My ghost story took place in my first apartment, on Sixth st in Springfield IL (pic on left. I lived in the bottom right apartment.) I lived there for only a total of sixth months, but a lot happened in that time. It started off simply enough, usually in the living room. I would be at home doing something simple like sitting on the couch watching TV, and I would all of a sudden feel terribly depressed, I would want to cry for absolutely no reason, and would just be in a near pit of despair. Only it wasn't me, I've never been the kind of person who gets depressed, and I didn't have anything going on which would make me feel that way. I am extremely sensitive to my husband's moods, and usually will feel what he feels or instinctively know what he is feeling, even if we aren't in the same location, but we have been together ten years, and before him I'd never been emotionally sensitive to anyone else, so I couldn't have been picking up on anyone else in the building. Typically this wave would last ten or fifteen minutes, and then I'd feel like my normal self.
Many times I came home from work or school to open the door and find the radio or TV blasting. The radio especially would turn on randomly, usually at a very high volume, usually while I was away from the apartment, but also occasionally while I was home, and more than once in the middle of the night.
I am an avid reader, and often I would lie in bed at night (or even the middle of the day, if I had a rare day off) and read a book. Many, many times, I would be in the middle of reading and suddenly feel a pressure at the end of the bed. Exactly like someone walked in and sat on the foot of the bed. There is no other way to describe it, because that's what it was.
I would also hear foot steps in the living room, bedroom, and occasionally kitchen. Not footsteps from the tenant next door, and no one lived in the apartment above me. This was in my apartment, often in my room. Clear, undeniable footsteps.
I would see him, occasionally. I'd be laying in bed, head facing the living room (the whole apartment was open, there were doorways, but no doors, except for the bathroom, so you can see clear from the front door to the back) and I would see someone walking from the living room towards the closet (on the bedroom side) from the corner of my eye. I would never see them directly, it was always movement in my peripheral vision, but it was enough to give me a glimpse of who I was looking at, someone tale, undeniably male, with dark hair.
The best moment for me was when I was laying in bed, it was either daylight or the lights were all on, I find it hard to remember now, but I wasn't sleeping, I was wide awake. I had a Japanese ornamental sword I'd had on the headboard of the bed for a long time, and was redecorating so I had things just kind of all over. The sword had been placed across the small room on my office chair, and I happened to look over and glance at it. Just as I did, it
moved. Not a tiny movement, not a swivel of the chair, it literally moved across the expanse of the seat, just like someone pushed it from the middle to the back out of the way so they could sit down. I was flabbergasted.
I never felt threatened by him. He was undeniably real, he was there, and despite the fact that no one else who came into my apartment had even seen or felt him, I knew without a doubt he was there, all the time. It didn't creep me out, I eventually got used to the fact that he was pretty much always around. My neighbor next door was Native American, and he said often that he also felt the presence.
When I moved out after buying my first house six months later, I gathered up my courage and asked the landlord of anyone had ever mentioned a ghost, or if anyone had died in the building. My no-nonsense landlord replies "yeah, about ten years ago (of course this story happened around 2002) a kid and his girlfriend were living here. She left him or died or...I don't know, either way, he hung himself in your apartment closet."
There ya go. Validation.
I've had a spirit contact as well, entirely different from a ghost encounter. My Nona and I were extremely close, and while I will spare you the long, emotional, religion-affirming story of her death, let's just say I was a little more than upset afterwards. Around a week after she'd passed, I was laying in bed, somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. I thought I saw a light out of the corner of my eye, and weather or not I actually saw it I still don't know, but I followed it from the door to my chest. My hands were folded on my chest, and I felt a light but definitely-there pressure upon my hands. I looked down, wide awake now, and saw the outline of a hand upon mine. Just resting there. I knew immediately who it was, it it made things so much better.
