Nationality: American

Age: 19

Primary Language: English

Residence: Lubbock, Texas

Text

“I have a ghost story so vivid I remember all the details to this day. It was my first year of college, and I was living in a tiny dormitory room. I shared the room with my roommate, but he was visiting family that weekend, so I was alone. At 4:30am, I woke up to knocking at the door. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard correctly, so I waited a minute, then heard knocking again. Checking the time, I thought it was weird that someone would be knocking on my door in the middle of the night… or so early in the morning. They knocked again, so I went over to the peephole – there was a little peephole in the middle of the door – and looked through… And no one was there. Trust me, you can see EVERYTHING through this peephole… And yet, there was no one on the other side. I moved away from the door, and the knocking continued. I wondered if some college student was playing a prank on me, so I checked again, and while I was looking through the peephole (which was still empty), the knocking continued. At this point my heart was pounding out of my chest, and I slinked into the corner of my room. The knocking became louder and more aggressive… It almost seemed like whoever was at the door was trying to break it down. Eventually, the knocking stopped and the invisible person went away. I wasn’t able to sleep for the rest of the night.”

Context

This informant is my brother. He attends a university in Lubbock, Texas. Around the time of this experience, we lost a family member.

Analysis

In class (and readings), we’ve discussed ghosts as representations of familial ancestors. Similarly to my father’s ghost story, I believe this is one of those instances. Around the time my brother had this experience, we lost a family member. Although the family member had no attachment to or ownership of my brother’s college dorm room, the dorm was still associated with my brother, and the timing matched up almost perfectly with the family member’s death. Regardless of whether or not the ghost actually existed, I believe my brother’s perception of this desperate ghost was an outward expression of his coping with the family member’s passing.