Spooky moments

My dad died 2 years ago. He used to spend alot of time with us and was always turning off lights in the empty rooms. a couple of weeks after he died my DH and I were chatting in the dining room when the the kitchen light went out. Since then on a number of occasions when all the family have been at our house a light will go off. We all call 'Hi Dad / Grandad' and the light comes back on. I have no explanation !

Duh??

It's not The Hairy Bikers is it? There's also some other program about biker gangs in America, starring Rom Perleman, on Sky. Sorry this is a couple of years late

gilly your funny, sorry if I scared you x I dont take much mind of these things, maybe I have a bit of my greatnan in me....

Oh that's horrible cheelu I would have been scared stiff. Putting all the lights on in the house tonight as in on my own.

My great granmother was cooking in her kitchen one afternoon when my Nans sister came runnig down the stairs sceraming that there was a lady wearing a black dress walking down the corridor, Apparently, because obviously I was not there, my greatnan said to her daughter, dont worry dear that is just death come to collect me and she died a few days later. I was told this story when I was a young women and reading these stories made me think about it....

My mum died age 67 from a massive stroke, a few weeks later my second pregnancy was confirmed. It was unplanned and although DH was thrilled with the news I was not.

One night I dreamt that I had a telephone call from my mum. She said that it was just a quick call, I told her that I was pregnant and she said "Don't worry everything will be OK. These telephone dreams continued throughout the pregnancy, to be replaced with dreams of visits from mum. In these dreams she would come floating towards me, looking much younger and wearing a beautiful blue ankle length dress. The blue of the dress was the same colour of the Morning Glory flower (Heavenly Blue). In the later dreams she didn't speak. I felt comforted by these dreams although in life my mum and I were not particularly close.

Ten years ago I started researching my paternal family tree ( my parents were in their 40s when I was born). Starting with my dad and his mum I began to send off for birth certificates and became quite absorbed in that branch of the family.

One night I had quite a vivid dream about my grandfather. In life I had known him as a frail old man who was profoundly deaf, in the dream he looked and was dressed as the fifty year old man that he been in my parents wedding photograph (1935). Granddad took me by the hand and led me down a grassy slope towards a shallow river and pointed to the other side. On the opposite banks of the river were crowds of people standing in orderly rows behind one another. I knew that these people were my ancestors. Above us was a huge aqueduct. It was such a vivid dream and I felt that my grandfather was urging me to research his family. I sent for his birth and death certificate which duly arrived. When I looked at the date of his death I realised that I had applied for his certificate on the anniversary of his death. I was just 12 years old when he died and although I knew the month he had died I was ignorant of the date. Was it just co-incidence?

About 18 months later DH and I were returning home from a day out when we noticed an aqueduct in the distance, although we couldn't find it that evening we did some research and found it a few weeks later. It was the aqueduct in the dream, which I hadn't known existed although I knew that granddad had been born in that area. Spooky?

I ask because I have some very vivid "Jack" dreams over the last few nights. I can go months without them, and then suddenly they start again. They seem to fall into sort of distinct categories, some with him as very young, some are actually almost comforting, but the latest bunch are somewhat complex and a bit disturbing.

I have also dreamed of someone I had not heard was dead, who was not very close to me.

He was an old friend of my parents, who I had last seen after my mother's funeral, sitting in an armchair to one side of the fire. He was slightly built and had severe ostoearthritis, and wore a neck brace.

In my dream, I saw someone of his build in an armchair at the side of my own fireplace, wearing a neckbrace and sitting very carefully as though he were protecting his bones. He was very very pale, and I knew that he was dead.

The next time I spoke to someone who knew him I asked how he was. He had died a few days before I dreamed of him.

I have dreamed several times of people who were dead. They have all seemed to have a message for me.

My dream of my father was somehow linked to an image of a sewing needle, which seemed to represent my and his interest in making things, and the intellectual traits which I had also inherited from him, and advice that these were the paths I would follow.

When I dreamed of my mother, she was telling me that there was something I would find among her things which would distress me. I had a lot of her personal possessions, and in her one pocket of her purse was a photograph of my brother as a child, which she had carried around for years - I was not distressed because I always knew how fond she was of him, but perhaps she thought I would feel hurt that there was no picture of me.

And so on.

Each time I have had these dreams, I have felt better about losing someone. It seemed to me that it was either because all was OK with them, or because I had now accepted their death and come to terms with it.

Years ago me and my ex husband both woke up suddenly.He told me he was in a dark tunnel and he had died,then he saw himself lying on a table and he new he had to get back into his body.The creepy thing was that i was in a tunnel and travelling really fast and new i was going to see my dead family.Then i remembered my 2 children and knew i had to get back ,i struggled to get back.It happened a long time ago and cant come up with an explanation.

I often dream about my late parents and in my dreams they are always younger and fitter than in their later years. I like to think of this as a compilation of their personalities - their "spirit" if I may use the term. A friend who is religious says this is a sign that all is well with them now. Would be nice to think so.

phoenix, I have dreamt about both my parents. In these dreams I am a child or teenager again. It's only natural that people who have been important to you in their lifetime should surface again in your subconscious.

Apart from the ones mentioned above, does anyone have much experience of dreaming about people that you know are dead? I do have a genuine reason for asking this.

Yes Glassortwo I have had the same experience several times of smelling cigarette smoke when I have been in bed sometimes very strong sometimes weak.

Neither my wife or I smoke I believe it is my mother who died 20 years ago who smoked 20 per day because it is when i think about her that it sometimes happens but not always

Yesterday I was making GDs 7 and 4 fresh fruit juice in the juicer and I said to them 'I would have liked someone make me juice when I was a child.' GD7 replied 'Did you like lamingtons?'

My mother always made lamingtons when I was a child and they were very popular among our family and friends. When I told D1 later she said barely remembers ever having them. My mother had stopped making them by the time GD7 was born. When I asked GD why she said lamingtons, she said it just popped in her head.

With regard to spirits, ghosts call them what you will, I wonder if it's a bit like the sun shining on stones (eg a wall or path) and then when the sun goes down, if you put your hand on the stones you can feel them "releasing" the heat they have absorbed? I realise I could have phrased that better, but hopefully you will get what I mean!

When exdh & I were first married we lived in Windsor Castle in a flat with an L shaped kitchen, I often had the feeling of something disappearing around the corner as I walked in. We also used to have a lot of small things going missing, tweezers, earrings etc. I used to stand in the middle of the flat and say "ok, now give them back" and they would usually turn up on a shelf in the bathroom a day or 2 later.

I do have personal knowledge of somebody with very bad back pain being cured by a healer, without being touched. I can only assume that there are various electrical charges in our bodies which some people can harness. By the way, the person concerned was as sceptical as I am.
I have personally been cured of severe disc pain by acupressure. I don't know how it works, but it does.

Although I don't believe in the supernatural, I do believe that some people have healing powers. I had a bad back for years and a friend who said she was a healer put her hand on the sore area and I haven't felt pain until quite recently.

My thoughts about mediums (genuine, not showbiz) is that some people do have a telepathic ability, reinforced perhaps by practice and by unconscience reading of non-verbal clues and an instinctive feeling for the personalty of others.

We all have inside us an image of those we love, we know how they would react in different circumstances, we are familiar with the lives they led, since and before we met them. If a medium can sense that picture, they can reproduce (innocently or intentionally) the personality that we remember, and can answer questions in character.

Where I am a definite sceptic, it is when exotic spirit guides are supposed to be contacting departed loved ones on behalf of the medium. What is that all about? Why should an Egytian princess, say, waste her time taking messages from Auntie Gladys to Cousin Jean about looking after the canary?

And why do so many reincarnated people believe that they used to be Napoleon. Surely even if it were possible, they could only become one person at any given time? Unless they had split personalities and could time-share in different bodies?

I remember seeing somewhere long ago (sorry, can't pinpoint it) that a study showed that the toddlers they were using could identify whether a strange baby (a few months old, not in utero) was a girl or a boy, even when they were dressed to confuse and were not being treated any differently.

Our senses are very acute at that age, maybe there was some smell that they could distinguish. A pity they were not able to explain just how they knew.

I have no idea Greatnan. I asked her when she was around four years old how she knew and she said, 'if they have a boy then they will have another boy and if they have a girl they will have another girl.' She really doesn't know herself.

Sorry meant to say commercial mediums.

I have no belief in mediums. I can't believe that a spirit wouldn't simply be able to say 'Hi my name is Mabel and I want to speak to my neice, Sylvia, who is sitting in the second row.'

I have no idea either, Faye - perhaps each sex gives out a different chemical trace which a young child could detect. What is your probably explanation? I am sure you don't think religion is involved? Could this 'gift' be put to any use, I wonder.
When it was found that dogs could 'sense' which patients were close to death, it was first thought to be something intangible, but it was then discovered that the dogs were picking up various physical changes. Similarly, dogs can be trained to identify possible cancers, because of the chemicals they give off.
There are more things in heaven and earth........ I am more than prepared to admit I don't have explanations for many strange happenings - I just think they are not caused by any ghosts, dead spirits, or other supernatural beings.
I am wary of anyone who seeks to make profit from their so-called 'special gift' - most of the mediums who where so popular in Victorian times were proved to be charlatans.