For my 100th post...my personal brush with the paranormal(well,maybe)

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

This happened about 20 years ago. My best friend's parents owned 2 houses and his grandfather lived in one of them by himself. Eventually his grandfather died from pneumonia and about a week after he died my friend and I went to the house to have a few beers and smoke before we went out to chase women. The subject of his grandfather came up and while we were talking about him a glass asstray on the coffee table were my cig was resting broke perfectly into. Tears welled up in my friend's eyes and he said...I'm scared. I tried to brush it off and told him that my cig had somehow effected it even though I've never heard of this happening to anyone before. Do you think my explaination could have been the real reason...I've always thought it was weird that it broke as we started to talk about his grandfather...coincidence?
I have one other story. My parents bought a house on a lake that was owned by a man who built it and developed the whole subdivision. They bought it from the man's son after he died. Not long after they moved in they put a picture over the fireplace and then went out to do something or another and when they got back the picture was lying face down on the hearth. My dad asked my mom why she had put the picture their and she said she didn't do it..they examined the picture thinking it had fallen but there was no damage of anykind to it..no explaination for that one.
The first time I came over to their lakehouse I brought my beloved labrador retriever with me knowing it would love swimming in the lake. That night it was time for bed and my lab who normally would follow me anywhere I go stopped at the foot of the stairs and the hair raised up on its neck and refused to go with me. I mean this dog loved me and wouldn't let me out of its sight but she refused to go up those stairs and obviously a dog's hair doesn't stand-up on end for no reason. You may think I'm crazy or confused and I might be...give me some explainations if you got them. Has anything weird happened to you of this nature?

[Doohickie]

1. Deleted since I'm an idiot

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

2. Obviously that was a typo...who cares?

I am going to leave it in there...just to bother the spelling sticklers. Also,I had a misuse of the word their...should have been "there" and I also said "broke perfectly into" should have been "broke perfectly in two".

[shraby]

3. There is more to this life than

what is visible to the eye. Someday we may be able to see the rest of the world.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

6. Paul...sorry,I realize now that asstray struck you funny as well it...

should and you meant no ill will. I was overly sensitive cause I was waiting anxiously for replies that had to do with subject matter. You weren't an being an idiot.

[Dookus]

4. I've seen glass ashtrays break

twice, I think. I don't think it's uncommon. If the lit end of your cigarette is right on a spot that has a micro-flaw, the heat can cause a big ol' crack that splits the tray in two or more pieces.

[Chovexani]

5. My late uncle stuck around my house for a long time.

My uncle died of AIDS complications back in '89. I was eight years old at the time, and no one really told me why he died (he was gay and the family danced around a lot of issues regarding his life and death, even to this day). We were very close and I was devastated. He had a very hard time letting go.

He died at the local VA Hospital, but for most of the latter stages of his illness he lived with us and we cared for him. When he died, he stayed around the house for a very long time. I saw him a lot, but what struck me was I always felt his presence around. Especially whenever I was sad or upset, he would always sit next to me. It's a difficult thing to explain without sounding completely batty, but I have always been a paranormally sensitive person.

I remember one Christmas when my cousins came up to visit from Maryland. My little, second cousin had just turned four, and on Christmas morning he turned to my mom when we were unwrapping gifts and asked, "who's that?" When my mom asked him what he meant, he said, "the tall man over there. He's smiling." My uncle was almost 7 feet tall, and my little cousin was just an infant when my uncle died and never saw any pictures. Children are very sensitive to paranormal activity, probably because they have not yet been conditioned to reject anything that isn't tangible on this plane.

Once he realized that my mom and I were alright (my mom was his sister), he eventually passed on. When he died we were in dire financial straits...my mom had just gotten divorced and my father was refusing to give us a dime, and my mom was working two jobs to put my sister through college and me through very expensive private school. We almost lost our house. I honestly believe my uncle was worried about leaving us.

Many similar things have happened to me over the years, especially surrounding death. I have had some scary premonitions that came to pass. Much of my spiritual work has to do with finding a framework to understand these things which are essentially impossible to understand. It's allowed me to be more at peace with the strange things I've experienced.

[puerco-bellies]

7. Precognitive dreams, mostly.

After a while I begin to reject anything non-empirical, but then I dreamed of my grandfathers death 24hrs to the minute before he died unexpectedly. Since then I came to realize he held the door open to my spiritual re-awakening, my re acquaintance with my native heritage.

His funerary flag (WWII)is on his very own shelf at this moment, it is there to remind me to never turn my back on the spiritual side of life again.