GHOSTS

Here is an early Ouija board. These were actually played with long ago when they still played parlor games. The rest of the post is from an earlier one, apropos for this spooky time of year. And, to all my friends and family out there, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"Is it all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream".  Edgar Allan Poe

First of all, let me preface this story with a disclaimer. I have never seen a ghost as far as I know, so I can not say with any certainty that they exist.

Over many, many years, I had recurrent dreams of a grand old delapidated house. It was three floors with lots of rooms and staircases. The wallpapers were faded and the furnishings were expensive yet from another century. The living room/entry had a 'ghost' that was unseen - a masculine voice and presence that hovered near the ceiling. Up the grand staircase at the landing, was an angry old ghost lady in a long dress. Down the hallways were various bedrooms with hidden doorways and staircases, each of which were inhabited by different visible ghosts. These 'house dreams' are supposedly common - Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalyst, had a theory about them. You can google it, but I don't have the room nor time here to explain Jung, nevermind that he has been disproven and/or not referred to very much in modern medicine - whatever.

Now, for the rest of the ghost story. Prince Michael of Greece believes in ghosts and has written a book about them titled THE WOMEN FROM BEYOND. Though he writes about ghosts that he and his family have encountered throughout Europe's great castles, he also writes about other encounters as well. He said that not all ghostly phenomena are confined to the great and famous.

In the 1960's, an Englishwoman dreamed each night the same dream. In her dream, she saw a large, distinctive country mansion in an unmistakable landscape, though she knew of neither the house nor the landscape. She often wondered why both returned to her regularly in her dreams.

One day, while traveling through Scotland with her husband, they rounded a corner and she saw plainly in front of her the house she had dreamed of for so long. Determined to solve the enigma, she stopped and rang the doorbell.

A man, whom she decided must have been the caretaker, answered the door with a gasp and stood staring at her with open horror. She asked him who lived in the house. The man replied that it had been empty for many years, the owners not caring to share it with the white lady. "So, is the house haunted," she asked. "You should know," he replied. "You are the ghost."

EPILOGUE

One night, several years ago, I dreamt of coming upon that old house I had dreamed about for so many years and it was gone. A bulldozer was moving the freshly dug earth across the lot; nothing was left of the house. I called out to the equipment operator. But what about the ghosts, I asked anxiously. "They're gone," was his reply.

I never dreamed about the house or the ghosts within again.

And one more thing, one of my favorite movies and a great one for this time of year, is THE LADY IN WHITE. I just love so many things about this movie.

One more thing.  I'll be alone tonight in my country house. The winds are howling and there will be a first hard freeze tonight.  I guess I'll have to turn on the heater.  Now, that is scary.