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?

True Ghost Stories, Part II – Attack of the Poltergeist

Tags

Ghost, Ghost story, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Murder, Paranormal, Poltergeist

It’s a blessing I think now that I never knew as a child that a woman whose blood still stained the floor had been murdered in my bedroom, or that the man who had murdered her, her husband, had hung himself from the rafters of our garage.

It’s a blessing I never knew when I covered my head at night to sleep, feeling that if I did so I would be safe, that someone or something lumbered across my bedroom floor, waking and terrifying my parents who slept in the room below mine. It’s a blessing I never knew the power of the cold entity that inhabited the small room next to mine where I sometimes played.

Since starting this series, I’ve done some research on spooks and hauntings and all thing supernatural. I discovered that ghosts are entities that are attached to a particular place and can make appearances, can even be heard laughing or crying or running up and down stairs. But they cannot toss things about the room or physically touch and harm humans. The more physically violent supernatural beings are called poltergeists.

That’s what my mother apparently encountered shortly before we fled from our home. 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 is scream for help.

Unfortunately the only person at home at the time to help her was my three-year-old brother. But he came when she called him. She told him to grab her feet, which fortunately lay near the doorway, and to pull her out. Slowly, inch by inch, he was able to pull enough of her into the hallway so that whatever was holding her down lost its power, and she was able to get up. Never to enter that room again.

We never knew if it was the murdered woman that stalked my bedroom at night, or the ghost of her murderous husband who did so. Nor did we know who or what had knocked my mother to the floor and held her there.

But it wasn’t the last encounter my mother had with a ghostly being.

Many years later she was visited in the middle of the night by a crying woman, someone she knew and loved, but whom, unknown to her, had died that evening. Someone who tried desperately to enter into my mother’s body, because she was not ready to leave this world.

This grieving woman was her mother-in-law.

More about that next time.

This is Part II of an ongoing series 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?

Related articles

• True Ghost Stories, Part One – Growing Up in a Haunted House (deborahbrasket.wordpress.com)