Have you Experienced a Ghost? & How do you Know if you Have? Ghostly Experiences...

photo courtesy- http://www.examiner.com/article/what-is-a-ghost-1

I was visiting author Deborah Hughes' blog Ghostly Dramas, reading her blog post about 12 signs a Ghost is Near where of the twelve, one particular one stood out to me- #10 Hearing a knock or several.

 Well, I had just experienced this such phenomena!

A few nights ago my husband, seated at the dining table with our eldest daughter, working on a Pre- Algebra assignment together (good luck with that!)  suddenly heard a knocking come at our back door. Our back door is probably twenty feet or so away from where they were seated. OK, no big deal, we all get knocks on our doors, so what makes this paranormal?

Well, here's the curious thing about that.

It was a little after 8 pm and  pretty much already dark outside. This was also at our back door. Beyond that backdoor where two dachshunds. They bark at pretty much anything that nears the fence and are not to keen on just letting anyone in our back yard. They are good guard dogs. When the knocking came, these two were right outside that back door. They were also not barking. Hmm...

In response, my husband went to the door, peered out the window and said "Hello..?"

Nothing.

He looked to the switch, flipped all the back lights to our back yard, flooding it with severe brightness,sending it void of any shadow, and looked out the window again.

No one.

There was no one at our back door or in our back yard. There was ABSOLUTELY nothing out there. Well, nothing besides the two pairs of blinking eyes of our pooches sitting by the back door begging to come in.

 And again, they are not barking...

Well, this had us curious as well as perplexed. My husband was sure he heard knocking and so was our daughter. So, the pair of us together, my husband with his bat and I with my knife, go out into the dark night to further investigate. Going out our front door, we stick tight against each other and head around to the back gate leading to our back yard. We lift the latch (ok, not together) and enter. From there, with great caution, we proceed with our "further investigating". Searching every square foot of our back yard, we again come up with nothing.

No one. Just the two dachshunds standing at our feet, wagging their tails and giving us strange looks.

We return inside. We lock our front door, assure our kids everything is well and then return to our locked back door. We stand staring at it still perplexed and feeling a little stupid realizing we are still holding onto our bat and knife. What the heck?  What had it been? After putting his bat away and me my knife back to its sheath between the mattress of  the bed we share(of course on my side), we let our doggies in.

A new revelation...

You see, when my husband went to let our dogs in, he opened the door and then had to open the screen door to let them in. This act sent a question suddenly arising in our minds. We heard a knocking on the wood door and not on the screen one. So how, if the screen was closed, if  it were someone outside, did they knock on the wood back door without opening the screen and not have our dogs barking at them?

So, the knock had to have come from the inside.

photo courtesy: http://awesomegifs.com/2011/06/the-shining-knock-knock/

Hmm....again, interesting...

Now, I know this wasn't a spooky story or even near amazingly creepy, but it was my ghost story. And a lot of the time, this is how many of our ghost stories tend to go. This is not the first paranormal experience I have encountered and I'm sure it will also not the last. I am fine on how un-scary my encounters tend to be, and regardless, they still seem pretty cool to me. I have yet to experience a scream your head off kind of ghostly drama, and so far I only get those kinds from watching scary movies or a ghost stories on TV.

Would I want a really creepy ghostly experience? Umm, probably a big NO. I' m not stupid. (She smiles) These subtle experiences are probably enough for my heart. (She smiles again).

Now, A.D. How do you know for sure that you did have a ghostly experience?  (you are welcome skeptics) Well, we really don't know for sure. It's mostly a gut feeling, unless we have hard core proof, and that is even better. Most of the time, its just a firm belief and a fun story to share. I will admit, I am a strong believer in the paranormal, but I am also pretty level headed. I am not what you would call a paranormal sucker (you know, those who will believe almost everything) and do have the common sense to know if I'm being duped.
I do practice de-bunking and I should, I've watched enough Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures to know better (Another smile).


Well, thanks for the drop by and please, if you have a ghostly experience, please share!