My Supernatural Encounters (not recommended for night reading).

Everyone has a story or two to tell when it comes to the 'supernatural' and the unexplained. I'm no exception. So for today's post I thought I'd re-tell my little exposure to a collection of strange events and happenings during my time living in the family home, an old Victorian-built terraced house in Canton, Cardiff.

As the title suggests, reading this at night, especially alone, and more so if you are of a nervous disposition when it comes to the dark of night and your imagination can run away with you, I wouldn't read this in bed or alone in the dark. Trust me.

Without further ado, let us proceed - and before we do, what you are about to read is not fiction, that I 100% guarantee... but these are my own personal experiences, actual or imagined - that's for you, the reader to decide. Though first, I'd like to set the mood by sharing another tune from my youth, going back to 1981: Japan and their song, 'Ghosts'.

My First Encounter:I think I must have been 4 or 5 years old at the time when this event happened to me. The old family home in Canton was a Victorian terraced house with three bedrooms. The front bedroom belonged to our parents, the middle bedroom belonged to my brother and I, and the back bedroom belonged to my sisters. Back then it was double beds for the kids. Each room had an iron cast fireplace, wooden sash cord windows with single paned glass and a chamber pot under the bed. Our toilet was outside attached to the back of the house in the garden.I remember waking up alone in the bedroom. It was a sunny day outside and I was very happy to play under the blankets in my favourite game of making tunnels. At one point I recall kneeling up and pushing the blankets above my head with both arms. Without warning I am pushed from behind with enough force to throw my head backward as I fall forward onto the mattress. I throw back the blankets and roll out of the bed laughing, thinking it is my brother or one of my sisters messing about. I run from room to room looking for them. Nothing. I go downstairs. Still nothing. I only find my mother in the kitchen preparing food. No one else was in the house.
Also, I do recall a habit I had of taking a particularly favourite toy of mine, be it a die cast car or toy soldier, to bed and placing it on the bedside table. But in the morning they would be gone, never to be seen again.
Next Encounter:This happened when aged 11 or 12 years old. We had moved up in the world and had single beds to sleep in, but our bedroom was still the middle bedroom. This particular night I remember waking up from my sleep, lying on my back. What I saw next is hard to describe, but basically it was a dark mass floating directly over my bed - darker than the room. This thing seemed to be as long as my bed. I was terrified to such an extent that I couldn't move an inch. I'm frozen solid with fear, realising this thing is ever so slowly lowering closer and closer, its blackness gradually blotting out the view of my room behind it. I break out in a sweat. I feel beads of my own sweat running down the sides of my limbs and body. It's disgustingly uncomfortable, but I'm so terrified I dare not move. I'm listening and feeling my heart pounding in my chest as this shadow is getting closer and closer towards me, as if in a slow motion free-fall. It was all I could do to pull the blankets over my face and hide. Eventually I fell back to sleep.
Strange Shadows:Not much else happened after that. Life seemed to go on. I got on with school and swimming for City of Cardiff, and just growing up. It was around the age of 16 that my brother had moved out to start married life, my eldest sister had left years before to pursue her dancing career. I had changed rooms to the ground floor middle room after my sister had bought the family home. Mum and dad had moved to a flat on the other side of Cardiff, and part of the deal for selling the house to my sister was that I got to live there until able to afford my own place. But I still paid my way, by working at a wholesale fruit and veg market in Bessemer Road.    Around this period is when I kept seeing shadows out of the corner of my eye. These were usually most active at night. My sister had installed a safety glass door dividing the dining room from the hallway. It was from the kitchen/dining room that these shadows could be seen flitting from the bottom of the stairs and darting into the middle room and back again. I know I wasn't going mad, as my sister had also witnessed them on several occasions.     During the same period, my sister and brother-in-law called me up to their room to look at something. Upon entering the room, both were stood at the foot of their bed staring at the quilt. At the very centre of the quilt was a raised area, circular in shape and larger than a big dinner plate... and it was warm to the touch as if a cat or small dog had been curled up asleep on the quilt. But we had no animals in the house.
Fast Forward to next Encounter:Now I'm 20 years old. Still living at my sister's house and still in the middle room. Life is great. I'm seeing a girl, enjoying life and working at the STAR leisure centre in Splott as an attendant. I'm a creature of habit.  Always was, always will be. For me, there is a place for everything and everything has a place. Easy enough. Never lose anything.    Then the shadows start appearing in my room again. Initially they appear as what I could only describe as being 'children', usually playing about at the foot of the bed, and oddly with red, curly hair, but aside from that feature, they are as black as the deepest pit. I'm half asleep, half awake. I would sometimes sit up and watch them, talk to them, but all the while everything felt ok - good vibes, shall we say.  Then a shadow dressed in a harlequin outfit of large multicoloured diamond shapes, but the face and hands are totally black, made an appearance. Between him and the kids, I wasn't bothered. They seemed happy enough.    But then appeared the shadow in the farthest corner of the room, diagonally opposed to the foot of my bed. *this is giving me shivers just thinking about it! *     This one was taller than the rest, easily six foot, and from its shape, seemed to be wearing a kind of armour - it's hard to tell or recall, mainly because unlike the children or the harlequin, this one had no other colour save black.    Initially I would address him/it as I did the others. I even found it amusing. But I remember that as the nights progressed, the harlequin eventually stopped appearing. Then one-by-one the children started to cease appearing. With each passing night this tall bastard was gradually getting closer to my bed. I never saw it move, but each new night its position was always closer. Eventually it was only him--I'll call it him as that was the impression I got, plus this armour-like appearance was definitely male in size and shape--and by now I'm feeling it is there for no good reason and to do me harm. So now I'm swearing at it, making threats at it, but still its appearances are getting closer to my bed.  The night came when it appeared in the centre of my room. I snapped. Leaping out of my bed I attack it. At the point of impact I suddenly feel as if I've been dropped in to ice cold water. The thing has vanished and I'm rooted to the spot, struggling to breathe, body shuddering. My heart feels like it is about to explode inside my chest, beating so hard that it is the only sound I can hear within my own skull. I feel sick with the pounding blood and adrenalin surging through my body--but that intense cold is horrendous. I don't know how long I was rooted to the spot like that, maybe seconds, maybe a full minute or more? I don't know?
I could go on, but I won't. The less I talk about it the better I find it is. But has it bothered me? Yes. Have I been affected by it? Yes - I'm afraid of the dark, but I will move through the house in complete dark whenever I can to overcome that fear. Have I seen anything else recently? Yes, once - in an old thatched pub locally. Around the nook there is placed a bench and opposite a single chair. Whilst stood at the bar I can see from out of the corner of my eye a figure of a man sat in the chair, but when I look directly at the chair it is empty.     So I ask the barmaid quietly, 'Is this place haunted?' She smiles and replies, 'Yes it is.' So I point to the chair and say, 'It isn't by any chance a man in dark clothing sat in that chair, is it?' Well, the look on her face was a picture.     Wide-eyed she stares at me and says, 'You've seen him?' Apparently it is the ghost of a wandering minstrel. The last person the ghost took a shine to was a long distance lorry driver who stopped drinking at the pub as it would seem the ghost kept following him around, even beyond the boundaries of the pub itself.

It's been a long time since I lived in that old house, and during that time I've moved several times. Have I had any 'Shadow People' encounters since? No. Although I have experienced visitations from our beloved dog, Darcy, and two of our cats after their passing. Both comforting and heart-breaking experiences.

And to this day, I still have a primal fear of the dark, but to overcome that I will move through the house in the dark as much as possible. Still gives me goosebumps every once-in-a-while, though.
Have any of you had 'odd' experiences? Anything similar to mine? Or are you of the opinion that such things are hogwash?