Footsteps and tapping
LH wrote:
I grew up and lived most of my life in a very small town in Ohio. The house I grew up in is where I had the scariest event of my life. I am not one to believe in paranormal things nor do I totally discount them. I simply do not know. I remember hearing footsteps coming up the stairs many nights in the house. These I discounted as noises made by an old house. However, one night when I was probably a pre-teen I was in bed for the night and after hearing the footsteps (my room was at the top of the stairs), suddenly I heard small items such as makeup and bottles of perfume, on my dresser start to fall over one by one. Then I heard looseleaf papers I had on a stool begin to scatter on the floor. I froze and immediately tried to think of an explanation. We had no animals, the windows were closed, their was not air circulating. I could not explain it. Just as I lay there long enough to convince myself I imagined it, it sounded like something began tapping on the metal bed frame I was laying on. It was on the opposite side of where I was laying. Again I froze. I don’t know how long I laid there before I fell asleep. I just remember waking up in the morning and seeing that in fact all of the small items on my dresser had been knocked over and the looseleaf papers were scattered all over the floor. I tried to tell my parents and they just laughed at me and made a joke of it. This is something that has bothered me all of my life because I have not been able to explain it.
I am now almost 40 years old. There were other odd things that happened in the house on a regular basis, such as pictures falling off the walls and odd noises. It is amazing what you can get used to as normal. I just would like to have some kind of explanation for these things.
Such experiences when one is a child are far more widespread than you might imagine. Many adults can recall similar experiences to your from an early age, either pre-teen or when transitioning into an adult.
There exists a thin line between what we hear and what our minds conjour and embellish, particularly over time. This in no way suggests you did not experience what you describe, however. But it is our interpretation of the events that colours the details from the original source.
Footsteps on the stairs, for example, can merely be the wood or stairs construction easing after a day’s use. Other sounds, being so specific, are less straightforward to explain, however, each might have a strong origin in the corporeal world.
I have frequently investigated knocking and tapping, and few have remained puzzling in their origin. All buildings make noise, particularly those with wood construction, and it is often the situation and our minds that extend an every day noise into a realms of mystery and paranormal.
I am quite convinced you experienced some form of phenomenon, but there is nothing to suggest it was any form of external entity injecting itself into your environment. I believe these are a combination of amplified sensory experiences combined with fear distorted perceptions. Though this may give you the impression they remain unexplained, the frequency of similar events goes some way to assure you that little out what I consider to be ordinary actually occurred.
M. Keynes
July 31st, 1910 at 5:10 am
Tapping omg me2. Iam now 47 and when I was younger like in my 20’s everytime i went down south, and it didnt matter where I stayed in the middle of the I was awaken by a tapping on my mattress. I would look and nothing and as soon as i lay back down it would start again. In the morning I told my grandmother about it and the look on her face frighted me. She told me it was death, and I need to go back home. When I got back to the north (phila)it doesnt happen. To read that someone else was going to this was a relief.