Tag Archives: ghosts

The Sitting Ghost

Nationality: Taiwan
Age: 50
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: March 14, 2014
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, Hokkien

Informant was teaching and boarding at a high school in the mountains, a three-hour bus ride away from the city. The dorm was a foreign environment that frightened her. When she finally fell asleep, she was awoken by a strange presence that she sensed at the foot of her bed. She was unable to move, feeling as though something were pressing down on her, though nothing was above her. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she noticed a man standing at the foot of her bed, fully clad in an ancient Chinese military costume. Since he was watching her peacefully, she assumed that it was an acquaintance from a past life or simply a passing spirit and fell back to sleep in peace, believing that he was there to protect her.

—

In Western cultures this phenomenon is known as sleep paralysis, and psychologists have come up with scientific explanations. In Taiwan, however, the cause is attributed to ghosts. The phenomenon is known as “鬼壓床” (gǔi yā chuáng), which literally means “ghost pressing the bed,” and the symptoms are strikingly similar. Author Maxine Hong Kingston describes this phenomenon as the “sitting ghost” in her memoir The Woman Warrior.

Due to the prevalence of Taoism and Buddhism in Taiwan, the vast majority of the population—regardless of religion—believes in ghosts. Ghosts are not necessarily evil, as anyone could potentially become a ghost after they die. 

Sleep Paralysis and Devils

Nationality: Chinese-Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Diamond Bar, CA
Performance Date: 4/21/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Sleep Paralysis

The Informant:

My friend, was born in Diamond Bar, CA. He is the son of a pastor whose church is in Diamond Bar. He lives with his parents and three younger siblings, a sister and two brothers. His father is Chinese and his mother is Korean.

The Story:

The first time that this happened to me was when I was either a sophomore or a junior in high school. I was lying on my bed, obviously in the middle of my sleep, when all of a sudden I realized I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move my body, I couldn’t scream, there was no air in my lungs. I tried to scream but couldn’t and I started to freak out. All of a sudden… I felt super cold, from top, my head, down, to my feet. I don’t remember if I was outside the blankets or inside but regardless I felt the wind. Suddenly I felt a heavy weight on my chest, as if something was sitting on it, and a shadow on top of me. I don’t really remember what happened after that. All of these instances blur together after a while. This was the first time it happened. After that it happened on a weekly basis for at least a year. There are times when I know it’s coming. You just feel like you’re getting really tired, or sometimes you can just sense something is off, as if there’s something in your room with you. I’ve never seen anything in my room though, and it always happens at night. There’s nothing I could do except wait for it to pass… and I’m always alone when this happens.

The Analysis:

This is a different occurrence of the scissor lock that my other friend experienced. We talked about this in his room, and a couple other friends were present. As he continued to tell his story, our other friends slowly became quiet, and then silent. The way Trevor spoke was genuine and even though such an occurrence would be questionable, there was no doubt in his voice that this was true. In Trevor’s instance, this happens on a semi-regular basis, with the last one occurring a couple months ago. Before that, it happened once a week or once every other week. There is no basis for why he goes through the scissor lock so often, but his actions showed that he doesn’t get used to it, even though it’s happened numerous times. It is creepy that this has happened so many times that they all seem to blur into one for him. One aspect that was interesting is that he is a pastor’s kid. This was one difference I noticed between him and my other informant on this same topic – it is probable that his stronger faith or adherence to Christianity has an affect on these continual occurrences. Whether it is due to faith or not, I wondered if it was the devil’s doing, and led me to question the existence of the devil and it’s many forms.

 

Researchers have attempted to examine the causes of the scissor lock, dubbing it generally as sleep paralysis: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ADREM.0000005896.68083.ae

A different version of sleep paralysis from someone not religious can be found at: http://kerryonian.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/the-experience/

Grandma’s Ghost

Nationality: Hispanic-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: November 12, 2013
Primary Language: English

                Well basically, my grandma used to live in my house and she had a dog that would sit with her on the couch every, single day and followed her around and literally did like everything with her.  It was like he was like her baby.  And then my grandma ended up passing away.  She had a seizure in our house and was rushed to the hospital and ended up dying in the hospital but we still feel like her spirit is still in our house cus’ she lived there so long before she passed away.  Then, um, one day when I was like really sad and thinking about my grandma I was like sitting in my room and I was literally looking at a picture of my .. and my dog came, uh that dog came up stairs who he never like comes up stairs with me.  He always stays downstairs with my like parents and he came up stairs and all of a sudden just started like barking at the corner of my room.  And um I sleep now in, well when I was at my house, I would sleep in the room where my grandma used to sleep and he just started barking at the corner of the room for like ten minutes and wouldn’t stop barking at the corner of the room.  Then started to do his little cry thing and just ended up laying down and staring at the corner of the room and there was nothing there and he stayed there for like thirty minutes and just ended up leaving, but I don’t know.  I felt like she was like in the room and he was like seeing her there and it was really weird, but ya…that’s it.

                This ghost story was told in a ghost story telling session, but the orator was unsure whether or not to call it a ghost story, but she truly believed that the spirit of her grandma was there.  She did not mention the word “ghost” when talking about the occurrence, but instead used “spirit”.  This story lines up perfectly with the fact that most of the ghosts people see are of family members that recently died.  Also the ghost of the grandma was experienced in the bedroom where she used to sleep, a common motif found in ghost stories.  Another interesting motif shown in the ghost story was that the dog was barking and sensing the ghost and possibly saw the ghost, while she was not able to see the ghost.  I do believe that the ghost of the grandma was in the room with her that night.

The Ghost on the Stairs

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: November 12, 2013
Primary Language: English

                In the house where I lived there used to be a family that lived there and they moved to the city while we were still there because their oldest daughter was still in high school and there were two brothers.  One was a senior in high school and the other was a sophomore in college and they were at a party one night and they were drunk and they had an argument because one of the brothers was going to join the army and the other one was like, “That’s really stupid, don’t do that.”, and so it got so heated that the younger one was like, “Fine.  I’ll just walk home. Don’t give me a ride.”  So, he decided he was going to walk across the freeway and he didn’t make it home and he got hit by a car.  So like in my house.. so his bedroom was right next to my bedroom and we’ve had people come over to our house who don’t like believe in ghosts and spirits and they’ve sworn that when they are coming up the stairs that they’ll like see something at the top of it or they feel a presence there and we assume that it’s the ghost of the boy.

                This story was the first story told in a ghost story telling session.  She was perfectly calm and was eager to tell the story and while she told the story a friend made sounds effects such as screaming during the car crash and a ghostly moan with the mention of seeing the ghost at the top of the stairs.  She truly believes that her house is haunted by the boy who wanted to join the army, but they find that he isn’t a bad ghost, but rather just haunts the house.  The boy’s death was a bad death, because he died young and after a heated argument, which is probably the reason why he became a ghost and haunts this house.  The popular stair motif is exhibited in this story, since at the the top of the stairs is usually the location in which people see the ghost of the boy.  I believe her when she says that her house is haunted by the ghost of the son of the family that previously lived there.

Cold Surroundings

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 18
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: University Housing - Dorm
Performance Date: November 12th, 2013
Primary Language: English

So my friend goes to college in the southwest and there is a girl on her floor who is convinced her dorm room is haunted. Apparently, a girl died there a few years ago, I don’t know if it was suicide or just a mysterious event. Well, they know for sure that it happened on her specific floor but no one knows the room it happened in. But as I said before, my friend knows a girl who is certain she has the room. She says she feels like she always is being watched and the biggest thing is how cold her room always is. Like apparently no other room on their floor is like it. She can have no fans on and the room is always freezing. If fact, my friend said she and a bunch of other girls would hang out a lot in the room when the days got hot because there isn’t any air conditioning in their dorms and yet this girl’s room was always so cold.

I heard this story in a USC cafeteria around 3:30pm during a late lunch. The informant is a good friend of mine. He heard this story from a friend of his, who lived on a college dorm floor where one of her classmates claimed to have a haunted dorm room. My friend mentioned how thankful he was that he did not have the same situation in his dorm room.

I found a multitude of ghostly motifs in my informant’s tale. These motifs include suicide, college life, and cold rooms/sensations. Suicide, or otherwise a mysterious death, is common in ghostly tales because a popular cause of hauntings is when an individual does not receive a proper, natural death. When there is murder, suicide, or an event that cuts someone’s life short than naturally intended, the victim’s spirit is known to roam in this world for some time afterwards. Also, college is considered a liminal period in everyone’s lives. One is neither an adult nor child. It is the transition in between two worlds. Because ghosts are and manifest around liminal objects, locations, and events, it is no surprise ghosts haunt college settings. And finally, the mentioning of cold sensations felt inside the girl’s dorm room. Yet another ghostly motif, as cold temperatures are often associated with cold, dead bodies.