Paranormal State

I watched a show, Paranormal State, for the first time a couple of days ago.. it's summer so nothing exciting on TV. It was a repeat but as I had never watched it, the episode was new. Our daughter is always asking me if I watch it and I say nope. I have enough with seeing real spirits on a regular basis I don't need to watch TV about them. But I did and as I watched it I thought of the first time I had a "visit" way back when I was still very young. I had woken up in the middle of the night wondering what woke me up. I shared a bed with my sister and thought she had woken me up but she was still asleep. I was starting to doze back off when I happened to feel someone watching me. I opened my eyes again and at first all I saw was the flickering light from the oil burner. We didn't have gas heat in those days just this big oil furnace in the corner of the living room. We were never allowed to sleep with our doors closed so the warm orangey colors of the flames were always soothing. Mom used to leave the little front doors opened after we had gone to bed to warm the rooms more.

But this night it wasn't the firelight that caught my eye but some shapes walking in the room. I was too young to be scared and just laid still as this seemingly large family came walking in our room. I have no idea how I knew it was a family other then I could tell there were "adult" and "children" sized shapes and there were 8-10 of them. They just stood at the foot of my bed and somehow it gave me comfort to know they were there.

They came very often in my growing up years. I always felt that they were there to protect me. I tried talking to my mom a few times and she just kept saying that I had a vivid imagination. I would ask my sister if she saw them and she said no I was just dreaming. But I knew I wasn't. I never saw that family of spirits again once I moved from home. I would sense over the years spirits near me but I just went about doing what I was doing knowing they were just watching me and that they were family members.

Then one day in a house where Keith and my's bedroom was in the basement (it was a small 3 bedroom and we gave the kids the bedrooms) I woke up wondering what had woken me. I thought it was this family again and was about to go back to sleep when I could feel the hairs standing all over my body and a chill going up my spine. I was too afraid to open my eyes but even more afraid not to so eventually did. Our bed was fairly near where our furnace was and I could see a shape appearing as if it was coming out of the furnace and walking towards the bed. It got as far as the foot of the bed and just stayed. It was just a shape nothing that you could actually see any body parts or anything but in my mind I knew it was a male and that it was pure evil. I don't know how long I laid like that but eventually the fear got the best of me and this unearthly scream came out of my mouth.

What I did not know was while this was happening, Keith had been in the dining room going over school work (he was going back to school at the time) and our Old English Sheep Dog who was his side kick was laying by his feet. The dog had started to whimper and Keith got up to check the doors and yards to see if someone was coming in the yard as the dog wouldn't stop but there was nothing there. He kept telling the dog to stop as the rest of us were all sleeping. He would quieten for a few minutes but then would start again. Then finally the dog got up and walked to the top of the basement doorway and growled that "I'm in attack mode" growl and when Keith looked over at him his fur were literally standing up all over making him into a poofball.

Keith got up to take him by the collar to move him away from the door but before he could reach him the dog just started angrily barking and growling. It was just then that I screamed in what Keith to this day calls an unearthly scream. Keith tried to yank the dog away from the door to get down the stairs but the dog wouldn't budge but just kept growling and madly barking. Keith finally got past him and came flying down the stairs to find me in the middle of the bed completely colorless and soaked with sweat. He had to give me several hard shakes to make me stop screaming and before I could tell him what had happened. He called a friend over and they gave me a blessing but there was no way I went back to bed that night.

The next day I thought it was just a bad dream and left it alone. Keith went back out of town to where he was going to school. It had been my tradition with out daughter that when Keith was out of town she slept with me. A couple of nights later I woke up and thought oh no not again. I opened up my eyes as I could already feel the fear rising in me and I saw this shape coming out of the furnace. There was no staring contest this time I just started screaming scaring Lareta out of her skin not to mention the dog who came flying down the stairs to jump on the bed growling at the foot of the bed so I knew he could see whatever was there as well as I could.

Over the next 2 weeks this happened 4-5 more times. The last time I called Keith in the middle of the night and told him I could not live like that and he said to find another house which we did and we had moved by the end of that week. I never had another visit with that same evil feeling until we moved to BC. We had moved to Surrey and had friends over for the weekend. They had 3 children and often spent the weekends with us. I woke up and because it had been several years since the last episode I had completely forgotten about it but when I woke up but before I opened my eyes I knew what would be at the foot of the bed. But curiosity got me and I opened my eyes. Sure as shooting there it was but this time it didn't stay at the foot of the bed but starting walking towards my side. I started clamoring over to Keith as the screams started coming out. Seconds later our friend comes barreling into our bedroom with the kids baseball bat in his hand as he is yielding over his head. He told us afterwards he had no idea what to expect when he opened the door but that he thought for sure someone had broken into the house and was attacking us but all he found was Keith shaking me. He apologized later for coming in our room just wearing his underwear but that he didn't even think he said he heard these screams and just came flying in. The kids had been playing ball the night before so the bat was still by the stairs.

This happened 3 more times in the course of the 2 years we lived there and again I had to move. It worked out as the landlord was selling the house so gave us a reason to move. I don't know why I had these visits. I have not had them since. I don't know why that shape was always just at the foot of the bed but the last 3 times he walked towards me. I had a visit with our Stake President and happened to tell him about this and he told me that evil spirits cant stand confrontations and all I had to do was very loudly ask it what it wanted and to tell it to depart in the name of Jesus Christ. The last time it happened instead of screaming (and that was no easy feat let me tell you) that was exactly what I did and I haven't had it happened since.

I do get visits from regular spirits all the time. So much so that I don't even think of it anymore. The other night I sort of jumped in my chair in the living room as I sensed someone beside me but there was no one there and never thought of it. I was watching tv with my granddaughter. Then I sensed it again and looked but just saw a whisper of a shape and when I turned to look back at the tv I could tell my granddaughter had a strange look on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she said "did you see that light that was just by your chair?" Inside I thought oh no please don't let her be going through this but I just told her yes and that it was ok it had just been a spirit near us. I told her we always have spirits near us and it's usually ok.

I had recent episodes of great frequency early last year where the spirits were very small and I kept stumbling as they were seemingly underfoot and I would try and sidestep to avoid stepping on them. I would think it was the cat when I would go to move and jerk to sidestep him only to realize that the cat was no where near me. This time it took me a long time and a lot of prayers before I realized it was a child from our spirit family trying to tell me they were ready to come down but there was no one "allowing" them to come down to us. Uhhhhhh nothing I can really do to help this time.

This is the first time really that I have sat down and really "talked" about my experiences or at least just a couple of them. I probably will get a visit now from the little guys in the white jackets who will come take me away. I do know that when I spoke to my maternal grandmother about the visits (this was when I still lived at home) she told me that she had that ability as well and that I should think of myself as very very lucky as few people had that capability of being so receptive to spirits that they were around me and allowed me to see them. Funny how when the evil one was hanging around my bed I didn't feel so lucky. But for the most part I do consider myself blessed and comforted.

I have had many conversations with my ancestors, those from very near to very very old as I have worked on my genealogy. I have gotten angry with some when I have been so frustrated trying to find where someone was born or married or died etc and I say help me find you!! A couple of months ago I got woken up out of a sound sleep from my maternal grandmother with a simple sentence ringing in my head "look in the book".. huh?? what?? Again and again that same sentence kept going on in my head. Ok I am awake now... what book and what am I supposed to be looking for. I then somehow knew it was a blue family book that had a piece of information in there that I had missed. So I got out of bed and went looking through our bookshelves trying to find it but nothing... ok think.. where did you last see it... oh yeah in my cedar chest in the bedroom, the same bedroom that Keith is sleeping in. I think I will wait till morning... trying to go back to sleep and my grandmother is starting to annoy me going on and on about checking the blue book. And no I am not a nag like she is for those of you who are snorting to yourselves thinking the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. I finally gave up sleeping and as quietly as possible in the dark no less tried to get the one cedar chest off so I can get the other one open. I thought I was being very quiet then all of a sudden I hear this "what are you doing?" coming up behind me making me scream. Keith turned the light on and asks me again. So I told him what had been happening and he asks could it not have waited till morning then before I could answer he says never mind I know you and your grandmother. What is that supposed to mean??

He helped me take the lid off so I could get the book and then put it back while I left the room so he could go back to sleep. I flipped through the book in the other room and I did it several times but nothing caught my eye. Finally I just closed my eyes and stayed quiet. Within seconds I knew what I needed to find.. I flipped to the right page and there were 2 pictures of my maternal grandmother's maternal grandmother. I have been searching for that particular line for over 10 years hitting every brick wall known to man kind but could never find out why I had no success. But as I looked at the pictures with the description under neath it I thought wait a minute these have her at 106 years old in 1933. That means she could not have been born in 1850 as I had been told by others in my family. She had to have been born 25 odd years before that. Thanks Memere. Now I can move forward. I still haven't found any more information but at least I am on the right track.

But back to the TV show. I would have liked to have had that resource available to me back when I was a child or even when I started having those evil visits. Was it something I was doing wrong at the time? Had something happened to someone in those 2 homes? Why am I so susceptible to these visits and yet no one else of my siblings as far as I know? Does it skip generations? Who do I ask? All I know is that for many years since that first evil visit and even today at 52 years of age I still sleep with a night light on in my room. Not only is a night light on in my room but there is a light on in every room in the house at night time. Always. Keith never says a word. He just keeps changing the light bulbs.