@missy @rambo @lyxzen
An honest to goodness experience with the paranormal ? I would have to say no. But now and again you go places that make you wonder because they feel thinner than the rest of the world.
You see things in these places that defy explanation and make the hairs on your arms stand up. Your natural desire to flee will kick in but you can't say why even in hindsight. You just know that staying would be a bad idea.
I remember visiting Beechworth Asylum on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. It's been decommissioned for years, but still stands as a testament to the horrors that humanity inflicts on itself. Sometimes, in our efforts to do good we just end up doing more harm.
We walked through the old Hydrotherapy wing, where patients used to be dunked in icy water. Sometimes it was forced baths and sometimes it was because the patients had the hoses turned on them. In this wing, my arm turned cold - almost numb - when we walked through the door. I still can't explain that save to say it was deeply unsettling.
Later, me and my friend were surprised when the guide took us down to the cellars...where the worst of the worst patients used to be housed. These patients were the ones that ( in the eyes of the staff ) could not be rehabilitated. The tour guide decided to turn the lights out on us. It's in pitch blackness that mere seconds stretch into monstrous minutes and hours. I don't know how long the lights were out, but I was glad when they came back on.
Later, we drove back to our hotel and I still maintain to this day that there was a third passenger in the car. From the corner of my eye the back seat had a person shape sitting there. I dismissed it at the time calling it the work of an over excited mind. Later, in my hotel room there was a clicking from the desk that sounded oddly like a pen. Naturally I didn't investigate...but I think now we picked up a hitchhiker of sorts from Beechworth.
I'm not a sceptic...like Fox Mulder I want to believe. I think that sometimes a place like Beechworth - a place of great emotion - leaves an imprint on the world like a stain. It can happen to objects too. Perhaps that's why we surround ourselves with things that on the surface are only sentimental in value. Perhaps we know on some level they carry something more...some essence of a loved one long gone.
