Your Experience or Mine

By now you’ve had to have heard the revelation. The network is hosting a paranormal story contest, it’s very exciting but the prospect of sitting in a dark room reading all the submissions found me in a hobbit hole somewhere on the other side of this commonplace in time. A parallel because If you’re telling these stories, others are not because they are still wondering if there is validity to the experience.

I’ve had this long-standing rumination, presumption I suppose about how the parallel of common day horror movies are actually uncommon experiences being given life.

I was somewhere between young adulthood and seasoned life experiences when I found myself burrowed into the couch, eyes wide, breath heavy, and waiting for the next jump scare in an American franchise horror movie when it hit me. I was instantly pulled back to the Victorian-style, 100+-year-old home I grew up in, reflecting on a very specific encounter, that to this day, even after childish fears have long ago lost their influence still makes me want to sleep with the light on.

I remember clearly, that having attended classes, gone straight to my second shift job, and stopping for nightcaps with some friends I came home exhausted. Letting myself into the locked house and after saying good night to my mom I carried myself down the steps into my basement bedroom, walked through my doorway that was adorned with a magnificent retro bead curtain, put on the tv, and collapsed onto my futon in a college student coma. I don’t recall how long I was sleeping when I opened my eyes to someone saying “psst”. By this time my television had shut off and the blackness of night and lack of windows engulfed my room. I again heard “psst”. The voice was not recognizable in the haze of my sleeping mind. Having not been the first experience in this room, I rolled my back to the noise, buried myself and my head in my pile of blankets, and started to recite the Lord’s prayer. The attempts to gain my attention continued, when they went unanswered, I could hear jingling. Like metal clanking together. I prayed louder in my head. The jingling started to move away from me, I heard the beads of my curtain clash together as the sound moved into the other room, finally coming to an end. I’m not sure how but I slept.

The next morning, I awoke, late. Shit, we’ve all been there, sleeping through our alarm. I rushed to gather my things for class and work and was quickly ready to go.  Damn, I couldn’t find my keys. I tore through my room like an officer with a search warrant but no keys. Running up the steps I asked my mom to borrow her spare key and ran out the door to my vehicle. As I reached to open the door I froze. FROZE!  I am not sure I was even breathing because they were on the front seat of my locked vehicle were my keys. No big deal, right? Except I had used the keys to unlock the door the night before and I never locked my car! Was that the jingling I heard?

I am convinced it was my keys I heard being jingled through my bedroom that night. Up until watching this horror movie, I hadn’t thought of that event for years – but now a very similar scenario was being played out before my eyes in someone else’s story. That’s when I formulated my theory, our stories are our own, but they are also someone else’s. Paranormal experiences while unique are sewn from similar threads. Sometimes they bring fear, create curiosity, demand understanding, or inspire. So, I wonder often, when tucked into my couch waiting for the next jump scare from the paranormal movie is this simply the manifestation of imagination or the explanation of an experience? The prospect of the story being born out of an experience, now that is horrifying.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. I am here, sending you inspiration, insight, and strength for what lies ahead in your own self-discovery and connection with Spirit. I hope somewhere between the lines of what I share and don’t fully say you find inspiration and revelations about yourself and your own journey. Please, if so inspired leave a comment. Your feedback will help me better generate topics suited to you, the reader.