I was on a break from school and babysitting my niece early one morning. She was still asleep so I decided to lay down on the couch and get a little more sleep. I was drifting off when I heard the dog walk through the kitchen towards the couch.
I could hear his nails click on the floor around the couch. After two or three laps I realized there was no dog in the house. As soon as I remembered that I opened my eyes-the noise immediately stopped.
I sat up and listened for anything that could have sounded like nails on a hardwood floor. The furnace wasn’t on and nothing was rattling in the vents. The tv, radio, etc. were off. My niece was sound asleep and didn’t wake up for another hour.
I gave up and lay back down. Five minutes later the clicking returned. I could hear it move around the couch, like a dog was circling. Again, when I opened my eyes it stopped.
My niece is very independent, but for years she hated to be alone in that house, even if my sister was simply out in the yard. Eventually she told me when she was alone she heard a dog walking in the hallway. I hadn’t mentioned my experience to anyone so there’s no way I influenced her.
One night, about seven years ago, I got into bed, alone, and turned on the radio as I usually did back then. What seemed like only a few minutes later, I felt a wave-like motion on the bed as if someone was getting into bed with me. I figured I must be dreaming or having a lucid dream or whatever you call it, but as soon as the motion stopped, I realized that I could still hear the music on the radio, and I felt aware of still being awake. I opened my eyes, got out of bed, turned on the lights, and the song on the radio was still the same song I heard while the motion was occurring, making me believe, to this day, that I wasn’t actually dreaming. After turning on the lights, I felt a presence in the room, the same feeling you’d get if someone was standing behind you. Now every time I go to bed alone, I wait for the wave motion to occur again, but it never does.
I had a similar experience when I was in dorms in first year. I used to have a The Who poster on my wall opposite my bed, and for some reason, one morning, I was convinced the “mod target” was an eye and it was trying to attack me.
Three minis:
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A few years ago I was in India and befriended a couple of down-to-earth Scottish ladies, teachers I think, who were travelling together and sharing hotel rooms. One night one of them woke up to see an old man standing in their room. She somehow convinced herself that she was imagining it and went back to sleep. The next morning she mentioned it to her friend who revealed that she’d woken up during the night and had had exactly the same experience.
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Also in India, I visited some friends teaching at a school in the middle of the countryside, and there were reports going round that the place was haunted. We slept six of us in a dorm-style room. One friend, a normally rational and skeptical guy, said he woke up in the night and saw a white cloud appear over one of our beds. It would then disappear and reappear a few seconds later over each of our beds.
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A few years ago I decided to take a break from the city and moved to a small English village for a few months, renting a bungalow in a Tumulus Road (yes, that’s “ancient burial mound” road!). I had set up a lot of music equipment there and was spending time recording music.
One night I was dabbling on an electronic keyboard with the headphones on when suddenly a voice started speaking (through the phones) in words I didn’t understand. It was definitely a voice, but it didn’t quite sound human, sort of slowed-down, weird and other-wordly, like the sort of voices they give demons and monsters in the movies. It lasted about five seconds. Despite years of working with musical equipment I’ve never had another similar experience.