Ghosts

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• December 13, 2015

My sister and I shared a room growing up.  When we were kids, it was great, as we grew older, it was not so great.  Lisa and I are very different people.  We look alike.  A lot a like.  But Lisa enjoys the simple things, and trusts people to the point of naiveté, and I pretty much hate every thing and I trust a total of two people in the entire world.  Guilty until proven innocent, that’s my motto.  Lisa was messy.  I inherited my parent’s OCD.  Lisa is easily annoyed, and I’m a ball buster.  Sharing a room drove a wedge through our sisterly relationship, which would take years to recover…

One night, I was laying in my bed looking at the glow in the dark stars on our bedroom ceiling, and my sister was faced away from me on the other side of the room in her bed.  It sounded like she was whispering to herself.  I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, and I assumed she was doing it to annoy me.  Unlike her, I wasn’t easily annoyed.  I could fall asleep through almost anything.  Try your best, Lisa, I thought.

Then, Lisa snapped at me, “stop whispering! God what is wrong with you!!”
The whispers continued.
“That’s not me.  I thought it was you.”
The whispers were still going, then… stopped.
Lisa and I jumped from our beds and ran upstairs to our parents room, yelling something about ghosts.  I couldn’t explain what it was then, just as I can’t explain it now.  Now, I’m not a religious person, and don’t believe in ghosts, at least not in the traditional Charles Dickens sense, but I do believe in other dimensions and think supernatural encounters could have something to do with inter-dimensional play.  There were more than a few “supernatural” (I use that word simply for the lack of another word to use) occurrences in that house.  Now, I half way believe the house is haunted with the parts of me I left there.

That is a ghost story.  The following is not.

Last weekend, I stayed at my Aunt’s house on Long Island to mind her cats while she was away.  Despite being allergic to cats, I’m always glad to help my Aunt, because she’s been overly generous to me throughout my entire life.  Plus, she has a pantry full of cookies and I’m easily bribed when cookies are involved.  I’ve stayed over at her house many times, and it’s cozy, and warm, and I’m quite fond of her house, regarding it as somewhat a home away from home.  It worked out nicely, since I booked shows on Long Island, so I didn’t have to commute back to Queens.

Saturday, after two great shows, I returned to my Aunt’s house.  She lives on the North Shore, and her house is quite secluded, in a semi-woodsy area.  Before I entered the house, I gazed at the sky, which was perfectly clear, and the stars never seem to quit amazing me.

I gave the cats some of their treats, and watched some television, which proved difficult because I was so tired, I kept nodding off.  I’d been exhausted for days.  My body, sometimes, is unable to keep up with the lifestyle I want to live.  So, I went to bed, and that’s when things got weird.

If you’ve read my blogs, then you’re aware that I’m a frequent lucid dreamer.  Most of the time, I know I’m in a dream.  Sleep paralysis and hallucinations are something different all together which doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it’s fucking strange.  Sleep paralysis happens in this half awake/half asleep state, and some people (like my brother) can experience very real (and often terrifying) hallucinations  while being unable to move.  This is called hypnagogic hallucinations.

Sleep paralysis/hypnagogic hallucinations seems to run in my family, which could explain approximately 90% of aforementioned “supernatural” encounters in the house I grew up in.

As I was drifting to sleep in my aunt’s bedroom, I heard people come in the house.  Not just any people, my parents, and my nephew.  I heard them calling for me, and my baby nephew giggling.  I knew this was a hypnagogic hallucination.  If I woke up, they would not be there.  They are in Florida.  They are not at my Aunt’s at midnight.  This is something I’m not able to do frequently, and it’s not as cool as it sounds, but I left my body.  “Out of body” experiences, I suppose, are also some form of the hypnagogic hallucinatory affects.  It’s hard, because you’re trying to move your body, but you can’t, because you’re sleeping.  Your body feels impossibly heavy, like dead weight…  But I was able to tear the conscious away from my living body, and walk out of my Aunt’s bedroom, my body sleeping still there in the bed, as I went to the kitchen to see my parents, feeling as weightless as a ghost.

My Mom hugged me, and my dad said, “where ya been, we were waiting for you?”
“I was sleeping.  What are you guys doing here.”
“We’re here to see you,” my Dad said.
“Anthony is in the other room,” my Mom smiled.
And I could hear him giggling.  My nephew has this very odd yet adorable dolphin like giggle.  I really wanted to see him.  To hold him, and kiss his blond curly hair.  But I couldn’t really hold him.  Because it was not him.  And I was not me.  These were not my parents.  It’s a strange feeling… it’s like… Have you ever looked at a photograph of yourself in a time and place you have no recollection of being?  It must have happened because you’re seeing the evidence, but your memory is failing you.  The out of body feeling feels like what the person in the picture feels like.  The conscious is looking at you, going, “this is not right, this never happened.”  It looks like the real thing.  But it’s not.  This is not my reality or anyone else’s.  This is a dimension that doesn’t exist at all, and that’s a place I didn’t want to be in (I feel like it should be noted here that they only drug in my system that night was a benedryl).

While I’ve spent a great deal of my life living in fiction, this particular dream was not healthy for me.  I told the apparition of my parents I had to go back to sleep, and I turned my back on my nephew’s giggles and returned to my body, which was warm, because it was real.

My eyes fluttered open, and I assumed I was back.  Then, I heard someone at the bedroom door.  Two people came in.  It wasn’t my parents this time.  It was two men.  Two strange men, who somewhat resembled Laurel and Hardy.  The hypnagogic hallucinations would not let me be.  I left my body again, which was easier this time, probably because I never really got back into my body (I don’t mean any of this literally… this all takes place in your head, but it feels quite real).  Both these characters were my height.  And like Laurel and Hardy, they were funny.  They were doing some sort of bit, and I remember laughing, though I don’t remember what it was.  I could see through them, and I acknowledged them as ghosts, as they did me.  I could see right through my hands as well.  Anyway, they were bickering about something, and they had asked me to come along with them (where, I’m not sure).  I didn’t want to.  I felt so tired.  I needed sleep.  Real sleep, not this jerking around in in-between half sleeps.  Then, the one who looked like Laurel grabbed my arms, “we insist you come with us.  You’ll like it better.”
“I’m good,” I said.
Then, he squeezed my arms and pulled them.  And I felt it.  That scared the shit out of me.  Ghosts could not do that.  Imaginary apparitions in a hypnagogic hallucination couldn’t hurt you.  But he just did.  I just started screaming, “WAKE UP NOW. WAKE UP NOW.”  And I did.  I woke up.  I was laying on my arms, which explains the pressure I felt.  Even knowing the logic of it… even knowing none of it really happened… it’s as real of a memory as what I ate for breakfast (which was cookies).