Need A Friend? Come Discuss Paranormal/Supernatural etc With Us!

I created this blog so I had someone to share my explorations with, even if it was no one in particular. I used to be a member (and very breifly a moderator) of this cool supernatural/ paranormal forum before it closed down. I really miss the open discussions and all the things you can learn from sharing with a forum, so I decided to create my own!

I’d really love for you to stop by and become a member. It’s a brand new forum, so getting in right when it starts will be cool. As more people join you’ll get to know everyone and hopefully make some good friends. No topics have been discussed to death, so there is nothing but the opportunity to share fresh opinions! Also, you won’t be ‘the new kid on the block’ in a forum full of people who already know one another. Additionally, small forums are much better than huge ones because it’s a small enoug hcommunity for you to keep track of everyone and really get to know one another.

Make sure you send me a message and let me know you learned about the forum here!

www.paranormalplanet.lefora.com

New Interest: Astral Projection

Before I get too into the topic at hand, I just want to update you. Remember how I said I was going to interview my friend so I could post her supernatural experiences? I finally pinned her down and talked to her about it yesterday and since she doesn’t want to do all the typing herself, she’s agreed to an interview. So provided I can pin her down for the actual interview, you should be seeing her chilling experiences posted within the next few days!

I’ve experienced a rising curiosity about Astral Projection. This is how I usually get curious and go in search of information on anything new in my life. I’ll see a mention of it (in this case, when I downloaded the entire library of iDoser’s binaural beats the one labelled “Astral Projection” kept jumping out at me) and it will stick with me. This period where I have a small curiosity but don’t act on it can last anywhere from a few days to more than a year. In this case, it took about a week for me to go in search of more information.

I read over several websites and pages on the topic, and found a pretty good one that I stayed on for a few hours. How it works is debated. You need to drop into a state of brain waves called Theta, where your body is asleep but you maintain consciousness. It’s supposed to be more subconscious than conscious. Once your body is asleep, you become aware of your astral self, and are supposed to try and vacate your body. From that point you can go out and be free of your body and the concerns of this plane. Sounds simple, right?

Apparently not. While some people can do this completely by accident, others work at it for months and even years. Some people just plain fall asleep. Others just can’t seperate their soul from their body. Fear hinders the process.

Now that I’ve done my research on the topic, I have an interest in it. Not a passing one, but a hearty one that I will continue to develop. I know it can take a while before I see results. Right now I’m working on the ‘flood your consciousness’ with it stage. The truth is I’m dying to start trying it right NOW and would love to see results FAST (oh, the impatience of youth), but I just don’t have the proper environment for it. The ideal time for me to start trying it is after I have slept so much that I’m groggy and feel exhausted. That’s no problem, since I sleep to this point of excess almost daily.

The problem is my lack of provacy on the weekends, and the impossibility of complete peace without disturbance. I have dogs. I love them to death, but they sleep with me. They sleep on me. They use me to brace themselves as they scratch their ears and make their collars jingle. So basically, it isn’t going to happen any time soon. Not unless I should happen to have a little sleepover somewhere else where I am so comfortable and secure that I can sleep to excess and then try to reach this state without fear of disturbance.

Until I can take advantage of such a conducive environment, I’ll have to settle for reading about it. This isn’t so bad. I don’t really want to read about people’s experiences of the astral plane– I want to experience it myself! Though I have read some accounts, and they sound amazing. I’ll spend a little more time reading about possible risks. The site I spent hours on said that no harm can come to you in the astral, but others disagree. I guess I’ll have to do a little more research and just keep it in mind so I don’t stumble into something ugly when I first start.

I just love this concept, don’t you? The idea that our minds are more powerful than we ever allow ourselves to believe. Anyone can do this, you don’t have to be a ‘psychic’ or have any special abilities. Astral projection has been practiced by cultures all over the world since ancient times. In this age we seriously sell ourselves short. Science and ‘rational’ or ‘logical’ thought dismiss such things. Heavy importance is laid on our bodies and this material world. We are constantly bombarded by limitations of society. But if you filter out all that bullshit you can experience something real, something outside of yourself; something truly yourself.

I can’t freaking wait, personally. I would cherish the chance to see and talk to my beloved dog again. We were soul mates, and she was hit by a car back in February. I miss her daily. I don’t even know if it’s possible, but if you can visit the spirits of humans that have passed on why can’t you visit the spirit of an animal you shared a strong bond with? And since people go to the moon and visit locations here on Earth that could be visited with your body, I want to see Atlantis! If it exists, anyway. I don’t know how I feel about it, I haven’t researched it. 🙂 And I’d like to visit friends and family that are living. There’s a lot of great possibilities, really.

I guess I’ll head off and continue my research. When I am able to start trying this, I’ll update you! Feel free to update me on your experience or thoughs pertaining to astral projection– or any other topic I have or haven’t covered, really.

Have a great day!

Mythic Tarot: Progress and Positive Effects

I don’t feel like I’m learning the meanings of the tarot cards as quickly as I should be. Maybe if I had read the book explaining each card all the way through more than once I would have a firmer grasp, so I guess I’ll have to reread it. Sometimes, I feel like the Mythic Tarot’s definitions of each card doesn’t exactly match the standard definitions. There are several cards I’ve seen often enough that I can rattle off the main meaning of the card, but sometimes I forget certain aspects that I previously dubbed insignificant. But I know others might not think they’re insignificant when I do a reading for them, so I try to keep them in mind. When I do readings for other people, I try to summarize the book’s definitions and paraphrase them. Just flat out reading the definition is a little cold, people respond better when I sum it up for them.

I took a bit of a break from my pursuit of furthering my tarot education, but I did a few readings today. I have a friend who is going through some really, really rough things in her life right now (though the choices she makes aren’t helping) and she wanted me to do a reading for her. I did an eight card spread with the purpose of offering insight into a situation so a solution can be reached. Five of her eight cards were major arcana and I made sure to impress the magnitude upon her, though she takes this as seriously as I do. All her cards made sense to her, and have calmed her mind. She knows she has a few options and that she has to make a choice, she just has to puzzle out which she should make.

Then I did a four card spread for a girl I don’t know pertaining to a specific situation in her life. Her cards made total sense to her, and I hope they can help her out in the future. She didn’t give me specifics, but afterward she told me the reading was for her parents’ divorce.

After that, I did two readings for a guy I went to school with. We did a Celtic Cross because he wanted to go ‘all the way’ with his reading. He wasn’t exactly pleased with all of his cards, but they all clicked with him. I enjoyed that he asked what I thought he should pay attention to and what I thought the card meant. He wanted to do another, but this time I pointed him towards a four card spread about a specific situation. Again, the cards clicked with him, and after I read the last card he asked what I thought the meaning of the spread was. I gave him my take, summarizing each card and how they related to their position and each other. He then explained his situation to me, and apparently gained some peace of mind and seemed to have made a decision.

I love that! I’m not the best at doing readings for other people because I tend to have awkward pauses where I’m trying to break down the book’s definition and form it into a summary that makes sense with the card’s position and that can be understood by the person I’m reading for. But I really enjoy watching their faces and hearing them express their suprise as each card hits home with them. I feel like I’m making believers out of a lot of people that haven’t been exposed to this kind of thing before. What I enjoy the most is feeling like I’m helping people though. I like feeling like I’ve calmed some inner turmoil and helped them see things in a new light, consider new possibilities, or realize the correct path. Each of us is walking through this world alone, and we’re the only ones that know the concerns and hopes and every other thing we think of that occupies our minds all day. When I do a tarot reading for someone, I feel like I’m showing them they aren’t alone when the cards we draw make perfect sense. I feel like I’m alleviating some of their stress and worry when they gain insight from the reading. It’s a good feeling.

So after doing several readings for others and giving them something positive, I decided to do a reading for myself. I thought of everything going on in my life right now. My desires and dreams, where I would like to go from here, the opportunities I have, things and people that are in my life or coming into it… I did a Celtic Cross, because I wanted to cover multiple aspects of my life. I always feel like Celtic Cross is good for that since there are so many cards, and there are cards that I call the “Moving Out” and “Moving In” cards, and the “Hopes and Fears” card. I wasn’t exactly in a good place to sit down and really puzzle out all the meanings and how they could apply to me, so I just jotted the cards down in my Tarot journal. Actually, as soon as I finish this post I plan to Get out my journal, my book, and my pen and work on drawing insight from my reading. I just wanted to do an update on my progress and share the unexpected aspects of doing tarot readings for others. Goodnight!

Meditation and Binaural Beats

I almost filed this under “Reviews” but it isn’t quite a review. I merely said I would be trying this out. Once I have more experience with it, I’ll write a review. 🙂

I’ve been experimenting with something new lately, but I wouldn’t exactly call it supernatural. It is definitely abnormal, however. It’s binaural beats– the idea that certain tones and wavelengths of sounds can effect your brain waves, simulating feelings and experiences. Specifically I’m discussing the ones made by iDoser. They call each seperate one a dose. I read several reviews and thought it seemed pretty cool. A lot of them are made to simulate the effects of drugs. Now obviously I don’t expect to see psychedelic visions of walls melting, but I downloaded them so I could give them a try.

I’ve tried 10 minutes of the 20 minute long “Content” and my eyes were doing interesting things. I did all of the 5 minute “Quickhappy” but it’s utterly impossible to get even 5 minutes of peace in my house, which is why I only did half of the “Content”. At a friend’s house I did a 25 minute long “Acid” but I didn’t really get anything from it. My friend did the 30 or 35 minute long “Black Sunshine” and he said it felt as if his molecules were all seperating and expanding. He said he knew he was only laying on the middle of the bed, but he felt like his body had expanded to occupy all of it. I have all or almost all of them loaded onto my Zune awaiting the perfect moment when I can devote my complete attention. I may even drive down to the lake and sit in my car with the windows rolled down and try it.

So far, it’s essentially like meditation. You try to clear your mind and relax and just focus on the sounds coming from your headphones. Oh, it has to be headphones. It won’t work with speakers. Sometimes I tried to hear each level of sound, others I just visualized things with the sound. Mostly I imagine orbs of light spinning in circles either outside of my head or inside of it. I’m hoping to try out one of the ones that gets great reviews at a time where I can relax and completely forget about everything going on outside of my mind.

They say there are three kinds of people: those highly susceptible to binaural beats, those initially immune to binaural beats, and those permanently immuse to binaural beats. Since “Content” did begin to alter me before I was interrupted, I don’t think I’m immune. I also read that for some people, certain “doses” take a few listens until they affect them. Sometime within the past year I read something about binaural beats, and I found the concept intriguing, but I didn’t go further with it until I stumbled across them again a couple days ago.

I’ll update you on my further experimentation, but so far it seems like it’s really good for meditating and clearing your mind. I had some guided meditation tracks I downloaded a year ago, but I didn’t listen to them much. They weren’t very good.

I first meditated when I was a freshman, when our PE teacher did meditation as our focus for the week. I LOVED it. We would lay out mats in a very low traffic carpeted area in the end of one wing of the school. One wall was entirely windows, and out of them you could see sidewalks connected the small complex of buildings that made up the school, and behind them lush green plants and trees grew unhindered. It was a perfect spot.

Anyway, we all laid down (and were told anyone caught sleeping got detention) and he began the tape. A woman would lead us through some breathing, and then when we were wound down and in a good meditative state, she would lead us through visualizations of walking through a meadow or forest to a clearing with a pond or something. I forgot most of what happened. What I remember clearly was finishing the meditation 30-45 minutes later and feeling so peaceful, refreshed, happy, and unburdened that it made my entire day better.

It made me incredibly sad when the week ended. Each night, I would try and do my own guided meditations before I fell asleep. In the down time before school started, I would close my eyes nad try and walk myself through my own meditation, but it just wasn’t the same. So if anyone reading this knows of any good guided meditations, please let me know! I’m dying for another fantastic experience like the one I had when I was 14. I’m not really into the chanting and wordless ones. I prefer women’s voices, but I don’t care. What I do care about is that it lasts fairly long and they don’t just make me breathe or visualize light. What I loved about this one was that it led me through an imaginary landscape of natural beauty to an inner peace. It was wonderful and I have a very vivid imagination, so I really would prefer something like it. Chances are slim but.. just in case you know of anything like this please keep me in mind. 🙂

My Birthday– A Completely Off-Topic Post

So yesterday was my birthday. Before you ask: yep, it was good! I had fun. 🙂 So as my birthday present to myself, I’m going to make a post that isn’t necessarily focused on the ‘abnormal’ aspects of my life.

A lot of things have been going on, and it’s a little bit crazy. Remember how I kept getting a card that meant romance would be coming into my life very quickly? And then do you remember how I made that breif little post about how annoyed I was at that message my ex sent, and how I thought that’s what it had meant? Well, lots of love-related things have indeed swept into my life.

I actually met up with my ex and we talked. No, we didn’t have sex. We just chatted and caught up. It was refreshing, actually. There were times that it had gotten pretty ugly, way back in the day. But we had a good time, without any of those messy feelings. I found myself considering his offer. Do not make me start lecturing you about women and sexuality. Suffice to say that I have needs to, and I see no problem with responsible NSA sex. So I found myself considering his offer. I have been in a self-imposed dating exile, and we did have good sex. So I’ve been trying to work out the possible positive and negative outcomes of such a situation. That’s crazy thing #1 for you right there.

Crazy Thing #2 is a bit more difficult to explain. Basically, there’s a man older than me. He’s interested in my companionship in all aspects of his life, and part of my being his companion is receiving presents. He’s a nice man, so I’m considering it.

Crazy Thing #3 is a big one. Two years ago, I worked as a janitor in a plant. I was friends with the security guard, who was a couple years older than me, and we hung out a lot. A childhood friend of his came to work there on the same shift as us, so we all three hung out at work, and would go play pool, or go to my apartment and drink and watch movies and play games. We’d all pitch in and order pizza and watch movies on a portable dvd player at work. There was a bit of a love triangle because before Wayne, the childhood friend, got there I had been flirting with the idea of involving myself with Jason, the guard who was head-over-heels for me.

(From this point on all parenthetical exclamations are to be read in an exasperated tone.) 

Wayne came along, and we got along instantly. Our senses of humor clicked. He had a girlfriend in Colorado, but we flirted just for the fun of it. (Geminis! Actually, we all three were Gemini.) Jason began to get jealous and defensive, which just made Wayne push him more. (Boys!) Anyway. Wayne and I quit working there within a couple weeks of each other. Wayne moved to Colorado for his girlfriend (Jason and I knew it wouldn’t last.) and I moved out of my apartment and to a town ten minutes away. Eventually Jason moved to Dallas. We talked occasionally on the phone, mostly when I called him because I was bored. Wayne kept in touch with me on the computer and with occasional texs and phone calls, more frequently when he and his girlfriend were on the outs.

Nine months ago he and his girlfriend split, and he wanted me to move out and be his roomie in Colorado. I was unemployed, unhappy, unrestricted, and quite frankly… bored. (Geminis!) So after a little research and some convincing, I agreed. I love an adventure. (Geminis…) We were pretty excited about it. He made a few suggestions on the possibility of romance, but I ignored them. The moving date just kept getting pushed back and pushed back and I gave up on it.

We talked the entire time. He would make his little comments as usual. A few months ago, bored again, he said he would have to come to Texas and date me so I could know what a deceent guy is like, and I said he should. We continued talking and his hints got stronger and stronger. There have been a couple times in the past where we discussed the possibility of dating. He’s convinced it would work because according to him I’m his best friend, and he loves me, and we get along so well. I’m not sure, because I’ve never dated a friend. A few days ago, we were texting as usual and he said “I’m gonna tell you something.” I was like “Okay… shoot.” And he said “You don’t know this yet, but when I get back I’m going to marry you.”

Oh yeah. He’s in the Army Reserves and is deploying for a year to Afghanistan. Before he found out he was deploying I was trying really hard to convince him to move back home to Texas so we could be roomies. When I was going to move to Colorado he already planned to marry me if he ended up having to deploy so that the government would pay for my housing, so he would get extra seperation pay, and so I would have access to his bank account. So I said to him “Why wait?”

And so basically… we’re more than likely going to be married. Two hundred years ago, marriages were made based on how well a man could support you, and how well you could take care of him. In this age, that’s pretty much unacceptable and people marry only for love. I know it’s cliche, but I’ve lost a lot of faith in love, especially in marriage. You can love someone, but it doesn’t mean it will work. You have to make effort, and it doesn’t matter how much effort you put forth if the other person isn’t helping at all. People fuck up, a lot. Over half of marriages end in divorce. Being legally tied to someone sure makes it hard to break up.

So why should I marry solely for love? Why shouldn’t I marry someone I’m good friends with? I’ve never tried dating someone I was friends with first. Why do I have to date them for a certain period of time before we marry? I love an adventure, and spontaneous decisions come out great sometimes. (Geminis!) Why is it unacceptable for me to marry someone I can be secure with? I may not love him right now, but we will be financially secure. He treats people right, and we mesh well. Basically, we’ll be legal roommates. And if it progresses… so be it.

My tarot cards have been pretty helpful this past week. I’ve done readings for insight into my life and into these particular situations. It’s really helping me out. I’ve only told a handful of people, with mixed reactions. (About the marriage thing.) My father laughed, but the idea is totally acceptable to him. He was born in ’46, and he thinks that women need a man in their life for happiness. I disagree strongly! A friend of mine scoffed and said he couldn’t have me, but when I started explaining it to him he mostly kept quiet. I told my best friend last night, and her reaction was shocked, skeptical, curious, and… skeptical. She’s opposite of me. She’s extremely practical and sensible, but not very experienced with matters of the heart. She was suprised because it’s a big decision, concerned because I’m making it so lightly, curious about my motives since they aren’t the usual ones, skeptical of how it will turn out, and concerned for how it will turn out and the possibility of how it will hurt me. I’m not telling the rest of my family until he comes to Texas and I have a ring on my finger. I don’t want to ruffle all those feather if he flakes out on me and it doesn’t happen. (Geminis!)

So there you go, my completely random post. Odds are the majority of people that read it will disagree strongly with my actions and judge me. That’s fine. But dang it, I had to share all this with someone.

A&E’s “Paranormal State”

When I stumbled upon this show a year ago, I was pretty excited. There is nothing ‘Hollywood’ about the cast of college students investigating paranormal activity in people’s homes. Each episode had interesting possible proof of activity, and usually an interesting sotry with it. However, after a while I started to feel unsatisfied with the show. Each episode has an “is it or isn’t it?” moment or two, but nothing definitive is proven by the time the credits roll. The show does have a good creep factor, with seemingly every aspect possible tweaked to add to it. There are definitely moments where you’ll wish you weren’t watching it alone in the middle of the night, like me!

But if you’re looking for something “real” I’m not sure I would rely on Paranormal State. The cast and camera work give the illusion of reality, but a lot of what’s in the episode is just fluff created to amp up your anxiety. Upon ending each episode, nothing is proven. You’ve just been taken for a ride by some college students. Watch it if you feel like being creeped out; don’t watch it if you’re wanting evidence of real hauntings and entities at work.

Who Plays Psychic in a Mexican Restaurant?

I do!

So last night I went to one of my favorite restaurants for drinks and appetizers with an old friend. We spent a lot of time catching up, since we hadn’t talked in… oh, about 3 years. I brought my tarot cards with me, and after we had chatted a bit, I pulled them out. He was suprised, wondering when I had started getting into this stuff. I had actually started my journey in the last year of our friendship. That was when I had accepted the existence of ghosts/spirits in our world. I had even roped him into my Ouija board experimentations, but he and my cousin just kept laughing so I didn’t get far and gave up. Anyway, I explained to him the idea behind tarot readings. The way the 78 cards, especially the Major Arcanum, represent archetypal people, situations, and emotions that every person will experience in their life. It’s the idea that nothing in life that happens is an accident; that of the deck of 78 cards, those are the ones you chose. Nothing you feel or do or experience has never been done before, and all that knowledge and experience is a part of the collective universal unconscious, and this is one of the many ways to get in contact with it. He seemed somewhat receptive to that explanation, but maybe still a little skeptical, though he didn’t say anything specifically. He did make a comment about not wanting me to predict his death or anything, and I told him that there isn’t a card that means you’re going to die. I explained the meanings behind the cards people freak out about most (Death and The Devil) before I did the reading.

I did a quick three card reading for him, to represent past, present, and future. By the time I finished explaining the last card to him, he was impressed. His cards clicked with him, and made sense. He said it was creepy, but I know he was just floored. He became a believer! This is what’s so fun about this. Obviously, the general population has some misconceptions about the cards, and extreme skepticism on what they can do. I know I did. But all it takes is one reading, and just like that everything they thought they knew is blown out of the water. Our waiter saw me doing the reading, and thought it was cool. We told him I’d do a quick one for him if he could find the time, so a little later he came by and I did another fast three card reading, again meaning past, present, future. He was pretty pleased with his cards too, thanked me and told him it was the best tip he’d gotten all night, and went about his waiterly duties once again. A few minutes later he comes and wants to know if I’ll do one for his friend, so I say sure. His friend comes by and offers me $2 to do a reading, which makes me laugh. I do his reading, and designate his two dollars to be part of our wonderful waiter’s tip in addition to what we were already giving him. My friend wanted another reading, so I went over all the different spreads I could do and he picked a Celtic Cross, so we did that and he was fairly impressed again. 

Basically… I converted a non-believer and made $2 last night while enjoying margaritas and the house salsa with fresh tortilla chips. 🙂 It was a great night!

“A Haunting” on Discovery Channel

“A Haunting” is a tv show on Discovery channel about different paranormal phenomena involving spirits/ghosts/demons etc. It went on for four seasons and they still air reruns, so check listings or do a google search to watch it online.

As far as ghostie shows go, this one is the best in my opinion. Each episode is about a different haunting, and features reenactments of the accounts of eyewitnesses, along with interviews. They also have occasional interviews from relevant authorities such as preists or the famous demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren. Each episode follows a formula you’ll begin to recognize after a while. The special effects aren’t terrible, but aren’t amazing, either. There are plenty of time when you anticipate something before it happens, so you end up not being that suprised, but it definitely has a creep out factor. I always get slightly paranoid when I watch it and am hyper aware of everything around me. 🙂 But honestly, it’s a pretty good show. It’s a tv show so you expect some things to be a little embellished, and they tone done more graphic things about the real events to make it suitable for viewers. I really enjoy the accounts of all the different hauntings. Some are frightening and really make you wonder what all exists that you don’t know about, and some are touching or heart breaking, and some just aren’t that great. I definitely recommend giving this show a try if you haven’t already!

The show was created after positive responses to the channel’s feature length specials “A Haunting in Connecticut” and “A Haunting in Georgia” which were the same as the show. Reenactments of eyewitness accounts, with interviews from the people that experienced it. I’ve seen “A Haunting in Connecticut” and it was compelling. I need to see “A Haunting in Georgia”! If you’re more interested in the realistic side of hauntings (as opposed to Hollywood versions) you’ll enjoy this show.

Summary: Fascinating show, forgivable flaws, and an overall pleasure to watch. There are spine tingling and hair raising moments alongside themes that will bring a tear to your eye and the occasional laugh. Watch it!

Spooky! Ghost Stories

I’m thinking about having a friend do a guest blog post. Actually, I’m thinking of “interviewing” her and writing the post myself, but I’ll do whichever will be the most accurate. All I’ve been doing is yapping about the tarot lately, and she has some really great experiences. Honestly, she’s pretty haunted. Her dad has done some things that have definitely left a mark on his life, and since she lived with him until she was about 15 it affected her too. She could tell some pretty scary stories from when she lived with him in their house in the middle of nowhere (including an alien story). But when she moved here to my town with her mother, things followed her. She’s had a lot of experiences in this new house, both interesting and frightening. Orbs of light playing in the living room at night (cool), the tv randomly turning on, especially when she’s the only one there, and it only showing snowflakes despite their having cable (spooky), blood-curdling screams coming from the back room at night (scary), and an evil presence invading her dreams and terrifying her by pinning her down while she’s asleep or sitting on her chest. That last one scares me, so I understand why it terrifies her. I’ve given her advice from knowledge I’ve picked up over the years for things like this, but I don’t think anything has helped. She has a lot of negative energy surrounding her and some emotional and mental weaknesses, so she’s an easy target. I really want to get in there and do some recordings, but she won’t let me. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to set foot in the house if she hears anything, and with all the activity I’m pretty confident there would be something.

So I’ll talk to her about an interview tomorrow, and tonight I’ll simply share my meager experiences with ghosts/spirits with you.

The first experience I can remember is when I was in 3rd grade. I lived in an apartment with my mother and younger sister. My parents seperated when I was in kindergarten and divorced the next year, so it was just the three of us. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve always had vivid dreams and good dream recall. Anyway, one night I dreamed that my teacher had given everyone in the class the skull of an animal to take home and study. This dream was much more vivid than others. I got a bear skull (but really it was more like a large dog’s skull) and took it home. But there was something different about my skull. It could talk, and was aware of everything around it. I had to carry it from room to room with me throughout the apartment so it was always with me. It would then fly up to the ceiling and hover in a corner with a good vantage point of the room. It would speak to me, and even though it said helpful things or expressed concern for me, it utterly terrified me. When I would go to my room to go to bed, it would settle into a ceiling corner and stay there for the night. I had the top bunk, and it took the corner right above the door and next to the air vent, facing my bed. I woke up after the dream was over and was almost paralyzed with fear. There was a dense blackness in the exact corner that the skull rested in my dream. I immediately shut my eyes and lay in bed with my heart thundering, too scared to even call out for my mother because I knew it would swoop near me to see what was wrong.

I don’t know if that’s a paranormal experience or not.. it’s not like I can go back in time and find out more. But it was very strange, and it stuck with me my whole life. I always felt like there was something I wasn’t aware of, and I could hardly stand to look at that one corner of the room. It was the only nightmare I’ve ever had. I’ve had scary dreams, but nothing that was even half as bad as this. 

I ignored everything for a long time after that, but when I was almost 19 I started opening up to the possibility of ghosts and such. At the time I was living with my boyfriend and his parents in a very old and very large house in the country. This house was built in the early 1900’s from the look of it, and it had been moved from the nearby city to this property in the middle of nowhere to save it from demolition. I believe a hospital was put where it used to stand, but I’m not sure. Anyway. Sometimes when I was alone in the afternoons, I felt like I could see a person walk past a doorway from my peripheral vision. I would whip my head to see, but there wouldn’t be anything there. It wasn’t very clear being in my peripherals, but once I saw well enough to decide at least in that instance that it was a man about 6 feet tall, with a lanky build. He was wearing all blue. A few weeks later, my boyfriend and his mother flew out of state to visit family for a week or two. One of my lonely nights after I stopped feeling exposed in the big house all alone, I heard something. It was three very clear and deliberate knocks on the window above my head. They weren’t fast, but evenly spaced. This window was at the head of the bed, and on the second story. There were no trees, powerlines, or anything else nearby that could have touched it. It was still, like many Texas nights are at such an hour, with no breezes. A bug could not have made such heavy and deliberate knocks, and there was no window ledge for a bird to perch. Obviously, this startled me. My eyes flew open and I help my breath and tried to listen. My heart beat was slightly accelerated. I lay wondering if I had simply imagined it because I had been close to asleep, and then I heard it again. Three knocks, steady and firm. I closed my eyes, turned on my side, pulled the blanket to my chin and focused on slowing my heart and breathing. I thought “No WAY am I looking out that window.” and lay there until I had calmed and fallen asleep. Even though it scared me, I wasn’t scared. I didn’t feel anything malicious, or the negative presence of something with the desire to frighten and harm me. When my boyfriend and his mother came back, I decided to share my story with them. I expected my boyfriend to tease me, but instead, they said “Oh yeah, this house is haunted.” like they weren’t suprised at all. They then told me all the other experiences people have had there. The mother and the youngest son have been in the loft (the room I was sleeping in!) and heard what sounded like a big crowd of people all downstairs, making conversation. The kind of thing you would expect from a party, with everyone mingling and chatting. Doors occasionally shutting. In the master bedroom where the mother and father slept, the overhead light and/or television would randomly turn on in the middle of the night. That was so common that one or the other of them would simply get out of bed, turn the tv and lights off, and go back to sleep. No one had any ‘negative’ experiences. The closest it got was having things happen while you were sleeping, which would startle anyone. Even though my experience happened when I was in the vulnerable state of near-unconsciousness, I wasn’t scared. My adrenaline was going a little like anyone’s would be if they had been woken up in the middle of the night, but I didn’t have a sense of danger or negative energy.

My third and last experience is minor. I had just recently moved into this small house with my mother. It was built by a short man who didn’t want to have to use a ladder to change lightbulbs. The room I slept in was an addition. My sister had slept in it before me. The first night my dog and I slept in it, I woke up in the early hours of the morning with my heart pounding. I lay still in the pitch black and tried to figure out why I was freaking out. My dog was sound asleep next to me. I didn’t think a sound had woken me up, the motion sensing lights in the backyard which my windows faces weren’t on, and I had no memory of a bad dream. If I had had a dream bad enough to set my pulse racing I would have remembered it, especially immediately upon waking up. I pulled my dog close to me so I could take comfort in her warmth against my skin and tried to go back to sleep. I just couldn’t. I felt like there was something there, watching me. My body was on high alert, watching out for shifts in the air around me and sounds anywhere. I kept expecting the lights outside to turn on and for me to see a human silhouette on the window. After close to an hour of such tension, I got up and got a drink. I went back to bed and sort of dozed, finally falling asleep when the sun was beginning to lighten the sky, just before I had to wake up. I told my mother about it in the morning, and she told me that my sister never liked sleeping in there. She said she always felt like someone was watching her, like they might be standing just outside the window. A couple nights later I woke up frightened for no reason again, so I told whatever it was to leave me alone. The next evening, before I went to sleep, I announced to the room that it belonged to me and that anything listening would have to accept it and stop bothering me. I haven’t had any problems since.

Spirituality

I’m rapidly forming new beliefs. Maybe not entirely new; I’m taking new opinions and adding them to the ones I already had and allowing that mixture to gel. Like jello! Only my brain doesn’t have a speed set method. Or a variety of delicious flavors. 🙂

I’ve always believed that your life’s path is dependant on the choices you make. You can’t expect to have everything handed to you. I also tend to be a “go with the flow” person. I think that the things that occur in life are not accidents. I had a tattooing apprenticeship and was nearing the time when I would become licensed and begin working. A month ago, it just entirely disappeared out from under me. It upset me a great deal to lose that opportunity, but I figure that maybe it’s not where I’m supposed to be. So I’m accepting it and trying to find a new path. I don’t believe our entire lives are mapped out. I do believe that life is not a series of accidents. I didn’t refuse to follow the Christian god just to follow some other god. But it can’t be an accident that  every culture in the history of the world has developed spirituality. We are primitive creatures, driven by instinct and emotion. But there also lies a spirituality in all of us. Alongside our snarling animal natures is the awareness of something bigger than our own menial existence. We’ve created rituals and rules and elaborate, restrictive structures to try and contain something that isn’t even tangible– the spirit. Everyone strives for a higher state of being, a closeness to that feeling. I believe it is simply the universal collective unconsciousness, that big something that resonates with the dark and unknown spaces inside of us. That unconsciousness has been shaped into many things to make it more tangible to our brains. God/Jesus, and all the various gods of Egyptian, Native American, Indian, Japanese, and essentially every culture in the world.

It’s that unconscious, the fact that nothing in life is purely accidental, that makes Tarot cards ‘work’. It’s what draws people to it, and has held their interest for so many years. It’s a way to contact that unconsciousness. It’s the idea that of the 78 cards in your hand, those specific few are laying out in front of you, offering undeniable insight into whatever is going on in your life. It’s why dreams are so powerful, where intuition comes from, why people pray. Everyone seeks out contact with it in some way, even atheists like me. And while I don’t believe there’s a god up there watching my every move and hearing my every thought with my entire life planned out for me, I do believe that there exists something higher than us. Even if it is just the universal unconsciousness that has experienced everything and has a fragment of itsself buried within each of us.