Legitimate Paranormal Encounters

[alexgould77]

I'm currently 16 years old. When I was three, I had my first (or at least first that I remember, and certainly not last) encounter with the supernatural. Seeing as I was three, there are details of that day that I don't quite remember all that well. But from what I do remember, and what the people who witnessed it have told me, I've been able to piece together what happened. It was Christmas eve of 1998. I was at my great grandmother's house with the rest of my mothers side of the family. My great grandpa had passed away five years ago, I never got to meet him, officially. But every year we still got him a gift, and left his armchair open on christmas to remember him. It had been fun, we had all opened some presents. I have a good enough memory, you can trust that. I got a black furby, a few beanie babies, some clothes, and board games. Anyway, It was the first time I had christmas with that side of the family, and I didnt understand the ritual with the gift for my dead great grandfather. I asked what the last present was for, and my mom said "that ones for jasper, honey". I remember clearly that it got very quiet. I nodded my head, walked over and picked it up. I carried the small box over to the elderly man sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room. I can still picture my dead great grandfather perfectly in my head. I placed the present in his lap and rested my arms and head on his knee. He laughed and smiled, and then he said "why thank ya alice, i cant wait ta see it is". Then he smiled again and brushed my hair out of my face, and I heard everyone around me gasp. Because they had watched me do all of this, and they had seen my hair move without me touching it. He turned my chin up to look at him and said "i to go now alice, be a dear an let the wife and em know miss em". And he stood up and slowly walked away. You may not believe me, you may be skeptical. But I can assure you it happened. And so can the ten-odd other people that were in the room that day. They don't know the whole story, that's a secret I only ever told my great grandmother. But they know what they saw, and that it couldnt be explained.

[Jayhawker30]

A pretty neat telling, if also pretty dramatic, Alex. Can't know for certain if it's true or not, but it is interesting.

[Craig Browning]

Some would tell you that it's your subconscious creating a connection to someone you'd seen photos of and heard stories about. . . I find such "explanations" lame, at best. They have little more credence than your testimony of events, so when they try to discredit your experience, tell them to F--- Off! They weren't there and all they have to give to the tale is an opinion that's NOT based on the facts. . . it couldn't be, it can only be based on assumption.

Understand, they will play the intellectual card on you; claiming that science has "proven" certain things about memory, the subconscious, dreams and dream programming, etc. But even with all that going for them, they cannot prove anything to the contrary of your claims, it's that simple.

I've had many such encounters with relatives and close friends over the years, many of which were witnessed by others. I think it's a natural aspect of life for some of us, one that should never be feared but should be better understood from both, the metaphysical/spiritual side of things as well as the analytical so we are not so easily deceived.

[ProfWag]

[alexgould77]

Sorry about the dram JayHawker, Im an amateur writer as it is, so I understand how things might seem a little too thought out or too well crafted. The truth is that this day has stuck with me extremely well over the years, especially taking into account my age at the time. Those were his exact words, the exact way he said them. And as for the idea of a child's mind creating a connection to photos or things they heard, that simply isnt possible in this situation. I had never seen any photos or videos of my great grandfather before then. I had never even heard him being talked about. I just knew some how that this 'Jasper' person was the man in the chair I saw. Its difficult to explain. But I was able to describe him to my family perfectly having never been shown his face.

[Craig Browning]

I'll not rob you of your experience, I've known similar things. At the same time I will encourage you to weigh things around the experience, especially because of your age when things happened. There are so many ways our recollection "changes" over time because of outside influences. The other thing to consider when it comes to your age, is that you probably were exposed to photos and other factors tied to this person but you do not consciously realize it in that it wasn't something "focused" but rather something your subconscious noticed in passing. Given that you were roughly the age when memory starts forming for people I'd bet the odds are quite strong that this is the case, so don't discount it off hand; you seem to want an explanation on one hand but you have a "need" to cling to the memory you have of it vs. what could be the more logical course of things. . . Again, I'm not trying to rob you of such an experience, merely encourage you to weigh things out a bit further and leave the door cracked for an alternative solution.

I've had very vivid dreams quite similar to yours and there were no explanations . . . most of mine were portents to death; first, in regards to a cousin I'd never even heard about let alone had any exposure to and the second was concerning my great-grandfather and being with him along with a house full of people I'd never met on the night he died. When we went down to the funeral I saw those same faces and knew most of them by name the instant I met them. . . the cousin I mentioned above, was their brother who had drowned the same day I had dreamt of his passing.

There are many other scenarios that have happened which go outside my family, it's one of the reasons I consider myself to be "Psychic" and thus, I leave the door open when it comes to possible alternative explanations. If I can't do that I'm not being honest to myself and my inner "need" to find solutions -- a reason for this unusual ability I seem to have. But I have to pass every such event through a logic filter or two before I'll label them as being possible manifestations or the psychic/paranormal sort.

[ProfWag]

[alexgould77]

Once again, I'd like to state as I did earlier, that I had never been exposed to any photos or videos of him before that day. They never kept pictures of him around because it used to upset my great grandma. And Ive asked before whether or not I may have seen photos, because I looked up on it and thought about similar conclusion to as what you are proposing. Even in passing a picture that it may have stuck with me. But all the people i have asked told me that it simply isnt possibly. At that point in time, there wasnt a single photograph of him in open site in any house I had been in. And there are only two existing photos of him after age 50, both of which are packed away and had been for years at that point. He wasnt the kind of person who liked being in pictures.

[Jayhawker30]

[Craig Browning]

Jayhawker actually figured things out. . . I don't completely dismiss the psychological explanations (you should know that of me by now), I think everyone having this kind of experience/memory needs to question it based on the rational assumption and not buy into the "delusion" such things can give us. I've had to fight that fight for a very long time, filtering out the rather backward "Hillbilly" views common to my family when it comes to such phenomena vs. memory vs. logic; it's a very hard thing to dissect but not impossible. My personal goal has always been "Understanding" of such things vs. accepting any explanation at face value -- I don't believe in Black or White anything so I must embrace things from a more balanced perspective, knowing within my self that this is where "the truth" resides.

Our friend can deny the whole pre-event contact or subtle connections to this relative, but she needs to be willing enough to at least weigh the possibility in order to be fair-minded and not create a "fantasy" within her mind that can be just as imbalanced as slamming the door shut on one or the other perspective. It's not my exclusive way of seeing things, it is "the way of wisdom" found taught in most mystery traditions.

Can I Support Such a Claim?

I certainly hope so, given that I've had similar things happen in my life . . . then there's that nasty fact that I am a working Psychic/Metaphysician. But as I've said, I believe in balancing the various possibilities before accepting such things at face value.

[ProfWag]

[alexgould77]

[Craig Browning]

As I've said, I've had similar experiences and I've had to look at the rational side of things first, before I can embrace the other possibilities.

ProfWag. . . as you know, I hate the born again "we're going to force the world to become atheist" aspects of the skeptic movement. I see it as rude and very toxic -- dangerous. So yeah, I have a knew jerk reaction to them and how bullish they've become. But too, I've never hidden how I can agree with certain aspects of research or the fact that I encourage people (believers) to weigh things against logic before superimposing the surreal or esoteric to it. At the same time, I preach moderation in that extreme skepticism is destructive just as the extreme of blind faith; the solutions are ALWAYS in the mid-range.

[ProfWag]

[Craig Browning]