do you believe in ghosts?

I don’t know if I believe in ghosts or not.  It’s kind of hard to believe in something that you can’t be sure you have seen or something that is simply a feeling or something that so many people dismiss as fiction.  Throughout my life I’ve had a good few encounters with things that some would describe as ghosts…to be honest I would feel more comfortable if they were figments of my imagination.

The first I can remember was when I was a little girl.  I used to wake in the middle of the night and see a man in my bedroom.  The man would be dressed all in black (although that could have been the dark) and would wear a wide brimmed hat.  He would stand at the end of my bed and watch me.  I was terrified of this man; I used to think that if I pulled my duvet tight around my neck he couldn’t get me.  He would never go away though…he was there night after night for many of my formative years.

Such was my fear that I started to sleep with the light on all the time and my parents would dismiss what I was seeing as my overactive imagination.  I remember feeling a bit aggrieved that no-one believed me.  Years later after I had left home I was discussing with my dad about how creepy I find their house and how I am sure it’s haunted…to this day I feel as though someone is following me whenever I am in that house.  I was reminding him of the man that I used to see in my bedroom at night and my dad was getting a bit uptight and said he saw a man at the end of their bed at night too…same black clothes and wide brimmed hat.

My second ‘encounter’ was in our last house where things would go missing without explanation and things sometimes moved of their own accord…like the time the two rolls of masking tape that had been sitting on the banister appeared at the bottom of the stairs perfectly aligned side by side.  There was an occasion in that house when I was in the house on my own with the doors locked.  I was downstairs when the radio came on upstairs.  I also used to feel as though I was being followed in that house.  It’s a very uneasy feeling.

In our present house I haven’t felt as though I am being followed but I have had some feelings and have seen some things that have made me feel scared.  I had forgotten until I started to write this post about the time I was lying in bed and felt as though someone was lying there behind me.  I am sure it was a young girl.  I remember now that I was terrified.  I had woken in the middle of the night and felt a presence.  I also had some pretty disturbing dreams that night.  I’ve never felt it since so I guess I forgot about it and dismissed it as being the result of my imagination.

A few nights ago I saw something on the wall in front of me.  I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me in the dark and rolled over to check.  When I rolled over it went but when I rolled back to my original position it was still there.  I felt a little spooked but I suppose being an adult I managed to convince myself that I was being silly.

Last night we watched ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’.  This is based on a true story of a person who was possessed and died as from the injuries she sustained as a direct result of her possession.  Alasdair and I were talking about the film and I happened to mention that I had seen this black shadow on the wall…of course Alasdair said it would have been the light but then I realised that it wasn’t a shadow but a cloud…it was 3D.  Alasdair told me that he had seen the same thing years previously.  Now this cloud that he had seen had been in a different house but the fact that he could identify with my experience has made me feel very unnerved.

I still don’t think I believe in ghosts but I do wonder whether it’s the case that I don’t believe because I think it’s nonsense or if I don’t believe because I hope that there is another explanation other than the supernatural.