My Interactive Ghost

From: 
Story type: Ghost
Location: UK
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Sat Mar 26 17:04:18 2011

My Interactive Ghost

During my mid teens, I started to have my first past life experiences through my dreams. These first dreams were the most haunting experiences I ever had. Not only did I dream of a past life, but I dreamt of the girl I loved, and the violent way in which she died. She was accused of witchcraft and didnt survive a trial by water. She was beautiful, she was slim with high cheek bones and long dark hair, and I fell in love all over again with a girl that died over three hundred years ago. After three separate dreams on three separate nights, there was no continuation of the story. The memory of these dreams haunted me for a few years until once again I saw the girl in my sleep, but this time she was talking to me in the present, and I found myself talking to her ghost or spirit.

I knew if I was having past life dreams, I had to be reincarnated into my present life. So if I was alive today, was this girl? Was she alive somewhere, or was she in spirit? This reunion answered that question. When I first saw her in my sleep, I said to her You are talking. You're dead. She answered I am all right. Nothing can hurt me now. Over the last few years before this reuniting, I often thought about her, and now my thoughts had some how called her. Now here she was reassuring me.

In time, through my dreams I was told her name, it was Ann. In my waking moments I could feel Ann's presence. Sometimes I could feel a tingling sensation as if she was stroking my hair. But I couldnt hear or see her.

My family at this time owned the Riva Lodge hotel in Torquay. Once in my teens as I was passing through the bar, a guest told my mother, there was a presence around me, there is a protective spirit watching over me.

On a separate occasion I tried to tell my mother about Ann, and about my dreams. But she dismissed it as my imagination, because it particularly included a beautiful girl. This raised a good question. So far, my experiences were based on dreams and feelings, and I was new to this kind of phenomenon. Was Ann a figment of my imagination? Was I deluding myself of her presence? This must have been a question that many a sensitive person must have asked themselves. My mother's scepticism made me close up on the subject. But proof would soon be forth coming.

One night in 1981, my mother worked behind the hotel bar. It was a quiet night with only one gentleman guest sitting at the bar. She noticed a decorative wooden spoon lying on the floor or on the counter, which should have been on display on the shelves above. She then returned it back to the shelf where it belonged, where we had a display of memorabilia. When she wasnt looking the spoon fell down again. And again, she returned it to its place. The same thing continued to happen. Even thou there were a large number of items on the shelves, including an identical decorative wooden spoon, only this one continued to drop down. There was no loud music, no vibrations that would cause the spoon to fall. Finally she put the spoon inside a tankard on the shelf. The guest who was sitting at the bar offered to keep an eye on it. And yet again the spoon fell down. But the poor gentleman that had been sitting watching the mysterious spoon was left staring at the shelf as white as a sheet. It flew the guest explained.

You mean it fell answered my mother.

No, it flew, insisted the guest.

The gentleman spent rather more than usual at the bar that night. I dont know if Ann had anything to do with it, but the tankard was inscribed with my name, because it was my twenty first birthday present. Was Ann proving that she was real?

I wasn't present at the spoon incident, but the story was told many times by mother to her friends and family. That story and few other haunted occurrences reported by guests, were kept secret from the other guests, because my parents thought it would be bad for business. It wasnt till this year that I myself witnessed a physical phenomenon caused by the supernatural.

During late January and early February of this year, my family and I were visiting friends and family in Vietnam. The Vietnamese were very hospitable, and welcomed us where ever we went with food and drink. On the evening of the 4th of February, we were visiting my wife's friends. After the meal they entertained us with karaoke. I was sitting at the far end of a large table, furthest away from the speakers. I felt the tingling sensation as if Ann was stroking my hair, and within seconds my coke can started to move slowly across the table. It moved smoothly in a perfect straight line at a constant speed. It was fascinating, but eerie to watch. While the can was still moving, I thought the can could have been empty and was sliding on a wet surface. The can travelled about eight to twelve inches in about twenty to thirty seconds. After the can had stopped, I picked up the can to investigate. The can was still about a third full, and the table where the can travelled was dry. I knew this was Ann telling me she was there. During our holiday, I had asked myself, had Ann followed us half way across the world to Vietnam? She must have heard my thoughts and answered my question.

This wasn't the first time Ann had read my thoughts and responded to it. Back in 1982, a year after the spoon incident. I was helping Raymond, our kitchen help finish the washing up in the stillroom. Apparently, Andrew, my brother had been telling him about the ghost stories surrounding the hotel. I think Raymond wanted to find out more from me. He admitted to being a little sensitive to ghosts. I could feel a presence beginning to grow in the stillroom, and as I felt it, it grew stronger. I prompted Raymond to see if he could feel the presence, saying, Can you feel anything now.

He answered Yes I can.

An idea came to me to test him. In my mind, I asked Ann to let him feel her presence. Within a couple of seconds of my request, Raymond screamed out Don't touch me, dont touch me, as he brushed his hair with his hand and spinning round to face the other way. What seemed to have happened, was what I experience with Ann myself, the touching of hair. It seemed to be a sensitive part of my body. I hadnt told Raymond or anyone about this phenomenon.

I quickly thanked Ann for answering my request, and then quickly calmed Raymond down.

This was the first time I'd witnessed the spirit of Ann interact with another person. I also discovered she could read my thoughts like we use speech through our vocal cords. But Raymond's reaction caught me by surprise, and I was put off from making a similar request again. The interaction with Raymond proved to me that Ann was not a figment of my imagination.

That summer was our final season in the hotel. During the closed winter months we sold up and moved to a smaller Victorian house. My mother bought a retail shop and went into womens fashion. Raymond returned to the hotel the following year under the new ownership, in the hope of more paranormal experiences. But spirits follow people, and Ann followed me.

My mother became more interested in life after death, and read a book by Doris Stokes from cover to cover. Their paranormal experiences in the hotel seemed to be having a ripple affect, and had changed their beliefs in the supernatural. A few years later my mother was introduced to Upton Vale Baptise church through a new friend. Ironically, the churches beliefs, made my mother change her attitude towards spirits. This seemed to create a new barrier from me opening up about my private paranormal experiences. First she didn't believe my experiences and now it's taboo. I can't win. My father didn't help my situation by following my mother into the church. I was pleased with their new found faith, I am a Christian myself, but my father quickly became a staunch Christian of authority, concentrating mostly on the Old Testament. It wasn't just a question whether or not spirits existed or not, it was a question whether they are good or evil. This made me feel a little more isolated.

In 1984 my parents opened up their house to host a weekly house group. These house groups were a type of bible classes affiliated with Upton Vale Baptise Church. It was during one of these meetings that I believe Ann affected a new member to the group in a strange way. During the final prayer of the evening, a woman that was new to the church began to feel a presence in the room. Immediately I began to feel the presence too, it was close to the woman. The woman began to complain that she was cold even though the room was quite warm. I could feel the presence getting stronger with each passing second. I tried to sense what was going on. Finally the meeting was over, and I walked across the room to say goodbye to our guests. As I walked past this woman, she was visibly shaking. She then couldn't stay in our house a moment longer, and got up and left without saying goodbye to anyone.

The following week I mentioned the woman to the group leader. He told me the woman was involved with the occult, and approaching the men in the church, her motives and activities were suspicious. I believe Ann was protecting the house group. She herself was accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, and it led to her death. Ann was also a puritan and was on the side of Christianity, and so she made this women leave. I knew Ann could read people's minds, because she read mine in the stillroom of the hotel, and this woman couldn't keep her secret from Ann.

Sadly in 1991 my mother died from cancer. Her faith in Jesus strengthened her throughout her illness. I knew faith is a personal experience, and there are many factors involved, but I am convinced the paranormal experiences at the hotel motivated her in her faith.

In 1997 I was married, and soon after we had two children. With other cares entering into my life, like my family, work, and college, the paranormal was pushed to the back of my mind. Then over the last few years, after life seemed to slow down a little, I started experiencing more past life dreams. Then late August last year, I was visited by Ann in my sleep, for a couple of nights in a row. She greeted me with the words You are talking, which were the same words I said to her when I first saw over three decades ago. It is as if she remembers things as if they happened yesterday. It took me at least half a week to recall the significance of those words.

My meeting with Ann was lovely, as they always are. The best thing about contacts in my sleep is; I can see, hear, and feel her. I only wish they could happen more often. I often wonder what it would feel like to see her while I'm awake, but my gift is not that well developed. People react to paranormal events in different ways. The man at the bar seeing the spoon fly, was shocked. Raymond after being touched went hysterical. And the woman at the house group meeting did a runner. But for me watching the coke can move across a table, it was absolutely fascinating, to see a paranormal event in the cold light of day.

It was only about a week after that reunion with Ann in August 2010, I discovered the Archive X website, and wrote my first story, Seventeenth Century Witch Trial, which you can read in Past Life Experiences.

We also had an interesting discussion about the moving coke can, and Can ghosts draw more energy when we listen to music, in the Forum under Ghosts.

(Please note; The Riva Lodge Hotel changed its name after we had moved)