Author Archives: birer@usc.edu

Silence of the Lambs

“For about a month straight after watching the horror movie, Silence of the Lambs, I woke up at the same time every night with really bad night terrors. They were so bad that sometimes I was too afraid to breathe because I was so certain that a monster was across the hall waiting to attack me. I could not control my fears and I could not control the nightmares that struck me every night. One day, my younger sister told me that she had been having nightmares recently too, so I decided to sleep in her bed with her. I hoped that it would calm both of us down.”

“That night, I woke up at 3:30 AM, the same time I usually had my night terrors. I immediately noticed that my sister was awake as well, and she was sitting up in her bed staring at the corner. She looked frozen; she would not move a muscle. In a panic, I popped up and said ‘Leila what are you looking at???’ to which she responded, ‘Tara don’t you see that? Don’t you see that face in the corner?!?’”

“Immediately after, Leila sprinted out of the room and slammed the door. I was left alone in the room and was so scared I could barely function. I swear to G-d I felt something emanating in the corner of the room, it looked like the outline of a man’s face. I worked up the courage to get up and sprint downstairs to my parent’s room, where my sister was already screaming and crying. My parents were shook by my own fear as well as my sister’s fear and in turn, they anointed Leila’s room with holy oil and threw away a bunch of books. After that, nothing of this manner ever occurred again in my home. I also never woke up at 3:30 AM with another night terror again. I don’t know what happened and I don’t know if I am crazy, but my sister and I were both overwhelmed with and are convinced that we both saw a face.”

 

My Interpretation of this story:

 

Through my research, I have notice many stories that involve the corner of a room being the place of question. This makes me curious as to why the corner of a room has such connections with the supernatural or the irrational. Besides that part of the story, I believe this is a classic case of the mind. Personally, when I was younger and watched horror movies, I experienced similar troubles. Horror movies give the sense of terror without actually having to personally experience, which can be analogous to dreams giving people a sense of reality without it actually being real. Because of the similarity in feelings and less of a physical experience than real life, it can be determined that the imagination has taken over. The movie, most likely, took over the sisters dreams and caused them to feel an even further effect of imagination, because they had never experienced such and thing in real life or even in their dreams. The level of intangibility of the situation in addition to the time of night can offer an explanation for these visions and feelings. Additionally, once the parents of the teller in a way ridded the room of the bad vibes and the terrors disappeared, I felt more of a sense of personal security from the story rather than an actual ghost experience.

The Blue Sky Lodge

“About three weeks ago I went to the Bay for my first cousin’s wedding. I was super excited to reunite with all my siblings and extended family in Carmel, which is definitely one of the most beautiful cities in California and by far my favorite. My parents checked us in to the Blue Sky Lodge on a Friday afternoon. Immediately after walking in to our room, I looked at my sister and said ‘This place is so sketchy.’ I looked around at the layer of dust covering the creepy paintings and outdated furniture. I also screeched as the wooden floors let out a creek with every step I took. My sister and I ran to our parents’ room next door and complained about how strange this place was. Mom told us to stop complaining and to get ready for dinner.”

“After a beautiful rehearsal dinner overlooking the ocean, my family returned to our weird lodge and got ready for bed. I noticed that there was a light in the closet that did not have a switch to turn it off. Instead, a single string hung from the ceiling, which I gently tugged at to make the room dark. I got in to bed next to my sister and we put a movie on. Then, we were interrupted by the closet light flickering on and off continuously for the next two minutes straight. My sister and I were both a little tipsy from the evening’s festivities, leading this occurrence to freak us out big time. We put the covers over our heads and watched our movie in total darkness since we were both too scared to get up and examine the situation.”

“Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up to a loud screeching noise followed by the closet light flickering on and off AGAIN. This time, the light was flickering faster and faster and it went on for five minutes straight. I woke up my sister, but both of us were too tired and scared to grab our parents. The next morning, we ran in to my mom’s room and told her that this place was SCARY. We then decided to look up our hotel online, only to discover that it is one of the most haunted places in all of California! There have been reports of paranormal experiences and various guests described feelings of uneasiness in reviews online. One website claimed, ‘Inexplicable fears, stress, and vivid nightmares make for a very restless evening.’ The feelings of unease that I felt at the Blue Sky Lodge led me to believe that there were haunted spirits in the Carmel atmosphere. I am not really sure why this happened and I don’t have an explanation, but I am certain that there was some type of paranormal activity going on.”

 

My Interpretation of the story:

 

In listening to this story, there are many possible reasons for the specific paranormal activity that happened in the tellers room. It is noted in the beginning of the story that the hotel is not the nicest of places, which does not make it hard to believe that there are mechanical errors in lighting and other appliances. The sounds of screeching can also be explained through the wretchedness of the hotel. What I found interesting was what followed the actual ghost story, and that is the research on the hotel. A trait that makes a ghost story more likely to be accurate and believable is consistency. This hotel and are in Carmel has a history of strange experiences that have been reported but multiple guests, that support the claims made by the story teller. It is noted that the teller has not specific ties with the hotel or the area, meaning that the experience must be related to the hotel or its location rather than the people effected. Because activity has been reported by many of different people, it is evident that the situation is revolved around the hotel specifically and can be attributed to the other strange occurrences that have happened there.

 

The Red Cardinal

“I really think that my Dad comes back to me as a bird. He was obsessed with birds and bird watching, especially the red cardinal, his entire life. Only after my dad died is when I started to notice red birds fly around me all the time. Occasionally when I walk outside, I see a red cardinal just fly out from around a tree and perch right near me and I think…there is my dad.”

“There was one particular instance that really spooked me. It was about two months after he passed. I was visiting my mom in Livingston, New Jersey, helping her pack up my Dad’s old clothes and trinkets. I brought my youngest daughter, Maddie, with me. Over dinner one night, my mother broke out her bird watching book and bored Maddie to tears after detailing all of her favorite birds. When she flipped to the page of the red cardinal, my mom and I looked at each other and smiled. ‘This bird was your grandfather’s absolute favorite. He loved how low they lied to the ground and always fed them each morning in New Jersey’ my mother explained.”

“The next morning, Maddie, my mother, and I walked down to the lawn where my Dad always sat. We took a seat on the lawn and ate our breakfast. Suddenly, we were interrupted when a small red bird with a black face swooped right in and took a piece of bacon off Maddie’s plate. The bird was clearly a red cardinal. All of us jumped up and looked at the bird, perching itself on a tree right next to us, eating its slice of bacon. Not only was my father a lover of the red cardinal, but he also lived for bacon in the morning. ‘There he is…’ my mother whispered to me. I really think that the afterlife sends signals and I believe my dad is sending me one in the form of a red cardinal.”

 

My Interpretation of the story:

 

When it comes to the loss of someone loved very much and have strong familial ties to you, it is common to notice little things in life that can be associated to them. In this case, it is apparent that the family was very close and appreciated and miss their father and grandfather very much. Because the father/grandfather had many particularities, it seems to be easy for the family to associate specific things with their father/grandfather. The strong connection to birds allows them to feel his presence when they simply just see or think about birds. The specificity of the red cardinal does allow the family to speculate this specific situation and offer an alternate explanation to give them a sense that the father/grandfather is not truly gone, but in a sense “watching over them”. The addition of the bird specifically taking the bacon as opposed to a different food, in the place that the father/grandfather usually enjoyed his morning bacon, does add more to the idea that the bird in fact could be the spirit of the father/grandfather. In my personal opinion, I believe this is a classic case of attaching the love of a lost one to a tangible item in the real world. Emotions have a huge effect on our mind and thought processes and give us the ability to link specific objects and situations to others in order to give us a more holistic mindset.

The ghost that pulled me back

“I think my house is haunted. It was built in like the forties. Maybe it’s not fully haunted but definitely a little. One of the reasons I think it’s haunted is because there is a little spot in my parents’ room that you look at and just think to yourself… what is this? My dog will not step foot in that corner. One summer there were a bunch of flies flying around it with zero explanation and my parents had to hire special exterminators to get rid of them.”

“Anyways, unrelated to the corner… one time, I was sleeping in my bed and I awoke to this strange feeling of a hand grabbing my side. So, I get up and I start screaming at the top of my lungs and I tried to run to the light switch to turn them on. But I could only get to the middle of my room because this mysterious hand pulled me back. I tried to get the hand off of me by pulling on it super hard. I was somehow able to get to door but I could not find light switch. Then I tried to open the door but I felt myself being dragged backwards. My parents found me in my room screaming and were like ‘CLAUDIA WHATS GOING ON?’ I was fully in high school like I was not a young kid. I told them I felt a hand grabbing at my side and it felt extremely realistic and weird. They told me not to worry and that it was just my own hand. I told them that I grabbed the hand so hard so if it were my own hand I would have felt the residual gravity. Clearly they didn’t know what to do so they left me alone and I didn’t go to sleep the rest of the night.”

“I know I sound crazy but the hand feeling was so scary and realistic I swear there’s some type of haunted spirit in my house. Also the fact that my dog gets spooked out by a corner with all these flies makes me think so as well. I think there must be some eerie history that makes my house kinda haunted.”

 

My interpretation of the story:

 

Because the storyteller has no knowledge of the history of her home, it is hard to determine a link as to why it would be haunted. What stood out to me in this story, was the actions made by the family dog. Dogs have amazing senses that humans do not, they are able to sense emotions, hear things better, and have a general knowledge of what is going on even though they are unable to communicate with us. I have always thought that dogs have somewhat of a “sixth sense”, that allows them to develop strong relationships with beings of other kinds. The fact that the dog shows caution towards this corner makes me think that there most definitely is a reason for this beyond human knowledge. The dog must sense something that we cannot, making it not want to go in that corner because it knows there is something wrong, although it us unable to communicate that to us. A lot of times, dogs try to communicate with us through their actions, so also, the dog may be trying to tell the family that there is something wrong in that area or in the house as a whole and that they should either move or not be in that area. Another aspect of the story that I found interesting was the tangible physical contact between the teller and the supposed ghost. In many ghost stories, there is no physical contact between the actual person and the ghost. It can be thought that ghosts do not have a real foot in this world and cannot make direct physical contact. Of course, there are other cases of ghost stories that do involve physical contact, but these cases usually have deeper ties than just the random thought of a place being haunted. Indeed, there can be other factors that the teller is unaware of that can support their story, but until more information is discovered, I don’t believe this story can be determined as a true supernatural exchange.

Two daughter angels

“I would consider myself a pretty religious Catholic woman. I like to follow the word of the Bible verbatim, and with that came being a nonbeliever in ghosts. However, over my children’s Christmas break in December 2007, all of my beliefs, or rather my non-beliefs, were tested and everything I thought I knew changed overnight. It was Christmas Eve, and I was sitting in my mother’s home in Switzerland with my family. My two boys, Paul and John, were joined by my youngest child, Charlotte, on the couch as they watched Christmas movies and anticipated the upcoming morning. After their movie, I tucked my babies in to bed and then I quietly arranged their presents under our Christmas tree. Shortly after, I joined my husband in bed and began reading a book before going to sleep.”

“It was a long day of cooking, family time, and preparing for Christmas Day; all of this made me pretty drowsy. While reading my book, I felt a strange sensation that there was someone watching me. Falling in and out of sleep, I did not think much of this sensation. I clearly remember opening my eyes and seeing two beautiful women in long, white dresses, floating above the canopy of my bed. They were both brunette with blue eyes, just like my daughter Charlotte. I was unsure if I was simply dreaming or if I had gone mad, but before I could truly put much thought in to it, I was fast asleep.”

“The next morning, I woke up to the sounds of my kids screaming with joy at Santa’s gifts and I met them downstairs to revel in their excitement. After all the kids opened their presents, we sat down for Christmas breakfast. My brother, who was also spending the holiday at my mother’s house, announced to the table that he saw the strangest thing while using the restroom in the middle of the previous night. He said, ‘It was the strangest thing, I opened my bedroom door to use the bathroom and I looked down the hallway. In the distance, I saw these two young brunette women in long white gowns. Both of them were wearing beautiful gold jewelry and had bright blue eyes that I could see from across the hallway.’”

“I instantly started to freak out because my brother’s description of these women was exactly the image I saw floating over my bed as well. He went on to tell me exactly what the dresses looked like, and I recalled that the women I saw had the same detailed white gowns. Although I thought I was just having a strange dream, the coincidence was too poignant for me to wrap my head around. Ever since that Christmas Day, my beliefs regarding the presence of ghosts and spirits in this world has changed. Maybe there are otherworldly presences in this world…”

 

My interpretation of the story:

 

In hearing this story, the part I found most interesting was the resemblance of the tellers daughter and the ghosts she seems to have seen. I has been medically proven that in our dreams, we are only able to dream of people we have seen before, or a compilation of different features from different faces we have collected over time. Our mind in our dreams don’t just make things up, they have purpose and derive from our subconscious. In this story, the relation in physical appearance between the two ghosts and the tellers daughter must be noted and taken into consideration. For the teller, as opposed to her brother who had also seen these women, she had been unsure if she was asleep or awake. Our mind has a way of playing tricks on us when we are in between states of being awake and asleep. This must also be accounted for because both sightings happened in the middle of the night, which is a time where the mind is not fully alert. Indeed, this may be a coincidence too strange to just all it a mind game, but at the same time, there are no intense markers that are present to determine the details of the story are of ghostly origins.