Thanks to Kahren for these stories, the first two in memory of her parents, Ron and Doris Rising:
Experiences of Ron and Doris:
My mother Doris had several strange experiences. I'm not sure what order they occurred in, and Mum was born in 1922 so they were all a long time ago. Both my parents were skeptics, although my father Ron was always curious about unexplained things. Mum on the other hand, preferred to ignore things she couldn't explain. I'm telling you this as a way to explain that neither of them were the types to imagine things.
My mother's 'displacement' experience happened as she was traveling on the top deck of a double-decker bus in London in around the 1950s, which is where all the experiences happened. (We are Swedish, but lived in London). As she was sitting there, she became aware of suddenly being out in the open, and she looked around to see that she was on the top deck of an 1800s horse-drawn double-decker omnibus. She said she froze in shock. The streets and everything around her had changed to what looked like early pre-Victorian times, and everyone was dressed in long dresses and frock coats. She panicked and tried to speak the the other women sitting up there with her, but she said they didn't answer her and she wasn't sure if they could see her.
It only lasted a few minutes, and then she was back where she belonged. She had never heard of anything like that, and in fact none of us had, until I decided to do a search on it the other night.
Mum was wide awake and alert, and definitely not given to flights of fancy. She only told a couple of people; naturally Dad was one, and then me.
Another unsettling experience happened when she was volunteering to help a friend pack up the friend's recently deceased aunt's house. This experience was one that Dad had told my brother and I about many times, and we always bugged Mum to recount the story - but she only told us once. We always called it Mum's ghost story, but now that I read more accounts of 'time slips' I really think it may have been one of those.
She was in a group of friends and they had been sorting and packing this lady's house up to help the family as they were grieving quite badly. They were in the front rooms (the lounge or parlour) and had had a morning tea break earlier, when they stopped for lunch. They all went into the kitchen, which was at the back of the house, and Mum went back to get her cup and saucer which she had left in the front room. As she picked it up, an old lady came in and stared at her. Mum assumed it was another volunteer, so she said hello, and explained that they had been packing all morning and were having lunch in the kitchen. She asked the lady to come and join them. The woman didn't respond, so Mum went closer and asked if she was alright but the lady still didn't respond. She just kept looking at Mum.
Mum excused herself and went back down to the kitchen and told the others that there was a lady who didn't look well in the front room. She explained what had happened, so the group of them all went to see if they could help the lady, who of course, was not there.
Mum described her, and the lady they were helping left the room and came back with a photograph of a group of women and asked if the old lady was one of them. Mum identified the dead aunt. I think this was the first time she had had one of her experiences.
Now I wonder if she had flipped back to a time when the lady would have come into the room during her life, and that is why she couldn't communicate with Mum, rather than actually being a ghost.
Another experience was brief, Mum was at a party and she went outside to get some air and saw a man standing under a tree. Thinking she knew him, she walked to him to greet him, but he disappeared when she got closer. She ran back inside.
The other experience involved both Mum and Dad. They had gone for a day trip with a group of friends to visit a stately home in the country that was open to the public. Dad was a commercial artist, and was always taking photos for reference for jobs, so he took lots of the home and the parklands around it. In one of the photos, there was a long tree-lined driveway that curved off in the distance, so you couldn't see the house or any of the buildings. It was autumn, and so there were leaves all over the ground and it was a beautiful photo. Dad asked everyone to move out of the shot, so he could just get the driveway and the trees, but when he developed it, there was a woman in Victorian dress standing right in the middle of the drive - staring straight into the camera. Dad printed several copies and took them around to everyone who had gone with them on the day, and they were all amazed. It became quite the tale to tell, and to then pull out the photo.
Over time, the woman's image faded off the photo and I must admit that I was quite glad it was gone by the time I was born. We still have the photos taken that day, but they are at my mother's house... If things get sorted out and I can get copies of the photo at any time, I will scan it and email it, although as I said, the woman is no longer there.
These are true accounts of things my mother grudgingly told us, and she was a very morally upright person who wouldn't lie even under pressing circumstances.
Kahren's own experience:
I have a strange story myself...I was in a very violent relationship for five years in the early eighties, a few years after my father had suddenly died. I had been very viciously bashed one night, and the monster was frightened I might die so he took me to hospital. I had my face stitched up and my head injuries treated, and the monster brought me home in the early hours of the morning. When we walked into the flat, it was full of a thick aromatic fog. I realised straight away that it was my dad's pipe tobacco, a very aromatic one called Balkan Sobranie. The monster ran through the flat opening windows and looking for the source of the smoke, while I just stood there feeling very weird and very safe. When the monster came back to where I was standing, I just looked at him and said, "That's my dad's pipe tobacco." As I said it, the fog vanished.
He was so freaked out, I didn't get a beating for about six months. I can't explain what happened. I am not really a 'ghosty story' person. The only ones I have ever believed were Mum's, but that's because I never knew her to lie, and she never sensationalised anything.
This is the first time I have told all these accounts, since I told my children years ago but as I said, I don't want my parent's lives to vanish into nothing.
Ron and Doris Rising
