Hauntings, Ghosts, & Demons I Have Known

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Deborah J. Brasket, Demons, Ghost Stories, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunted House, personal, Poltergeist, reality, Supernatural

As Halloween draws near, I like to repost a series of true life tales about the hauntings, ghosts, and demons I experienced growing up, and later when I had children of my own.

While I don’t ”intellectually” believe in ghosts and the supernatural, I cannot deny that the physical and psychic phenomena which I and so many others–-indeed, all known cultures and societies–-have laid claim to, are “real.” The reality they seem to have is unexplained, often unverifiable, and usually fleeting and ephemeral. And yet they persist in haunting humanity.

Throughout history, people whom we usually credit with intelligence and integrity have reported ghostly experiences, among them the psychologist Carl Jung, President Theodore Roosevelt, and Sir Winston Churchill, as well as a host of current well-known celebrities, such as Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, and Halle Berry.

I can neither explain, verify, nor dismiss the reality of the experiences that I relate here. I can only state that these things occurred as I remember them, or as others I trust related them to me. And most were witnessed by more than one person.

You can read the full series of ghost stories at the links below. I’ve included excerpts from each. Enjoy!

• True Ghost Stories, Part I – Growing up in a Haunted House

Every night after my mother heard my prayers and tucked me into bed, I would pull the covers tight over my head and stay there until I fell asleep. I knew somehow that no harm would come to me if I followed this ritual. And no harm ever did come to me.

I might well have been terrified had I heard what my parents heard at night as they slept in the room below mine.

• True Ghost Stories, Part II – Attack of the Poltergeist

We had already decided to move when my mother entered the small room upstairs that had been used for storage because it was “too cold” for human habitation. She was trying to move boxes out of the room when something unseen attacked her.  It threw her to the floor and pinned her down so that she could not move. All she could do was scream for help.

• True Ghost Stories, Part III – When the Dead Refuse to Leave

That night my mother woke from an extremely vivid dream where Margaret (her mother-in-law) had come to her weeping so hard she could not speak. She hung onto my mother so tightly it scared her. It felt as if Margaret was trying to climb inside her body and she had to fight her off. The next morning my mother . . .  discovered that Margaret had died that night. 

• True Ghost Stories, Part IV – Resident Evil: In the Belly of the Beast

Shortly after moving in, I became increasingly afraid to be alone in the house. I was okay when Dale was at home. But as soon as he left for work, a creepy feeling overwhelmed me. As I walked through the house I was aware of something sinister and malicious watching me. It was as if the walls had eyes that followed me everywhere. As if I was living in the belly of the Beast.

• True Ghost Stories, Part V – A Demon on My Chest

Have you ever awoken from sleep to find yourself paralyzed with fear as if something dark and evil sitting on your chest has pinned you down? You try to scream or move, but find that you cannot. You are overcome with terror. It’s more common than you think. And it happened to me several times.

• True Ghost Stories, Part VI – Evil Incarnate

It was like a dark, evil twin had taken over me, and I was as horrified as my little friend by what was happening . . . I like to think now that it was that sad, angry, stalking presence that haunted our house that tried, unsuccessfully, to inhabit me . . . I had a taste of what true evil feels like, with all its sense of pleasure and power, and I did not like it. 

• True Ghost stories, Part VII – Do I Believe This Stuff?

So are the ghosts, demons, and other supernatural beings that have haunted humans through the centuries, that make brief appearances and then disappear, “real”? I do not know, and I’m not sure if it even matters. They are real enough to those who experience them, as least while they are experiencing them, and then afterwards, one wonders.

Each of us make but brief ghostly appearances in this world we call real. We apparently spring from nearly nothing–-a few multiplying cells, and then disappear into nothing as our bodies disintegrate after a short visitation that can last a few days or a few decades. Are we “real”?

I’d loved to hear your ghost stories. Have you had any brushings with the supernatural?

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True Ghost Stories, Part V – A Demon on My Chest

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Demon on chest, Demons, Evil, Ghost Stories, Halloween, Sleep paralysis, The Old Hag, True Stories

Have you ever awoken from sleep to find yourself paralyzed with fear as something dark and evil sitting on your chest has pinned you down? You try to scream or move, but find that you cannot. You are overcome with terror.

It’s more common than you think. About 15% of us, male and female, experience this at some time in our lives. Sometimes it happens over and over on a nightly basis; sometimes only for a brief period of time.

It happened to me more than once when I was a young mother. On evening when I went to bed, I was so bone-weary my body felt like lead. But before I could drift off I felt someone climb into bed with me, straddle my stomach and lean on my chest. One of my young children, I was sure, had come to me because they couldn’t sleep or had had a nightmare and wanted my attention. I was so tired I didn’t not want to get up and laid there for a while hoping they’d go back to bed on their own, but they didn’t.

So I finally gave in and opened by eyes to see which child needed me. But when I did, nothing was there. No child. Nothing but a heavy pitch black darkness that was staring me in the face with such a sinister and evil intent that I tried to scream and scramble away. But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t scream. I tried with all my might but could only squirm helplessly, and move my mouth but nothing would come out.

I’m not sure how long this lasted, and how I finally managed to get the attention of my husband who was sleeping next to me. When I did, it broke the spell. The heavy darkness disappeared and I was able to move. I told Dale what happened, and he said he could hear me moaning and wriggling, but saw or heard nothing else.

It happened the next night too. First the feeling of something crawling over my legs and then climbing on my chest, staring malevolently at me and holding me down. Again I was frozen with terror and could not move or speak. Again I was finally able to alert my husband.

The third time it happened, Dale felt it too! Felt something scampering across our legs. He jumped out of bed and flipped on the lights. But nothing was there.

It happened twice more, each time Dale feeling it too and jumping up to investigate. We knew it wasn’t the children who were sound asleep in bed. We wondered if it could be our parrot (we had no other pets at the time) but Sinbad was on his perch in the family room, and besides, whatever scampered across our legs was much heavier than a bird, even a large one.

Could it be a rat? It would have to truly be a gigantic one. But none of those things accounted for the heavy dark thing that crushed my chest and paralyzed me. None could account for the horrible sense of evil malevolence staring me in the face.

It never returned after that fifth visit. In fact, I’ve never experienced anything paranormal or spooky or ghostly since then. But years later I was stunned to see in a magazine a picture of the very thing that had sat on my chest. In this artist’s depiction, the dark, evil presence was in the form of a demon, and I “recognized” it at once, even though at the time I had seen only darkness. But the demon exactly matched the sense of grotesque, malevolent evil I had felt staring me down.

I was surprised, and somewhat relieved, to find out that this sort of occurrence is common across many cultures, and each has its own name and explanation for the demon. In some southern states, the visiting demon is known as “The Old Hag”. In Mexico it is referred to as “subirse el muerto” (dead person on you). In Scandinavian folklore the paralysis is caused by a mare, a damned woman. In Turkey, it is a supernatural being known as a dijinn. In other cultures it is an incubi or succubi.

In recent times this phenomenon has been thought to be a form of “sleep paralysis” or narcolepsy. Wikipedia defines it this way:

“Sleep paralysis is a phenomenon in which people, either when falling asleep or wakening, temporarily experience an inability to move. More formally, it is a transition state between wakefulness and rest characterized by complete muscle atonia (muscle weakness). It can occur at sleep onset or upon awakening, and it is often associated with terrifying visions (e.g. an intruder in the room), to which one is unable to react due to paralysis.”

While this certainly describes my sleep-state and my paralysis, and even perhaps my terror, it does not account for the feeling of something crawling across my legs, or the fact that my husband, who was not paralyzed, felt it too! For those who have actually experience this demon-like presence, the sleep-paralysis explanation does not come close to describing the full extent of this horrifying experience.

Whatever it is, it is vivid enough and frightening enough to have inspired the drawings and paintings of several artists through the ages, as you can see in the photos illustrating this post. Poets too have been inspired.  Here’s a bit of what Erasmus Darwin wrote in his poem “The Botanic Garden”:

“On his Night-Mare, thro the evening fog,
Flits the squab fiend o’er fen, and lake, and bog,
 Seeks some love-wilder’d maid, by sleep opprest,
Alights, and grinning, sits upon her breast.”

I found this on a blog post by Mike Rendell called “The Night Mare, the Nightmare, and the Night Mayor.” It’s an interesting and fun read on how artists through the ages who have depicted the event, some in humorous and politically expedient ways.

While I have been happily free of supernatural occurrences since the last visit of this “demon,” I cannot end this series without relating another attempt at demonic possession, or at least an evil intent, that tried to influence me while living in that haunted house as a child that I wrote about in my first post.

The “thing” that trod across my bedroom in the night so long ago, that knocked my mother to the floor, tried, for one brief moment at least, to inhabit me.

More about that next time.

This is Part V of an ongoing series leading up to Halloween of true life ghost stories, experienced either by me or by people I trusted.

You can read the full series of ghost stories at the links below.

• True Ghost Stories, Part I – Growing Up in a Haunted House
• True Ghost Stories, Part II – Attack of the Poltergeist
• True Ghost Stories, Part III – When the Dead Refuse to Leave
• True Ghost Stories, Part IV – Resident Evil: In the Belly of the Beast
• True Ghost Stories, Part V – A Demon on My Chest
• True Ghost Stories, Part VI – Evil Incarnate
• True Ghost stories, Part VIII – Do I Believe This Stuff?