Your own personal mysteries.

[Shoo]

I was relaying this story in the company of my mother and she said that she remembers me insisting that there was a man in my room reading a book, but that she thought I was dreaming or something about it.

It could have been sleep paralysis, where your body turns off before your brain does and it causes some strong hallucinations. Of course, usually during this you can't speak or move.

I've experienced sleep paralysis and it, literally, is the scariest thing I have ever experienced.  I get a little freaked out thinking about it.  I don't know if this is unique to me or if it's a more common experience.  If it's the former though, she would not have peacefully returned to sleep.

I used to experience sleep paralysis frequently when I was younger, and you are right.  It is the most terrifying thing ever.  There were times when I'd actually manage to wake myself up and then do everything in my power to not go back to sleep because I was terrified it would happen again.

[ica171]

The thing I've always heard about sleep paralysis is that it gets worse if you try and fight it, and of course that's your first instinct when it happens.  I really hope it never happens to me.

[hot_shaker]

I was relaying this story in the company of my mother and she said that she remembers me insisting that there was a man in my room reading a book, but that she thought I was dreaming or something about it.

It could have been sleep paralysis, where your body turns off before your brain does and it causes some strong hallucinations. Of course, usually during this you can't speak or move.

I've experienced sleep paralysis and it, literally, is the scariest thing I have ever experienced.  I get a little freaked out thinking about it.  I don't know if this is unique to me or if it's a more common experience.  If it's the former though, she would not have peacefully returned to sleep.

I used to experience sleep paralysis frequently when I was younger, and you are right.  It is the most terrifying thing ever.  There were times when I'd actually manage to wake myself up and then do everything in my power to not go back to sleep because I was terrified it would happen again.

I did some 10 second research and found some info.  It seems like we're not alone according to these articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=78

[kherbert05]

Just solved one. I'm big into family history. I know stories going back 3 -4 generations on 3 of 4 sides of the family. I didn't know much about my Paternal Grandfather's family.

I remember 2 great aunts and 1 great uncle. I knew about a 2nd great uncle. When I was in JH I met Dad's 1st cousin on that side. Dad apologized and said we would never be around him  again*. I had a 2nd encounter when he called screaming calling my Dad by a hated nickname and accusing him of stealing Great Uncle's estate.

I called my Aunt today and asked out Cousin David was related to us. Turns out my paternal grandfather had 2 more siblings and one of them was the mother of David.

I also found out who the great uncle I remember was married to. I always saw him with both Aunt Minnie and Aunt May till they past away. As a kid it never occurred to me to figure out which sister he was married to. Then I was embarrassed I didn't know. 

My Aunt and I are going to get together over the summer and fill in the family tree and add pictures, stories, and recipes.

*In contrast I grew up with my 1st and 2nd cousins on Dad's Mother's side. I knew 1st - 3rd cousins on Mom's side and visited them enough to remember them.

 As a kid maybe 3rd grade, I drew a very detailed family tree as part of a school project that included 3 branches of the family back 2 generations. And included information about some married in relatives.  All from memory in class. The teacher claimed I made it all up. Mom let her have it.

[Brentwood]

Why would anyone store/hide things in a dropped ceiling, especially such mundane things?

Because they knew that one day someone would discover it and it would drive them bonkers trying to figure out why anyone would hide that stuff in a ceiling!

I think the pasta sauce was sustenance for the Creature Who Lives In The Ceiling.

[Brentwood]

Oooooh, Cathy that's so weird!!

I still really want to know what happened to my glasses. My parents were annoyed they had to buy me a new pair, but they simply were not there. I know exactly where I set them, I was only in the pool a couple of minutes, no one else was out there - where could they have gone? We searched all over the porch, the yard, and the kitchen.

Is it possible they're at the bottom of the pool?

Well...this was in 1980, and my parents lived in the house until 1992, so I suspect that someone would have noticed them by then.

Also, I don't know how they would have gotten outside. I specifically set them on the porch railing, and the porch was entirely screened in on 3 sides and attached to the house on the other.

[Cracea]

I wanna know who my yellow eyed man was.

When I was little (maybe 7 or 8?) I was sitting on the curb in front of our house, basically just people watching. I was just plain bored. There was a man in a long brown coat walking up and down the street, looking confused, and he eventually came over to me and crouched down (to my eye level). He had yellow eyes... Not the white part, the iris was kinda a dark yellow color. I've never seen anyone else with that shade of eyes. I remember wondering if I should go inside to my parents, but there were lots of people around, so I didn't. First he asked me where my coat was, and why I wasn't wearing one. I told him I wasn't cold and he nodded. then he asked me where Miss Tammie lived (name changed of course) and I pointed the house out. He smiled and patted me on the head and gave me a sucker, then stood up and walked into Miss Tammie's house, without knocking or unlocking the door. he just opened it. We did NOT live in an area that people kept their doors unlocked either. I went back to watching the street, and didn't bother to eat the sucker.

I don't know how it happened, but somehow the ambulance came to the house, and they brought Miss Tammie out all covered up. (which I later realized must have meant she was dead, but it didn't occur to me at the time.) And that darned man walked out of the house, past the paramedics without anyone acknowledging him, waved at me and walked off down the street. I didn't think much of it, but later asked a bunch of neighbors if they knew who he was. Despite all of them having been gathered to watch Miss Tammie come out of the house (because that was a nosy neighborhood) NO ONE saw the man. And they claimed no one had come over to talk to me, because if they had, they 9the neighbors) would have run him off for talking to a little girl alone.

I still wonder who the heck that was... I ought o add this experience to a book, it was really weird.

At least Death is nice to little girls....

Can I use that quote in a book? That just hit me as a neat statement.

And I totally should've eaten the darn sucker. I have sometimes wondered if that could have been the devil... Miss Tammie was a horrible person, and someone told me she died with a horrified expression on her face. (which brings up the queation of how the heck could Friend have known that? I think she was pulling my leg.)

Lol, go for it.

[dawnfire]

in one of the houses we rented, there was an area in the backyard that was very flat (the rest of the yard was very uneven).  It was about the size of a single garage. This in itself isn't too strange but the grass growing over it was very thin and if you doug about an inch into it you hit a hard surface. We thought it might be a bunker as the house was originally built in the late 1940's for returned serviceman. (the whole area used have a lot of muntions factories in the area)

[snoopygirl]

It's just a little thing but I want to know what happened to one of my drinking glasses. Hubby and I got a set of six really nice glasses from his Grandma at Christmas. We used all the six and then they sat around as we are both really bad at doing dishes. We decided yesterday to run our dishes through his parent's dishwasher. We were gathering up our glasses which were in one location. We found five of the set. We can not find the sixth. I wonder where did it go. I know I didn't break it and hubby says he would remember if he did. So then where is it?

[Kaora]

I have two.

One was with my BF, Raven and I.

We were visiting Raven's house, and my BF had set his wallet down on the table of the room we were in.  Table was in plain sight where ever you were in the room, and BF is VERY particular about his wallet!

We were getting ready to run by pizza place and get some hot pizza, when BF went for his wallet.  It was no longer on the table, and he spent many many many minutes digging up EVERYTHING in that room (with Raven's permission) to find it.

We gave up and went back to playing video games, when Raven went back to get us some soda from his fridge.  The wallet was sitting ontop of the soda.  In the fridge.  No one took it, as we said, the wallet was in plain sight whereever you were in the room.  Don't know how we didn't notice it missing, either, then.

Two is my mum's story.

She taught second grade for all of a year.

One lunch period she goes to leave and follow her class outside.  She steps out after the class leaves, and realizes the area is empty and quiet.

So she steps back in and sees not only the entire class seated, but the principal in with them because she had been gone longer than 15 minutes after lunch ended.

ETA: Minor clarification.

[JonGirl]

When I was in hospital waiting to deliver my son.
My water broke sometime between 12 midnight-1am.
What I want to know is what happened between then and when they took me to the delivery room about 7am?
  

[a]

Well...this was in 1980, and my parents lived in the house until 1992, so I suspect that someone would have noticed them by then.

Also, I don't know how they would have gotten outside. I specifically set them on the porch railing, and the porch was entirely screened in on 3 sides and attached to the house on the other.

My guess would be that a bird took them, what do you think about that? Magpies like shiny things (were they metal?) so could have seen it and flown in - unless you faced that side from the pool 100% of the time?

[shadowfox79]

Back when I was a student and at home over the summer, my father took a phone call while I was out. Unfortunately, he was terrible at taking messages.

I came home to be told that "a girl with a Home Counties accent" had called. No, he didn't get her name or her number.

I still wonder occasionally who that was, because she didn't call back and nobody ever owned up to it.

And I didn't know anyone with a Home Counties accent anyway.

[PaintingPastelPrincess]

I just thought of two:

When I was 12 or 13, there were some family problems going on, and I was pretty upset about it.  Since I'm a worrier, I would stay up at night worrying about whatever aspect of the situation and couldn't sleep.  When this happened, my radio would suddenly turn on and then it turned stations to find a song with the exact right words I needed to hear.  This went on for a period of 3 or 4 months, then stopped.  I lived in that house for years, and cannot figure out how it would do that.  I thought maybe passing cars had some frequency that could maybe turn it on, but how did it change the station?  And if it was passing cars, why didn't it happen again?

The second one was my friend and I walking down the bread aisle at the grocery store.  The bread was on shelves that were up against a solid wall, and the shelves weren't overstuffed.  We were in the very center of the aisle and neither of us could reach the shelves.  No one else was in the aisle.

Brian said something to annoy me, I contradicted, he said it again and a loaf of bread flew off the shelf and smacked him in the side. (It was like it had been squeezed on the shelf too tight and the pressure shot it out, but it hadn't been).  We laughed, put the bread back and walked further up the aisle, still arguing our points.  ANOTHER loaf flew at him.  I won that one.  He said he couldn't compete with telekenesis.

[kitty-cat]

PaintingPastelPrincess- smart brother

Yeah, I never got to do the psychic stuff with my brother. I just kinda would hit him.

And I have one more mystery. Why did it take like 3 days for the bruise to show up from my turning into the counter at my parents house? I turned from the sink literally into the corner of the island at the house. I just noticed a slight spot yesterday and today it looks like I got hit by a golf ball...

And I'm going to the beach tomorrow. How am I supposed to hide it?