Real Horror Experiences

[irve]

I have seen nothing. Or to be more exact - I have seen something, but it most definetly was a trick of a half-asleep brain.

There was a cartoon which scared me totally when I was a kid - I only dared to watch it from the next room, peeping from behind the door. One nigh when I was still a little one I saw the face of one of the characters, directly opposite to my bed, emerging from the wall, moving its mouth without any voice. I stared the truth for a while and then it disappeared, I was so freaked out that I could only draw my blanket over my head and wait.

The cartoon face was drawn in a very specific style in that cartoon so I am pretty certain that whatever it was was just a flip of some weird brain reality.

[Scipio]

Hmm, I think I would probably leave the house fast and running and not come back. Something like that would scare the living hell out of me. And I am the guy who would probably chase after a vampire to get him to bite me.

The problem is, if I'm right, it's no longer attached to the house but to me. Assuming that it's the thing from the game room at my old house, then it followed me through the move to the second one, and it definitely followed through the move to the house I'm in now.

[Maximillian]

Er...mate? I would be terrified if I had a ghost anchored to my person. Shouldn't you take more drastic measures against it?

[Scipio]

Well, the strange thing is that at the moment I seem to have 2 anchored to me. There's the shadow beast who I've nicknamed "Blackie" due to his appearance, and that girl in the nightgown who seems to be a protective spirit and keeps blackie at a distance.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

Er...mate? I would be terrified if I had a ghost anchored to my person. Shouldn't you take more drastic measures against it?

Nothing wrong with a spirit following you around, my cat haunts me (specifically me) and people have spirit guides attached to them as well (most people have more than one, I have 7 in all).

[Whisper]

Out of curiosity how do you find out if you have a spirit guide, who or what it is, if you have more than one etc?

[Maximillian]

Er...mate? I would be terrified if I had a ghost anchored to my person. Shouldn't you take more drastic measures against it?

Nothing wrong with a spirit following you around, my cat haunts me (specifically me) and people have spirit guides attached to them as well (most people have more than one, I have 7 in all).

Yes, Wiccy but your cat still remains your beloved and harmless kitten, ghost form or not. Am I correct? It is not a shadowy monstrosity with glowing eyes that has hurt you on occasion...

[Reginald de Curry]

Out of curiosity how do you find out if you have a spirit guide, who or what it is, if you have more than one etc?

Eat a bunch of insanity peppers and ask the coyote with Johnny Cash's voice.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

When my cat was alive I saw her as she was, a true creature of pure evil that had the best time scratching and killing anything in sight, even me, and I was her favourite person and I have the scars to prove it.

As for spirit guides, the easiest way to find them is to enter a deep form of meditation and start calling them to you, asking them to signify their appearance in some unique way. This can take about a year to master, starting from learning to meditate. After 4 years I can now summon my spirit guides at will, but this comes from contancting them very often, such as at least twice a week for the last 3 years

[Corrupted_Loremaster]

I've always found it interesting how almost every person I know who's had genuine affection for their cat also has stories about how it abused them in one way or another. There's a phsycology paper in there somewhere, too bad phsycology's not my thing. And yes, I have a cat myself, named Pandora, and although she's noisiest beast I've ever met, I still can't imagine what it will be like when she's gone.

Wiccy, not going to debate the spirit guide thing. Like all things supernatural, I'd be thrilled if it could be proved, but that's not looking too likely. I suppose if one wanted a scientific theory, it could be said that through meditation you are accessing your own unconscious mind, and that is at least what I believe has occured to me on several occasions. After short periods of sleep deprevation, as well as the closest thing to meditation I can achieve, I've found myself starting automaticly write stories in which characters I've used in previous ones are speaking to me directly, and telling the solutions to problems I am facing, but have been unable to clear my mind enough to solve. Not something I've ever put to any kind of serious test, but something I know does occur to me.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

I've always found it interesting how almost every person I know who's had genuine affection for their cat also has stories about how it abused them in one way or another. There's a phsycology paper in there somewhere, too bad phsycology's not my thing. And yes, I have a cat myself, named Pandora, and although she's noisiest beast I've ever met, I still can't imagine what it will be like when she's gone.

My cat (named Cleopatra, or Kitty, or just plain Bitch when I called her) was always purring as she maimed me, she did love me, she just knew should could draw blood while playing with me

Wiccy, not going to debate the spirit guide thing. Like all things supernatural, I'd be thrilled if it could be proved, but that's not looking too likely. I suppose if one wanted a scientific theory, it could be said that through meditation you are accessing your own unconscious mind, and that is at least what I believe has occured to me on several occasions. After short periods of sleep deprevation, as well as the closest thing to meditation I can achieve, I've found myself starting automaticly write stories in which characters I've used in previous ones are speaking to me directly, and telling the solutions to problems I am facing, but have been unable to clear my mind enough to solve. Not something I've ever put to any kind of serious test, but something I know does occur to me.

The only way to prove Spirit Guides is to find them for yourself, meditation cannot niflict physycal sensation, no matter how good you are and spirit guides inflict physical senseation when they contact you

[Maximillian]

Oh, God... I knew there was a reason I disliked cats... Vicious little devils...

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

Oh, God... I knew there was a reason I disliked cats... Vicious little devils...

You're a dog person I take it, never been to fond of dogs, but that is due to me being savaged by them for no reason as a kid. Cats on the otherhand, we always saw eye to eye, they could maim me so long as they loved me at the same time, dogs just never liked me (they saw me as a chew toy).

[Maximillian]

Yep, you would be absolutely right! I adore dogs. Strange thing is that cats always scared the hell out of me. Those claws of theirs... Not to be trusted... I always got along perfectly with canines. They would take a sniff and then we would make friends. Even though I had a really terrifying experience once, with five or six vicious shepherd dogs ready to tear me to shreds, I managed to get out of it unscathed, calming them AND getting a new friend in the bargain (dog that is). I was deeply moved when that huge fella tried to protect me from a rather unpleasant black cur.

[AdamGarou]

True story, in so far as it was told directly to me.

I went to a small "liberal arts" college in southern Alabama, one which (like almost all colleges and universities) had its own share of ghost stories. In particular was the "Red Lady", who supposedly haunted the old Pratt Hall dormitory--if you've ever heard of the 13 Alabama Ghosts... and Jeffrey by Katherine Tucker Wyndham, she's actually mentioned in the book.

The "Red Lady" had a pretty sad story--societal misanthrope, never fit in at school, had a strange habit of wearing no colors other than red (red shoes, red stockings, red dress, red sash, red shawl, etc.). Naturally, this didn't endear her to other young women at the college, so she had no friends. One Christmas break, the woman remained on campus (which is no longer allowed by the administration, for just these types of reasons) and slashed her wrists. Her ghost is supposed to haunt the dorm where she stayed (although there is some debate on which dorm it actually was).

Anyway, that's one of only two ghost stories I'd heard about my institution of higher learning. But the story that was related to me was a bit stranger.

A group of friends (some of whom probably WERE in an "altered state of consciousness" but by no means ALL of them), decided--at 3:00 on a Saturday morning--to go ghost hunting. They explored Pratt Hall (after committing some illegal vandalism to get inside), and many of them said they felt some sort of "presence" following them. Not malevolent, just sad--which fit the tale of the Red Lady. It never "manifested" as anything visual... not until later on, at least.

Then, they decided to explore the adjoining dorm--Hanson Hall. Not the best candidate for a haunting, this dorm housed fraternity members on the first and third floors, with a girl's hall on the floor between them. The fourth floor was actually in the process of being remodeled, but was also being used as a meeting room for the fraternity I joined while I was attending the school--and I'd never felt anything strange or supernatural during our chapter meetings.

Anyway, they were walking up the center stairwell (in which a set of double metal doors opens onto each floor) and started to feel uncomfortable as they climbed. Anxious, but for no good reason. Just before they entered the fourth floor, two of the candles they were holding blew out... but it could have been a draft. They pushed the doors open and began making their way down the hall to the left (opposite direction from my fraternity's chapter room).

Every step they took--as they described it--their chests got tighter and it became more difficult to breath. The air was thicker somehow, and drier than the humid air we've come to expect in the southern U.S. They started looking through each room (as best they could, with no light other than the two remaining candles), and were soon struck by the temperature in the air--not colder, but hotter and drier than before.

Two of my friends actually saw something then--some sort of apparition that appeared to be a reddish color. The... thing... they described had the torso of a muscular man, powerful arms that seemed too long for the torso (and ending in what looked to be claws), and a "sort of human looking head." The shape below the torso just dwindled away into indistinct crimson smoke.

That was--as they say--enough for them. The two who had seen it bolted immediately for the stairs, with the rest of the group right behind them. All of them--even the ones who hadn't seen anything--said they felt as though something were chasing them, furious at what they'd done. This 'presence' chased them down four flights of stairs, out the door, down the rest of the steps, around the side of the building (the Pratt Hall side), and they didn't stop until they stepped onto the Green (sort of like the campus quad, a large, grassy wooded area with a pond--a popular place to hang out and socialize).

The instant their feet touched the grass, they felt safe--for whatever reason. A story I later learned was about another student--named "Tommy"--who had killed himself on the Green only a few decades ago. The group believed that because Tommy was not a malevolent spirit--and because his 'domain' (for lack of a better word) was the largest continguous area on the campus--that he was able (and chose) to protect them.

As they stared toward Pratt/Hanson, they saw a red light appear in the windows where they had gone looking for the Red Lady. The light traveled from window to window far too quickly to be someone carrying a candle--as though it were moving through the adjoining walls and was letting them know what it was.

And that it had seen them.

And meant them no harm, foolish as they had been.

In the discussion with them, someone voiced the opinion that whatever had chased them out of Hanson Hall had to have been powerful, because it crossed into the "domain" of another ghost/spirit (the Red Lady). It simply wasn't powerful enough to combat Tommy, who drew strength from his own domain and from all of the living people who congregated there on a regular basis.

I don't know. I went up to 4th floor Hanson the next night with one of the guys who had gone the night before (guess we were both a little insane) at the same time, 3:00 AM. He got a little freaked out--found it hard to breathe again as we paused before the double doors leading into the fourth floor hallway, and the candle he carried flickered, but didn't go out. We explored, and I felt not a twinge of ANYTHING--after three-quarters-of-an-hour, we called it quits.

Didn't know what to make of it then, and don't now. I offer it for the masses.