What do you remember as being your first paranormal experience?

Mine- I grew up in a house with lots of forest around it that I loved to explore. One day, while exploring deeper in the woods than I ever had before (I was in 3rd grade at the time, so I guess about 8 years old or so) I cam across a dilapidated old shack. The roof was caved in on half of it and there was an old potbellied stove in the center of it. As I looked around, there were old cans and bottles and some old tools that were all rusty. I went to pick up a pick from the ground and as I leaned over, I felt a gentle shove. I lost my balance and fell over, but when I looked around, nobody was there. It was a little freaky in the first place, but I got the feeling that I wasn't welcome there. I got up and as I exited the shack, felt another shove. This time, I fell forward out the door. As I got back up, I saw what I had missed going in... there was a huge rock that was hidden by a large rhododendron plant that I could't see and it had writing on it, but the writing was too worn to understand. I went back later, but never into the shack again. Eventually, it was bulldozed and they build duplexes there. I often wonder if the duplexes have any activity.

My first experience was at the age of 8 or 9,my family lived in a house that was first a apartment upstairs/downstairs.Father removed walls and added wall's down stairs.Upstairs became sleeping area.This is where i started hearing noises and seeing shadow movement.My dreams were of little people (clowns)I never was scared or wanted to leave, always would go to my room and go into the closet that was once the kitchen sink and cabinet area and listen to the giggles and laughter.This was in New Jersey around 1969-70.

I was about 3, I guess. We lived in a house not far from where I am now and I can remember the doors coming unchained and opening on their own, shadows moving down the hall, electronics turning on and off at all times during the night and voices that could be heard from what seemed like every crevice in the house.

After years of research and speaking to several groups it was determined that I was a sensitive. To this day I have personal experiences almost on a daily basis. In fact, while writing this, my youngest son just told me that a glass moved on the counter and flew to the floor. It's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last. *sigh*

My first paranormal experience was when I was around 10 years old. My dad asked me to go to the basement to get some chairs for my grandparents because they were in town from Minnesota. So I went downstairs and to the right was a door that led to the laundry room. I opened the door and the light across the room over the dryer was on, I then noticed a shadow on the ground that was casting against the light. There was a sound that was like someone was dropping a marble, letting it bounce a couple times, then picking it up and dropping it again. I wasnt scared, but I couldn't move.

Probably about 3 or 4 years old as well. I went into the kitchen to get a drink from the fridge (this was after dark) and there was a silhouette of a woman standing in front of the fridge who I thought was my mom until I realized she was in the living room.

My first Paranormal experience was when I was in my mid teens. It began with a series of events known as Sleep Paralysis. I was awake in bed, but could not move. Mind fully awake, but body asleep. I could see a dark figure in the corner of the room, and it tried to keep me there.

I detailed the experience in a post several months ago so I won't go into much detail again.

LINK TO FULL DETAIL

I learned a lot through that experience, but probably the most significant thing was that there really is something to all of this. I think it was the defining moment that really started me along the quest.

This is a reply to the musings on whether or not spirits might still lurk at the location where the little 8-year old third-grader wandered into the forest and was accosted by a ... ? (What IS the label for a 'presence' that pushes, tugs, grabs?) Anyway, my experience is that energy phenoms (in whatever form) STAYS with the land.

Why do I believe this? Because I lived in a haunted neighborhood in Seattle's Greenwood District for 13 years (1986 - 1999) I wrote two books that include my experiences, and that of my neighbors. It 'haunted' me that so many residents of the neighborhood had been visited by spirits 'from beyond the grave' so I did a land records check to see if there hand been a massacre - or something.

I learned that our housing development sat on an abandoned CEMETERY! It all made perfect sense after that. Unless something happens to calm the energy of the voices beyond, the hauntings will continue.
Emily Hill, 'ghost writer'

I think I've heard about that...

I am actually living in the house I grew up in, but I am a little apprehensive about knocking on the door ad asking if they have any experiences they would like to share, especially since I am not 100% sure which of the duplexes sits where it was as the rhody is gone.

My wife and i bought a home that that the wood was at one time part of the old post-office in Advance,NC.I was doing alot of work on the home since it was built in the late 1940s.I opened a wall and found old papers bottles snuff cans,under house alot of trash.I started to have things moved from were i placed them.Then i would feel like there was someone around me.I also had the DREAM I was awake but still asleep.Seen but could not talk and This time i was able to watch what they were doing.Pulling tissue form the box,swinging from the light fixture.All this was in our bedroom.Pam thinks i was having weird dreams she has never felt or seen anything.My daughter would put her head phone on so she wouldn't hear the little buger's.This was back in the late 80's early 90's.

Dear RunAwayGypsy,

I know! I, too, want to survey MY neighborhood to ask who all is having paranormal experiences. I know of four houses, but my son is cautioning me, 'Who is honestly going to drop their own house value by telling someone who writes Ghost Story books that their own house is haunted?'

I have a whole neighborhood so it would be easy to keep everyone confidential - but YOU only have duplex resident #1 and duplex resident #2 - not much anonymity in THAT lol ~Emily~