True life ghost stories

After reading through a few tonight and being unsatisfied, I've decided to share one that happened to me. I'm convinced I met death when I was younger and living with my parents. By all means I am not a writer but this memory still burns vividly in my mind at all times...in fact I'm so troubled by it that I'd like someone else to know...anyone...to know.



"Young Grim Reaper"- alonewanderer

I've never been a fan of believer in the occult, all my life I never even thought about believing, leading a sheltered life with an ex military/law enforcement father who has seen and done it all. I grew up feeling safe having an experienced veteran of combat and police officer living with me. We lived in an older house that was handbuilt and the previous owners died while living in that house, it never bothered me. Always whenever I heard the wooden foundation creak and groan for no apparent reason I always thought of it as the " house settling", trying to reassure myself while cluthing my dog at the nearest and fastest exit out. Strange things always happened to me alone in that old house, I never once bothered to share it with family members and my dog wasn't
exactly the bravest creature out in the world. I just always tried to explain away the goosebumps and hair standing up on edge as my overimagination.

Then the dreams started...

I'd like to say that it all of a sudden happened but not quite, I was awoken a few times to a soft melodious lullaby that could be described as lonely and soothing at the same time. Each time after the first 10 seconds I would jolt myself from slumber, quick and hard wondering why I'm dreaming of a song, then I'd go back to sleep after lulling it over in my mind for a few minutes. Always shrugging it off as something I must've heard in a movie or commercial.

Then on one particular night, I had the same dream and quickly opened my eyes but before I could recognize the song that I've heard before....it continued while I was awake. I was morbidly petrified, I clutched my blanket nearer my face, covering up my mouth while my eyes gazed intently at the ceiling. A light sheen of sweat immediately erupted from my skin and my mind was sent reeling while trying to fathom a logical explanation as to why I'm still hearing the song.

It stops...

With my pulse still pounding hard in my ears, I wait a full 20 minutes...staring at the ceiling, petrified to even gaze around my room in the sullen darkness of night, slowly I start to doze off back to sleep. Not even 30 minutes after falling back into my sleep, I hear the song...the soft sad melody emanating from somewhere in my room again, immediately I'm covered in cold sweat. After working up the nerve to finally peak around my room, the moment I decide to glance around, I hear the sound of bones tapping against one another, a rhythmic "tap-t-ta-tap", and footsteps, plodding slowly and softly on carpet, keeping in rhythm with the song and the tap of bones.

At this point I am stunned with fear, hoping in my childish fantasies that my blanket will protect me, knowing logically that I'm messed, then as soon as the footsteps started again all sounds and song stop. At this point I'm stricken with fear, not just scared but debilitated with fear. A fear that prevents me from moving because in my mind if I acknowledge my existence by even making the slightest sounds of breathing, the horrible song and bones will start moving again.

While still clutching to dear life on my blanket I start to contemplate reasons to why this is happening, I chalk it all up to possibly watching a horror movie earlier and having a "dream within a dream". Not as soon as I begin to relax I start to hear clearly the song, softly humming again with the wretched tapping and footsteps inching ever so closer to my bedside.

"This isn't possible, I'm not crazy, this is not happening!" I violently fling my blanket down and stare intensely towards the melonchaly sonnet, my eyes fixating on the source of this song. My sight sharpens in sheer horror as I realize I'm staring at the skeleton of a small child featuring a contorted gaze, nothing but 4 feet tall and the tapping sound from it's skull twisting at an obtuse angle and popping back down "tap-t-ta-tap",into an intense hollow expression...all the while...humming.... that song.

Have you ever heard of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

I've seen the Old Hag myself, floating above my bed. I have sleep paralysis issues, which are pretty awful. Once, when I became unparalyzed, I sat-up, saw her floating above my wife by about a foot. We made eye contact. She looked a little like the Crypt Keeper. She was mouthing something to me, but I couldn't hear it. She started floating upward and toward the wall, where she disappeared where the wall and the ceiling come together.

Usually, I feel this intense sense of evil which is indescribable when these episodes occur. Like pure evil takes physical form and wants to do me serious harm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hag_Syndrome

Always turn a light switch on or stare into a mirror when you have a lucid dream, neither will work. If you think you might wake up start spinning in your dream or make your surroundings rotate around your mind, think of a descending spiral. You are now in full control of your dream.

I wish that I could lucid dream... but I can't, although I have tried.

The think about sleep paralysis is that you're generally awake, but part of your brain thinks you're sleeping and keeps your body paralyzed. It's a very strange thing to describe. You're literally between a dream world and the wakeful world. Your brain is still producing dream imagry that intermingles with the "real world."

For instance, about 15 years ago, I "wake-up". I look at the clock and it says 4:30 AM. I'm suprised b/c my lamp on my nightstand is on. I reach to turn it off and I can't move. I can also hear that I left the TV on in my living room. I realize I am having one of my 'episodes' (since this is something that has happened to me my whole life). I try to keep myself calm, telling myself that this will pass... that when the evil comes, it's nothing more than a hallucination and I will be able to move.

So, I keep trying to wiggle my fingers, which is the way I use to snap out of it. I'm watching the digital clock... 4:31... 4:32... it doesn't usually last this long... suddenly, I see the evil. It's a black formless shape in the bedroom doorway. It suddenly leaps at me and breaks my neck... everything goes dark. Suddenly I can move, and the clock says 4:33, the lights are off, the TV is not on.

The panic and fear that I feel cannot be described. Part of me doesn't fear death, since I feel like I have died dozens of times already.... b/c of this 'evil' hallucination. If that's what you want to call it.

I took a survey for this study awhile back. The results are very interesting to me:
http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/

I've only experienced paraylsis once, no idea if it was sleep related, I woke up and if I tried to move I had a distinct shooting pain that originated from my groin. The thought of moving or talking was completely off limits because of the pain that followed, it literally felt like my balls were in a kungfu deathgrip.