Great article, once again, Leslie!

I think each and every one of these things has touched my life at some point. Nothing hits closer to home than the part about children.

As a child I always had little experiences like a doll of mine disappearing for 2 months then reappearing in a spot where when I woke up in the morning, that was the first thing I saw. When we moved, even though it was new construction, I knew the house was haunted. I heard the sounds of children singing and laughing. Of course my parents didn't believe me. They never have either.

Last year my daughter started waking up a lot during the night and saying she wanted the lights on (she still sleeps with the lights on). She told me there were "dot monsters" (orbs?) that would come in her room and take her toys and move them. Of course this could have been childhood imagination. She was 3 after all. But instead of telling her "there's no such thing," I told her that this is her room and if she doesn't want to see dot monsters then she needed to tell them to leave her alone. I smudged and afterward heard of maybe 2 instances of the dot monsters returning but haven't heard of anything since.

Thats so weird, what you said about your daughter.. cause my son says the same things... he all of the sudden wants the lights on and tells me that there is a ghost in his room that just stares at him.. if I ask him to many questions though I feel like he starts making things up to add to it.. but what has always stayed consistent is where he sees the the ghost and what he looks like which he says he is "white" other then that there is still a huge communication barrier between me and my son lol. But the light has to always be on because he says that the light makes it so the ghost(s) wont come... its kind of creepy that he would know so much at this age of that kind of thing... Do you think it really matters if the light is on or not? Could he be right about that?

I grew up with this phenomenon. It was daunting, to say the least. I never had any of my friends sleep over more than one night-they were all to SCARED! It earned me a reputation as a witch by age 6 and that made life a little difficult, to say the least. My Mom and Grandma used to tell me to just "stand up to them and tell them to knock it off." It worked sufficiently well since I'm still standin' and my orbs srill bop through my bedroom on a regular basis. I still tell them to "knock it off," on a regular basis. they don't bother me and I don't bother them.

There were a few things going on in my daughter's situation, which sort of goes back to the point of Leslie's article. Trying to piece out a "practical" answer vs. one of a "paranormal" nature.

For one, she seemed to be freaked out by a shadow on her wall. Can't blame her, I'm 30 and not really a fan of shadows, especially when I can make shapes out of them. In this case, her nightlight was behind her end table, which has a table cloth on it and a white noise machine on top, and the combination sort of looked like a cloaked figure. Move the nightlight, turn on one of her room lights, and voila, no more shadow.

The "spot monsters" were a little more tricky, especially with her claims that they were moving her toys. That's were the smudging and cleansing rituals came into play.

As far as the light being on goes, if it makes her feel safer and more secure in her space, then yes I think it helps.