Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Family Comfort

Collector’s Name: Aarushi Kumar

Nationality: Indian

Relationship: Mother 

Occupation: Employed

Performance Date: November 30, 2024

Age: 53

Primary Language: Hindi

Context: When talking about ghost stories with another subject, K willingly chimed in with her story. To maintain confidentiality, names and adjectives suggesting relations to the interviewer have been removed. This recollection has been transcribed from the interviewee’s native language, Hindi, to English. 

A.K is the interviewer, K is the interviewee

Transcription: 

[A.K] Do you see any of your loved ones who have passed away in your dreams?

[K] I have very vivid dreams, yes. I see “Daadi” (the subject’s mother-in-law) more than [her husband] does– he never sees her, but I do. 

[A.K] And what is she doing?

[K] Oh, she’s always doing what she did before she died. Cooking food, sitting at the dining table, chatting on the phone. It’s like she never left.

[K] I often see my mom in my dreams. She appears usually, uh, after big events, like when I got into the car crash– the one by the stop sign– and she’s always there to give me advice. She never speaks- she normally gives me, like, a nod or a smile from the corner [of the room], but that- that is her way of saying what she needs to say. Like when I got married– I did not want to get married at all. I really didn’t! I argued so much with [her father]. But, the night before the wedding, I saw my mother in my dreams with a reassuring smile. That’s how I knew I would be okay, and only then did I feel ready to marry. 

The Subject’s Thoughts: 

[A.K] Why do you think you see her so vividly and only in crucial moments of your life?

[K] She is watching over me. I think she is resting peacefully, but she died so young. She didn’t get to raise her children properly, and I think that is what makes her reappear in my dreams. She wants to raise me, so she.. I think she does it in the afterlife by showing up in my dreams.

My Thoughts: 

K’s story demonstrates a very heartwarming instance of an ancestral ghost story. 

It’s common for people to see their loved ones in their dreams, and, like in K’s story, they often are there to provide some sort of reassurance. For K, her mother appears to her in very anxious moments of her life, and K always feels calmer and more in charge after her appearance. Often, as an adult, there are fewer sources of comfort for people to turn to because you are usually emotionally and physically farther away from your birth family, and this is the case for K as well. Having her mother make appearances, therefore, is very important to K because it’s one of the only times when she can feel not alone. This is especially important to note for K’s instance because K immigrated to the United States and away from her family 3 decades ago. She has been very isolated from her birth family due to this, so these appearances by her deceased mother help bridge the distance between her childhood and her adulthood. 

It is also important to note the cultural background of this story. K had an arranged marriage, a custom that was very standard at the time in India, and her reluctance to get married makes more sense in this context. She would have rather stayed in India with her birth family, but the marriage opened the door to a new family and, soon after, a new home across the globe. Although she is very happy with her life now, K describes how she always misses home. Seeing her mother in her dreams is a way to go back home without physically going back, adding to why it is so comforting for K.

Haunted Houghton Mill of St. Ives

After asking my dad for some ghost stories of his childhood he remembered this specific one that he heard in primary school (elementary). It was based in his small village where he grew up, outside of Cambridge called St. Ives. It was based on a thousand year old Houghton Mill that was seen as a monument and preserved as a historic sight. The ghost story is a spooky story that the older kids would tell the younger kids on the bus to scare them and be funny. Haunting the kids, there was a sense of shaken up when walking past the mill in town.

GP “There was a story of the ladies who would mend the sacks for storing flour or grain at the Houghton Mill in Cambridgeshire, UK. It was a type of local legend that was passed down from the kids of the town to scare them into staying away from the watermill that was on the River Great Ouse, it was such a crucial hub for primarily grinding grain. The legend was based on the tasks of mending sacks and these women supposedly fell into the mill pond that powered the millwheel, they drowned and died. The reason they fell into the water was unclear and never confirmed but it was assumed that the women could have been caught off balance when they were working around the edge or a mishap on the structure. The story continues around the town that the mill is haunted by their spirits, and apparently the visitors and locals have heard some ghostly sounds around the mill and felt some eerie sensations like a ghost was present near the millpond. Being told this story in primary school led to my friends and I steering clear of the mill.”

Analyzing this haunted tale, I felt as though the idea of the ghosts presence is wildly seen through eerie feelings near the place of death or hearing sort of ghostly noises that would represent the souls that have died is such a common functionality of spirits reappearing in the real world. Hearing this story made me realize that ghost stories are passed down through ages and are told with a purpose, it was told to my dad in primary school from the older kids which would try to scare them into running past the old mill in town.

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.

Water Ghost

AGE: 56
Date_of_performance: November 27, 2024
Informant Name: Jongsoo Park
Language: Korean
Collector’s name: Sunghun Park
Nationality: South Korean
Occupation: Businessman
Primary Language: Korean
Other language: English
Residence: Busan, South Korea

Main description:

JP: It was 27 years ago when I was serving in the military in Gangwon Province. Then, a serious rainy season came for a while. I thought that this rainy season would reduce work because it was early on my duty at that time. 

However, with a lot of serious rain, I started to have more things to do. There were even floods and casualties. My unit started to help local firefighters and help restore small villages. The first thing I had to do was find the missing person. While traveling with Sergeant Park on a boat, I found what appeared to be a human head among the reeds. But Sergeant Park kept saying no, in an uncharacteristically hard-line manner. 

Later, when I told the other firefighters about this, one of them asked where it was. The next day, the firefighter who asked where he was went missing during a search operation. In the midst of shock, Sergeant Park kept muttering that the body in the water could not stand upright, and that it could be a ‘water ghost’ who wanted to ascend by making another victim when he got close. After a few days, the village recovered normally, but the firefighter was not found. Years later, the area still experiences strange drowning once in a while. Even today, the incident and something in the water keep popping up in my mind every time I visit again. 

INFORMANT’S OPINION:

MP: Do you think the weird thing you witnessed during the finding missing person process was really a water ghost or do you think there’s a more substantial explanation?

JP: I’ve been thinking since it happened that it really was a water ghost. Given what I saw and the firefighter’s disappearance since I brought it up, I don’t think those two things can happen by accident. And even the Sergeant Park’s claim about the water ghost, I think what I saw that day was really a water ghost and why the firefighter who was going to check it went missing. 

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION: 

The story is deeply related to the ‘water ghost’ that has been discussed a lot since ancient times in Korea. These events, such as seeing a head among reeds, the disappearance of a firefighter, and the warning of Sergeant Park, are other supernatural phenomena that JP cannot understand. The core of many ghost stories is the soul trapped in a certain place for a certain reason, and repeated drownings in this area might be the proof of this. The story as a whole really suggests that JP has witnessed supernatural warnings linked to the local faith.