Haunting or VERY strange coincidence?

Question

When my grandmother was still alive, my sister and I would go over to her house and spend the nights on weekends. The freaky thing was... her house was haunted...

It started years ago. My mother as a child noticed strange things happening to her. At night, someone would pull as her feet, yank the blankets off of her. My grandmother paid no attention to my mothers wild stories until one night she saw a little boy looking through the window at her. He wasn't outside.. it was more like a reflection. When she turned around, no one was there.

As my grandmother's children grew up and moved out, my sister and I would go and spend the night. We each had our separate rooms but sometimes I would go into my sisters room and we would play dolls or something before we went to sleep. (Mind you, we were around ten and eleven at this time.) On these nights, I would stay in my sisters room and we would talk before laying down for the night. But strangley, I could not sleep in that room with her. It was as though someone was telling me to leave. There would be three knocks on the wall - tap, tap, tap... At first we ignored them, taking them for an animal or a critter in the walls. But ten minutes or so surpassed and the knocking returned, this time more persistent - TAP, TAP, TAP... Once again, we ignored it and once again the knock came. Finally, I left the room and went to my own. Every night my sister and I tried to sleep in that same room together, the knocking would persist until one of us left.

Aside from the knocking, another fear plagued my mind. I would have extreme nightmares about the closet in that room. The nightmare was about a woman who would try to drag me into the closet to kill me. The strange part... she was invisible - I couldn't see her. How I know it is a woman, I don't know. When I have this dream, it is extremely difficult for me to wake up. When I finally do, it is very hard for me to breathe, hard for me to move. My mind is foggy and when I try to call out for someone, I cannot speak.

....To this day, I will not go into that bedroom. I haven't set foot into that room in over six years...

Recently, my aunt and uncle moved into my grandmothers old house. They lived there for a year before they started feeling any odd things. My uncle ignored them - he was used to them happening in this house due to the fact that he had grown up here after all! But my aunt was uncertain that she was even sane. She witnessed hazy appartitions flitting back and forth between rooms, objects moved, lights flickering. Eventually, she grew used to it. Then one night, as she was making dinner, she casually glanced up into the picture across the room and saw the thing in their home. She stared at the figure... a woman, just the same as in my nightmares.

Recently, I posted this story on another question someone had. They wrote to me claiming to be psychic and told me that a husband and wife with two children used to live in my grandmothers house. They told the story of how the man died in a tragic accident and the wife went insane with grief, shooting her two children before turning the gun on herself in the every closet that she escapes in my nightmares. If this is true, I do not know. But the strange fact remains... something still resides in my grandmothers house....

Now, my sister has her own place and she believes something is haunting her new home. She sees a shadowy figure down the hall in front of her five month old daughters room. She believes it to be very menacing and she can feel vey negative feeling around the home. She has heard things like shuffling feet and whispers over the baby moniter and her daughter screams out during the night. She said she has also felt the entire house shake three times during the night. Did the thing from our grandmothers house follow her or is she simply hallucinating?

Answer 1

It's true, about everything you mentioned could have an alternate explanation to it, but since it seems no one but skeptics have answered before me, I'll assume for the moment you are correct that the two houses are haunted.

Are your aunt and uncle still experiencing things in their home while your sister is experiencing things in hers? If so, then it's probably two separate entities, and your family just seems to have bad luck in choosing houses. lol

I have heard people claim that spirits, particularly bad ones, can attach themselves to someone or a certain object and follow them around. I'm an atheist, but I've heard people swear that having a priest perform an exorcism on the residence will rid the place once and for all of the spirit. If it's a problem for your sister, she may want consider that.

Answer 2

With regard to your Grandmas home...it is hard to tell for sure what is there unless there is an investigation done. If your uncle and aunt is willing I would have them to contact a reputable team of paranormal investigators in their area for a consultation. Most groups are not for profit and are easily found on the web. They would be most willing to come out since it would be able to further their research to do so. I will say that eventhough you had bad dreams, the likelyhood of there being something there that is inhuman and will hurt you is minute...its been going on for a long time and no one has been hurt yet.

Now to your sisters home. Same rule applies. The only thing I would add is that in the case of most real hauntings, it might not be the house so much as it is the property surrounding it. When the Higher Power created this place called earth, he only made so much real estate. Happiness,sadness,tragic events etc have been played out on all land. New homes have been built only to become haunted. Old homes have been torn down that were reported to be haunted and replaced by new ones only to have the same thing happen.

Answer 3

It sounds like certain members of your family are prone to sleeping disorders, or under extreme stress.
Pulling at the feet, blankets being pulled off, and seeing a figure standing over you are all common and classic symptoms of sleep paralysis.
The tapping that you and your sister heard could have been caused by the temperature cooling off as night fell. The temperature changes caused the wood to relax in the walls, hardwood floors, and frames of the house. Also, it could have been a branch tapping in the wind.
Nightmares were simply dreams that were created in your mind by the fear, because you believed the house was haunted.
Your aunt fell victim to suggestion, because she believed the stories of the house being haunted. Your uncle did not fall for it so easily. If you look for a ghost, you will find one, even if its not really there. Your aunt may also be Narcileptic, which is a sleeping disorder somewhat related to sleep paralysis, which your mother seems prone to having. Perhaps they both have narcilepsy.

Answer 4

Well, I must say, you're pretty good at telling ghost stories! Too bad the ghosts don't really exist. Yes, I know it seems awfully scary for you, and you'd like to believe there's some sort of supernatural being there, but the fact is, all known science dictates that ghosts just don't exist, at all.

The one main thing that is required for you to start detecting 'ghosts' is for you to get the idea. Once it's in your head that the house is haunted, your brain will start trying to match up every little thing with that when in fact there isn't really anything behind it. Your dreams are even easier to explain this way; the anxiety of believing that there is a ghost around can very easily give you ghost-related nightmares as well, which of course serves to reinforce your beliefs on the matter.

The house itself may also have something to do with it. It has been shown that much of the time, 'haunted' houses possess certain physical (but not supernatural) characteristics that can, for example, cause noises or vibrations or weird smells or cold air currents or whatever. Water pipes warming and cooling have been blamed for a large number of 'ghostly' sounds, while warped windows (they do change shape over time as their frames expand or contract) can cause odd reflections and light tricks that might be perceived as apparitions (it is quite possible for a reflected or refracted image to appear outside the window which is doing the reflecting or refracting, which could certainly appear like a ghost, especially in poor light). The construction of the house can also result in all manner of noises and vibrations, such as creaking stairs and floorboards, metal twangs due to contraction or expansion of parts of the house, etc. And of course, another common culprit for sounds is small animals such as rats, mice or squirrels, which can make their homes in the ceilings and walls of a house and make strange noises that might sound like they're coming from somewhere else. Professional 'ghost hunters' have discovered many, many aspects of a house that can make it appear haunted, but they have yet to find an actual ghost- this should tell you something.

Answer 5

It could be that you all are just sensitive to spirits and they know it so they try to get your attention...and apparently they have it.

Personally, I'm overly used to such things so they don't bother me so much...only when the dog sits and faces the wall or crawls under something that I begin to wonder if the activity has picked up.

A lot of times you have to make a conscious decision to either help the spirits or just tell them you're not interested in what they want...until you do that they are more likely to 'act out' with more activity, etc.

If you decide to help them, it should die down to a dull roar...if you decide not to help them, learn to ignore them...and realize that 'new' ones might show up asking for help until they realize you're not "open".

Answer 6

There are perfectly reasonable explanations for what's going on. For one, the power of suggestion is a powerful thing, especially when young children are concerned. As a child I too had nightmares about closets, and my imagination had me meeting my demise in many a dark space.

It sounds as if a belief in ghosts has been handed down from generation to generation

The husband/wife/two children story that the "psychic" related to you is a movie called "The Others" starring Nicole Kidman.

Answer 7

There are of course very simple explanations for all of the things you describer. I do believe that what has been describerd in other answers are most likely the case. I completely disagree, however, with the assertion that ghosts don't exist. I do not know whether they do or not, but I don't believe that anyone has proven existence one way or the other.

Answer 8

maybe the ghost wants your sister`s baby and if you want it to go then etheir burn a sage or do a prayer and ask a priest to come over to her house and do a prayer for the house and it must want your sister cuz that`s why it was haunting your sister`s room the most and whatever you do dont let the baby play with dolls cuz there is a religion that if you do then when you die the doll will come 2 llife then kill you and also my friend told me this , actaully i was there: once she was like making fun of a doll and then she and her sister threw it in a trash can in her room then when my friend slept and then the next morning the doll wasnt in her trash but in her closet and then she tried it 3 times and then the same thing happend and it was really scary cuz the doll moved by itself!

Answer 9

It's definitely real, these things are too persistent to be a trick of your mind. If they really bother you or your family, go see a ghostbuster professional that knows what you're doing. Hopefully, they'll stop bothering everyone.

Answer 10

A ghost is a "UFO" of the mind. something seen or heard, but not identified.