Superstitions

I'd never heard this superstition about a bird coming into your house. Over my lifetime this has happened a few times in my family, and I can honestly say that I can't recall any "bird" incident being followed by gloom & doom. Please just put it out of your mind, CarolDane.

I did not know this superstition about a bird in the house being an unlucky portent.

Very unlucky for the little bird I imagine!!

See it for what it was, the poor bird got lost and flew in through the door or window, do not think anymore into it.

It could be bad luck - they might 'go' on your best cushions! Birds are all sorts in myth. I like the protective wings of Horus image - so you make up your own mind.

My mum was in hospital having tests for stomach cancer. They were clear an she was due to be discharged in 2 days so I took my 7yr old DD to visit. All the way there my DD kept saying granny is going to die. I kept telling her granny is coming home soon. 2 days later an artery blocked in her leg and she was rushed to surgery. They started to put the anaesthetic in and she had a massive heart attack and died. It's as though my DD knew and really odd

I am very divided about this sort of thing.

I don't believe that a bird flying into the house presages a death, but that is probably just because I never heard that as a child.

However, I often know what is going to happen before it does, both good and bad things. It isn't something that always happens though,

I too have woken to find someone standing beside my bed. When it happened, I recognised him as my grandfather, so I wasn't frightened, just suprised as he had died four years earlier when I was fourteen. I cannot remember now whether his appearance was followed by a death.

My sister describe him exactly, as the person she saw during the night before our father's death, which we were expecting at the time. She had not recognised him, but hearing her description made me say, "But that was Grandpa, dear." My sister responded by saying, "Why should he come to me?" My response was that he had been very fond of her, that Daddy was his eldest son and the last of his three children to die, and that he probably knew how hard Daddy's death would be for my sister.

The last time I visited my sister, knowing full well that she was slowly dying of cancer, I distinctly felt my mother standing just behind me in the hospital Ladies' room. I didn't turn round, so I didn't see her, but I know to this day that she was there, even although she had been dead for fourteen years at that time.

This can all easily be dismissed as imagination, I do realise that, but personally I like to think it means that there is some kind of existence after death. Those who do not share my opinion but find these things frightening, do not need to accept them as anything except figments of my or other peoples' imagination. There is after all no rational explanation or scientific proof.

I was always the one who used to laugh at people who believed in these things, but after moving into an old miners cottage in the middle of nowhere , my mind changed , some really strange things happened that how ever hard I tried I couldn't explain, and believe me I tried, till one night my dog just wouldn't go into the kitchen, and that evening both my husband and I heard what sounded like footsteps upstairs it was so strange , I got our local vicar to come round and bless the house , but I quiet often still walk into a room and get a feeling that someone has just walked out , but only me in
If someone can explain it away please do to put my mind at rest

Actually, harrigran, as far as I can see it wasn't CaroDane who described a vision.

I feel you are being a little harsh in your judgement. We are not trying to scare anyone, but simply responding to OP and others who have experienced things they feel might just be omens or other forms of contact of a kind that our society does not officially believe in.

You are free to class it as mumbo-jumbo if you like, but please do not attribute motives to us that none of us have.

I think that there are many things which we can't explain which have no science or logic to them.

I don't know about the bird superstition but many of these things happen in order to warn us or to comfort us. Try not to worry as there may well be nothing nasty behind it.

When our youngest child was little we lived in a cottage dating back in parts to the 1600s

When we were in the kitchen, we would frequently hear, what sounded like, our daughter jumping out of bed, little footsteps running across the landing into our room, she was always sound asleep in bed, lots of people heard it over the years, could have rational explanation, but what?

When my dog was killed by a car I was in my little study and suddenly felt my dog rubbing himself against my leg Of course he wasn't there. . I wasn't even thinking about him at the time.
Another time I dreamed that I was going down some steep steps in a very grey stone building, like a castle, and my brother was following me. He had somehow got into an alcove at the side of the steps and when I looked back at him large bars had come down trapping him in the alcove and he was trying to get out. Later I learned that he had committed suicide. He was only 26, I had never dreamed about my brother before, nor since.
As for birds, I have found that they long to get out of your house, If you shut the door to the room and open a window to its fullest extent and cover all the other windows, they will naturally fly towards the uncovered window and escape.

Harrigran. Everyone has a right to their opinion but these things are only frightening to us because we dont understand them.
I think its best to keep an open mind.
I dont like the programmes on TV Like Most Haunted which seem staged with the presenters screaming all the time. Why go there if all you are going to do is scream when the thing you supposedly invited in makes its presence known.
I think we can wind ourselves up BUT my experiences have been when I was least expecting them, and in a quiet calm frame of mind.

I see people who’ve passed , get signs, all the time. I rely on them. I went and spent the last six months of my fathers life with him because a man in a dream told me he was going to go , which he did. I regret the few I ignored. As for spirits they come and go, good and bad. One day I was at the top of a 3 floor house and sensed something bad enter the room where my DH and DS were on ground floor. I went to the room, heard them disagreeing and said don’t talk about this now there’s something bad around wait until later. The next morning both were baffled about the potential argument because they realised they had the same opinion! Another time I said to my DH I don’t want to fly today I’ve got a bad feeling ! He said ok let’s cancel but I said it’s such a waste of money so I’ll go. I ended up sitting in the airport delayed four hours because of tornados until flight was cancelled whilst DH sat in car park! Another time DH and me were driving on a small road in northern Italy when I got obsessed about changing my shoes before a dinner party! I harassed my DH to stop and let me get my shoes out my suitcase in the boot! As we slowed down I noticed the red car we’d been following. We got back on the road but traffic stopped. We sat for couple of hours and eventually passed a huge crash. In the middle of piled up cars was the red car that was in front. We’re all given these signs because I showed other people how to take notice and it works for them. It’s like a musical ear - nothing if you don’t develop it. I think some people don’t want to see or hear or are scared so they don’t - simple. No point arguing - it’s like saying China doesn’t exist because you haven’t been there lol!

harrigran I didn't realise that my post would lead to gransnetters the world over cowering behind their sofas in terror (and that was even without a glimpse of my wrinkly old face).
As I said originally, everyone has different views, and we can differ in opinion without animosity or ill will.
It's the diversity of people's views on this forum that makes gransnet such a wonderful platform for respectful interaction, long may it continue, and I've been fascinated reading the posts of everyone on this thread (regardless of if they believe in the paranormal or not) much thanks to our friend for starting it.
Ps. I promise not to evil eye you for your grouchiness but my mother would have done it at ten paces

Banging on the door can be having palpitations. I remember after my now ex left me, and was continuing to be abusuve, I was staying at my parents, and woke up suddenly because I heard the most tremendous pounding on a heavy wooden door, which continued after I was awake. I didn't get up and it stopped. Thinking about it as I lay there I realised that neither their front nor back door were such that that would be the sound it made and anyway I was quite a way away, also my mother would have woken up as she is quite a light sleeper. Si was it the room door, well no, that was just an ordinary flimsy internal door, which wasn't locked anyway. I realised it has been my heart having an episode of pounding, never had it before, really terrifying. I then went in to experience palpitations and racing heart in the evenings which frightened me a d u dud go to the doc who said it was not uncommon for it to happen when you are relaxing in the evening. I did experience other strange knockings though some time later at home, usually v early in the morning after dawn, knocking Xing from the front door but no matter how quickly I got there, no one there or within sight. Eventually I just ignored it. People said wind, neighbour doing it by accident etc, but it happened in a calm morning once when neighbour was away, soon to be ex maybe, but it was never like him to get up early. In the end when I started hearing voices, and told the doc that u learned it was probably pseudohallucinations and jusr a symptom of mental overwhelm. But the knocking was so real. I wish I'd had one if those door cameras that takes photos of anyone who comes by.
As for robins and feathers am not sure. I know I often see them in the churchyard, u think they are just wondering if you are going to start digging maybe in the past they loved to watch gravediggers and hopped die. To pick up worms
I've had dreams but be we had any followed by death. I've had terrible ones and when I've got over how horrible they were have just thought it was something from the depths if my subconscious coming to the surface
But I'd never say it wasn't possible

I do consider myself a sceptic but...
We had a Victorian flat and I didn’t like my sons room when I was alone there stencilling the walls and decorating.
It was double aspect with a skylight and big and bright - should have been lovely. But I didn’t like it and didn’t know why - I was quite scared alone there which was just odd.
I said nothing.
When we moved in my baby son’s musical toys would start playing in the night, he slept through but when I put them in my room it never happened. DH said it was a train underneath the house or something.
We were there 2 years and that room was cold and just not nice. He never played in there. When he was 2 my son came into our room early one morning and said “Mummy, who was in my room? I saw someone in my room and I thought it was you so I came out but you’re in bed, who was it?”
We moved out around the corner and years later I met a lady who lived on the second floor - she had babysat for the new remnants and without my saying a word she said that she wouldn’t babysit there again because she didn’t like the babies room. And it really was a beautiful room but there was something in it.

I was expecting my daughter to visit me the next day. That night I dreamt of a policeman going through a black handbag. The next day the police came to tell me my daughter had been found dead the previous evening. When clearing things from her flat I found a handbag the same as the one in my dream.

Oh dear. If birds in house is bad luck we are in trouble. One of our cats likes to bring them in for us regularly
& we open doors & windows intil they fly out. She is obviously gentle with them as they are rarely harmed & she does have a collar with a bell on it. It was a large pigeon yesterday - annoyed but unharmed but took him a while to find the open door.
Now I'll be looking out for trouble.

As some of you may know I have posted about moving on after husbands death and downsizing or moving in with son. It has caused me great anguish and many many sleepless nights. However beginning of this week I finally decided, still with trepidation, to go ahead with downsizing to bungalow. Any way I “spoke” to my husband and asked him what he thought. The next night I had a very rare take away Chinese meal and I. The fortune cookie said “don’t be afraid to take that big step” . Despite being a huge sceptic I am very comforted by that.

When driving along in my car a few years ago, I often saw people I thought I knew. but as I got closer I realised it was just a look-a-like. But as I drove further along the road, I would then see the person I thought I had seen earlier. It happened very often. But the last time was when I saw someone, convinced I was right this time, I remembered it couldn't be him because he had died. It never happened again. Very strange.

The O/P was of a bird flying into a house, this was explained as an omen of a death

I have seen and heard things that I haven’t been able to explain. Wide awake too. One such incident when Zi was a teenager was witnessed by my friend too and a more down to earth person you couldn’t find! We are still friends and we still mention the girl we saw when we were babysitting at her older sister’s house! The girl just disappeared in front of our eyes. I do believe there are things we don’t understand.

Zi should have read ‘I’.

Well I'd say a bird coming in the house is unlucky because it might break things and is probably going to poo....

Never known that - cats are forever bringing birds in and we help them out. We’re still ok