Spousal Experiences

I got some Facebook questions from longtime blog reader Jessica McNear regarding the blog post Puzzle Pieces

"Has your wife had experiences in her past? And when you’re traveling for work, has she had experiences at home like the one you had with the basement door and footsteps up and down?"

Yes, Jennifer has had past experiences.  She was raised in a much more open and accepting environment than I was. Her mother and aunt would use Ouija Boards and have sceances which lead to her hearing voices and seeing unexplained things.  Jennifer is also very sensitive to smells and will smelled things when others don't.

One particular incident happened when her aunt passed away a few years ago.  Jennifer went to Texas for the funeral.  During the service, she said that she was overwhelmed with the smell of her aunt's perfume; like she was sitting right next to her.  She said she could actually feel her presence.

Jennifer will also smell her father at times.  Either cigarette smoke or his after-shave.  

As for her experiencing things while I'm traveling, yes, there has been incidences.  Lights have turned on and off, things go missing, things will move on their own.

While I was out of town one time, she said that the blinds in the living room started to rattle and then would open and close.  She felt like it was someone trying to look outside the window.

She has also seen shadow figures walking around the outside of the house.  She saw one that walked past the living room windows and then around to the front side walk.  When she went outside to see who it was, no one was there. 

These are just a few of the things that she has experienced.  I will get her to write about her experiences and also elaborate on the ones that I mentioned.

"Have you ever been paralyzed by fear?"

I got the comment below to the most recent post, Puzzle Pieces.   I decided to respond with a blog entry since it was going to be an answer longer than just a few sentences.

"That is crazy! Have you ever been paralyzed by fear? You can't move, talk or anything! When my aunt was dying of cancer in 1978, I was the only person she would let get her up to go to the bathroom or whatever she needed. I lived in the country ( that house I told you about earlier). My son was 4 at the time, and he was the only child she would let on the bed with her, she wouldn't even let her own grandkids on the bed. After a few months, we list my aunt to the cancer. My aunt was old school, always wearing dresses with the full apron that you had to put over your head to get on. Shortly after her funeral, I awoke at about 3am for no reason. When I opened my eyes, my aunt was standing in my bedroom doorway! I know this might sound crazy, but she had a white aura all around her body!! As I said, I was paralyzed with fear knowing that she had passed away, yet there she was in my bedroom doorway!!! I don't know if she had a message for me, or came to me to let me know she was now at peace. I am thinking she sensed my fear, and the next thing I knew, she was gone. I wish I hadn't been so fearful, because now I will never know why she came to me. My husband thinks to this day I am crazy and was dreaming. What, if anything do you think? I would really like your opinion if you have one."

I always feel I should add the disclaimer that I am not a paranormal expert.  My opinion is based solely on my experiences and what I have learned over the years. 

First off, I don't think you're crazy at all.  There are things that we just don't understand how or why they happen.  I believe that there's a world out there beyond ours and even though we know exists, we have yet to discover it.  For us as human beings, living souls, to think there is nothing beyond what we see in front of us is nonsensical.   So, crazy?  No.  Sensitive?  Yes

I have been frozen in fear many times over the years.  It was paralyzing.  I couldn't move, speak, or even react to what was happening.  My whole body would become numb and my brain would shut down.  It was like hitting the pause button. 

Now that I understand and accept who I am, I don't find myself experiencing fear paralysis as much when things happen around me. I touched on this somewhat in "Continuous Adventures Journey".  It's all about understanding  you can still control your surrounding environment despite what happens.  It comes down to three things.

• Acceptance
• Understanding
• Action

I may touch on these more in a future blog post but for now, back to this entry.

Over the course of our lifetime we develop strong relationships with others.  Those relationships center around love, hope, happiness, caring, and tragedy.  Sharing these events and emotions with others builds very strong emotional ties.  These don't go away when someone passes, they remain.  Some people continue to feel the person with them but some feel nothing at all.

In your case, you had a bond with your aunt that transcends dimensions. It's was, and still is, a extremely strong and emotional connection.  Her visiting you was her way of continuing that relationship; strengthening it.  Maybe now it's her turn to take care of you.

You mentioned you saw a white aura around her.  To me, white is angelic, it symbolizes purity and peace. So when you thought her message was that she was at peace, that could have very well been the case.

As I mentioned, your bond with aunt is strong.  She's probably still looks in on you from time to time.  Open yourself up and you may see her again.

Puzzle Pieces

Ever since I accepted the fact that I have abilities, things have started to come together.  It is like finding the missing pieces to my life's jigsaw puzzle.  The missing pieces are those that I locked away deep inside my mind, not wanting to accept them for what they were and what they meant.

Sometimes, I feel as if I wasted a part of life by denying what had happened.  I pushed aside my abilities instead of embracing them and then, over time, learned to suppress them.   Looking back, I guess I was scared of being different or labeled as a freak.  

When I was growing up, paranormal experiences were not as accepted as they are today.  Stories of ghost and demons were told in Hollywood movies and parents would tell their children, 'oh, it's not real, there's not such things as ghost'. 

I am now able to reconcile several unexplained experiences from my youth.  It's a good feeling, those "aha moments" which gives me some closure in the form of a missing puzzle piece.

A couple of experiences from when I was growing up are now pieces that I'm finally able to fit into the puzzle.

Window To The Other Side

My father was in the Air Force which meant we moved around, but I was more fortunate than other Military Brats as we didn't move around a lot. We did however move and that's hard on a child growing up, especially for me as I was an only child.  Having no siblings meant that I didn't have that support that others had; I was, at times, my only friend.

Being an only child in a new place caused me to withdraw and keep to myself.  To compensate, I'd open up in other ways.  My mind would become open and things would come forward.  I was very fortunately that fear would close my mind when things got a little too frightening.  On the flip side, my curiosity would allow things that gave me some peace to hang around.  I recall countless spirits of children that kept me company until I made real friends.  It was a new twist to imaginary friends.

I have never slept well, I always seem to wake up for some reason or another.  This was true even as I was growing up.  I would wake  up in the middle of night and lay in bed; trying hard to go back to sleep.  If I couldn't fall back to sleep, I would get up and look out my window.  I found it peaceful and relaxing because everything was so calm.

One night I woke up because a thunderstorm was moving through.  I couldn't fall back to sleep because each lighting strike would light up my room like a camera flash.  I went to the window to watch the lighting in sky.  It was amazing to watch the streaks of lighting move through the clouds.  The bolts were so strong that it literally turned the night into day.   There was one bolt that stuck close to the house and it lite up the whole street.  It was then I noticed someone standing in the street.  I thought why would someone be outside in this storm.  Then there was another strike and I could see clear as day that it was a woman.  She was wearing a long black flowing dress, like an evening dress as if she was going to formal party.  

My eyes were glued to her.  She was just standing in the middle of the road, her back to me.  Even with the lighting all around her, she didn't flinch.  It was as if she didn't even realize there was a storm at all.

After watching her for what seemed like an eternity, she finally moved.  She didn't seem to walk but glide, I saw nothing that resembled a walking motion. The storm had passed and the thunder & lighting were far away in the distance.  The night time sky had cleared and I could see the stars.  Suddenly, out of nowhere,  there was a blinding bolt of lighting along with a loud clamp of thunder.  I could see the bolt strike close to her.  She appeared to grab it and then she was gone.  It was like she used it to carry herself away.

I recall not being scared at all.  I remember a peaceful feeling after she left.  It was like I knew everything was fine.  I went back to bed and as I was laid there I kept asking myself, who was she?  Was she from another dimension?  Was she a spirit?  Did she use the energy of the storm to travel?

After all these years, I finally realize she WAS the storm. She controlled it.

Now, I find myself looking for her in every storm that passes.

Up A Creek

All teenagers have that one local urban myth.  Be it abandoned house that was the scene of some horrifying crime that is now haunted or something that lives in the woods and comes out when called by a certain name.

But what if the myth was actually more fact than fiction?

When I was in high school we had such a myth.  It was a small church on a dark country road that was close to a creek.   The myth was that it was a "Devil Church" and that a cult would do human sacrifices there.  In order to hide their victims, the cult would bury them under an assumed name with made up dates in a cemetery across from the church.  Myself and some buddies would always find our way there to scare our girlfriends.

The creek that ran close to the cemetery was called Bull Creek and the road by the church didn't have a bridge over it at the time.  It had a dip in the road with a culvert and had a flood gauge post on each side.  If you stop at the flat part of the culvert, you could see far down each of side of the creek.

One night,  my best friend and I, along with two girls from school, decided to take trip to the church.  Once we got there, we decided to park and get out and do a little ghostly sightseeing.  My friend and I took turns at scaring the girls as we walk around the church and cemetery.

My buddy went around the back of the church with the rest of us staying close to the front.  All the sudden he came running back towards us, scared out of his mind.

"Let's get out of here!"  he screamed as he ran by us heading for the car.

I remember that was enough encouragement the rest us of to join him.

He was pale white, like something has scared the life out of him.   I asked what happened, what did he see.

"Someone...something is in..the back of church...inside"  He said, struggling to put a sentence together.

By this time we all freaking out.  My friend is fumbling for his keys as the girls are screaming for us to get out of there.  Just as he starts the car, we hear screaming coming from the church.  My buddy floors it and we speed down the road.  He had to slow down as we got to dip in the road where it goes over the creek.  By this time, we had calmed down  and we all start to give my buddy some grief about what happened.  Maybe he saw an animal, maybe the scream was owl or something else, maybe he just imagined it.

"I swear it was someone in the church.  It scared the shit out of me." he said defending himself.

As we got to the flat part of dip, we could see down creek.  Suddenly the all the lights on the car went out and as we looked down the creek bed, we saw two red glowing eyes flash at us. They were hovering about 10 to 12 feet off the top of the creek and were about the size of basketballs.

I screamed, the girls screamed, my friend floors the accelerator and we speed off.  Thankfully, this was a road that we were familiar with because we drove without headlights for about a quarter of a mile.  As we got closer to a main road, all the lights in the car came back on all on their own.

"Do we want to talk about what just happened?"  my friend asked us.

"No" one of the girls said softly.

"I don't either" I replied.

As I look back on this experience I've learned that every myth or legend is rooted in some sort of real event.

The trick is to distinguish the fact from fiction.

  

Continuous Adventurous Journey

Navigating our new lives has been many things; challenging, painful, enlightening, wonderful, and scary.  It has meant not only changing who we are, but accepting what we are as well as what happens around us. 

One of the major things we had to change was accepting the fact that regardless how hard we try to protect ourselves, something will always sneak by us.  Despite all our best efforts, things still happen in our house and, sometimes, even the places we go.  The key to acceptance is understanding that we can still control our environment.  

Something recently happened that put this philosophy to the test.  

I usually wake  up before everyone else on Saturdays. With no phone calls or meetings, it's a great chance for me to catch up on work tasks that I didn't get a chance to finish up during the week.   It's just a relaxing time that also gives me chance to relax and breath a little.  This particular Saturday was no different.  I enjoyed some coffee, answered a few work emails, and caught up on the news of the week.  I had some plans to do some things outside because it was such a beautiful day.  I knew I need to take advantage of the nice weather as snow was in the forecast for the next week.

I was sitting on the couch reading some news articles when I heard a door open in the back part of the house and footsteps walking towards the living room.  I didn't give it much thought as I figured it was just someone waking up. I went back to doing what I was doing when I noticed the door leading to the basement was opening and shutting.  I would open slightly, then slam shut. 

Before I accepted this as something paranormal, I needed to think logically.  Were the footsteps related to the basement door opening and shutting?  Was there something material causing the door to do what it was doing?  A draft?  A dog?

I realized that everyone was still asleep and if Jennifer had gotten up for any reason the dogs would have gone bananas.  Heidi and Emi were still sound asleep so it wasn't either of them.  

Our basement is unfinished and does not have a walk out like the newer homes do.  It has three port hole type of windows in the back, away from the entrance.  All the windows were shut and there was no breeze at all coming from them.   The basement entrance has two doors.  The first door leads to the stairway and there is another door at the bottom of the stairs that leads into the basement.  I made sure that both doors were shut tightly and didn't open when pulled or pushed.

From Left to Right.  The door leading from the living room to the stairway, the door to the basement, the stairway down to the basement.

At this point, I decided everything was just my imagination as I had been overly sensitive lately to things in my environment.  I dismissed it all and went back to my reading.

After five minutes, I heard a door open again in the back of the house and footsteps walking toward the living room.  I jumped up and went into the kitchen to see if anyone was there.  Nothing, no one.  I checked again and everyone was still asleep.  As I went back to the couch, I notice the door leading the basement was cracked open.  I knew I shut it and double checked it to make sure it was tightly closed. I looked down the stair way to make sure the other door was still closed.  I closed the stairway door and pushed it firmly a few times just to make sure.  I even made sure I couldn't pull it open.

By this time, I was a little freaked out. I had no idea what was going on or what was going to happen next.  I regained my composure and reminded myself that things just happen to us.  It doesn't necessary mean bad things.

"You're welcome here as long as you behave and don't cause any trouble.  If cannot abide by these conditions then you must move on.  If you want to go in the basement, you can but, I would be very careful as it's a mess and I wouldn't want you to get hurt", I said with a calm confidence.

I felt this allowed me to regain control of the environment as well as set hard ground rules.  At the first sign of any sort of distress or discomfort on my part, I would take the steps to remove whatever it was roaming the house.

I stood in the kitchen entry for a little while just to see if I could hear the footsteps or doors opening and closing.  After about 5 minute of nothing, I figured whatever it was decided to leave or take a break.  Either way, I was fine with it and went back and sat down on the couch.

After a few minutes, I heard a door in the back the house, then footsteps coming into the living room and finally the door to the basement stairway started again.  I didn't say anything or react but I did decide to record video of the door.

At this point, I'd had enough.  I was starting to feel a little panic set it and my fear level was starting to rise. I had this feeling that, whatever it was was either trapped in the basement and trying to get out or was trying to go into the basement.  Without warning, an overwhelming anxiety rushed through me.  I knew I needed to get away from it and decided to go outside for a while.

"Time to go", I said as started to head my way outside.

I stopped at the back door and said, "This means you too, time for you to get out the fuck out of my house!"

Even though I was scared to death and my heart was pounding, I said it with a firm level of confidence and without hesitation.

Once outside, I walked down the drive and opened the gate.

"Bye, hope you find what you're looking for because it's not here.  Don't come back!", I said as I slammed the gate shut.

As you can see, life remains an adventurous journey for us.  Thanks to Amy Allan, the entire Dead Files crew, and a long list of some many others who have helped along the way, it's a journey we're able to navigate now because we have the map.