Afraid of the Dark

From: Arlene (arleneodiaz@earthlink.net)
Story type: Ghost
Location: my home
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Tue Mar 20 12:04:24 2007

Hello,

Reading so many of the articles on this site brings back memories. When I was small (between 7 and 10 years old) we lived in Puerto Rico in a rural setting. My mother's house belonged to her mother and it was little more than a shack. It had no indoor bathroom - we had a shower stall outside and an outhouse. I hated it! Even at 7!

Anyway, the ceiling was made of tin and when it rained, it sounded kinda soothing, you know what I mean? But, there was another sound too. My room was right next to the tiny kitchen and I'd hear as if people were in the kitchen. Another thing I'd hear when it rained was extremely loud clapping! It would scare me to death!! As a child, I never slept. I would lay till all hours of the night awake listening to the sounds of the night. I can still remember lying in bed with my two sisters (we all shared a bed) and me sleeping in the middle or up against the wall (no way would I sleep on the outer part of the bed! - LOL) and my heart would be beating wildly in my little chest. I hated living in that house, for more reasons than the weird night sounds.

My sister woke me up one night (one of those rare times I actually fell asleep) and told me she awoke to someone calling her name. She looked out the only window in our tiny room and saw a dark figure of a woman going up the walkway heading to my aunt's house behind us. She said the woman stopped, looked back at her and gestured for her to follow her. My sister was terrified, but for all my own terrors during the night, I didn't really believe her. I mean, I chucked my own experiences to being a chicken sh**t! I just thought my imagination was getting the best of me. But, in reading so many experiences on this site, I now wonder if I was experiencing something genuinely paranormal or not?

My grandmother, who died while living in the tiny house, was said to be a medium and constantly talked with the spirit world. She died when I was 3, so I don't remember her. My mother swore that the night she died, my grandmother made a visit to our home while we all slept. She heard footsteps coming up the steps that come into her room. She then felt someone sit on her side of the bed. Her mother had left the island for the first time EVER and traveled to New York - my mother was then living in Philadelphia and expecting a visit from her mother the next morning. She instead received a phone call telling her my grandmother had passed the previous night.

To this day, I cannot sleep alone in a room, in the dark. I will attempt some sleep and might actually succeed, if I leave the lights on. And even then, I have a hard time. This, though I have never experienced anything I can firmly say was "otherworldly". I feel inadequate, like I am not normal. Last night, for instance, my husband and I got into a heated argument and I wanted so much to sleep in the guest room. I went in, closed the door, got into bed and left a soft lamp on. I still could not sleep and at 1:30 AM quietly slipped back into my own bed... next to my husband.