Over the course of my childhood, I came to experience a lot of strange occurrences while living in my home. Things would go missing, only to be found later in very strange places, doors seemingly locking themselves during the night, footsteps being heard when no one else was home, faint voices being carried up through the old heating vents from the basement...etc. The experience I would like to talk about is my most vivid one, and has haunted me ever since it happened.
I grew up in a relatively old colonial style brick house. What is now the kitchen, was built in the late 1600's (originally a one-room house) and the rest was added on in the mid 1700's. This property was originally owned by a couple who worked in Philadelphia and it sits on an old farm estate in New Jersey, which was also home to the Lenape tribe of Native Americans before that. During those times, it was common place to be born and die in your own home. Maybe that is why there is so much energy tied to the house.
One night when I was 7, I had been fast asleep in my room when a nightmare woke me up in the middle of the night. This was pretty common for me at that age and after some time I would normally just fall back asleep. Because of the nature of the dream, this time I was pretty riled up and could not fall back asleep. I lay awake in my room looking at all the shadowy areas expecting to find something "scary" hiding.
I remember doing a full scan of the room and finding of course nothing, but at some point my eyes scanned towards the door again which was wide open (I can't remember if it had previously been closed or not, but there was definitely nothing out of the ordinary during the first "scan"). It was then that I was confronted with a woman standing just outside the door, and she was staring directly back at me with a completely blank expression. I didn't quite understand what was happening at the time. I knew something was definitely off about this woman, aside from the fact it was the middle of the night and there was a complete stranger standing in the dark in my doorway looking directly at me.
I remember staring back, almost in a frozen state of shock. I don't recall any movement whatsoever actually, but I could make out all of her features clear as day. She was very pretty, her dark hair was slightly longer than shoulder length and it had slight waves at the bottom. She was wearing a long white nightgown... Cliché, I know, but that is what she was wearing. The longer she stared at me the more afraid and confused I got. After a few seconds of this, I remember throwing the covers over my head and hiding while thinking over and over "please go away". When I finally emerged from the sheets, to my relief, there was no one there. I don't know why I didn't call out to my mom as I usually did when I would have bad dreams. I ended up falling back asleep and brought it up to my parents days later.
I am 29 and to this day, even when I go home to visit my parents, I still sleep with the door fully closed:-)
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