Category Archives: Childhood

Child’s View

Age: 19

Date: 12/2/24

Language: English

Collector’s Name: Lia

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: The United States

Some people claim to have the ability to sense spirits. Something in their presence is apparent only to particular individuals. This story comes from a girl whose mother had always been taken aback by her daughter who seemed to see things that others couldn’t. 

“Ever since I was young, my mom had told people that I was a bit of a weird kid. I had these tendencies that left my mom feeling pretty on edge. I would sleep, talk and walk a fair amount at night, which is kind of scary in and of itself. I just did a lot of things that put me out of place. I think things can become scary when they are offset from their typical routine, so when you see a four-year-old in the middle of the night walking around and talking to something that doesn’t seem to exist, I would definitely understand why my mom would get kind of freaked out. 

Things became a little more real for my mom when I started to tell her about the things I would see in the house. There wasn’t anything special about our house that I know of. I have never been told that it is haunted or has been built on any historic lands or anything. I was too young to remember any of this, but have been told about this night several times by my mom. It was a weekend, and we stayed up in the living room to watch some TV together. Once it got late enough into the night, my mom picked me up from the couch where I had fallen asleep. My father was away on a work trip, and all of my younger siblings had gone to bed already. I was being carried up the stairs, with my chest to her chest. My mom put me in my room to sleep and then shut the door. She must have waited in the hallway for a couple of minutes or so, doing something on her phone. She tells me that as she was standing in the hallway leaning on the wall, my bedroom door opened, and I stepped outside, facing her in the hallway. She was super confused as to why I had woken up, and why I was standing in the hallway facing her in the middle of the night. With my eyes still closed, I lifted my arm and pointed towards her. I whispered, “Mom, do you see what’s behind you?” My mom was immediately scared, and did not turn around, but picked me up and guided me directly back into my room. She tucked me in, and I went back to bed with no problem. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time I had done this, and it wouldn’t be the last. Each time it happens, the next morning I wake up and can describe exactly who I had seen the night before.”

The Basement Ghost of the Chicago Fire

Nationality: American 

Age: 54, 60

Occupation: Producer, Producer/Writer 

Residence: Silverlake, CA, Sherman Oaks, CA 

Performance Date: November 28, 2024

Primary Language: English

CONTEXT:

This story was told by two sisters who were born and raised in a nice metropolitan neighborhood in Chicago in the 1970s.

STORY:

L: Alright so we lived in a building that was built over a graveyard. After the Chicago fire, that whole area was a graveyard, and they dug up all the graves and put the buildings over that area. Why they had the graves in what was potentially some of the best area, I have no idea.

So our house was built over a graveyard; this was not known to me.

We lived in, we had the basement, and we had a bedroom down in the basement–a couple bedrooms and a bathroom. And this was after Roberta had lived down there. I lived down there. And I went to the bathroom, and it was late at night, and as I was–I think I was peeing, I don’t know–the shower, uh, handle– so you have a handle where you turn the water on and off–the shower handle, the backing for it flew off the wall on its own. And so I opened up the thing cause I thought maybe something had fallen, I wasn’t quite sure, and when I opened up the thing, water came out of the shower head. And I freaked out.

And now, you have to understand, I believed in ghosts anyway, because when you live in Chicago you have ghosty experiences.

I freaked out and I ran upstairs to my mother’s room and I said “there are ghosts in that bathroom!”

And she said “what are you talking about? Go away. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was asleep.

And I went back downstairs and I said okay cool. I’m never gonna shower in that bathroom again, that’s fine. And I went about my business.

Days later, she said “I talked to your sister, Roberta,” who also lived down there “and she said that she agreed with you; there are ghosts down in the basement.”

Roberta, what did you experience?

R: The shower would just turn on. The shower, you’d walk in and the shower would just turn on. 

L: Like it did for me.

R: You’d walk down the hall and suddenly the shower is on, or the sink has been turned on. And there’s no one there. And yeah it’s over a graveyard. It like, they are still finding bones and other body parts when they’re excavating those houses. So… 

L: So I would go into the bathroom, and I would talk to the ghost. I never showered in there again, by the way. I think you did, I never did.

R: I showered in my shoes.

L: I would go in the bathroom, I would pee, I would wash my hands in the sink, and I would talk to the ghost sometimes. I would just chit chat. No one talked to me–I never saw a physical ghost–no one had words back for me or anything like that. But we came to an agreement that I would not use the shower and it would not, I don’t know, kill me.

ANALYSIS:

This story very evidently displays some unexplained instances that occurred in this house, and is a prime example of one element commonly found in ghost stories: improper burial. Because the house in this story is still standing to this day and has not been excavated, it is not known whether or not there were remains under this specific house. But it was made clear that the area was once a graveyard for the victims of the Chicago fire, and the neighboring houses–when excavated–had bones and other remains in their foundations and the soil beneath. So it could very well be possible that the souls of individuals who were given an improper burial still lurk within the basements and abandoned rooms of these homes.

Grandpa’s Voice

I was up late with my roommate and his friends and we were chatting about all sorts of things when I finally asked them if anything unusual had ever happened to him. My roommate said nothing while one of them, a 19 year old from Shanghai named K.H., told this chilling story. 

“So I was at my grandma’s house. I used to go over a lot just to keep her company because my grandpa had died so she was lonely and sad. Anyways so I was just sitting in the living room, scrolling through my phone, and out of nowhere I hear my name. Like, really clear. I froze, looked around, but there was no one there. I just kinda sat there, like, okay, whatever, maybe I’m just hearing things. So, I get up to grab my charger, and as I walk past the hallway, I swear, I see something move out of the corner of my eye. It was like a shadow, or maybe the way the light hit, but it was just… wrong. I don’t know. I honestly was too nervous to check so I ignored it, but the whole time I felt like someone was watching me. Then, right as I’m about to leave the kitchen, I hear my name again. This time, from the back of the house. Now this voice sounded exactly like my grandpa who had died. It was scary as hell so of course I quickly went into the living room where I found my grandma still sitting there, reading her book, completely calm. I didn’t say anything to her, but I swear it happened. I’m pretty sure it was the ghost of my grandpa. Or I’m just schizophrenic haha.” 

When K.H. finished, I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t some crazy ghost story, just quiet, personal, and kinda eerie. My roommate shrugged like it was nothing, but it stuck with me. The part that got me was his grandma, just sitting there like nothing happened. Maybe she didn’t hear it. Or maybe she did.

Haunted Valley in Los Angeles

AGE: 18
Date_of_performance: November 18,2024
Informant Name: Henry Dearborn
Language: English
Collector’s name: Sunghun Park
Nationality: American
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English
Residence: USC

Main description:

HD: So my parents like to tell me that our house is haunted. um I grew up in a house built in the 1940s in the foothills of Los Angeles and it’s funny because they’ll bring it up at random times. You know, we’ll just be at dinner and they’ll be like, oh yeah, and the ghost at our house and I’m like, what? But one of the stories they’d told was um about how they would be getting ready for bed and uh they’d go to sleep, you know, on any given weekday, you know, and in the middle of the night, they’d hear a knocking. It’s loud as could be from the front door, and they’d get up, they’d be startled, they get up, they go check the door, they open it. Nothing, no one there. And they said this happens to them like every week. And I’m like, what? Because I didn’t I had never experienced anything like that. I mean, there was always the odd, you know, hairs on the back of my neck when I was alone in the room sort of thing. And my door slammed shut randomly, which is really freaky. But, you know, that that sounded very serious. And so they were like, let’s get a ring doorbell camera. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, that’ll that’ll solve it. And we got a ring doorbell camera and we put it because they were they thought it was something somebody real. And the ring doorbell that we set it up and one night, the knocking came and it went, and in the morning they checked the ring door bell, and the tape froze. at like one in the morning, just before the knocking. Like it wouldn’t play anything past that. So that was freaky. um I should ask them if if they still hear the knocking, because that’s really creepy. And yeah, I don’t know. That’s my ghost story.

INFORMANT’S OPINION:

MP: So do you think the knocking sound and the camera stopping are due to something supernatural or just a coincidence?

HD: Honestly, I still have no idea what it was. I mean it still gives me goosebumps, especially when I think about it freezing. It could be a technical glitch or a real ghost. My parents always bring it up at family gatherings. However, given that nothing much has happened since then, I think it is a little far from a supernatural phenomenon. 

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION: 

I think HD’s story is more of a paranormal thing than a coincidence, as physical things like door slams and sudden doorbell camera freeze happening together. A weekly knock suggests a pattern, especially when you might see the doorbell camera frozen because ghosts might’ve been interrupting something. This fits the common ghost theme of the soul interacting with its surroundings. HD seems skeptical, but I think the recurring pattern of events really shows that it may be related to home and other paranormal beings.

Viking at the Cabin

Nationality: American

Age: 19

Occupation: Retail

Residence: Belton, MO

Performance Date: November 29, 2024

Primary Language: English

Language: English

MAIN DESCRIPTION

Q: “So, you’ve mentioned before you grew up with spirits. What’s one you remember that stands out from the rest?”

A: “Well, um, I grew up on an old abandoned farm that was built over. And it was a log cabin. And there was lots of spirits there, but I remember once in particular I was getting ready for bed and my mom wasn’t home yet. So, I was by myself in my room. It was dark and I heard a creak in the hallway because our floors are really creaky, and I thought that, y’know, maybe she was getting home or something. And the door opened and I saw her shadow. And I was like okay, I don’t know why you’re not turning on the light, so, you’re gonna trip and fall. But, she didn’t. Um, she, what I thought was her, um, she came over to me, and like her form, the outline of her body, turned from what she looked like into like this Viking, big scary dude with like a huge axe. And he like, swang it at me, and I remember hiding under my covers, and I remember hearing all the noises like it was real.  And then, I got up out of my bed and asked my brother to wake up because I was scared, and there was nobody there. So, there’s that.”

INFORMANT’S OPINION

Q: “Do you think it was a ghost or something else?”

A: “There were a ton of spirits in that house. I encountered them, um, pretty regularly. They weren’t always so scary. I guess I could’ve been dreaming.”

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION

It was hard to analyze the informant for any cultural significance relating to Vikings. She was not of a descent remotely similar to the origins of Nordic heritage. What stands out to me is the idea that the Viking was, at first, her mother. The fact that her mother seemed gentle at first and then became violent struck a chord with me. Perhaps there is a personal projection of abuse or neglect. A spirit could symbolize this, or even be a warning of some sort. Going further than this would be irresponsible and hypothetical, but I do believe that the detail of the mother is where the heart of this story, in some form or another, lies. I believe there is substance here for this occurrence being only a dream, but it interests me in the sense that it’s quite hard to tell from her description. Why could she hear sounds so vividly? Why can she not tell whether or not this was a dream? I believe this liminal area between being asleep and awake screams of a memorate. She mentioned other spirits as well. I could see the possibility that this was just a wandering spirit as well.