My Strangest Experience.

Gremlin

Quite a personal story so I don't want any p/takers comments please. However I do welcome serious rational explanations too.

Warning: This one is actually quite scary so if you're easily spooked might be time to move onto another thread.

That said here's my story;

My parents are quite religious. When we were kids there would often be prayer last thing at night usually a decade of the rosary before we were packed off to bed. Anyway one night (I was about 10 years old at the time) we had just finished a decade and as we finished up my mum said fairly inoccuosly to my dad, I think we said 11 instead of 10 hail marys. Anyway my dad didnt pay too much attention. Can't remember what he said but it wasn't particularly noteworthy. Anyway all of a sudden my mum started yelling and screaming about it, we were all quite shocked my dad asked her to calm down, she just got worse and worse and would attack anyone who came even close to her. My dad shuffled us out of the room and closed the door. Just to put this in perspective, my mum (now deceased) was the kindest gentlest soul I ever knew. This was the one and only time I ever saw her even remotely behave this way.

Next thing I remember we were standing in the hallway, the room was warm when what I can only describe as a wave of coldness (not a breeze the air was still) swept through the house, the three of us (me dad and sister) stood there petrified. We could see our breath frozen in the air. My dad rushed us downstairs and the three of us prayed like there was no tomorrow. Just as we finished, the wave of coldness left and the house was back to normal temperature.

When we went upstairs my mum was sitting on her bed crying. She had no recollection at all of what just happened. She knew something bad occured and it was her doing but no idea what.

Anyway there it is, make of it what you will.

Ziycon

First off, thanks for sharing your story. I will say that with anything from childhood, despite someone recalling it 'picture perfect' memories have the tendency to slip over time, the longer the time the more fanciful memories can get. Also children's minds tend to make memories seem more 'magical' and interesting then they actually were. I'm not saying that what you experienced didn't happen but merely to take what you remember and look at it logically, break it down into bits and look for reasoning for each of those bits and gradually bring them together to see what could have possibly caused this experience/reaction.

Please don't take offense by the next question but where/are there any mental illnesses in your family, did your mother suffer from any or depression? The reason I ask as some of what you described can be seen to be explained by a medical condition, the nervous and irrational over reacting to something that most people would consider very trivial!?

I'm not saying it is but have you ever looked at stigmata, I've never come across it myself or heard of any first hand cases where it was suggested as the root cause but its an interesting route to look down if you have exhausted all avenues to explain what happened that night.

Just my two cents.

Gremlin

Thanks for the input Ziycon. I'm right with you there on how memories can be embellished. I suppose the key thing here is that the memory is not just mine or even my sisters but my dads too. However I'd readily accept there was some hysteria effect could have been going on that night. This could possibly account for the frozen breath. Maybe we saw that because given the sensation of coldness, thats what our brains expected to see.

As for mental illness in the family (and no offense is taken by your perfectly reasonable question), there is none, as I mentioned my mum never behaved like this before or since. However I have read that it is possible for perfectly normal rational people to have one off psychotic episodes. The fear induced in us all could well have triggered the subsequent events.

As someone who looks for a rational explanation in most things, my head tells me that the some combination of the above explains this, however even though 30 years have passed since this event, it refuses to leave me and deep down the need to understand this event still lingers.

Ticktactoe

In what part of the house were these prayers said? Any other strange activity in the house apart from this? This tradition of saying the rosary, was this done in your mothers home before bedtime?

Seems like a temporary possession, of what purpose i do not know.

meryem

Ticktactoe wrote: »

Seems like a temporary possession, of what purpose i do not know.

@Gremlin It may be some anger of the spirit(god/angel) you people prayed for some mistake. It's time to move on and forgetting the past for you guys.

Gremlin

Ticktactoe wrote: »

In what part of the house were these prayers said?

Parents bedroom.

Ticktactoe wrote: »

Any other strange activity in the house apart from this?

I've heard stories but nothing really verifiable. The only thing I can add is there was a period when we were teenagers when my sister was scared to go to bed because she felt she was being watched. One night i swapped bedrooms with her to see if there was anything in her claims. Indeed I felt a similar feeling but of course this could easily be explained by me 'expecting' to experience something.

Ticktactoe wrote: »

This tradition of saying the rosary, was this done in your mothers home before bedtime?

Yes,

Ticktactoe wrote: »

Seems like a temporary possession, of what purpose i do not know.

Having given the logical explanation in an earlier post, its probably worth posting what we thought was the paranormal explanation at that time.

We beleived that yes it was a temporary possession for the purposes of stopping us praying as a family. We also beleived that we defeated this 'evil spirit' and forced it out of our house with additional prayer.

loldog

Strange story, I did immediately think of some kind of demonic infestation. What sort of stuff was your mother shouting? Was she just getting hysterical or did she cuss a bit?

.

Gremlin

loldog wrote: »

Strange story, I did immediately think of some kind of demonic infestation. What sort of stuff was your mother shouting? Was she just getting hysterical or did she cuss a bit?

.

Can't remember exactly, my recollection wasn't the classical sort you might expect, just very angry.

Ticktactoe

To be able to comment futher it would be a case of talking to your mother to find out her experience of the event.

When you swaped rooms with your sister did you get a feeling that you were be watched by something nasty or nice? In other words did you feel snug in your bed or wanting to get out of the room?

Do you remember any activity occuring in the house after your mothers event? Im trying to establish if its something that was attached to your mother or to the house.

Gremlin

Ticktactoe wrote: »

To be able to comment futher it would be a case of talking to your mother to find out her experience of the event.

Sadly, you'll need a medium for that! As mentioned, she had no recollection of the event at all, just that she had somehow upset us all and felt it was her fault. Even when we told her what happened she still didn't remember.

Ticktactoe wrote: »

When you swaped rooms with your sister did you get a feeling that you were be watched by something nasty or nice? In other words did you feel snug in your bed or wanting to get out of the room?.

Not nice anyway.

Ticktactoe wrote: »

Do you remember any activity occuring in the house after your mothers event? Im trying to establish if its something that was attached to your mother or to the house.

The incident with my sisters room was some years after the main event described in the OP.

Ziycon

Most if not all of the reactions by the members around your mother can be explained by the Fight or Flight response.

When the fight or flight response kicks in many things happen to the body, one of them being piloerection which is where the hairs will stand on end, this alone will make any slight draft more noticeable to anyone in the area that the draft has always existed but never been strong enough to bother anyone before therefore making people notice the chill. Piloerection also takes heat away from the body to help maintain the right body temperature while the body is under stress in the fight or flight response.

With regards to the noticing your breath, due to the fight or flight response your senses will be much sharper and will pick up on things you never noticed before but have always occurred and been there also with the sudden shock of what just happened people will have most likely frozen therefore causing less air movement to hide the breath in the air.

Just a few suggestions to think over before you start getting into other worldly explanations.

Ticktactoe

From your replies my own understanding of it would be that there was something indeed present in the house that night. Nothing of major concern as it did not escalate further. Some possessions can manifest over years and start to dominate the host however your mothers possession seemed to reach its peak that night and then stopped.

Is there people living in the house now? If so no harm in getting it blessed.

Antikythera

Gremlin wrote: »

My parents are quite religious.

They are predisposed to believing in ghosts. It rubbed off on you.