I've always been a little apprehensive about sharing some of my experiences on the forum, especially after reading the explanations of some of the science Nazis out there, but a hankering for feedback along with a desire to share it with someone - anyone, has brought me here to the keyboard. So, for starters, I do not consider myself a person prone to the paranormal, strange things aren't constantly happening to me, but I think we all have those few instances that make us wonder.

When I was very little, I'd say three to four, my family lived on the second story in an apartment building. (We lived in the country before that, before I can remember, but remember that, it's important later on) There was a massive pine tree right outside my window, and, maybe it was a toddlers overactive imagination, but I swear nearly every night that tree "woke up" and looked at me, made faces at me, and I would go running to my parents room. They of course, never saw the tree making faces at me and probably thought I was quite disturbed. Which is what all of you probably think now too, but don't write me off as insane just yet.

Next, my family moved to a small house in the country. I was 5-6 at the time and in this house, I heard disembodied voices. (It was a brand new house that my dad built) There was a male and a female, and I remember them always saying nice things to me, yet i was terrified every time I heard them. I can only specifically remember one time, the last time I heard them, my dad had just yelled at me and I ran into my room and was lying on my bed crying, when the male voice (it sounded like it...or he was right next to me, speaking right into my ear) said "Ohhh, don't cry." I know it doesn't sound rational, as it was a rather polite gesture, but I leap from my bed and ran screaming out of my room. I remember that more vividly than anything that's happened to me recently, and it's the last time I heard the troublesome voices.

Fast forward a six or seven years, and my grandmother, whom I was very close to, passed away. At the burial everyone blew bubbles, as a way of symbolically letting her spirit rise into the heavens or something like that (it was comforting at the time, and very pretty). I had been shocked by the death, she was a very healthy woman only in her mid 50's (it was a heat attack), and a few days after the burial it really sank in and I really cried about it for the first time. As i wiped the tears away and turned around I saw a bubble floating in the middle of my room, not like an ball of light orb type bubble, like the bubbles little kids blow, like the ones we blew when we buried her. It disappeared almost instantly, but I did directly look at it.

Now remember when I told you the house I lived in as an infant was important? Well, i live next door to it now, and two years ago my neighbor announced he was cutting down the massive cottonwood trees in the front yard because he's too lazy to clean up after them (cottonwoods are quite messy trees). I was very upset, they were big, beautiful trees, and the night after he cut them down I had a dream about some type of tree spirit, if you look up the Dryad in Greek mythology, that's a pretty good definition of what I saw in my dream. It was running around in front of our house like it was lost, so I went outside and reached out to it and held its hand (it looked humanoid, except it appeared to be made of twigs and leaves and such). It smiled and sort of dissolved into the soil. Then I woke up. I'm not sure why I wrote about that, it was just a dream after all, but it just seems important to me, it was really creepy, yet comforting, and strange...

Recently, while sitting in my living room, I've been seeing little black balls whizzing around. Yes, i know this sounds suspiciously like the "speedy moving shapes in my home" thread, maybe we're experiencing something similar. They're just little black things flying around (and no we do not have a gross infestation of giant beetles or anything like that), i usually ignore them, and after some research, considering all the vicious fighting between me and my little fourteen-year-old sister that goes on in my house (along with her being a very troubled teen who was practicing cutting for a while), i like to think of them as negative energy flying away or something, but hey, call me crazy. One night a few weeks ago though, I was staying up late watching old re-runs, when, on the other side of the living room, i swear i saw a huge (huge being a relative term compared to the small black things I have been seeing) ball of fire fly across the room an few inches from the ceiling, towards my little seven-year-old sister's room. I really can't describe it any better than that, it looked like a ball of fire, and I know most of you are probably thinking ball lightning, and i guess it could have been, but there's no damage to the house, and it's the middle of winter, plus ball lighting is so outrageously rare. The other reason I find it so strange is, about five seconds later, while i was still staring at the ceiling trying to make sense of what I'd seen, my sister came running out of her room crying that she was scared. I asked her if she'd seen anything, hoping she'd seen it too and I wasn't going bonkers, but she just whimpered she didn't see anything, she was just scared.

The last thing I want to share right now didn't happen to me, it happened to my mom, just last week. My little sister was messing with her CD/radio alarm clock and the alarm got set to the radio, but it wasn't on a station, all the played when the alarm went off was very low, quiet static, or i guess it can be called white noise. Needless to say, the alarm didn't wake her up. But she was awoken. She says that she heard a voice, very loud and clear say right into her ear "Wake up, look at the clock!" She rolled over and the alarm, or rather the static, had been playing for two minutes. She only overslept for two minutes. Maybe it was just her subconscious waking her up, but when she told me about it it eerily reminded me of the voices i heard when i was little, especially the part about it sounding like the source of the voice was just right next to her, speaking right into her ear.

And maybe everything here was all imagined, the tree and the voices by a bored young mind, the bubble out of grief, the balls of black and fire because i was tired... maybe...

But i was just wondering about other peoples experiences, if anyone else heard voices when they were little, or saw trees staring menacingly at them...and what people think about all this in general, and go ahead and tell me I'm losing it, I'm prepared for that.

Anyways, I'll be offline for the remainder of the night, I'll be back tomorrow afternoon, Sorry the post was so lengthy, but it's the first time i've worked up the nerve to post, so might was well let it all out. I'd love feedback and if you've had any weird experiences that you don't really want to make a whole new board for, please post them here, I'd love to read them, plus you don't have to be shy about sounding a little nuts, 'cause what could sound more insane than me saying a tree purposely had it's jolly good time sneering at me all night?

Welcome to UM, Lalaith. I've never had those experiences. You say your grandmother died of a heart attack. Many times they are brought on by undiagnosed high blood pressure. Seeing black things floating can be a sign of high blood pressure. You might want to get yours checked.

lalaith call me crazy to but im sure that you had those experiances and i know that those things are largly lied about but rarely in such detail you are definatly telling the truth and the "nymph" might have lost one of its children or was very kind hearted and tried to comfort you when you were scared or felt alone.

Science Nazis?

Sometimes when I'm in a hurry, I just skip down to ColdEthyl's replies. I can get the gist of a thread in like 1% of the time it would take to read it.

LOL

Well I read that and don't remember anything after that.

You said yourself "call me crazy" ...so I will.

I feel so unscientific that I don't consider myself one of the "science nazis" of whom you speak-but maybe I am. I tend to want to rule out all the easy and natural stuff before I start thinking in supernatural terms. I am certainly sympathetic to your problems. A lot of old movies and fairy tales have trees with faces and personalities, etc. One would think the idea for those didn't just originate out of thin air-that it had some basis in reality...then again perhaps somebody dreamed it and somebody wrote something about it to the point that it became known and that knowledge then influences our dreams. A "chicken or the egg" conundrum, if you will.

Many American Indian tribes believe that rocks, plants and trees have spirits.

I had so many strange things happen to me when I was little also Lalaith. I've had my ceiling make faces at me, and moving pictures if I stare at it for too long. This might be hypnagogic (sp?) hallucinations however caused by my diagnosis of narcolepsy. When I stare at something without real intent for too long I tend to enter a sort of trance or lower stage of sleep where it is common for hallucinations to kick in. Maybe if you've noticed some of the signs and symptoms of narcolepsy you might want to get it checked out. This site has some good info on the signs and symptoms of narcolepsy. You don't have to experience all the symptoms and they aren't always really severe either. The way they test you for it is a very grueling sleep exam.

Sometimes I think my biological clock is smarter than I think. I remember a few times I've been sleeping and I'll hear an alarm clock going off (when no real alarm clock was going off) and waking me up. One time this happened 3 hours before I was supposed to get up, which I realized after I was completely ready for school...... I've also noticed that when I was waking up early I would usually on school days wake up 2-5 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. That didn't happen on the weekends. If I had forgotten to set the alarm clock this also didn't happen. I really don't know what's going on their besides my subconscious mind was doing a little more thinking and was a little more alert than I was. It's also twisted...

Lalaith, your post touched me. I think these experiences are spiritual things and the latest with what is going on with the black orbs and the tree dream could be linked to the fact these people are wanting to cut the trees down. The colour black doesn't always indicate negitive energy, but if it is indicating negitive energy then it can be as simple as a display of saddness or discontent. I don't feel there is anything to fear here, its common for activity to perk up when physical/material changes are being made. One thing I do wonder about and that is do your neighbours know your previous connection with the house, if not perhaps it's time to let them know?

Lalaith:
You are not crazy, you have an ability to see into the spiritual realm that others do not have. Only people with the same ability can relate to you while others will mock and scoff. I have seen tree spirits and they are just as real as the trees themselves. Continue with your stories as others like us will definately enjoy them.
Blessings

Equating science with nazis would make anyone mock and scoff.

Oh I don't think you are silly at all! This is fantastic! I've been on so many sites, seeking some way to contacts such creatures as you mention, or to have such experiences. Alas, I remain patiently waiting. I am certain I will find them one day; I'm moving to Ireland in two years' time, and then surely I will find something. Also I can relate to the bubble incident in a way. When my father's best friend, my godfather, died, his family couldn't switch on his cellphone because they didn't know his pin code. A week after his death my mother looked on her cellphone and saw that she had a missed call from a number. She called it, and the answering machine came on. It was my deceased godfather's answering machine; the call had come from his phone. My mother called his wife, but she said that the phone was still off, there was no way anyone could have called my mother from that number. We knew then that he would always be with us.