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“This happened back in 2021 and it was when me and my friend were having our own dorming experience up in Santa Barbara. One night my friend woke to a man-like voice. We had curtains in the room dividing the room, and she saw a hand grabbing a curtain. At first, she thought it was me but she looked over and I was asleep. She called my name to wake me up and told me that she saw someone’s hand on the curtain. I said I didn’t see anything and I went back to sleep. She later said that the ghost showed his face and it didn’t even look like a person. It was a really tall figure, almost like monster-ish. It looked at her and it said one word and the one word it said was “shoe.” We didn’t know if that meant a real shoe or shoo, get away. This freaked her out and she started crying and woke me up again. The next day she was so scared and she said that we needed to sage the house. I got an incense-type stick and I lit it and walked through the house and asked any ghosts to leave the house. She didn’t see anything after this.”

Context

The informant was a person in the story. The informant wasn’t the one who saw the ghost but she helped participate in preventing the ghost from coming back by sageing the room. The informant was in the same room as the ghost and the informant’s friend originally thought that the ghost’s hand was the informant’s hand. The informant stated that she felt uneasy being in the same room as a ghost. The informant says that her friend is susceptible to paranormal activity and that’s why the ghost was there. The informant noted that it was just her and her friend in the house.

Analysis

I didn’t know what to make of this story so I started by researching what a ghost pulling back a curtain could mean. This action is open to interpretation but one of the most popular ways to interpret this is that it’s a way that ghosts are saying they want to make contact with the living. The other thing to note is that the ghost didn’t have a face. Faceless ghosts may represent a fear of the unknown or a sense of loss/disconnect from oneself or others. A faceless ghost may also mean that the person died without receiving justice. The faceless appearance is a sign of their anger. This appearance is usually associated with fear and dread of the unknown. 

The informant stated that this happened in 2021, which was still the COVID-19 time. A lot of people were feeling uneasy leaving the period of quarantine and starting to get back to life as we knew it. There were a lot of unknowns at this point. I’m not sure if this is related to what the informant and her friend were feeling at the time but it could be a possibility. Maybe this is why the ghost was faceless. 

The informant’s friend described the ghost as monstrous and tall. This may tie into how sometimes a faceless appearance may be a sign of anger. If I saw this ghost I would probably think of either anger or fear. Maybe the friend was fearful because she was away from home. It’s hard to say what the ghost meant but the ghost’s appearance is very intriguing.