True Ghost Stories: Jim Harold's Campfire 1

by Jim Harold

  We surrounded her and the doctor basically said, "She's gone." It was time for her to pass. So I was holding her hand, and my brother was with her, too. He was a fire chief and an EMT, and he was being very analytical, holding on to her wrist and listening to her pulse. As she was passing away, she shed a single teardrop...

  I've got to say real quick: I've never seen a ghost. I'm not even sure if I believe in them.

  So, I'm watching my mom, and the teardrop is almost like a third eye. I could see something happening right in front of me, right by her chest, and I could hear a whooshing sound. As the tear dropped from her cheek, this brown swirl just came out of her, and within a second it crossed the distance between us, and hit me—thump—right in the chest. Then it was gone. Right at that point my brother said, "She's gone." I said, "No...no, no, no, no, no...she's not gone."

  Now, I didn't feel possessed or anything like that, and the feeling faded away, but it was the most amazing thing for me. I saw this brown swirl just float right from her to me as she passed away.

  This happened about 10 years ago, and I think what it really meant to me is that we're more than just this physical body. Maybe we travel from body to body. It kind of got me wondering, really, what kind of creatures we are. Are we something like an energy force that we imprint upon, that we get imprinted upon, and we move from being to experience to experience?

  My father passed away two years later, and I wondered if this was going to happen again. Thank God, I was fortunate to be with both of my parents when they passed. With my dad it was just a quieting of the room, as if he just left. There was nothing there. So I don't really understand what happened with my mom. I've never seen a ghost; I've never seen anything like this before, and I have never heard of a story like this. While we were all there awake, I was the only one who saw it. My mom and I were very, very close. To see this...almost like a swirling gas come at me, it was kind of a shock, as you can imagine.

  -Steph, Massachusetts

  39. A Pat on the Shoulder

  I work in a factory as a welder. The day after my father's funeral, I was welding at my bench, and my back was about a foot away from the wall. I had my welding helmet down and I was welding away, and I felt a pressure on my left shoulder. Someone or something squeezed my shoulder—it was as if someone was standing behind me, and just gave me a gentle squeeze. But there was no one behind me. It was an actual pressure that came on and went off, just as if someone was standing behind me, giving me a reassuring little touch.

  It was very, very weird. I instantly stopped welding, took off my helmet, and turned around just to make sure that no one had sneaked up behind me. But there was no way someone could have gotten behind me, because there was a brick wall there. So...again, it was very strange.

  My father's death was a surprise, but he had been ill with heart trouble. He died of a heart attack in the hospital—before we could get there, actually. I had to pick up my brother from another part of town, and we raced down the motorway, going through many, many red lights and speed cameras. We got there, but it was too late.

  That day in the factory, it was as if he was just saying goodbye, really; letting us know that everything's okay. It was very, very strange—a definite feeling, like someone squeezing the shoulder and letting go...a brick wall right behind me...very weird.

  -David, United Kingdom

  40. Dad's Last Goodbye

  My father passed away when I was about 17. I remember a few days after his passing having an amazing dream. I remember it because it felt like no dream I'd ever experienced before. It was so vivid that I can remember every detail of it. It just felt more like a real experience, a wide-awake experience, than any dream.

  In my dream, I woke up early in the morning, before the sun even came up. My bedroom was up on the second floor and the stairs that led down into the kitchen were right outside my bedroom door. I remember I woke up and I heard noises down in the kitchen—the sounds of things being moved around, cupboards being opened and closed—and I was thinking to myself, That's really odd, because nobody usually wakes up this early in my house. So I went downstairs to investigate, and as soon as I turned the corner into the kitchen, there was my father standing in the kitchen, and he was looking up at me, and there was this little bit of a smirk on his face, and I remember I was just looking at him in shock.

  I said, "Dad, how can you be here? You died just a few days ago and I was at your funeral." He was just looking at me and just nodding. He was standing there in front of me, exactly how I remembered him, exactly how he used to...the same clothes he used to wear, the same flannel shirt, just making himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. And he basically said to me, "I just wanted to come and see you one last time, and let you know that I'm good. Everything is fine with me. You don't ever have to be sad for me; I feel fine; I'm great; everything's good, and I just wanted to stop by and say that to you and see you one last time."

  Right after that, I woke up—for real this time—and I sat up in my bed. I was completely shaking. All I could think was, Wow. That was amazing. So I shared that with my girlfriend, who is my wife now. It was amazing and all, but the weird thing about it came later on in the year, during Thanksgiving dinner. After the meal was finished, my family was sitting around the table, and we were talking about different things, and the subject of the paranormal came up, and it made me think of my dream.

  I shared my dream with the rest of my family, and one of my brothers was looking at me and I could see his jaw drop. After I finished my story, he said, "I had the same exact type of dream." He described it exactly the same way. It was the most vivid, wide-awake experience of a dream that he ever felt, except there was a little bit of a twist, because it wasn't as pleasant as my dream was. Basically, the way his dream was, apparently our father woke him up out of bed. You see, after my father had passed, my brother became very depressed, and he'd started drinking heavily. And so in his dream, my father was there, woke him up, and was yelling at him and said, "Listen, you better straighten up your life; you'd better turn this around. I want you to stop with this drinking. You have to be strong; you have to take care of your mother!" Basically, he was yelling at him to straighten out his life. Well, it really shook him up and he really did turn everything around. And I guess that made my father happy.

  Oh, it made me a complete believer in the afterlife, and...you know, I really believe that it wasn't just a dream. I really believe that he did visit me from beyond the grave. I think he did it to leave a message that there is life after death and, you know, it's a good thing.

  -Tom, New Jersey

  41. Strange Dreams of Buildings and Planes

  It was the strangest dream I'd ever had. Well, it seemed like it was more than just a dream, because it was so vivid and very symbolic. And it was a two-part dream. Once I fell out of one dream, I fell into another.

  In my dream, I was looking across the horizon and there was almost like a row of buildings or a tall building—but not real tall; probably about the height of the Pentagon, I guess, from my view—and an airplane that was flying (and I didn't understand it; it looked just like a regular passenger airplane) suddenly nose-dived down towards the building, and then there was this huge explosion. Out of the explosion, there was this blue flame...I didn't understand that either.

  Suddenly, there was a movie playing inside of the explosion, like a slideshow of imagery, one thing after the other. It was too hard to even take in, at the time. I wish I could have remembered everything, but none of it made sense at the time. 9/11 hadn't happened yet.

  I went to work the next day, and I was very vocal about it. I said, "I know we're going to be attacked on our soil; it'll be the first time for that. It'll be devastating. Life will not be the same afterward for us."

  One weird thing about the dream, too, was that I was standing outside of a company I used to work for, and that's the road I was looking across when it happened. After it happened, I had a strange feeling come over me...
chills...kind of like I saw a ghost or something. I looked up at the sky, and I looked up for about 15 minutes—what seemed like 15 minutes—just looking and looking, and there were no airplanes in the air. And I just remember at the time it came over me like a heavy weight. When I got to work I said, "There will be no airplanes in the air. They will just not be there." And that was an interesting coincidence, too; for the first time ever, our government said, Let's institute a no-fly zone over the entire United States. That's not something you just come up with out of the blue.

  This dream occurred about six months before 9/11. After it actually happened in real life, and I pieced it together, I couldn't believe it. Wow! I dreamed this kind of stuff would happen. I almost feel that I should have gone and had somebody hypnotize me and reconstruct this and put it all together. Because I know there are pieces of it that are there, but if I try to remember them, sometimes I think that I may just be making them up in my mind. I tell myself that. But if I could remember that slideshow, that would be interesting. I remember some sort-of symbolic stuff in it, but I can't really grasp a lot of it.

  But then the second part of it that was rolled in was rather interesting, because it was like all of a sudden I wanted to hold on to what was going on here. I fell into this other dream, the second part, where everything was not black-and-white, but almost a sepia with lots of sand, and I saw big cement walls that were partial walls, and I couldn't understand it. I wondered, What the heck is this?

  Then I saw my brother with other military guys, and at some point he had his helmet off, which I thought was weird. They were running from and trying to escape from some attack that was coming. There were bouncing bombs, or something was popping up from the sand. I didn't understand that. Then there was a sudden understanding that my brother got shot.

  I tried to hold on to that and I thought, I've got to try to find out what's going on here. That's when I woke up. Later, this too ended up happening: My brother got shot in the arm while in active duty during the war. His group was escaping an enemy attack over there. I believe he was rescuing his lieutenant, and he got shot in the arm. Another guy got shot too, but they both survived. And my brother was real lucky; they said the bullet missed all the important stuff. A happy ending on that part. Of course, I didn't tell my mom about the dream about my brother until after it was all over. Luckily, my brother has recovered and is doing well. One last thought: maybe the reason I had a premonition regarding the Pentagon and not the towers was because I'm related to somebody who was connected with the Pentagon—my brother.

  -Mark, Illinois

  42. Granddad Watches Over Her

  First of all I have to say that my daughter has many abilities.

  Her granddad passed away about four years ago when she was 5 years old. At the time, she had come to me or my husband several times in the early morning hour, and would ask us if we were calling her. We would say no, and finally she figured out that her granddad was calling her. We asked her how she knew it was him, and she made several references to things that only he would know—not things that he would tell a 5-year-old, but things he would say to identify himself for my mother-in-law's sake, if that makes any sense...I know it's very hard to follow.

  He would call her name, and he'd say to her that he's okay. He would really reassure her, and come to her in dreams. Yet the dreams were so intense that she would think his visits happened while she was awake. She was also able to visualize him. She would see things that he would wear, and she would describe them to my mother in law, and that is how she was able to identify him.

  I have to be honest: I was really a disbeliever. Still, I wouldn't do anything to discourage my daughter at that age, because I felt that that was her way of mourning. Maybe it was her way of dealing with things.

  However, my mother in law had started to notice that when my daughter would show up to the house, certain things would occur, such as electrical disturbances in the home. If my daughter were to spend the evening, certain things would turn on in the house without anyone touching them. A lamp would go on, or a calculator would go on, or things started to go on that wouldn't normally go on. Like a ceiling fan.

  My mother-in-law shared this experience with me. I thanked her, but again, I felt that that was their way of mourning; I did not believe it was real. But then something happened that changed my mind. My daughter was very sick with a flu virus. It was very serious, and she had a high fever. It was so high I was considering taking her to the emergency room or calling 911. I wasn't really sure what to do. She was non-responsive and kind of lethargic, and it was scaring me. Then she fell into a very deep sleep, and I put my hand on her head and felt that she seemed to be cooling down. So I stepped back and I sat on a chair where I could see her face. I was watching her as I was reading a book, and I got up several times to read her temperature by touch. Again, it seemed to be fine. Not that she didn't have a temperature, but it wasn't as high as it had been.

  I should say that the room had a general feeling of heaviness at the time. It is very hard to explain, but it was just a heavy feeling...

  I looked at my daughter, and she started to nod her head. As she nodded, I then realized that I was sensing something. Something was going on, and it was not normal. It was very heavy around me. And so I said, "Lee," which is the name of her granddad, "I know that you're here, and if you're here, let me know if she's okay." Just then, the ceiling fan instantly turned on. The hair on my arms stood up, and I wasn't fearful, but I was definitely aware; mainly because of the heaviness, I knew that something was going on.

  There's one more part of the story that solidifies it. As I was sitting across the room and my daughter began to nod her head yes, I went down to my knees next to her and I held her hand. She opened her eyes, and had a very large smile on her face. She said, "Mom, I just saw Granddad!" I told her, "I know you did." She said, "He told me that he loved me."

  Of course, I was completely taken aback. It certainly made a believer out of me. After that night, I couldn't deny it.

  -Christina, Arizona

  43. A Vision Before Living

  Ever since I was 7 or 8 years old, I could remember a certain place that I had visited. No one else I know has had a similar journey. What is extremely remarkable is when I visited it: before I was born.

  I can only explain this place as another dimension or a different plane. I recall dying in a previous life and suddenly finding myself in a very dark place. I can't recall anything of that past life itself, but I remember the time between lives with a lot of detail. There, in this place, I received the knowledge and understanding of how and why life works the way it does.

  While I was in the dark place after my past-life death, I started thinking, Death is nothing but a transition. Of course, you feel sorry because you have to leave the people that you have lived with here, but at the same time, there's a warm and a loving feeling that surrounds you.

  As these things were taking place, I saw a guide. I recollect it as a Being of Light. It was an angel, or...I don't know what it really was, but he wasn't very talkative. I would ask him, "Are you my grandfather?" He wouldn't respond. "Are you a friend of mine?" No response.

  Then from the dark place I was being pulled through, at great speed, a tunnel made of light—millions of lights everywhere. Suddenly, it stopped. I found myself in front of a figure. The Being of Light was emitting this whitish glow, but now there was an additional figure, this one more bluish.

  Because of the understanding you receive when you're on the other side, I immediately knew who this figure was. It was Jesus. He wasn't very talkative, either, and I was in shock, as you can imagine. Because Jesus was actually in front of me and alive, I thought, He's got to be the son of God, or, if he's not, somebody very special.

  He had a long robe. I don't want to influence people and/or have them say that I am trying to guide them into Christianity or Catholicism. I don't mean to do that because I have enough to deal with concerning my own burden, as
I will explain, than to worry about what people are going to think.

  The Being of Light was there with Jesus and me—it was just the three of us. Everything else was pure darkness. The Being of Light seemed to move further back, so I was positioned closer to Jesus, and then right in front of him this screen popped up. I can only explain it as a holographic screen. Then, I started seeing my life review.

  I started looking down immediately, asking for forgiveness, so I didn't really see much of the review. There's got to be a reason for that, I guess. I was very much in shock, and I thought, Okay, if he's Jesus and death is not the end, then I guess I'm going to be sent to Hell right now.

  When my life review was over, Jesus started talking to this Being of Light, or angel. He approached Jesus and there was some communication between them that I could not hear. I'd describe it as telepathic. But, I didn't have access to it. Then the Being of Light started hovering towards me.

  I thought, He's the one who's going to take me to Hell. We began traveling to this other place, but I looked back, and I asked Jesus, "Do I get another chance? Do I get to live again? Or is this it?" He didn't answer, and suddenly I was in this dark void, alone. I was just pacing around in circles, floating in this emptiness, alone with my thoughts.

  Maybe I should have been a priest in my past life? Maybe I should have led a more holy life? It was very confusing. Maybe this was Hell? Perhaps I'm a soul now and cannot die. Being alone there forever was a pretty scary thought. So, eventually I looked up, and I yelled "Father!" and then instantly the Being of Light showed up and I was brought in front of Jesus again. I don't know how long I stayed in the dark void. It felt like 10 minutes, but it could have been a hundred years. Time in that place doesn't apply like it does here in the physical world.