hour at about 3am - in really loud voices. When I asked him about it the next day he strenuously denied it - and he wasn't the kind of guy to be shy about stuff like that; he used to tell me all kinds of things that he and her got up to. So I'm still none the wiser.

[batbat]

I've heard about that too - a guy I used to know said it happened to him. He would wake up and be unable to move, and would feel as if a man was sitting on his chest, doing unmentionable things. It's sometimes called 'witch sitting', because people in the middle ages believed it was what witches did; some people also say it's the origin of the Roman idea of a succubus (or incubus).

I also hear that there's a perfectly rational explanation, to do with how some people wake up - apparently something happens in their brain that causes them to become conscious during a natural process that is supposed to occur while you're unconscious.

[alsoname]

Yeah, a cursory skim of the Wikipedia article reveals that practically every culture has some kind of mystical explanation for it. It's never happened to me, but I suspect that if it did, I'd be terrified despite knowing that there was a perfectly rational explanation.

The punchline is that when my friend moved to another house, the sleep paralysis stopped, so she concluded that the evil spirit was only haunting that one bedroom.

[batbat]

There's just nothing you can do with some people.

[meupatdoes]

I get sleep paralysis all the time and it still freaks me the fuck out.

While there is no molesting entity involved, basically, I feel like I am barely able to breathe, and I try to breathe faster, but I can't.
I also can't move, so I just have to lay there trapped in my own body, struggling to breathe, until finally the paralysis breaks and I flail. I am even conscious enough to tell myself, "It's just the sleep paralysis. You'll be able to move again soon," but it doesn't help.

I once fell asleep on a train while travelling with my parents. The announcement of the approaching station made me conscious, but I couldn't move.
I was laying on the seat with my Dad saying, in increasingly worried tones, "Come on, it's time to get up. Come one, get up! We have to get off the train. Come on!" and I just. could not. move. (Except for to barely mouthe the word "Help.") By the time I finally snapped out of it, both of us were thoroughly freaked out.

[alsoname]

That sounds SO scary.