Coolest Story of the Month

The Ghost in the Hallway by DianneJBL
About 10 years ago, we lived in a two-story house in California that had a curved staircase leading to a hallway. You could look over the railing in the hallway to the first-floor tiled entryway. I often heard footsteps in the hallway after going to bed, but I was afraid to look - I didn't want to know! One morning, my then five-year-old son asked if I'd seen the lady. I hadn't. He said there was a lady, all dressed in white, walking on the other side of the railing - in mid-air. But, he said, "I knew it wasn't a ghost because she wasn't wearing a sheet." He said he got up to see her, but she just walked away and didn't say anything.

My Guardian Spirit, Katie by Rainah T.
When I was a child, I had a guardian that kept me out of danger. When I was about seven years old, I saw "Katie" for the first time. She appeared to me merely as a moving, shapeless light. I screamed, and my mother came in a split second before it disappeared. My mom explained to me that what I saw was a spirit, and that I wasn't seeing things. Thus began my relationship with my guardian. Sometime later, I'm not exactly sure when, Katie came to me in "human" form (what she had looked like when she died). She had died in the same hospital in which I was born, and at the same time. She was approximately seven years old and was wearing a faded yellow sundress. This is how she looked every time she has appeared to me. She once warned me of a true danger. Friends of the family were staying over when I was 12. One of the men snuck into my bedroom, obviously with bad intentions. At the same time, Katie appeared in my dream and told me to wake up. I remember telling Katie that I didn't want to wake up, that it was the middle of the night. The she showed me what was happening and what was going to happen if I didn't wake up right that instant. I opened my eyes and faced my attacker. Had I not been awakened by Katie, I could have been raped that night, and for that I am eternally grateful.

A Friend to the End... and Beyond by tdb423
About 30 years ago, my boyfriend Jake, my nine-year-old daughter and I went to Arlington, Virginia to visit an older couple, Lou and Ann, who were friends of Jake's twin brother Bill. Lou and Ann were more Bill's friends, since Bill and their son had been very close friends. Their son had died in an accident and left the house that Lou and Ann lived in to Bill. Bill was visiting the couple when we went to visit them. When we arrived at the house, we learned that Bill was in the front bedroom, and was ill. After seeing how ill Bill was, I took my daughter and went into the kitchen. While my daughter and I were standing in the kitchen, a young man ran down the hall from the direction of the bedroom. I went to the door to see where he went and where had he come from, since he was not in the bedroom when we there. I walked to the family room and looked in. There was no one in the room. A few minutes later, Lou came in to the kitchen and I asked him who the boy was that I saw run down the hall. He gave me a funny look. "What was he wearing?" Lou asked. I described the clothes the young man had on. Again Lou looked at me funny. "What's wrong?" I asked. "That was my son," he said. I told Lou I didn't know he had a son. Lou said that he was dead; that he had died in an accident. He said that his son and Bill were very close and that every time Bill was ill or in trouble, his son would come to see about him. Lou told me that sometimes when he would be in the kitchen or in another room feeling sad or troubled, he could feel his son's presence and he would feel better. He showed me a picture of his son. The boy was wearing the same clothes as the person I saw running down the hall.

Can't Get Rid of Poltergeist by Jennifer W.
I am from Damascus, Ohio. Our family and many others have been experiencing a ghost in my home for 20 years. Late at night, you can hear it walking up and down the stairs and moving furniture all over the house. At one point, water was leaking from the ceiling, so we moved the plastic that covers it and found only dust! There are so many instances it is hard to write them all down in a simple story. At one point, all the lights were off in the house. I said aloud, "In the name of Jesus Christ - OUT!" and every light in our home turned on. We have had the house prayed upon by a pastor, but it just doesn't seem to get rid of it.

A Touch of ESP by Stacy
I have a little ESP. Sometimes it's stronger than other times. Mostly what I see is people's deaths. Most of the time, it is in a dream. The first time it happened I lived in Florida and I was 19 years old. My aunt Cheryl was sick, but we didn't know it because we very rarely called home. I woke up sweating and crying. My sister asked what was wrong, and I told her about the hospital, how my aunt had died and what the funeral looked like. I even described my cousin touching my aunt's hand in the casket. We called home the next morning, and mom said Cheryl was in the hospital in a coma. We left soon after that to come home, and I started singing "Amazing Grace" - all four verses. I didn't even know that I knew them. But every time someone that I know is going to die, I'll either start singing it or someone close to me will. That just happened to be my aunt's favorite song, but I didn't know that until years later. Sometimes I can look at a person and know something about them. It's not deep or anything, but just the other day my boss at work asked me, "Do you know what time I got home last night?" He wasn't really asking a question, but I was looking at his face and I just knew. I told him 11 p.m. I was right.

Ghostly Sleeping Partner is No Joke by Dean W.
I am a comedy writer based in the north of England. I write for English comedians Ant and Dec, and we do a Saturday morning TV show called "SMTV Live." A few years ago, we had been filming at the BBC in London and I was staying at The Sherlock Holmes Hotel on London's Baker Street. At about four in the morning I woke up with a start, but couldn't work out what had awoken me. I was alone in a double bed on the left. I then felt the mattress go down in the middle on the right, as though someone sat on it. I was petrified and didn't dare move. Then the mattress moved as though someone were lying on the right-hand side and it undulated, as though that person were shifting round in bed trying to get comfy. I definitely felt the bed go down behind me. After a few seconds, I turned to look and there was no one there. That side of the bed hadn't been disturbed. I have never forgotten this weird occurrence and would like to know if anyone else has had a similar experience in the Sherlock Holmes Hotel in London.

She's Got the Vibes by Shan M.
I'm a 21-year-old female Scorpio. I've always been able to read people (that's what I call it). I can meet a person or just even see them and I know their personality immediately. I can very often tell what month a person was born in. Also, if I concentrate real hard, I can do the Zener cards - up to 150. Every now and then I get feelings of things that are imminent. For instance, the night my husband had a terrible wreck, before he left the house, I was almost in a sleep when I ran out the door just to tell him to remember to keep his seat belt on. It was the only thing that saved his life that night. With both of my pregnancies, I knew both times for sure that I was having boys. Whenever I lose something, I know if I will find it again. I'll either get a feeling that it's definitely gone or "don't worry, it'll turn up." I also feel I have a strong sexual vibe that I emit. All of my husband's friends have hit on me, and any male around me for a length of time always has some type of attraction. I feel that I might have more ability than the average person.

I Foresaw My Mother's Murder by Anonymous
My story begins when I was very young. I had "dreams come true." Nothing really spectacular, just regular dreams coming true. One of my gifts involves "knowing" as well as "seeing." Somehow, I seem to know approximately when or if a person is going to die. One example is when I was 10 years old and away at Sleeping Camp. Mom and I were very psychically linked. I woke up one very drizzly morning at camp and began to cry. I could not understand why. I remember writing home and asking if everyone was okay. When Mom picked me up from camp, she told me her brother - my favorite uncle - had died. Then I knew and understood. The biggest change that came in my life involved my very morbid fear of dying. Mom and I used to say, "Whoever goes first, come back and tell me you're okay." Eighteen years ago, my husband Jeff and I took our sons and moved from New Jersey to Plattsburgh, New York. Sometime in November, 1980 I had the worst nightmare of my life. I woke up the next morning really shaking. I knew that the nightmare was one of my "true" dreams. In that dream I saw a hand with a gun. Then my sister and sister-in-law were washing blood off the walls of my mother's bedroom. I didn't know who was shot. That horrible nightmare had me shaking all day. I put it away and tried to pretend it was just a dream. About a year later, when we came home after visiting my mother during the Christmas holidays, my brother called to tell me that my mother was dead. My brother made it sound like she died of an aneurysm. We drove back to N.J. for my mother's funeral. We were staying at my brother's house. I went to the pull out couch and tried to sleep. First I put the sheet over my head, as I kept getting a draft on my head, but I couldn't breathe, so down it would go again. Up and down - trying in vain to get some sleep. Then I heard whisperings. I opened my eyes... There was my mom. I was unable to see her face and didn't understand why, nor could I understand why she was holding a paper bag. Mom said, "What's the matter? Why can't you see me?" I ran upstairs (this is 2:30 in the morning!), took a shower, came back down and made myself some hot cocoa. But I just wanted out of the house. I was scared to death and very confused. My mother did not know she was dead and I didn't understand why she didn't know! I went outside and walked around and around the block for hours until I saw lights come on in the house. After the funeral, Jeff and I were to stay at my sister's house. We were in the family room while the rest of the family was in the dining room. That is when I heard my big-mouth brother-in-law announce, "Well, they just called it a homicide!" Homicide! I freaked out! I went charging into the dining room, furious that no one had told me. I then told them what I saw! My dream came back to me and it all made sense to me now. Even the paper bag: mom was a knitter, and she started off with paper bags for her knitting! I couldn't see her face because she did not move over to the other side yet, and it was imperfect because she was shot in her face as she lay sleeping in her bed!

Utah Poltergeist by Herb H.
I experienced an encounter with a spirit or ghost of a man who committed suicide. It happened in Harrisville, Utah about 18 years ago. I was hired by a lawyer from Ogden to do a real estate appraisal on an old house for the estate of the guy who had killed himself. He handed me the key and said I should drop it off at his office after the inspection was complete. I have always had a policy not to go into a home unless I am accompanied, and I reminded him of this. He talked me into going alone, stating that he trusted me because of our past dealings and that there was a rush. I never should have let that jerk talk me into it, and I never did another appraisal for him again. Anyway, I got to the house, an old Victorian-style bungalow with lots of "gingerbread" wood trim. The windows were all boarded up and the yard was overgrown. I took several pictures, measured the house and drew a plot plan. I went around the back and used the key to go into the kitchen. When I entered the house, it stank badly, like rotten food in the fridge or something. I looked around and took some notes. The house had an O-shaped floor plan and no halls. You could walk from room to room and wind up back in the kitchen. I entered the bedroom and looked around, and took more notes. I began to feel uneasy... weird... like the air pressure in the room was rising. I began to smell an electric smell, like the ozone you can sometimes smell during a thunderstorm. Suddenly, the temperature in the room dropped. It was July, and the power was off. I began to see my breath in the air, like on a frosty winter morning. Both doors to the bedroom swung shut and the pressure increased even more. I got scared - very scared, but I was rooted to the spot. A dresser slid over the floor and blocked the door I had just come through. I heard a loud, booming bass voice. It said, "Get out of my house, you bastard!" It was obvious what was happening to me and I was trapped. I thought for a moment and said, "You may not know it, but you are dead. I've been sent here to do the appraisal for your estate. If you don't let me do it, they will keep sending people until it gets done." The air pressure abated, the other door swung open and I walked into the living room. I could feel the ghost leaning over my shoulder and I knew he was reading my notes. I started to talk out loud about what I was looking for and why. I then said, "I need to find the furnace." When I walked into the kitchen again, a trap door in the floor had been opened! I said, "I guess the furnace is down there?" I acted as if I were going to go down the steps into the cellar and then turned suddenly and bolted out the door. I ran for my car and jumped in, but it wouldn't start! I was so pumped with adrenaline that I got out and pushed the car almost a hundred feet, by myself, past the edge of the property line. I got back in and the car started. I drove off. I never told the lawyer or any professional people about what happened to me that day. I wrote the report and collected my fee. The lawyer asked if everything went okay. I simply looked him in the eye and said, "Of course. Why wouldn't it have been okay?" They tried to sell or rent the house for several years, but none of the sales went through and no one ever spent the night in that house again. Eventually, they knocked it down and built a strip mall on the site.

Angel of Death by Lisa M.
I was working my way through nursing school by working as a nursing assistant on the night shift at the same hospital at which I work now. One night, I had left the staff room at the very end of the hall and was walking up to the nursing station. All the rooms on that side of the hall were semi-private rooms and had large windows facing outside. The patient in the bed near the window had an IV pole that he had to wheel with him to the bathroom, and the patient in the bed near the door had incurable cancer. As I walked by, I glanced into the room and noticed a large, dark shape at the foot of the first bed near the door. It took a second to sink in, and by that time I had continued down the hall for a couple feet. I backed up and glanced in the room and didn't see anything at that point. When I went out to the nurse's station and told the nurses what happened, that's when one of the old-time LPNs told me I had seen the "angel of death." Sure enough, that patient died the following day. I've never seen anything like that again, but I have felt a breeze in rooms of terminally ill patients a couple times and heard that they passed away shortly after.

NDEs Changed Her Life by sherryanshara
I have had many extraordinary paranormal experiences, including two near-death experiences. After the second near-death in 1991, my life completely changed - even a new name was given to me: Anshara. I had memory of the Annunaki living in a place with blue lapis floors, remembering the names Enlil and Ea. I know this sounds a bit strange or ridiculous, and certainly not logical, but my life is not logical anymore. When I discovered Zecharia Sitchin, in a very extraordinary way, explanations began to unfold for me. It has been a challenging eight-year period. I have much information; I'm not sure what to do with it, but the information has allowed me to remember who I am and where I perhaps originally came from. I have been gifted with healing abilities as a facilitator. I do not claim to be a healer because the individual heals himself/herself, but I can see and feel energies in the body that allow me to do energetic therapies. I also now teach it in Arizona. In 1994, I began to draw faces of all sorts of people and beings - some even have names associated with the pictures. To date, I have met many of the individuals that I drew. Before the second NDE, I could not draw even if I tried.

The Haunted Hand Hotel by Waveydays
It was November of 1995. One of best friends, my daughter (who was 2-1/2 at the time) and I took a trip to Brekinridge, Colorado. We stayed in Hanford at a well-known "haunted house," the Hand Hotel. I had stayed there twice before and stayed in a room that I was comfortable in. This time, however, I was much disturbed. That night I took a bath, and while I tried to turn the water off, I was received a static-electric shock from the water faucet handles. I had to have my friend come in to turn them off. Nothing shocked her. Out of curiosity, I touched it again, only to be shocked yet again! After I put my daughter to sleep, my friend and I went downstairs to talk with the caretaker of the hotel. He told us of the ghost that is said to haunt the hotel and her life before and after death. She lives in the creek behind the hotel and likes to lure children into the creek bed. After hearing a few tales, I got a little worried about my two-year-old alone upstairs, so we retired, but not easily. We kept hearing footsteps that sounded like a woman in high heels walking back and forth on a wooden floor outside our door. Whenever we looked, there was nobody there. And what's really strange is the fact that the hallway is carpeted. Not only would we hear the noises, but we would also see a shadow of what seemed to be someone walking in front of the door. Then we heard a loud crash with no explanation at all. We weren't the only ones. The neighbors down the hall and their dog heard it too. Their dog kept barking at the same time that we would hear someone in front of our door. After a while, the noises were heard behind my headboard. Someone kept knocking on the wall behind me. We knew that the room was unoccupied. Then my daughter kept having bad dreams, clutching at her throat and breathing rapidly, as if she were drowning, similar to some of the tales we heard earlier that evening. It was pretty scary, but finally the noises ceased and we were able to sleep. And yes, we still think of returning, but without our kids!

Mysterious Mt. Shasta Tunnel by Jeth M.
In 1998, four friends and I were in California for a road cycling race that lasted three days. When we were heading back home to Victoria, Canada, we decided that we needed some exercise and decided to hike around Mt. Shasta Park. After around two hours of running and hiking, my friend Maurice nearly fell into a perfectly circular hole in the ground that was about four feet in diameter. The opening was easily entered and I had to hang by my hands, then drop two feet. I was then facing a long, black, circular tunnel descending quite rapidly at about 45 degrees. After I gave the okay for the others to come down, we started slowly walking and sliding down the tunnel. It reminded us of a giant wormhole from some cheesy sci-fi movie. After about 10 minutes going down, it flattened out for about 40 feet, then went down again in the same fashion as the first part. The second descent was much longer - 30 to 40 minutes. When we got to the bottom of the descent, it opened up so we could now walk upright. This passage seemed to zig-zag slightly until it abruptly stopped and we were standing in front of a perfectly flat wall-like door. This wall was very strange: it had a crack-like spacing all the way around, as if it had been put there on purpose. There was nothing left to do but turn back. When we were just about to start heading up, from the wall came the loudest BOOM - like a steel fist pounding the hull of a ship. To say the least, this scared the sh- out of us. We were then running up the passage like we were possessed! On our way out, there was the harshest high-pitched ring, like a dog whistle, but only much higher. When we got out, my friend Kristian almost puked. We were clueless as to what caused the boom, let alone the ear-splitting ring. On the hike down to the car and in the car ride home, we all had nasty headaches in the upper right side of our heads. I've read very similar stories on other websites, but none of them happened in North America. Perhaps it was some kind geological occurrence... or perhaps something far stranger.

The Whispering Presence by GMM
For years now I have been sensing a presence in my home. Over long intervals it seems to have gotten bolder, but that could be because I am more open to receiving whatever message or feeling that it wants to send. I have had many unusual occurrences. I have seen a glowing figure, almost like an aura with nothing solid inside of it, and it seemed to be cupping its hands in an outstretched motion toward me. Once it realized that it frightened me, and left as though running on air. In another instance, I heard a voice say my name behind me, but no one was there. I know this sounds unbelievable, but I swear that these things actually happened. But the most unusual paranormal experience happened in the middle of the night not long ago. I was awakened wide-eyed by a voice in my right ear, as though someone were whispering very close, almost in an advisory kind of manner, but so close that it was somewhat distorted. It sounded as though it was a male. I was instantaneously startled and then frightened, but only for the length of time that each instance occurred, to the point of being "frozen," but not afterward. I actually felt peaceful after these things happened, so I don't get the feeling that this is a malicious entity.

The Watching Demon by Vanessa G.
When I was about 13 or 14, I began to realize that a demon was watching over me. He never really spoke to me, but he always managed to let me know that he was there. He would walk past the bathroom if I were taking a shower and would stand by the refrigerator when I was cooking lunch or dinner. Funny thing is that I was never afraid of him. It was understood to me that he was just keeping an eye on me. When I moved out of my house and got married, I assumed that I would stop seeing him, but I still see him discreetly tiptoeing around my home. I recently moved to a new apartment, and while relaxing in my new living room, guess who appeared to me for a brief moment? I find it amusing, but he probably is my guardian angel. Whoever said that guardian angels had to be attractive and appealing to the eye? Mine is horrible to look at. Like I said, he looks like a demon and at first I thought he meant harm to me. But I know that he is my friend.

Grandma's Watch by Julie T.
My sister Sue was to visit a medium, and I was very envious as I wanted to go with her, but couldn't because of other commitments. At the exact time of her appointment, as I sat at my dressing table, I thought about the issue of life after death and remembered our grandmother who had died 14 years previously when I was only 10. I also remembered her old-fashioned watch on a long chain, which had been given to me shortly after she died. I reached into my jewelry box and pulled out the watch. I then said out loud, "Nan, if there is such a thing as life after death, mention the watch to Sue and this will be my proof." I felt a little silly at having said this and thought nothing more of it. The following day when I met Sue, she showed me the notes she had taken at the sitting. Half way down the sheet of paper were scribbled lines describing a lady who was coming through to the medium, and the words she kept saying were, "Here's your proof - the proof you've been asking for." Sue denied all knowledge of this and was told to take the information anyway as the medium couldn't change the message. "What was really strange," Sue told me, "was that the medium described the lady she was seeing as leaning forward holding out a fob watch on a chain, which she was wearing. Didn't Nan have one of those?" I would swear on the Holy Bible that this story is true!

My Scottie Still Visits by Linda S.
When my Scottie Terrier was 14-1/2 years old, he had several strokes that left him ready to leave this life. I helped him out of life here in this house. That evening - and most evenings for a long time thereafter - I felt him walking around my legs on the bed. This was his favorite place to sleep and play. Sometimes I would feel him nuzzle my leg during the day. At first I was scared. Then I found myself calling to him and talking to him. One evening, I had a friend over who had known Scotty in life. We sat around discussing him and what I had experienced, when all of a sudden he felt a nudge on his leg! It had to be Scotty because my other new dog (also a Scottie) was asleep by the door. Even with a new dog in the house, Scotty still came around and she knew it before I did. She would point to where he was in the house and sometimes cower as if he was the alpha dog in the house still. One day as I neared the hallway, I saw his barely visible form slowly plodding along, hugging the right side of the hallway as he did in life. As I entered the hallway, the form disappeared.

Grandpa Comes Back by Gnk482
I had a dream about a year ago. My grandfather (who is deceased) came to visit me, and he was wearing what we cremated him in. He came to get my grandmother and bring her to "the other side." I protested and he left, closing a door behind him. I couldn't see him in the dream anymore, although I heard him laughing in the background. After a while, I woke up because I actually felt someone sit on my bed. When I sat up, I felt a slight breeze go past me, as if someone walked swiftly by.

Haunted by 22 by Laura
The number 22 follows me everywhere. I was born on March 22, 1984... I go to a theatre, seat 22... I go to McDonalds, order #22... I'm not paranoid - it really does follow me everywhere and with everything I do. I told some friends about it, and they've noticed as well. I'm wondering: Does this have some kind of meaning? Is something going to happen on a 22^nd? Many important things are usually on a 22^nd, like my communion. I graduate in the year 2002. Oh, and the latest discovery: 1984 (the year I was born)... 1+9+8+4 = 22. I was also born in room 222, on a second floor, at the 22^nd hour of the day, and my doctor's license number ended in 22.

A Heavenly Voice by Kyzer
I have been a church organist and choir director for nearly 15 years, and my most memorable experience happened shortly after the death of Mel, one of the star baritones in my choir. Attendance was down because it was summertime, and as I played the organ for the first hymn, I heard a beautiful, rich baritone voice singing out above the others in the congregation. After the hymn was over, I turned to try and locate the owner of this lovely voice so I could enlist him in the choir, but saw no new faces. After the service, the pastor asked me if I had heard that super baritone. I replied that I had, but couldn't figure out who it might have been. At the same moment, we were struck by the obvious answer: "Mel!" The mystery voice did sound like Mel's, but amplified and made even more beautiful. I like to think he stopped by to sing one last service with us.

The Ghostly Image by Richard S.
I grew up in an old strip mine area in southwestern Pennsylvania where there were lots of trees, hills and back roads. There were always stories about ghosts on the railroad tracks, under bridges and in the woods. When I was around 14, a friend and I were riding our bicycles home at night and crossed the "holy bridge," so named because you could see through the bridge decking into the creek below. As soon as we started crossing the bridge, the chain on my bike came off the sprocket and I stopped on the other side. While I was trying to put the chain back on, my friend hollered for me to look... and we saw a misty figure on the far side of the bridge. It just stood there for a moment and slowly came toward us. There were no sounds, and you could tell it was elevated slightly above the ground. We watched the figure getting closer, and my friend took off on his bike without me. I stayed another minute or so, and once the figure got to my side of the bridge I took off, pushing my bike. My friend waited for me further up the road. I fixed the chain, and we rode home talking about what happened. Neither of us could believe what we just saw. Also, about a mile from the bridge is a stretch of road where you could hear footsteps in the leaves just near the edge of the road. This always happened at night. As you approached this stretch, you could actually hear whatever it was walking down the side of the hill to the edge of the road, as if waiting for you and then walking along side of you crunching leaves the whole time. You stop, it would stop. You walk, it would walk. We would throw rocks at the area of the sound, and on one occasion we actually took our shotguns with us and would shoot at the sound. Nothing would ever scamper away. We would shine flashlights in the direction of the sound and nothing would be there. Normally, we ran or rode our bikes very fast past this section of back road. Finally, the house I lived in while growing up in this part of Pennsylvania had an attic. My sister and I would lie in bed at night and hear someone walking around in the attic; not normal house creaks and groans, but actual footsteps. One day I got brave enough to open the attic door and shine a flashlight in there. There were lots of cobwebs and dust, but no footprints. Later we found out from our neighbors that a funeral for three people who lived there before us was held in the living room years ago. I am convinced there are spirits living among us. I have seen and heard them for myself. No one can ever convince me otherwise.

Nightmare or Message? by Malokie
Five years ago I had a dream I've been trying to decipher ever since. One night I crawled into bed somewhat tired, but unable to sleep. After tossing and turning, I ended up on my back staring at the ceiling. "Why can't I sleep?" I thought, as the ceiling turned to a night sky sprinkled with bright stars. At that moment, I felt a feathery touch on my right ankle. I tried to sit up, but found that I was unable to move. With extreme effort, I managed to raise my head enough to see that the bed covers were gone. A slight movement in the semidarkness caught my attention. Straining to see, I froze as a small dark entity emerged from beneath the bed and moved toward my ankle. After what seemed an eternity, a large monstrous hand with bloody claws came into view. In an instant, the hand gripped my ankle with enough force to cause pain. Terrified and struggling to move, I felt my body being dragged down the length of the bed. "Wake up! Wake up!" I screamed in my mind as my lips refused to move. Paralyzed and feeling helpless, I began to cry and recite the Lord's Prayer. Drenched in sweat and heart pounding, I woke up with the lower half of my body touching the floor and the top half still on the bed. The covers were in a heap on the opposite side of the bed. My ankle was fine - no bruise, no pain. I paced the floor trying to understand what had happened. Reluctantly, I returned to bed a short time later with my arms securely wrapped around the family's Bible. What are dreams anyway? Are they extensions of our waking lives? Or do they contain messages of some kind?

The Big Blue-Green Ball by Crystal H.
Twenty years ago, a man was murdered in his home. His stepson set the back of his house on fire, and when the man ran out the front door, the stepson shot him in the head and then ran over him with his own truck. It was a horrible, true story that was told to me by his relatives after we moved to the place where this happened. But that's not what my story is about. That is just the beginning. Everything that happened to me happened over a two-week period. The first night that something weird happened, my mom, my three brothers and I were in our beds sound asleep. Suddenly, a very loud noise woke my mom and me. We were both scared, so we met in the hall and I slept in the bed with my mom (I was 14 years old). The next morning we looked for something that could have fallen and made such a noise, but we could not find anything. The next thing that happened scared me to death. I was asleep in bed and woke from a deep sleep. I don't know what woke me up, but I was awake. The door to our room was not a door, actually, but curtains. I looked toward the doorway, and the curtains were swaying. I thought, "How in the world did the door get open?" But the door wasn't open and I felt a bone-chilling breeze of very cold air. The curtains weren't swaying in or out, but floating hopelessly in different directions. I covered my head with the covers and went back to sleep, convincing myself I was seeing things. When I told my mom, she also said I was only seeing things and it was only in my mind. She blamed all the scary movies I had watched. But what she and I experienced next changed her mind. The next time I saw something I was again in bed. I wasn't yet asleep when I opened my eyes and saw this blue-white, light green colored mist in the shape of a ball. It was bigger than a basketball and scared me to death. It hovered in front of the wall, then disappeared through it. I started screaming at my mom. She saw it come through the wall and into her room. The next time, I was up late talking to my boyfriend. The ball of light came through the living room window and hovered under the coffee table, then disappeared.

Poor Birdie by Arikka G.
I used to have a cockatiel. A few days before she died, I started experiencing these terrible dreams that she was killed. In one dream she was devoured by a gecko. It was really strange. On the third and final night, I had this nightmare and woke up in a cold sweat with a terrible gut feeling that something was wrong. Something was wrong. I immediately jumped out of bed to check on my bird and she was not in her cage. I asked my mother where she was and she told me to relax because she had put the bird on its playground and just forgot to put her back. Relieved, I looked on her playground - not there. I started feeling sick to my stomach. After searching forever, I found her... dead outside. She got through a hole in the window screen and escaped outside where she was eaten by my dog, Mecko. I soon figured out that it was Mecko, not a gecko, that I was dreaming about.

Strange, Strange Things by Larry K.
I live in a house that was built in 1913. Some say it was a boarding house or even a house of prostitution. About 10 years ago, my wife and I noticed that sometimes the TV was on when we turned it off, that lights were on when we turned them off, etc. It wasn't until one night that some of my children's toys - electronic race cars , dolls, etc. - would suddenly turn themselves on and begin to function when my wife and I were watching the late show on TV. Also, the TV would change channels. Needless to say, this scared both of us. But it ceased and has not returned. Lately, while in the bathroom, I hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner running, only to find out that nothing of that sort has happened.

Past Life in Sleepy Hollow by Tsjdbigdog
I live in Dutchess County, N.Y. I know I have lived several past lives, but the one that stands out in my mind is the following: During the 1700s and early 1800s I was a male - a grain merchant who made the trek on the Post Road from Kingston through the Sleepy Hollow area. I often stayed at what is now Van Cortland Manor. Several years back, I took a tour of the manor on a summer day with my daughter. Everything there was so familiar. I knew I had stayed there and had eaten in the little tavern. When the tour guide told us about the main house, I asked, "What happened to the room that used to be there?" She turned as white as a ghost and explained that they were going to remove part of a wall that had been built later on and restore the original room that had been there. The public had not been told of this event until just then!

Past Life in Egypt and More by Judy O.
In the early 1970s, I was given the name of a Rosicrucian lady - Dorothy Evelyn Begg - who lived in the New England area (possibly Connecticut) and offered past-life readings at no charge. Although the idea of reincarnation is interesting to me, I was skeptical. How could this woman possibly know anything about my past lives from 1,000 miles away, working only from a letter I had handwritten and mailed to her? And how would I know that they weren't just made-up stories? I was careful to include no clues of any kind in my letter to her. I just told her I was interested in knowing about my past lives and asked what she could tell about me. She described past lives, which touched upon some amazingly coincidental points:

• As the willful son of the treasurer to the pharaoh in Egypt, I disobeyed warnings and rode my horse into the Nile, where he was dragged under by a crocodile and drowned at an early age. This, said Ms. Begg, is why I am afraid of water and do not swim. Bingo! I have taken swimming classes at the Y, and am still unable to force myself to try to breathe while in the water. I hold my breath for fear of drowning. This was a long-shot guess for someone who doesn't know me.
• She identified me as a starving child of the streets in Old England, where I battled with the other beggar children for treasures found in the trash, and guarded my pitiful stock of belongings fiercely. This is why, Ms. Begg concluded, I am such an incurable packrat, and never throw anything away. Again, bingo!

1. I was sleeping one night when something woke me. Not knowing what it was, my first reaction was to try and get up out of bed. However, I soon realized that this was impossible because something or someone was pinning me down in a sleeping position flat on my back. I tried to get up for at least 30 seconds, but I couldn't budge at all. Finally, whatever it was let up and I was able to get up. There was nobody else in the apartment at the time - at least that I could see.
2. On another evening, I was sleeping when I felt a sudden pain in my groin area. It was not like a normal pain that would run from one part of a person's body to another. This was a pain caused by an external presence using some gadget or instrument to apply pressure against my body. The only problem was that there was no visible presence of anyone in the room nor of the instrument this thing was using against me. Whoever or whatever this was applied enough pressure against me so that I could verbally hear myself moaning from the pain. This went on for a few seconds, stopped and then started a second time, and I found myself moaning again.  This may have happened a third time before it finally stopped. I had no noticeable hurt after waking up again later that evening.
3. I was feeling really down and lonely one night a few years ago before I went to sleep. Much of my life I lived as somewhat of a loner, and I felt terribly lonely on this particular night. After going to sleep that evening, I was awakened by someone pulling me up from my position lying on my back to almost one where my back was straight. After this happened, I could feel someone giving me a big hug and then gently setting me back down in my sleeping position. There was no physical presence in the room.

Loved Monk in Previous Life by Diana F.
I am a New Zealnder living in the United Kingdom. I had been here only a few months when we visited the island of Iona in the western isles of Scotland. I found this an extremely moving place and felt great inner turmoil, even though I am not prone to such things. On the return journey from Fionphort across Mull in a bus, I had the most amazing dream-vision. I was half dozing with my young daughter asleep on my lap. I saw into the life of a young woman who was born during the first solar eclipse after the death of St. Columba in 593. I saw such details of that life that I spent the next week frantically writing it down so that I would not forget. She was a local girl who had fallen in love with one of the monks at the early monastery. When this was discovered, she was banished. A whole life with many details, many of which I have since verified, flooded into my mind. I had never studied history so it was all about a way of life that I had hitherto known nothing.

Son's Past Life as a Soldier by Linda K.
I never believed in reincarnation until my son started telling me stories. At age three, he would tell me he used to be a soldier, but that he died before he got to be a hero. He said he came back to try to be a hero again. He told me a story about how he died: he said he was shot in the leg, pointing to a birthmark on his leg. He said the wound was not that bad, but he died from the infection. This made me wonder how a three year old knew about infections and how "ugly fluid" came out of it. When he was about four, he was ill and had a high fever. He was in his bed taking a nap. Suddenly, I heard him bouncing off his bed, banging his body off the walls. I ran to his room and he was screaming that he had died again. He was out of control, yelling at me he would never get to be that hero he wanted to be, that he had a lot of plans for his life and now they were gone. He just kept on crying and yelling that I did not understand what he had planned. It took about two hours to calm him down and tell him he was alright. All the while, he was telling me his plans to be that hero.

Parrot Understands Bigfoot Cries by Lynn P.
My computer is next to my parrots' cages, one an African gray, the other a dusky-headed conure. The gray, Gus, speaks and communicates his desires in proper English. He is quite intelligent. The conure is a warm, cuddly burp with feathers on it. I was online at your site listening to the recordings of the Bigfoot cries. Both parrots came charging to the sides of their enormous cages and tried to get at the sounds. They inspected the computer from one end to the other. Finally, Gus looked at me and asked, "Where?" (That he asked is not in itself unusual since he orders coffee or milk in the morning, comments about the quality of my cooking (or lack thereof) and when he sees or hears a word foreign to his vocabulary, he will ask what it means.) I told Gus that I didn't know what or where this voice was from. He was very upset and demanded that I learn more. Gus wanted to hear the voices again. There are two of them (male and female), according to him, over and over. I have two indignant parrots that seem to understand the voices, and are repeating the words, both backward and forward.

Past Life in Middle Ages by Fabricldy
I can't say I believe in all this reincarnation stuff, especially since I have been trained in the field of science as a nurse, but I have had a recurring dream that I lived in Ireland. I lived in a small, thatched house one side of which sat up against the mountains and the other side dropped to the sea. I was a girl of 16, born of a poor family. My father gave me in marriage to a widower of 45. He had two daughters older than I, and I was very unhappy with him. Around that time, there were some Norman soldiers in the area, and I was accused of having an affair with a young soldier, which was untrue. I was burned at the stake as punishment. My name was Bernadette Fagan, and the timeframe was in the 780s to the 900s, although I have never been able to find historical evidence of this. But I believe I was put to the stake because of the lies of the two jealous daughters.

Who's Screaming? by Rose G.
In 1972, I lived alone in a studio apartment across the street from an ancient cemetery. I was an art student in those days and spent quite a bit of time drawing and taking photographs in the cemetery - it was a very interesting place. One evening I was asleep and was awakened by a loud scream. When I opened my eyes, I discovered I could not move my body. Something drew my attention to my feet, so I looked down at the end of my bed and saw two black, massy things hovering above each foot. I was terrified, as I felt like they were holding me down so I couldn't get up. Then I felt a very bad presence next to my head and turned to look, and there was indeed "a very bad presence" floating near my head. It seemed to be making me think I couldn't move. In the meantime, the horrible scream continued. As I struggled to break through the almost hypnotic control over my mind, I suddenly realized it was my own body that was doing the screaming! It was a primordial scream. My body was so terrified that it didn't even need me to be scared for it. As soon as I recognized that my body felt like it's life was being threatened, I forced a strong energy into it and it literally flew across the room into the safety of my bathroom. I immediately turned on the light, locked the door and waited out the night in the bathtub.

Grandfather's Past Life by Deepak
My grandfather was a herbal (ayurvedic) medical doctor in India. He once visited another town where he had not been before. When he surveyed the area, he found that it was built up and inhabited. He had a sense of having been to that place before. He made inquires to find out if there was an elderly person in the area who knew what this area looked like before the area was built. He pointed to an area and asked the elderly person if there was an open pond in that area where people gathered for bathing and washing. The response was affirmative. He then asked the elderly person if he recalled a young man with certain physical characteristics having drowned there. He then astonished everyone present by saying that he was that drowned man now in a new physical body.

Strange But True by MastersTouch
It all began back in December of 1987 when a family of five and I moved into a two-story house in Springfield, Mo. We moved into this house because the ad in the newspaper read, "First month's rent free," so we thought it was a bargain. We moved in and went through the entire house to see what the previous owners had left behind. We all chose our rooms; the parents took the bedroom next to the kitchen, the children chose the living room where the heater was and I chose the haunted room, although I didn't realize that it was haunted until the next day. No one wanted to sleep in the attic, though, because it was always the coldest room in the house. The next morning, we were all at the table in the kitchen eating breakfast when, all of a sudden, we heard a noise that sounded like someone was walking up and down the staircase leading from the kitchen to the attic. I asked if they had heard the noise, and they confirmed that they did. After breakfast, I went out to my car to get my clothes and brought them in, opened my closet and staring me right in the face was an old-fashioned hand-crank meat grinder with dried blood on it and a roll of old floral wallpaper that was not there the day before. Well, strange things started happening from that day on. We heard a sonic boom that shook the whole house. I ran outside to see if anyone else had heard that sonic boom or what had made that noise. They all said that they hadn't heard anything. Every night at exactly 9:00 p.m., we could hear a baby crying right under the kitchen floor. This went on for several weeks without any explanation. At times, objects would move from one place to another for no apparent reason. One night, I had left my medication on an old TV in my room. The next morning, it wasn't there. I opened my closet to get a pair of jeans and saw all of my bottles of meds stacked neatly on a shelf. From time to time, the kids' bottle of soap bubbles would disappear and end up in my closet when I hadn't put it there. Other times, a room would have water all over the floor like a pipe had busted, while the other rooms would be perfectly dry. One night while I was asleep on the couch in the living room, I was awakened by the clock radio that went off at exactly 3:10 a.m. full blast. The clock radio was located in the kitchen on top of the stove. I went in to turn it off so it wouldn't wake anyone else up, but the clock wasn't even plugged in to the outlet. One day, the boy and I were out in the garage looking for something when the garage door suddenly shut and I couldn't raise it. It felt like someone was holding the garage door down with their foot. It was dark in there, so I looked out the little peep hole to see if anyone was out there, but couldn't see anything. This went on for about 10 minutes. Finally, I tried one last time to open it and was successful. When I looked back inside, I saw the apparition of a young boy, probably about 12 or 14 years old, sitting on the rafter just rocking back and forth and laughing at us. One night, while sleeping on the couch in the living room before dinner, the kids came in to wake me. They told their parents that I wasn't in the living room, so they went outside looking for me and said that I wasn't anywhere to be found. They came back in the house looking in all the rooms, but couldn't find me. The kids went up into the attic and said that they saw me levitating three feet above a table. But when I woke up, I was back on the couch like nothing ever happened. When the landlord came for the rent the next month, I asked him if anything strange had happened in that house. His reply astounded me. He said that about 100 years ago, a family of five had lived there and that one day the husband went totally berserk and killed his wife, one of his sons and their baby. Later, the husband committed suicide.

The Gray Lady by Janice W.
I was walking my dog very late at night down a quiet but well-lit lane when I noticed a woman standing in a pool of light given off by one of the streetlights. It was almost as if she was waiting for a bus, but, of course, there wouldn't be buses that late at night. As I drew nearer, I noticed that she was wearing a gray outfit: a sort of hooded top, trousers and a sort of "kangaroo pouch" where she had put her hands. The cloth was an interesting shiny material. My dog, which is usually very keen to meet new people, took absolutely no interest in the woman as we passed. The women looked at me, but didn't speak or return my smile, and then she began to back into the bushes at the side of the lane. I carried on with my walk for a moment and then thought, "If someone backs into bushes in the dead of night, isn't there usually the sound of crunch, crunch, swish?" I looked back, but there was no sign of the woman, so the dog and I carried on home. I was relating this event to a friend shortly afterward and he started laughing "That used to be the site of an old convent," he said, "and from your description I'd say you saw the ghost of a nun!"

The Phantom Honda by Dana P.
About three weeks ago, I was a passenger in a friend's car. It was just the two of us in the vehicle. It was mid-day and we were on our way to get something to eat. We were in the left turn lane at a stoplight waiting on the arrow. The cars in the lane next to us on the right were stopped and then preceded to go. It just so happened that we were the first car at the light in the turn lane, and the car next to us on the right was a police car. As the police car started to accelerate, I watched it as it proceeded through the light. Then a car just appeared and zig-zagged in front of the police car at a high rate of speed - as if I were watching that car on a video tape being fast-forwarded! But everything around that car was in normal speed. I watched this event happen and then the car disappeared. I can even describe the car to a fine detail: it was a Honda Civic, a blue "low rider" with a tail fin and tinted windows. I don't know how to explain the appearance and disappearance of the car, or the rate of speed in which the event took place.

Many Past Lives by Kendra
I have three memories of past lives, none of which were recalled while hypnotized nor during regression therapy:

1. I was a solder in Alexander the Great's army when Darius of Persia presented him with a matched pair of horses - they were a mare and stallion, what we in this country today call appaloosas. They were white with black spots. I was standing with a spear in a line of soldiers, across from me was another line, and we formed a path that the horses were led down.
2. I was a student at the Vienna Riding School (now famous for its Lipizzaner horses, but this was before the Lipizzaner breed was established). I was riding a chestnut mare down a tree-lined lane when something happened suddenly that killed me. I suspect I hit an overhanging branch. At any rate, the image of the lane is very vivid. Several years later, I was browsing in an antique bookstore and found a picture of that lane just as I remembered it, and it was indeed part of the early Vienna Riding School.
3. I was sitting in my kitchen one afternoon reading a reprint of an early 1900s Sears catalog. I decided that one of the items had a very fair price and I should buy it. Someway, I had "faded" into that time, and with a physical wrench came back to my present. I knew details of what I had been wearing, what the kitchen I had been in looked like, and where I was living.

Ghosts at the Scene of the Accident by D.M.
On December 19, 1998 we were diving to a birthday party when we witnessed a fatal car accident. The car had driven off the road, hit an embankment and flipped into a pond, landing on its hood. The glass was also blown out of the car. We didn't know how many people where in the car. My oldest daughter was crying and saying that she was praying for them. I was telling her it was all right when I stopped in middle of my sentence and looked to the pond. There I saw three figures; I had a strong sense of a male figure and a woman. The three moved their heads as if it was all right. Later, we learned that three persons had died in the water and two had died on their way to the hospital.