Seeing Ghosts

[SavannahDare]

I've had the paralysis problem as a kid.

I've never experienced the sleep paralysis, but I was a frequent sleepwalker between the ages of 10-18. I was once found standing in the middle of our apartment complex parking lot around 3am when I was 15. We lived in a second-floor apartment, so I managed to navigate downstairs and about 40 yards out into the parking lot. In college, my roommate would frequently have to corral me back into our room in the middle of the night. She'd wake up to find our room door wide open and would often find me at the far end of the dorm, in a stairwell, mumbling to myself. She also had to start using a back-up alarm clock because I would get up and turn off, then hide, the one we previously shared.

Luckily, I never got injured, even though I seemed to have a proclivity for stairs. :biggrin2:
It all stopped spontaneously early in my second year of college, and I'm thankful for that.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I've never experienced the sleep paralysis, but I was a frequent sleepwalker between the ages of 10-18. I was once found standing in the middle of our apartment complex parking lot around 3am when I was 15. We lived in a second-floor apartment, so I managed to navigate downstairs and about 40 yards out into the parking lot. In college, my roommate would frequently have to corral me back into our room in the middle of the night. She'd wake up to find our room door wide open and would often find me at the far end of the dorm, in a stairwell, mumbling to myself. She also had to start using a back-up alarm clock because I would get up and turn off, then hide, the one we previously shared.

Luckily, I never got injured, even though I seemed to have a proclivity for stairs. :biggrin2:
It all stopped spontaneously early in my second year of college, and I'm thankful for that.

People have been seriously injured and also killed while being somnambulant. One of my stepsons used to do it regularly as a teenager. He and his wife are here for a Mother's Day visit, so I'll ask him. He's mid-30s now...

 

[SavannahDare]

People have been seriously injured and also killed while being somnambulant. One of my stepsons used to do it regularly as a teenager. He and his wife are here for a Mother's Day visit, so I'll ask him. He's mid-30s now...

Most kids do outgrow it as those brain pathways mature and the anxieties of childhood/adolescence become mastered.

When my adult patients tell me they're sleepwalking I know it's probably the result of some medicine I'm giving them. Either that or just part of the sleep disturbance inherent in their particular mental illness.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Most kids do outgrow it as those brain pathways mature and the anxieties of childhood/adolescence become mastered.

When my adult patients tell me they're sleepwalking I know it's probably the result of some medicine I'm giving them. Either that or just part of the sleep disturbance inherent in their particular mental illness.

I started taking a small dose of melatonin nightly around twenty years ago, after I became aware that we make less and less of it as we age (along with testosterone and other hormones you wish didn't decline). One side effect most people have is very vivid, sometimes disturbing, dreams, and those are remembered in the morning. When I first started taking it, I found that unsettling, as I very seldom remember the details of dreams, unless something happens to trigger a memory. That gradually stopped, I guess as my body became adjusted to the added melatonin...

 

[Chukker Veteran]

I once lived in a house where my family's sleep was frequently disturbed by the sound of footsteps running down the hall where the bedrooms were located. The noises got worse over time. We later learned that the family we had bought the house from (not the original occupants) considered it haunted, which they'd failed to mention. Then one day, I got a call from my wife at a neighbor's house, telling me that she and the kids were not going back in the house - that it sounded like elephants fighting in the upstairs hall.

The house was a split level, with the middle level housing the living room and kitchen/breakfast room. The two level part was built on a slab. The middle level was exposed post and beam construction, with the main ridge beam being solid redwood, about 14" in depth and about 5" thick. I rushed home, with an inspiration. I ran in the living room, around the dining table and saw that the main beam was actually two pieces, with a 45 degree splice, which was being pulled apart, because the slab supporting the two level part was settling (very common around here with houses built on the mountainside). Within about three hours, I managed to measure the beam (ladder on top of the dining table), have Service Steel fashion a steel plate splice, to fit the back of the beam, and 3/8" thick. I had them punch 6 holes to accommodate 3/4" x 8" bolts, which I picked up at the hardware store. I drilled the beam using two speed bits, the first having to be cut off because of the slope of the ceiling. I then puttied the countersunk bolt holes and the 1/4" gap between the two pieces of the beam. Presto! No more ghosts! When we sold the house, I made sure to explain the situation to the buyer...

When I was reading the first paragraph, I was thinking "have you tried carpeting the noisy hallway" but your solution took it to the next level.

If I was looking at a house and the seller warned me it was haunted I'd think he was nuts. Somehow I imagine your explanation to the next buyer was a doozy. :biggrin: "We bought the house with the expectation there were no ghosts, although that later came into question, we finally determined there were none, just a noisy wooden beam."

 

[Ldlane]

When I was growing up in Selma, I was an avid sleepwalker. One night walked out the back door, opened our gate And went into the road. Kids that were playing in the street brought me back to grandparent's house. I was informed the next day!

 

[TIDE-HSV]

When I was reading the first paragraph, I was thinking "have you tried carpeting the noisy hallway" but your solution took it to the next level.

If I was looking at a house and the seller warned me it was haunted I'd think he was nuts. Somehow I imagine your explanation to the next buyer was a doozy. :biggrin: "We bought the house with the expectation there were no ghosts, although that later came into question, we finally determined there were none, just a noisy wooden beam."

The next buyer was a CPA whom I knew well, with the same first name. It actually was a bit of a blessing that the ridge beam had a splice in it. Rather than breaking, the sinking of the slab portion of the house just pulled it apart. In theory, the post and beam is an OK way to build. You see a lot of it out west. The ridge beam, and thus the roof should just sit on the rafters, which were also sizable pieces of redwood, and that should transfer the weight to the studs sitting on the foundation. I guess my plate acted sort of like a "hinge," allowing some flex of the beam without transferring the vibrations to the rest of the house. I've sort of underplayed the "footstep" description. It usually sounded like someone ran down the hall and then took a broad-jump and landed with both feet...

 

[rizolltizide]

They're called hypnopompic hallucinations.

Or in layman's terms, ghosts.

 

[Jon]

I've never experienced the sleep paralysis, but I was a frequent sleepwalker between the ages of 10-18. I was once found standing in the middle of our apartment complex parking lot around 3am when I was 15. We lived in a second-floor apartment, so I managed to navigate downstairs and about 40 yards out into the parking lot. In college, my roommate would frequently have to corral me back into our room in the middle of the night. She'd wake up to find our room door wide open and would often find me at the far end of the dorm, in a stairwell, mumbling to myself. She also had to start using a back-up alarm clock because I would get up and turn off, then hide, the one we previously shared.

Luckily, I never got injured, even though I seemed to have a proclivity for stairs. :biggrin2:
It all stopped spontaneously early in my second year of college, and I'm thankful for that.

My older brother was a Sleepwalker as a kid, in the first Gulf war he was a navy Sea Bee reservist and was called up to active duty. Under the stress in the Desert he started sleepwalking again. They found him wandering around outside his tent in the desert on multiple occasions. Fortunately he was never shot by a guard or got in any other serious trouble. The Navy's answer to this was to have him tie his foot to his bunk when he went to bed. Doesn't make prepping for a suprise scud attack too easy....

j

 

[SavannahDare]

My older brother was a Sleepwalker as a kid, in the first Gulf war he was a navy Sea Bee reservist and was called up to active duty. Under the stress in the Desert he started sleepwalking again. They found him wandering around outside his tent in the desert on multiple occasions. Fortunately he was never shot by a guard or got in any other serious trouble. The Navy's answer to this was to have him tie his foot to his bunk when he went to bed. Doesn't make prepping for a suprise scud attack too easy....

j

Yeah, there are a lot of active duty personnel who fake sleepwalking in an effort to get separated from duty. The navy's solution in most situations is exactly what you mentioned. Problem solved. Not implying your brother was faking anything, just that the navy's first reaction to it is to assume he is and to ignore it until it proves to be problematic. :biggrin2:

 

[WestGaHorn]

After the ex and i got married in '01, we moved into an apartment in Stockbridge Georgia and absolutely loved it at first. then we started noticing things that we couldn't explain. At first it was little things, turning off the water after washing your hands only to dry your hands and turn around to see the water still on or hearing something fall down the wall right behind you only to look and nothing be there. At first we thought it was amusing, almost as if they were little pranks being played by children. In fact, we were careful not to say anything around our daughter because we didn't want to freak her out so we would refer to it as something the "kids" were up to. Eventually, it got friggin creepy and we were no longer amused. We were in the kitchen fixing lunch one saturday and we heard our daughter scream. we both stopped and ran to our bedroom where she had been watching tv only to find her asleep in our bed with the tv off. From there it just got worse and was really friggin eerie. We were talking to our neighbor upstairs a few days later and found out they were experiencing much of the same things we were.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered that we were living in the apartment that the infamous Mark O. Barton murdered his family in before he went on his day trader killing spree in Buckhead in '99. Needless to say, we didn't fulfill the term of our lease.

 

[MattinBama]

I've seen things at my grandmother's house in Scotsboro, and no where else. Saw my aunt in a doorway to one of my cousin's old bedrooms. My aunt & uncle lived there before my grandmother and the aunt would walk the hall and check in on each of the cousins at bed-time (my aunt died from cancer in the house). This was before I fell asleep that night. Had several other events like this, at night and in the middle of the day. Some as simple as lights going on and off, toilets flushing, etc with no one else in the house.