Ghost hands

[667-Neighbor of the Beast]

I guess the stories start out, as far as I know, with the birth of my father. My grandmother told this story to me and my mother when I was younger. She said that while she was in labor with my father, there were some complications, and he basically would not come out. This was in a very small town in Indiana, so any advanced medical attention was out of the question.

It had been several hours with the doctor and nurses trying to figure out what to do.

At one point, when the doctors and nurses were standing on the other side of the room, my grandmother said a disembodies hand appeared, and grabbed her by the wrist. She said it was small, and described it as almost looking like a monkeys hand. The hand lifted her arm up, and brought her hand down with force on her belly. It was hard and loud enough, that the doctor turned around wanting to know what the noise was. At that point, he literally had to run across the room, and my father was coming out very quickly. It was as if the hand basically helped push my father out by making my grandmother smack her belly in the right spot. Of course, she never said anything, as she didn't want to look like a fool.

Fast forward many years, to when I was a child. I am guessing 3 or 4. I was very sick, and the doctors were having trouble getting me to react to the medicine. I had a very high fever, and from what I was told, was barely hanging on. I don't remember most of this, but I do remember what happened next.

My mother was trying to get me to drink some water. As she brought the cup up to my mouth, I looked inside, and saw a disembodied hand in the bottom of the cup. It scared me, and I refused to drink it. My mother was very confused, as I was saying I didn't want to drink because of the hand in the bottom of the cup. She thought maybe I was hallucinating, so to humor me, went and emptied out the cup, and refilled it. I didn't see the hand this time, and drank. The next morning, I woke up, and the fever was gone, and I was back to normal. In the condition I was in, I should not have recovered so quickly, but I was fine.

The next incident, a couple of years later, I don't remember at all, but my mother remembers.

I was sick again, had been for several days, and home during the day with my mother. I think I was probably 4 or 5. I was playing in an empty box, like most young boys, and my mother said I came running into the room, saying a hand came in the box. She questioned me on it, and I claimed I was in the box, and a disembodied, hand reached into the box, and shook the box with me in it. A lot of paranormal things have happened to me and my family, and my mother always had and interest in them, so had learned by now to just ask question and collect details.

So, she continued to ask me questions about it. From what she could tell, I wasn't scared, just surprised. I told her the hand didn't seem mean, or like it was trying to scare me, but rather almost playful. Like it was trying to play with me in the box.

Fast forward many more years. My father, who is athiest and does not believe in ghosts/paranormal anything, was at home recovering after his first heart attack (first of three). He was sitting in a chair, watching TV, when the sun came out from behind the clouds, and shone in through the window. When this happened, he claimed he saw the hand and arm of a man standing in the room. Just the arm and hand, and it was very transluscent. He got up and went to touch it, and his hand passed right through it. Soon after that, it disappeared.

There were many more incidents that my grandmother told us about, several of which related to ghost hands, both good and bad.

I have looked online to see if there are any such stories. I cannot find anything about ghost hands providing help, or following families, or any of the such. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this before. There are several reasons I ask about this now. I want to gather some info before putting together any hypothesis.

[Stubbly_Dooright]

Actually, your story brings back a memory. Sitting around at a Denny's with friends late at night, and we were telling stories, or recounting experiences so to speak. One friend was talking about her experience sleeping over a friend's house. It was a very old house, and there have many sightings of a civil war soldier who hung himself in the house. My friend was saying while she was lieing in bed with her friend, trying to go to bed, she felt a hand on her hand and told her friend to take her hand off. Her friend said she wasn't doing that. Looking down, she saw only a white transluscient hand. Totally freaked her out. We were so entranced with her story, that when the Denny's waitress came up to see if we need anything, we jumped.

[beelzebufo]

There's the "hairy hands" legend of Dartmoor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_hands

Though I'm not sure how helpful you'll find this, as the ghost hands in this story are exclusively malevolent and didn't follow any families.

[EnglishStudent526]

I would invite you to read a book series called Everlost by Neal Shusterman. Although the vocabulary isn't of the highest degree, there's a certain part to it in the second book that makes an interestingly similar concept to your story.

[Beany]

I saw a disembodied hand just once, it appeared to be floating next to my bed, and seemed to be made of beautiful blue & green light. That was years ago, I'd love to see something like that again.