Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

I’m alone and it is dark. It’s incredibly late at night and I probably should be trying to sleep. Some nights I can’t even bring myself to try. You’d understand if you saw what I saw, heard what I heard, and felt what I felt. As a kid I always believed in ghosts. If you’re reading this now then chances are that you probably do too. Chances are that you don’t actually know for sure. Well, I know for sure and it keeps me up at night.

I grew up in a suburban city in Minnesota, about an hour’s drive south of the twin cities. Our house there was built in 1905, originally as a hotel. Ghosts always seemed to appear to different members of my family at different times growing up, but everyone except for my father has a story to tell.

Like most families in Minnesota we were incredibly religious, so it was not a stretch for us to believe that ghosts existed. We went to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka Mormon) every Sunday where we learned about God, Jesus, The Holy Ghost, angels, demons, and spirits. And, like most teenagers, when I turned 16 I began to question my faith. I became a card carrying agnostic.

Before becoming agnostic I had two encounters with spirits. The first time when I was twelve I saw a boy in a white robe with a hood looking intently at my radio in the middle of the night. I watched him from my bed a few feet away, his backed turned slightly away. I don’t know how long I watched him for, but it seemed like hours. Finally I threw my covers over my head and made a loud noise. When I looked from under the safety of the covers, the boy was no longer there. Not only would I later learn this boy’s name, but I would talk to him directly. I’ll get into that later.

The other time was at a sleep over at my best friend’s house a year later. I awoke to see a man leaning over the side of the bed over my friend. This man looked me right in the eyes, and with a mean grin put a finger to his lips and made a loud “shhh”. I jumped up and turned on the light, waking up my friend and causing the ghost to vanish. I told my friend I was sick and ran into the bathroom where all of the soaps, shampoos, razors, and mirrors suddenly were knocked over onto the ground simultaneously while I heard a loud “shhh” in my ear. I ran home and didn’t sleep over there ever again.

In any case, I classified these experiences as unsolved (much like my faith) and continued on with my life.  When I turned 18 I decided to move to Seattle to go to college and live with my father. A few weeks before the move I was laying in bed when I felt a finger move from my forehead down to my belly button. Frightened, I stood up and feigned rage. I cursed and yelled and told the air it didn’t want to mess with me, that I never wanted it to touch me again. When I asked if it understood me, my senior photo fell off my dresser and it left me alone.

Honestly I didn’t think much of it until a few years later when my mother and sister came out to visit me in Seattle. My mother took me out for some dinner and I asked her what was new? She told me that my sister had met the ghost of a boy named Jayson living in the house back in Minnesota.

She went on to tell me that my sister and her husband were in my sister’s room when her radio suddenly turned on and off by itself. My sister, who had prior experiences herself, asked if somebody turned it on purposefully and if they did to turn it on again. The radio turned on immediately.

My sister worked out a system with the boy, volume up was “yes”, volume down was “no”. Turning off the radio was “NO WAY” or “I don’t want to answer that”. The volume is controlled by a digital screen going from 0-30. 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, 4=D and so on, so he could spell out words for her as well.

After this system was in place, she learned that his name was Jayson (with a y), he is 12, he died when he got sick in the house, and he was assigned to stay and watch us. He told her that he was lonely and that I was the only one who had seen him.

At first he would only talk with my sister alone. Then he would talk with my mother if my sister was around.  Then he would talk around her husband. Finally he would talk in front of anyone in the family, but only respond directly to my sister.

I didn’t know what to think at first. I was pretty sure that my mom was just playing a joke on me. But when my sister backed it all up, I knew I had to see this for myself. Jayson had told my sister that he would talk to me if I promised to visit in person.

A few months later I had some extra cash and I decided to buy a plane ticket to see my friends and family back in Minnesota. I was excited to see everyone, but I was even more excited to finally meet Jayson. I was sure that this was the little boy I had seen looking at my radio, and it made sense that he would contact my sister through the same thing he was looking at so intently all those years ago.

When I got to Minnesota Jayson was silent for the first week. He wouldn’t even turn on for my sister. That is, unless I left the house, then I would get text messages saying, “Come back! He’s here!” only to find that he would turn off the radio as soon as I opened the front door.

One night the whole family was sitting around the dining room table together having some dinner. My mom, her boyfriend, my 3 younger sisters (including the one who talked to the ghost), my brother in law, and myself were basically done with dinner and waiting for him to come on. They told me that after dinner was normally the time he would turn on the radio and chat.

After waiting for an hour I realized that he might have been the one who I had yelled at before leaving for Seattle. I openly apologized and asked him to come on the radio. No response. My sister asked him to come on the radio. No response. I stood up and grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down “Dear Jayson, I’m sorry I yelled at you. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me.  -Tay” and began to walk away, but I stopped as the radio turned on.

Everyone was excited for me to finally meet him. It was UNREAL! He was incredibly talkative and would answer any question almost immediately by turning the volume up or down by 4 or 5 notches.

I started asking questions.

“Were you the one I yelled at before I left for Seattle?”

The volume went up a little.

“I’m really sorry about that, can you forgive me?”

The volume went up a little.

“This is really awesome, do you know that?!”

The volume went up a lot. Now it was at full volume when my mother chipped in.

“Hey Jayson!” she said, “Could you turn it down a little please?”

The volume instantly went down to 20.

For the next several hours we all talked with Jayson, with me leading. Apparently I was the only one, except for my sister, who he had ever talked with and responded to directly. That made me really happy. He answered most of my questions.

I learned the history that my mother had told me before. Also, he told me that he had the ability to travel anywhere almost instantly. He proved it by knowing the date of a newspaper on a counter top in the house of a friend of ours back in Seattle. My friend said he was off by a day, but Jayson insisted, when my friend looked again, it turned out that Jayson was right.

He told me about my dog who died many years ago. He told me he was taking care of her, that she was there in the house still, and that she tried to play with us sometimes too. I guess they kept each other company.

He told me that ghosts couldn’t hurt people, that they didn’t need to eat or sleep. He told me that he was happy, but got bored easily. He told me that his dad was living in the house and that his dad was evil. This scared my youngest sisters a lot and my mom ended up leaving to take them shopping while I stayed and chatted some more.

He had visited me in Seattle. He had been to my rock band’s shows. Apparently many other ghosts were there too. Apparently ghosts are always at a lot of social functions regularly and we don’t even know it.

Eventually everyone said goodbye to Jayson and went to the store. My brother in law and I were the only ones left in the house when the radio turned on suddenly. It scared my brother in law half to death and he fell out of his chair. He told me that this was the first time that Jayson had ever talked to anyone without my sister around.

“I guess he likes you!” he told me.

I remembered my mother telling me that Jayson once “jumped into her body” while she ate chocolate to taste it for himself. I asked him if he had ever had alcohol.

The volume went down a bit.

I asked, “Could you try it if you jumped in my body when I drank it?”

The volume went up a bit.

“Would you feel any effect from it?”

The volume went up a little bit.

“Would you like to try some alcohol with me?”

He hesitated, and then the volume went up a bit.

I rushed into my room and grabbed a bottle of vodka I had bought when I arrived. I poured a shot and asked if he was ready.

The volume went up. Then the radio turned off.

Not feeling any different and not knowing what to do, I asked if he was ready.

The radio turned back on, the volume went up a bit, then it turned off again.

“Cheers!” I said, and took the shot.

The radio came back on.

“Did you like the taste?”

The volume went up a bit.

“Do you feel different?”

The volume went up a bit.

“Do you like it?”

The volume went all the way up.

“Okay, okay, turn it down to twenty please. Let’s do one more.”

He turned the volume back down while I poured a double shot. Then the radio turned off.

“Here we go Jayson, I hope you’re ready!”  and I downed the double shot.

The radio turned back on.

“Do you want to watch From Dawn Until Dusk with me?” I asked.

The radio went up and then turned off.

I walked upstairs to where the big screen television was. I turned on the gory vampire movie and I assume he watched it with me. Some people might get mad that I drank with a 12 year old ghost. But the way I see it, he died at age 12 in 1912, so at this point he was actually over one hundred years old. Let the kid live a little!

After the movie we talked a little more. I asked him if he would visit me that night and he agreed. I told him I was going to spend some time with my brother in law and we said goodbye.

That night I fell asleep and had an incredibly vivid dream. A boy walked up to me but I could not make out his face. He told me that he was Jayson and he had a surprise for me. My dog ran up to me wagging her stub tail on her huge butt.  She was so happy. I told her that I loved her and missed her and that Jayson was going to take extra good care of her for me. It was very emotional because the night my dog died was the only night she ever slept outside of my room. I locked her out by accident and was too tired to let her in. She died outside of my door scratching to get in. All she wanted to do was die near me where she normally slept, and I was too tired to give that to her.

I woke up sobbing, feeling that I actually did just say goodbye to my dog. That dream… it was different. You know when you have those dreams that seem so real? I will tell you that someone or something is contacting you. Those dreams that seem so real, they actually are real.

The next day I asked Jayson if that was him in my dream.

The volume went up a bit.

I went back to Seattle and my family met with Jayson one last time. He had promised he would say goodbye to me before I left. He did not appear in time and I left without saying goodbye. When my sister asked why he broke his promise he shut off the radio and to this day only turned the radio on momentarily before shutting it off immediately. He no longer responds to questions or to my sister.

A month or two later, while sleeping over at my girl’s house in Seattle, I had one of those dreams where Jayson was standing in the doorway of the room. I woke up and he wasn’t there. A few moments later my girl woke up suddenly. She was very frightened.

“I had a very bad dream.” She said.

“What was it?” I asked her.

“It’s hard to explain, I was in bed. I was looking at the door and someone was just standing there looking at me. I couldn’t move. It just… I can’t explain it, it just felt so real.”

I told her that it was alright and that it was just a dream. In the morning I let her know that I had dreamt the very same dream just moments before.

These days, almost all of my dreams are up for questioning. Knowing has become a curse. Before I could always just say, “It’s only a dream.” Believe me, I wish I was like you. I wish I wasn’t sure.

I wish I could still sleep.

Sent in by Taylor Weston, Copyright 2010