So, do you believe in ghosts?

Well, in the spirit of Halloween, what say you if we trade some scary stories? :-)

I've had my fair share of ghostly experiences and I still remember most of them vividly to this day. A close encounter with the paranormal is something that you just don't forget easily. I've also came across a lot of second hand experiences (those recounted by other people) but isn't that always the case with ghost stories? I'm not really a 100% skeptic when it comes to ghosts, but neither am I a true believer. If you believe in the afterlife, you may have to at least recognize the possibility that some souls may have been trapped in this plane, unable to make the transition for one reason or another. Whether you are into this stuff or not, one thing is certain. There are just some things which defy explanation of any sort.

Here are some or my personal experiences, all of which are true.

The dead schoolmates...

I encountered this situation, not once, but twice. The first time happened in college, and the second, during law school.

The first incident happened in 1992 or 1993 and involved a schoolmate of whom I was reasonably familiar with. He suffered a heart attack and died in his sleep. What's unusual is that other schoolmates of mine have insisted that they saw him walking around the campus the following day when he was already dead. No one paid him much attention, since news of his death hadn't reached them at the time.

The second incident happened ten years ago, in 1995, at just about this time during the semestral break. A classmate had an accident when the car she was riding on hit another vehicle head on while overtaking a slower vehicle. The car was totalled and she was killed on the spot. A friend working at the Dean's office swears that this classmate of mine called him up at the office to ask whether the grades for a certain subject had been released. At the time of the call though, she was already dead. Of course, my friend didn't know it at the time. He pieced it together after learning of the accident a week later.

The smell of flowers...

This happened when I was still a kid of about ten or so. I don't remember when exactly anymore. I remember the inside of our house smelling distinctly like flowers. I know I didn't imagine it, the scent was just too powerful. I tried looking around for a possible source of the scent, but I didn't find any. I told my mother, who smelled it too. The day it happened turned out to be the death anniversary of my grandmother on my mother's side.

Nocturnal visitor...

This took place when I was in my teens. I remember being asleep at night in my room. I was on my side, when I felt the unmistakeable sensation of someone sitting on the bed, behind my back. Instinctively, I tried to turn around to see who it was, but for some reason, I couldn't move. I forced myself to move by rocking my body back and forth. I ended up falling out of bed, waking up with my skin all clammy, and drenched with sweat. There was no one there. A few days later I told the story to other household members, who suggested that I may have been visited by white lady (a female apparition). They said I was lucky to have woken up, and if I actually saw who it was who sat on my bed, I could have just died from fright in my sleep.

The three-holed coconut shell

As a kid one of our maids told me of a superstition in which a person can supposedly see spirits if he or she sits on a coconut shell with three naturally formed holes. I'm not sure if I remember the superstition correctly, but it was something to that effect. If I'm not mistaken, most coconut shells typically have two holes, and a coconut shell with three holes isn't that common.

Well, I was about twelve or thirteen or so when I chanced upon one such coconut shell in our backyard. Being eager to test out the superstition, I actually sat on it for several minutes, seeing if I could indeed see spirits. Well, I didn't. After a while I was joined by my nephew who also tried it out. Nothing as well. One of my father's helpers saw what we were doing and asked what we were up to. We explained that we were trying to see if the superstition was true. It didn't work for us, so after a few more minutes of trying, we quit.

It seems like this aroused his curiosity, and he tried it himself after my nephew and I gave up. The next morning, he was found trembling in fear in a corner of his shack, and all the windows were covered with newspapers and empty sacks. In a terrified tone of voice he said that not long after sitting on the coconut shell, he saw a female apparition floating in the distance, which slowly made it's way toward him. Horrified, he ran and hid inside his shack. Peering outside the window, he could still see the ghostly figure seemingly waiting for him outside. In desperation, he covered all of the windows with old newspapers and empty sacks to avoid seeing the apparition.

None of us really believed him at the time. Within a few days he packed up his stuff and left without a word, no doubt traumatized by his ghostly experience.

I've had other ghostly experiences, but there isn't enough room in this post to recount them all.

So, do ghosts truly exist? I don't know. I just don't know.

How about you? Had any ghostly experiences yourself? :-)