Credit: businessinsider.com
(Continued from part 1)
Story #2: The Black Figure
Our next story by Read F. takes place in Cheyenne, Wyoming and spans 17 years.
Read’s mother was sensitive to the paranormal, and as a result, she would endure the terrifying experience on which this story is centered years before her child.
Read was seven months old at the time of his (or her) mother’s experience, and they were living with his grandmother.
He and his mother had just went to bed for the night when his mother, nearly asleep, noticed a distinctive buzzing sound in the air and what looked like static running across her skin. She had slipped into a state of sleep paralysis, and she was about to have an experience that has unfortunately been reported by a lot of people.
As I mentioned earlier, sleep paralysis is a natural function of the brain and body that takes place during sleep.
However, some people – the writer’s mother in this case – will slip in between states of consciousness and unconsciousness while the body is still naturally paralyzed. They have full conscious awareness but no ability to move.
Despite that this is natural, it’s often accompanied by visions of a demon-like ‘black’ entity that either watches you or even tries to lunge at you. Its presence is always accompanied by intense fear and helplessness, but fortunately, it tends to go away after a while.
Credit: 9gag.com
Read’s mother saw the black figure standing over her when she opened her eyes in this paralyzed state. Somehow, her brain forced her body to move at the site of this entity and the experience ended fairly quickly, but I’m sure she never forgot it.
Tragically, the same thing would happen to Read years later.
As a young adult (perhaps out of college), Read returned to Cheyenne for the summer and had an experience remarkably similar to his mother’s in the same house. He woke up around noon one day to notice the same static in the air, and he quickly realized he was in a paralyzed state and his body was still somewhat asleep.
Just as his mother had, he looked up to find a black figure standing over him. The experience was intense, because he recalls being out of body before it happened and the shock from his phone alarm going off brought him back without fully awakening his body.
He writes that the entity was about to come at him with a knife when he flashed his phone light on it to get a better look at it. Then, it faded away like smoke.
It’s understandable to be skeptical about stories like this, but there have been accounts that link images of smoke with demonic entities. I’m not quite sure what the connection is, but assuming this story is real, it adds more anecdotal evidence to the association of such entities with the appearance of smoke.
Story #3: Ghostly Guardian Angel
The next story by Kyle P. doesn’t have much to do with out-of-body experiences or sleep paralysis, but I want to include it because it’s interesting and a little inspirational.
Kyle was used to hearing ghost stories because he grew up in the south, and he never gave much thought to whether the stories were real. They were simply a form of entertainment everyone enjoyed, but one night, he had a paranormal experience that for him was undeniable.
It was 1977, and he was seven years old living with his family in a city north of Birmingham, Alabama. He shared a bedroom with his sister who was one year older than him; her bed was against the back wall and his was next to the door that led to the hallway.
He awoke one night from a state of deep sleep to total alertness and awareness of his surroundings. Even though he had just awoken, he felt as if he’d been awake for hours. He finds it strange that he remembers every detail of what ensued from the moment he woke up.
He opened his eyes to find a figure standing at the foot of his bed. Since the door to his bedroom was open, the light from the hallway was illuminating the figure so he could see it in detail. It was a woman with long, curly hair, and she was wearing a white gown.
Every part of her was clear except her face, and it confused him that he couldn’t see her face at all. She didn’t say or do anything. She simply stood (or hovered) and watched him.
Unfortunately, his attempts to wake up his sister and show her the woman failed when his sister told him she didn’t see anything and he should just go back to sleep. Despite that she didn’t see the woman, he convinced her to run to their mother’s room with him.
As he ran down the hall, he looked back to make sure his sister was following and he again saw the woman, this time standing in the doorway continuing to calmly and silently watch him. He and his sister quickly and loudly made it into their parents’ room, instantly awakening them, and he told his mom he had seen a ghost.
He slept in his parents’ room that night, but as you can probably imagine, he didn’t get any sleep.
The interesting thing is that he never saw the figure again even though he lived in the house for many more years. As an adult, he even moved back there with his wife and kids and never experienced or heard about a similar encounter there.
He realizes when looking back that as a child witnessing this, he actually wasn’t scared at first. It was only when the enormity of the situation kicked in that he became afraid and ran away, and his mother believes he witnessed his own guardian angel.
He agrees because of the fact that nobody else has witnessed a ghost in the house; it seemed to be a one-time experience. Since his sister didn’t see anything, it seems that the experience was personal and meant only for him.
He wants to stress that this story is completely true, and he never shared it with anyone besides his family because he didn’t want people to think he was crazy. He suddenly felt inspired to write about it, and he wonders if his “guardian angel” has something to do with it…
(Continued in part 3 tomorrow. Sources embedded in article.)
By Wes Annac, Culture of Awareness, May 19, 2016 – https://tinyurl.com/hlnkkp5