Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Spookah

Had a slightly odd dream about this rough patch of ground I quite often pass on the way to my parents'. In the dream it was as though I was watching a segment on the local news, and it was warning it had become a hiding place for stashes of drugs, which was worrying as technically it was part of a school playground. At which point a group of schoolchildren walked past, and one of them looked at me directly, which freaked me out a bit, so I woke up and he was still there. Colourless, with curly hair and wearing glasses, standing in my room just beyond arms length.

I always wondered what noise I would make if I saw a ghost, and now I know it to be a sort of loud 'uuuuuurgh (beat) WEAAAAARGH! '

Leaping off the bed, I waved my hands right through the figure, and about a second later he faded from view.

May possibly have woken my flatmate up. Actually I can hear snores now, so I think I got away with it. I'm not counting that as a proper ghost, as it was too much of a cliche (white and see though? Oh come on). I'd quite like characters from my dreams to stay in my dreams though please.

My heart was pounding like a poundy thing, but I was alarmed more than scared, if that made sense. I'm just writing this down now, or I'll forget it.

That might be the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me, although thinking about it, I did eat cheese.

30 comments:

Unknown said...

That reminds me of a few nights back when I walked into my room not knowing one of the cats was lying on the bed (brown duvet and brown cat... so it wasn't TOTALLY my fault), and I sat down at my computer just minding my own business...

And then the cat sneezed.

I totally went "AUGHRRRHHH!!!" (not even sure how that is pronounced) and jumped out of my chair in an almost kungfu stance.

Okay. Now that I wrote it out, I can't recall why your situation reminded me of mine... my brain must be misfiring again.

Anonymous said...

May I be the first to say Awwwww also "James is scared of ghosts, James is scared of ghosts"

Rose said...

Oh, like you're not scared of ghosts.

I like that story very much. It kind of reminds me of the time my housemates told me there was a dead Japanese baby hiding in the loft then made scratchy noises on my door when I tried to sleep. Only less pretend, obviously.

Anonymous said...

There's something your parents haven't told you. You must challenge them and describe this boy.

Hamilton's Brain said...

Could you move immediately once you woke up, or were you at first paralysed? Just curious...

James Henry said...

I was the opposite of paralysed, whatever that is.

Anonymous said...

I had a nasty shock the other day, when I woke up and saw the ghost of Oliver Hardy staring at me from the foot of the bed.

Then I realised it was the mirror on the wardrobe.

Heather said...

I don't want to seem like a nutter but I've had a couple of experiences with what I believe to have been ghosts.

They really are very scary.

I don't blame you for being scared James, even if it was just a dream ghostie.

Anonymous said...

*shudders*

SAL said...

I've never really had any experiences like that although I did once wake up in the 'crab' position ie. with an arched back thinking I was in the Avengers and Patrick Macnee was in my room stopping some tin man from killing me.
Sadly I wasn't wearing a pink/orange catsuit but it was quite amusing.

SAL said...

I'm so bored of my PE coursework I've decided to see how many words I can make out of my word verification. Quite difficult with just the one vowel:

vduvfht

baggiebird said...

I've only ever had one spooky occurance, and quite frankly wouldn't like another. I hope you are less freaked now and sleep well tonight

Piers said...

That story was more than a little bit scary.

If you see him again, try to have a chat rather than the uuegh WAAAH! thing. You could be the new Randall, solving mysteries with your dead schoolkid pal.

Though Randall did get beaten up on a fairly regular basis if I remember right.

OK, maybe not such a good idea.

Anonymous said...

What you were seeing was an image from your visual cortex which lingered longer than usual because you were half asleep. It wasn't a ghost just a ghost image like when old cameras doubled the image on one negative. Do you wear glasses?

James Henry said...

I do, and yes, that's pretty much what I'd assumed it was (mainly because the image seemed frozen, then faded away).

[/slight defensiveness]

Quite pleased I tried to grab it though, even for that first second when it seemed like it was something supernatural - Rargh! Me punch ghost.

Jools said...

Are you sure you're not the ghost and in fact you disturbed poor ghostie who was just going to bed for nap? Plus was the cheese you ate white, hence a white apparition? Reminds me of those school films you used to get (not the safety ones the old drama production ones) and there was one about an alien child and it was sort of white and floaty...am I the only one who remembers this? It was the most frightening thing I saw as a child, well apart from daleks and my parents having sex obviously! (going for a lie down now..)

Johanna said...

How can it possibly be a picture from the cortex, I mean you don't actually see dreams, it's only in your mind? How can there be an after-image of something imagined? I wouldn't think that's really possible.
But then you're a realdoc and I'm not even a pretend doc.

Anonymous said...

Rather than ghosts I'm more one for the fever-induced hallucination. I see it as in-flight entertainment: your immune system knows that nothing fun is going to happen, so it turns on the pictures. I used to have animated discussions with a 6 foot tall rubber duck.

Not sure how I chanced upon this blog, but I'm enjoying reading.

woot said...

I woke up with a giant spider on my face once but that has nothing to do with ghosts, it's just a story of me waking up and having the screaming hab dabs...

Anonymous said...

It reminds me of a very scary moment when I was only a wee lass but it was with green aliens that could walk through walls, It was very scary at the time and then I woke up, got out of bed cos I was a bit freaked and then the green aliens came through my bedroom wall!! I realised in the morning that I wasn't actually awake, it was just a had dreampt waking up, which was a bit mean of my brain really, tricking me in that mean and nasty way...anyway, doesn't seem quite so scary now as it was with green aliens and rather funny but it was bloomin freaky when I was little!

Melissa said...

I used to have recurring dreams of being in a Nintendo-style game (2D an all) everytime I got ill. I would be walking up and down little bricks and platforms over and over. For some reason which I can never remember, it was really scary. Perhaps it was the graphics.

Anonymous said...

I totally had one of those "visual cortex" doo-dahs once when I had a dream about being under attack by a hoard of slow-moving but relentless little old lady zombies and I could still see them when I woke up...

Even now, years after the experience, I still have to avoid M&S on pension day. I'm scarred; scarred and traumatized.

Anonymous said...

this comment is totally irrelevant to this thread but I couldn't read the blog for a week and have now spent all morning catching up and...

you're well within you're rights to stand up as part of 'the talent' James. From a C4 rights perspective talent refers to everyone contracted under a union i.e equity/writers/mu i.e who might be entitled to residuals

so next time stand up & be proud coz a C4 assistant says so!

and she's always right, except when she's wrong

cello said...

Are you sure the 'ghost' wasn't Gromit?

James Henry said...

Gromit? What? Is this some kind of French joke?

Also, 'residual talent'! Huzzah!

cello said...

Cheese.

James Henry said...

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

VG

Anonymous said...

I know this post is ten days old, and it's probably pretty pointless commenting at this stage, but I just wanted to say - the exact same thing happened to me once, years ago. Fucking terrifying. I had a nightmare that my boyfriend was drowning some girl in a stream, and when I woke up, there she was, all dead and covered in weeds on the rug next to my bed. I screamed the house down.

Anonymous said...

That last one was me. Not sure why it was anonymous. Not that it matters.

James Henry said...

Scary, isn't it?