Category Archives: general

Maybe a ghost on internet?

Age: 28

Informant: Last year, in December, I was talking with someone online who seemed to have a strange sense of humor and way of speaking that made our conversation difficult and confusing. That person was mainly sharing philosophical thoughts, which seemed too much, as every word and topic would be followed by unclear and irritating sentences. He talked about death often as well, and luckily or unfortunately, I do not remember the details. Thus, we have been talking and even fighting for hours through these messages. The next day I woke up and learnt that one of my relatives had died. It was very unexpected, because even though that person was old, he was strong, full of life, and energetic. For some reason, I saw a strange connection between the conversations I had and his death because later I was told the hour his heart stopped at, and that is exactly when we were talking with this person without any plans of ever speaking again. The death of my relative made a huge psychological impact, and for weeks, I was falling out of life and was in a vulnerable emotional state. In February, almost two months later, I accidentally found the same person again. I remember telling him about everything that happened during the first two months and how I connected that death with our conversation. I remember him telling me that he is sick and needs to leave, and I was so deeply immersed in my emotions that I kept saying to him, “No, you will answer all my questions, and help me, and then you can go. It started with you, it will end with you.” It was half a joke, as the person could obviously just stop writing and leave, but still talked to me until I received all the answers that I thought would help me feel better.
It worked, and I started getting back to my normal life after our second and probably last conversation. While this experience is mainly about how I perceived this situation, connecting our communication with the death incident and mentally ending the suffering of grief that stopped me from moving on with my life, I still find it to be a strange coincidence with the timing of meeting the same person twice, with the topics we discussed that left an unusual feeling, and then such an important life event occurred and then ended like it had any power over the situation. And while telling this story, my bag fell down from the place where it had been for hours.

Context: The informant told this story to me through voice recording.

Informant thoughts: The informant does not believe in ghost and folklore, but did feel a little surprised or spooked with the coincidences in this particular event.

My analysis: While it does seem far fetched that a stranger, ghost or not ghost, could have some power over affecting people’s death and emotions. I think if we are to look at this story through the possibility of internet ghost, this story becomes very interesting. Assuming this encounter with this stranger online was in fact a ghost encounter, this fits the narrative or at least the idea of trans-humanism: Where one’s soul or mind can be uploaded, trapped within the digital space. This might also explain why this particular internet stranger is so fond of death. What might have happened could be that the ghost was angered and possibly brought misfortunate upon the informant, but after they made peace again, the ghost seems to have the power to help the informant to go on back to life.

The Boy Who Returned

Age: 78

Text: TT told me a family story involving the death of two boys and the belief that the same soul returned decades later through another person.

When TT was younger, she was very close to her teenage cousin P, who treated her like his elder sister. When they used to play together as kids, TT always remembers how P was loving and protective of her. When P was 16 years old, he was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of bone cancer. They had to amputate his leg at the femur where the cancer was, but it spread quickly to the rest of his body and he died on December 18th at 5:30 ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌P.M.

The following year, TT had her first child named S who was a baby boy. A few days after birth, doctors discovered a fracture in S’s left femur. It was broken in the exact location where P’s leg had been amputated. The family found this strange but was too overwhelmed with medical concerns to interpret it at the time.

S recovered from the fracture and was a normal, active infant until he fell suddenly ill around six months old. Despite TT taking him repeatedly to the doctor, his condition worsened, fever, diarrhea, dehydration, and he died in the hospital on December 18th, at 5:30 PM, the exact date and time of P’s death, one year later.

Because of the mirrored injuries and the identical death date and time, TT came to believe that S was P returned to her. The boy who once loved her as a sister in life came back to her as a son, if only briefly, completing some unfinished time he felt he still needed with TT.

Decades later, another figure entered TT’s life: a young man, called R (who was the same age that S would have been at the time), who helped care for her very sick husband during his declining years. R handled every detail of caregiving with deep loyalty, devotion, and emotional steadiness. TT often said that even a biological son might not have shown such unwavering dedication.

Over time, she began to feel that R carried the same soul as S and P. She described his presence as a spiritual continuation of the boy she lost and as someone who had returned yet again, this time in adulthood, to help her husband through illness and to make sure she was not alone.

TT also believed that R’s actions reflected the qualities of Lord Ram, the Hindu figure symbolizing duty, righteousness, and service. She often said R was “like an incarnation of Ram”. He not a literal divine rebirth, but a way of saying that he embodied the compassion, loyalty, and spiritual purpose associated with Ram in Hindu tradition.

Following her husband’s death and R’s eventual departure, TT remarked that it was as if she were losing a son all over again. The sorrow she experienced at that time was similar to the pain of her children leaving home for the first time and even the grief she had carried since losing S many years ago. To TT, R was more than just a caretaker, he was the living continuation of a soul she believed had returned to her twice before. Letting him go was painful, as though she were watching that same soul walk away yet again.

However, their relationship was not affected by this separation. TT and R are still very close. He calls her before making major decisions, visits when he can, and treats her with the same reverence and affection that a son would show his mother.

Context:‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ TT shared this story with me when we were having a private conversation for a folklore assignment. While she was speaking from her apartment in India, I was listening from Los Angeles.

This is a story that is hardly ever shared and only with very close family. It is brought up when one thinks or talks about fate, reincarnation, and the secret ways in which the people we love might come back to us.

In a South Asian setting, the interpretation of such occurrences is highly influenced by the concepts of reincarnation, destiny, karmic ties, and spiritual return. For instance, if somebody is said to be “like an incarnation of Lord Ram,” it is a way of acknowledging that person’s admirable traits and not as the actual god reborn, but as a recognition of the person having high moral or spiritual qualities.

The Narrator’s Perspective: TT does not talk dramatically when she tells this story. She talks softly, but at the same time, with complete belief that it is not a matter of chance that the coincidences are very exact.

She believes that P came back to her in the form of S, maybe only for a short time and one of the signs of a spiritual unity were the same death dates and both having broken legs. She also believes that after a long time, it is through R, whose love for the family was way beyond the ordinary, that the same spirit comes back to us.

The traits of R, the goodness, the quietness, the indestructible faith, was that of Lord Ram, thus, to her, the return of this spirit was to give her family security and protection. To her, it is not a scary story but rather a reassuring one. It revolves around the idea that love never dies.

My Thoughts (Analysis): From a folkloric perspective, this is a classic reincarnation memorate (classic in Hindu/Indian culture), where lived experience is interpreted through cultural beliefs about soul continuity.

The story contains several motifs common in South Asian reincarnation narratives:

Firstly, mirrored injuries as a reincarnation marker (fractured thigh matching an amputated leg). Also, identical death dates and times signaling a cyclical spiritual pattern. Finally, the soul returning through multiple forms across a single lifetime.

What makes the story striking is not only the coincidences, but how the family uses them to create meaning from profound loss. Instead of viewing these tragedies as disconnected events, TT interprets them as part of a spiritual continuity that kept her connected to someone she loved deeply. Personally, I find the story powerful because it shows how families turn grief into meaning, transforming randomness into relationship.

The Sage of Room 108

Age: 50

Text (The Story): TT (my mother) told me a story from her college days in India about a particular dorm room, Room 108, which students treated almost like a sacred site.

Years before she arrived on campus, an older student, known simply as “the Sage of 108”, had lived in that very room. No‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ one was able to recall his original name. It was said that he was a very quiet, withdrawn, and even reclusive a philosophy scholar, who was so much absorbed in his meditation that he almost never spoke, hardly ate, and didn’t seem very attracted to the usual college life.

According to one version of the myth, he arrived at jivanmukti which is the freedom of the spirit during life. Another one suggested that he was able to foresee things way before time: a professor’s sudden resignation, a student’s family emergency, or even an exam question weeks before it was written.

It was whispered that he could be none other than the very Dattatreya, the Hindu god who is the wandering teacher. Dattatreya is a character who is said to go about the world very quietly, and be there when you least expect it, in different guises, to help people. Stories on the campus, however, say that the person living in Room 108 and carrying the same vibe as Dattatreya. He was detached, loving, and very much aware without being told.

During the last days of his final year, the Sage just went off the campus without informing anyone of his intention. He left hauling with him a single cloth sack one morning and walked out through the college gate. When someone came to his room a few hours later, they found it empty with the exception of a piece of cloth neatly folded on the ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌desk.

After that, strange things were reported. Students claimed the room smelled faintly of incense even when no one entered. One girl told TT that she stepped inside room 108 and felt a pressure, a kind of overwhelming stillness that made her leave immediately.

The administration eventually sealed Room 108. They gave practical explanations such as “structural damage” and “student safety”, but none of the students believed that. Everyone knew the real reason: the room was too spiritually charged. Too many people reported intense emotions inside it. Too many believed the Sage had left something behind.

When TT attended college, students had already begun a tradition:

Before any major exam, they would slip into the hallway, fold their hands, and offer a quick prayer outside the locked door of Room 108.

Some just tapped the door frame.

Some left flowers or pens on the ground.

Some whispered the Sage’s name, though no one could agree on what it was.

TT herself admitted that before her final board exams, she walked there with a group of friends in the early morning. They didn’t really know what they were praying for, whether it was luck, calmness, clarity, or perhaps the presence of someone who achieved spiritual awakening.

She‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ mentioned that the corridor outside 108 had this weirdly quiet vibe all the time, like the sounds were muffled. When she and her schoolmates meet for reunions, there is always a person who talks about “the Sage of 108,” and all the others acknowledge it by a nod as if it were a shared ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌secret.

Context: TT told me this story while reminiscing about her college years in India. This memorate is typically shared among alumni, usually during nostalgic conversations about exams, early adulthood, or campus myths.

The setting, an Indian university, makes belief in holy men, gurus, reincarnation, and spiritual presence feel normal rather than supernatural. Indian campuses often blend secular life with sacred spaces, and Room 108 became one such hybrid: part dorm room, part shrine, part student ritual.

This story also fits a larger South Asian cultural context where certain numbers (such as 108, a sacred number in Hinduism and Buddhism) carry deep spiritual significance.

The Teller’s Thoughts: TT treats the story with a mix of nostalgia and respect. She doesn’t necessarily claim the Sage was literally an incarnation of Dattatreya, but she believes he had a spiritual depth that left an imprint on the campus. She describes Room 108 as a place students approached with sincerity, not fear and something in between superstition and faith.

She said, “We all felt calmer after praying there. Maybe that’s all that mattered.”

My Thoughts (Analysis): This memorate blends campus legend, reincarnation belief, and folk religion into a single story.

This story functions as a sacred space on a secular campus, a rite of passage before exams, and a blending of Hindu spiritual motifs with student life. The association with Dattatreya deepens the story’s symbolic power. Dattatreya is the wandering divine teacher who appears in humble forms, and the idea that a spiritually advanced figure might quietly live in a college dorm room fits this motif perfectly.

The closure of Room 108, the lingering incense scent, and the informal prayer ritual all add to the all add to the mysterious atmosphere that made Room 108 feel like more than just a dorm room.. The story also shows how students use legend to navigate stress and this transforms anxiety about exams into a communal ritual that is rooted in cultural spirituality.

Personally, I think the story beautifully captures how folklore forms in modern environments. A single individual, remembered only in fragments, becomes a symbol of calm, wisdom, and hope for generations of students who never met him.

The Boarding School Attic Ghost

Age: 18

Text:

“So a long, long time ago there was a beautiful school. In the attic room lived a girl named Daphne. Living in hiding, she was cold and always hungry. She lived in hiding because her family had been disgraced, and as a result she was treated like she was nothing. Daphne dreamed of one day being a princess, even though she looked nothing like a princess and she was cold, fragile and skinny and scrawny and her dresses were as thin as — I don’t know — paper. She never really left her attic.

Later, when the school finally, like, renovated, the attic was cleaned and painted and looked nothing like how it used to look before. At the time, there was no mention of Daphne being there — her existence wasn’t noticed. But, the new students after the renovation noticed one strange thing: no matter how warm the building was, no matter what the temperature the thermostat said, the top levels of the school were always freaking cold.

As a punishment for disrupting class and talking back to her teachers, a girl was put up in the attic for detention. To try to distract herself, she drew pictures of her and her family as royalty, wishing she was a princess instead of being in detention.

From out of nowhere, the girl heard a voice, but at first she was unsure. It spoke again, and it was old and gravely, and it said ‘I wished that I was one too.’ A pale figure sat right beside her wearing a faded crown that had cobwebs over her head, and her eyes were lonely and sunken. The figure held out her hand and told her ‘If you say it again, we can be princesses together.”

Cold, scared and alone, the girl bolted up from her spot in the attic and rushed down to the headmaster’s office. She was reprimanded for leaving detention, but after pleading several staff members went up to the attic and found a crown covered in cobwebs and a skeletal hand, just as the girl had mentioned.”

Context:

The informant was told this story by her mother at a young age (under 10, but did not remember specifically) who had lived in a boarding school. To the informant’s knowledge, the boarding school was not well liked by her mother, and she did not have positive experiences living and learning there. The informant believed that her mother had made up the story to encourage her to appreciate school when she was younger.

Informant’s thoughts:

“When I was younger, it didn’t really dissuade me, or like, make me dislike school, because I thought [the story] was kind of cool. I liked Harry Potter a lot when I was younger, so the idea of a super beautiful boarding school reminded me of Hogwarts. I guess the ghosts are kind of like Harry Potter too. When I got older, though, she would threaten me with boarding school when I was being bratty. And, every once and awhile, I thought about her story. I always thought it was fake.”

Analysis:

The story reflects back a standard function of ghost stories: to teach children lessons. It is clear that the story’s originator — the informant’s mother — was influenced by the controlling nature of boarding schools that she attended while living in Nigeria. It is likely that the quality of her mother’s education was greatly improved by attending a boarding school rather than other options, but it came at a greater literal and figurative price. After her mother’s immigration to the United States, the informant was granted circumstances that the informant’s mother was not, and one of them was public access to a quality education. While likely both happy to allow her child these opportunities, the informant’s mother wanted to instill a level of gratitude for the difference in their educational experiences.

The Tahoe Cabin Ghost

Age: 18

Text:

“This story did not happen to me. The story was from their grandma. It was actually really scary when she told it to me, because it was like right before I went to sleep. She fully believed in this ghost in their cabin.

That house had been in the family for like centuries. Apparently, there was, like, this ghost like a young girl who would just appear [around the cabin]. She wouldn’t do anything good, or anything bad; she was just there. The grandma thought that it was real and she was telling me the story in the middle of the night. It would just appear next to people, but it was like a calming feeling like you would think it’d be scary, but it really wasn’t. She appeared to [my friend’s grandma] and her daughter, but my friend never saw it.

They liked to think it was something to do with, like, nature since it was in Tahoe but they never seemed to know what exactly it was.”

Context:

The informant went on a trip to Tahoe with a family friend, and the story was recounted to her by her friend’s grandmother.

Informant’s thoughts:

“I’m not, like, into the supernatural or religious at all so I never thought it was anything. My friend also said she had never seen it and I trust her.”