I talk to people all the time who tell me about strange paranormal encounters they have had, and it seems a fitting topic as we enter this season of ghouls, ghosts and monsters known as Halloween.
I myself have had a strange experience. I was attending Haliburton School of Art and Design, and was literally one of the last people seeking housing to arrive before the semester began. Haliburton, Ontario is a very small community about 1.5 hours north of Peterborough, and rental housing is at a premium due to the regular influx of students at the college.
After having no luck elsewhere, I finally came across an old house which had three vacant bedrooms, which was surprising for that market. The price was reasonable. In fact I was able to negotiate a slightly lower monthly rent with the owner as I knew it was late in the season.
Strange experiences began to occur almost immediately. All the cliched stuff. Sudden chills for no reason. Strange feelings of being watched. But the worst was the nightmares, and waking up from them with my bedroom much colder than the rest of the house.
At one point, I began to suspect the strangeness of it all, and I asked the owner about ghosts. He adamantly, (and all too quickly in hindsight), denied it.
But something happened just a few nights later. I woke up from another vivid nightmare in my bed. Again, the room was strangely cold. But this time as I lay there, I saw the shadow of what I thought was a person cross at the foot of my bed and walk toward the hall door, which was closed.
Shocked, I mustered my courage and went out into that hall, turning on the bathroom light adjacent from the bedroom. The bathroom was at the head of the hall with the bathroom doorway facing down the stairs, which had a wide landing. After turning on the bathroom light, I looked down the hall. Nothing there. Relieved, I turned off the bathroom light and turned around and looked down the stairs.
There was what looked like the shadow of a woman dressed in a 1920s evening dress looking back up at me. If you focused on the shadow closely, the under image became clear for a second. Stylized auburn hair is the detail I remember most.
Fight or flight? Fight. I shouted angrily for it, whatever it was, to get the heck out of my house, and when I looked again it had vanished entirely.
You explain it, because I can’t.
