Brushes With The Paranormal

Last night, he and I were watching a show that he really enjoys--Paranormal State. I personally think that it would be too easy for the TV crew to fake everything that they discover, so the show doesn't creep me out at all. It did, however, get us talking about our own brushes with the paranormal.

Now, I grew up in a house where we haven't gone to church since I was maybe six. My Dad was raised Catholic, but is pretty much an atheist (you die, you rot--no ghosts in his opinion). My Mom believes in a higher power, and ghosts, but doesn't necessarily fit her beliefs into an organized religion. My brother went more into my Mom's camp, and I drifted into my Dad's. I have since grown into a more moderate agnostic (or as one of my college professors liked to say: "secular humanist"). My family (Mom, Dad, brother, and me) have had a total of 3 brushes with the supernatural--one that my Mom and Dad had together (which my Dad still refuses to talk about), and two that I had. All of them could be pretty well explained by natural causes or by "coincidence," but I will let you decide for yourself:

1.
When I was very young (5 and under) my Mom's great uncle (my great great uncle) lived with us. We all just called him Uncle. I don't really know why. Anyways, Uncle didn't speak a lick of English (my Mom said he just pretended not to), so my Mom was the only one who could talk to him, but he always found ways to show us all his affection. My brother and I would always get candy and silver dollars from him. For my parents, he bought a dust buster. I am not really sure why, but it was a useful little machine, so it wasn't a bad gift. When I was 6 or 7, Uncle died of natural causes (he was in his 90's).

About a year later, we lived in a new house. One night, we were all sleeping upstairs. My brother and I slept through the whole incident, but this is how it happened as my Mom tells it: My parents were asleep in bed when they both woke up to a strange noise. My Mom turned to my Dad, and they both agreed that they heard the dust buster going downstairs. My Mom checked on my brother and I, assuming that one of us had just crept downstairs for a drink or snack, had spilled something, and were dust busting it. We were both in bed. The noise had stopped, so my Mom went back to bed. About two minutes later, my parents awoke to the same sound, which they agreed, once again, was definitely the dust buster. Now they were becoming worried that someone was in the house, and confused as to what kind of burglar would decide to use a dust buster in the middle of a robbery. They crept downstairs together and headed for the kitchen where we kept the dust buster. When they got in there, the dust buster was sitting in its stand, unmoved. When they glanced around the kitchen, they saw the the kitchen ceiling was sagging in the middle and was wet. They called the water company, and someone came out immediately. It turned out that a pipe had burst in the middle of the night, and if my parents had not noticed it that night, our upstairs bathroom would have ended up in our kitchen. The plumber got there just in time to release the pressure in the ceiling. We had very little actual damage--just water stains and some rotted wood that had to be replaced/painted.

To this day, my Mom is convinced that it was Uncle warning them. My Dad, for some reason, refuses to talk about that night, although he does agree that it was definitely the dust buster that they heard. He assumes that water somehow dripped onto the dust buster an made it turn on. Who knows?

2.
All of my personal supernatural experiences have been dreams, which are, of course, much easier to explain away than waking experiences. So, take them how you will.

One night, when I was maybe 12, I had a dream that I was at my Grandmother's house. No one was there, so I went out into her big backyard to look around. That was when I saw Uncle. He was standing and holding fishing gear. He gestured for me to follow him. Uncle led me to a beautiful lake. There was a dock, with a little rowboat tied to it, and out in the middle of the lake was an island covered with big pine trees. Uncle and I sat down on the dock next to each other and fished. We just sat there and fished. Never exchanged a word.

I thought it was a sweet dream, so I told my Mom about it when I woke up. She looked at me like I had six heads. She told me that her and Uncle used to go fishing together at a lake just like the one I described--row boat on the dock, island with big pine trees--everything.

So, that was a little strange, but could easily be coincidence. My next dream, however, I still can't explain.

3.
It was my sophomore year of high school. One night, I had an odd dream. In my dream, I was standing in the hallway of my high school, which was completely empty except for one open locker in the distance. I started walking toward the locker. When I was halfway there, the locker closed, and this girl from my grade, M, walked in my direction. As we passed each other, she smiled. Then I woke up.

I immediately thought it was a very odd dream. I had a tendency to dream about people I was friends with. M and I hardly knew each other. She seemed nice enough, but we weren't friends. She was just another girl in my grade.

At breakfast that morning, I told my brother about my dream. He agreed that it was a little odd, but it was a pretty uneventful dream, so there wasn't much to say beyond that.

When I got to school that day, I learned that M had killed herself the night before. I was horrified. I felt very bad for her family and friends, but also very shaken about my dream. When I got home that day, my brother looked as freaked out as I did. I felt... guilty. Like I had done something wrong by having that dream. Like I had had no right to have that dream--after all, M and I weren't even friends. I never told anyone, aside from a few close friends over the years. I felt that it would have been disrespectful to her friends and family to mention it. I doubt they would have believed me anyways.

That is the only one of the three stories that I really cannot explain--except by maybe chalking it up to coincidence. It could have been coincidence. A strange coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless.

So, my family's brushes with the paranormal have not been terribly exciting. I have never seen a ghost. All I have are stories of slightly odd dreams and a renegade dust buster. But, because of those three stories, my mind remains open to possibilities that I would probably otherwise just brush off. So, I guess I remain undecided. I believe there are things that we cannot explain, but I just don't know if the explanation behind them would be scientific or supernatural if we could get to it. I think I like the fact that there are things that I can't quite reason away. It makes the world seem bigger.