I am a big fan of Asian horror movies. I’ve seen many of them. The ghost is always the same - some unfortunate young woman with long hair over her face - and it’s entirely up to the story of the movie to differentiate it from the crowd. In a couple of those movies the ghost also happened to be very wet.

So last night as I lay in bed and rather unexpectedly began to hear the sound of dripping water… well, perhaps it can be excused that my imagination, fueled by the dark setting of my bedroom, immediately turned to the rather interesting thought of a dripping ghostly figure. The thing here, however, is that I have nothing in my room that could drip water. Even if I did, this was not the simple sound of a dripping facet. No, this is more like what you would hear coming off of a person who had just stepped out of the shower…

Of course, I got out of bed, turned on the light, and looked around my modest sized room in puzzlement. What could possibly be making the sound?

I don’t know. I never did find the source of what I was hearing. Perhaps I was simply half asleep when I heard the telltale sound of something very wet, though I could’ve sworn I had only just laid down.. but anyway, I returned to my bed to consider the possible sources and to listen for any further drip, drop, drips and the next thing I know, I’m waking up at 5 AM.

Of all the silly things to do, I had fallen asleep with the light on.

Technorati Tags: horror movies, dreams, dripping water

In the not-too-distant future we’ll all be celebrating Halloween. How time flies, hm?

How should we prepare? What should I do personally?

What are your plans?

More thoughts on this later!

Technorati Tags: Halloween

Recently I’ve had dreams about an old friend. She and I were very close for some years. It’s one of those situations where I have no idea when the change occurred, but change she did, and I’m sure that the conclusion is already pretty clear: We no longer talk. It’s been about a year (give or take) since we’ve had any form of contact.

When is a dream just a dream, and when could it be more of a suggestion? It’s superstitious to think that these dreams are anything other than stress produced hopeful figments of my imagination, but I’ll be darned if they’re not giving me pause anyway…

Technorati Tags: dreams

Were these cuts created by my toe nails? Maybe, but I keep both my toe nails and finger nails clipped pretty short.

Keep in mind that I’m not jumping to some conclusion that this was caused by something paranormal. I would need more proof than this to say that there’s something spooky going on. On the other hand, I thought that some of my visitors may enjoy speculating over a situation like this.

You’re invited to come to your own conclusions about these photos.

Later all.

Technorati Tags: cuts, mysterious cuts, unexplained cuts, unexplained wounds, mysterious wounds

I was, of course, in bed asleep. I have the vague recollection that I had been dreaming at this point but I don’t recall about what. This didn’t matter too much however because of what was about to happen: I felt my covers slide across my body toward the side of the bed.

This startled me to wakefulness, and as I startled the covers suddenly stopped moving. I lay there for a moment and kept my eyes closed. I maintained a steady rhythm of breathing that matched the rhythm of sleep. I thought to myself, “Did I just feel that?” I decided to lay there and think about the situation. “Maybe I was dreaming,” I thought to myself, and I didn’t want to over react over some silly dream.

Yet as I lay there awake thinking about this, my top most cover began to slide off of me again. It was not a terribly slow pull either. It wasn’t being ripped off of me, but it was being pulled off of me at a steady clip.

Crap. Okay. I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. Okay sure, I have had some very strange experiences, but this took the cake. I had never had a spirit physically manipulate my surroundings before, and of all things it was pulling the cover off of me. This is something that you see on TV shows and read about books. This isn’t something that actually happens to you!

The cover stopped moving brief moment. I lay there still with my eyes closed, maintaining a steady breathing rhythm and appearing - for all intents and purposes - to still be asleep. Despite that, my mind raced. My first inclination was to fly out of bed, prepare for some kind of assault, and to assault something or someone else if need be.

A moment later the cover slides off toward the side of the bed again, sliding across my body at a continuous speed. I could hear it move as well as feel it move.

“Screw this,” I thought to myself. I nearly sprang out of bed at this point, but instead of doing that I just opened my eyes a crack. I didn’t want the thing standing next to my bed to know that I was awake, so I opened my eyes as little as possible. It couldn’t be a person doing this, my bedroom door is always locked. Always. I have a dog (in the other room) that goes jumping out of bed at the mere touch of the front door’s handle. There’s no way someone snuck into my room.

So I opened my eyes a crack. The room seemed to have some sort of lighting to it, but this didn’t strike me as strange at the time. It was as though I had a reading lamp turned on at my desk, and through the crack of my eyes I could see my room. I could see some of the objects that lay across my room, I could see..

…hells, I could see the cover slide off of me.

They stopped moving again after I had cracked my eyes open and I glanced around as best as I could. I could see a fold in the cover resting up next to my face. The fold had been caused when the force pulling the cover let go.. the tension relaxed and caused the small fold. It mostly blocked my view of the room opposite my feet, but I wasn’t too concerned about that location anyway.

I glanced up next to my bed beside me. Did I see a figure? I think I did, but it was blurry; I couldn’t see very well. I didn’t have my glasses on. I think I saw something there. If so, it was short, about four feet tall, and peach skin colored. It would have been standing at around the location of my head.

Nah, I didn’t see anything. Couldn’t have.

The cover began to move again.

I thought about it as rationally as possible. “Could actually be happening to me?” Instead of jumping out of bed, I thought about it. I mentally yelled at myself to think about it rationally. To try to come up with some sort of reasonable explanation for it.

The cover continued to slide off. I thought. They were pulled some more. A minute or two later I finally realized: “This is a dream!” That’s right. My covers were tucked up under my legs and knees. I could feel them there. They were always tucked there. I done it every night before going to sleep because I’m a tall guy and I don’t like my feet to be come uncovered and cold as I sleep.

The cover continued to move, but so did my thoughts (finally). If this situation were real then obviously the cover would have been pulled completely off of me by now. It wasn’t being pulled off of me length-wise from my feet, but side ways. At the speed that it was moving there was no way that I would have had any of this cover left on me.

So in this admittedly incredibly strange and very realistic dream that I was having, I realized that I was dreaming. I instantly relaxed, shut my dream-eyes, and “went back to sleep” in my dream.

For the rest of the night my dreams were troubled with subjects of the paranormal. My previous Abnormal Psychology instructor even made an appearance in my dream as I continued to dream of incredibly strange events happening, and I was attempting to convince him that I wasn’t insane.

It was a strange night, but I feel mostly rested this morning.

I’ve spent my morning since waking to write about this and eat my breakfast, and now I have to get ready for the day.

Later, all.

Technorati Tags: dreams, covers, ghosts, paranormal, spooky, scary

This is not a group that goes about with a psychic that speaks with the invisible critters. Rather, they’re more akin to Ghost Hunters in that they use various tools and methods in an attempt to capture some sort of evidence of the “paranormal”. Whatever that may be.

There’s not much to be said about the appearance of the site itself, but you can find videos and EVP from their investigations there. They enjoy receiving feedback from their visitors, so if you have any thoughts about what you see or hear from their paranormal investigations then by all means, send them a message!

I don’t know much about the others involved, but the guy that I do know has been interested in and investigating the paranormal for a very long time. We also used to run a paranormal forum some years back.

Drop them a message if you’re in their area and think that something odd may be going on at your house or business.

Later all.

Technorati Tags: ghosts, paranormal, ghost hunting, paranormal investigation, North Carolina

I’m sure that most people are familiar with the Phoenix Lights incident, but now it appears as though there could be another, identical situation that occurred around New Years. This one occurred in San Diego, California. Watch the San Diego Lights by clicking that link.

What do you think? Is it another Phoenix Lights or is it something else?

While this does fascinate me, I don’t actually consider UFOs to be paranormal. To me, the existence of other intelligent life is a given based on the unfathomable size of the universe. If others were capable of visiting this planet then, to me, it would be somewhat similar to meeting someone from another country. It wouldn’t be paranormal. It would be really, really cool, but it wouldn’t blow my mind.

Later all!
~Steph

Technorati Tags: ufo, aliens, unexplained, phoenix lights, ufos, et, ebe, San Diego Lights

Beltane is a joyful celebration of life, Spring, light and renewal. Songs, dancing, fire jumping, and the wrapping of the May Pole are all very popular customs of Beltane.

This Beltane celebration video was filmed and edited by a friend of mine in 2006. He recently received permission to release it to the public, and I think that you’re all in for a treat. It was obviously a beautiful Beltane celebration, and this video does well to express that. I’m a bit envious that I wasn’t there to enjoy the sights, myself.

 
The fellow who made the video will be best able to answer your questions. If he’s unable to respond then you can throw them my way and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Technorati Tags: Beltane, pagan, celebration, Wiccan, Wicca, Celtic

That’s not just a thing of horror movies, that’s directly from their folklore. It’s also not limited to the Japanese; the Koreans have a tradition of marrying such a ghost to a male ghost in an attempt to exorcise both spirits.

Is it possible for such ghosts… these long haired female apparitions… to manifest in our Western culture? What about to a white person born and raised in a Western culture? If not, then why not? What would prevent them from doing so? Are the visual manifestations of spirits determined by the belief of the local people, or do all spirits from all over the world take all forms regardless of the ideas of the living?

Here’s a curve ball for your thoughts: What if video of an Asian-style female apparition was caught in a White Western’s home, and the video was caught by people who are all white Westerns themselves? To up the ante even further, let’s say that apparition is of white Western woman. If the visual manifestation of a spirit is determined by those who are watching it then should such a thing even be possible?

These questions are spurred by exactly that, interestingly enough. The catch? I saw it on the show Ghost Hunters, so you’ll have to decide if you believe what they find in that show or if you believe that it’s somehow all trickery.

Yet if the video is real then the questions that it poses are - to me - extremely fascinating. Perhaps some of that fascination comes from spending this semester studying the Korean language and culture. Thus this video was an exciting combination of two of my favorite subjects.

Either way, if the scenario lead to some interesting speculation, thought, and theory for you then this post has served its purpose.

Good night all,
~Stephen

Technorati Tags: paranormal, spirits, ghosts, asian, the grudge, the ring, haunting, haunts, spooky, scary

First let me apologize for my recent silence. There’s not much that I can do with my blogs when I have no computer to use for posting, but thankfully I now have a (mostly) working PC. I could have used a public computer but I don’t feel comfortable with their safety & privacy. Anyway, most of my posts to this blog tend to be long and thoughtful, and you can’t occupy a public computer long enough to write those kind of posts.

The next few weeks are going to be quite busy for me. This semester is coming to a close and, as you can imagine, I have some finals to deal with. One of those finals is our Korean Language test, and I very much want to pass this test. All of my time is going to be consumed with studying, university life, and as much personal life stuff as I can manage.

The semester comes to a close on December 20^th if I’m correctly remembering the date off of the top of my head. I’ll catch you folks at some time around that date.

Take care out there, and best wishes to everyone.

~Steph