The Shared Diary of a Novice Paranormal Investigator, aged 52 and Three Quar

When you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer.

(Stevie Wonder)

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamed of in your philosophy.

(Shakespeare)

Ri fol ri fol tol de riddle dee.
(Traditional)

Monday

Gentle readers, I notice there are some of you out there, and I thank you.  If you have followed the other posts (and nothing will make sense if you have not) (although there is no guarantee it will make sense if you have, either) you may have begun to notice that this diary is not running in real time.  There are reasons for that, and if anyone truly cares enough to ask, I will explain.  Otherwise, I hope you relax and enjoy the ride.

The googling is starting to pay off.  I have finally got some information from people who know something about paranormal Stuff.  I sent off an application to join a national association dedicated to the rational study of the unexplained.  I want to learn about Stuff from real experts.  After only two months and a couple of e-mails, I finally received what seems to be one half of the information I think I was supposed to get for my money, plus some documents which seem to belong to somebody else, already active in doing Stuff.

On first reading, it all appears very sensible and logical.  It is a bit involved (‘equipment list – 2 x 36 metre cabling’) but I guess this is the right way forward for me on my journey.  I want rational, I do not want monkeyman, or any of his silver-rattling, fancy-dressed tribe.  I set to digest all of it.  I have a task in mind for the national rational approach.  I want to figure out how it might illuminate one particular place.  I have in mind a place which has been very important to me for a long time.  I think this place deserves a bit of investigation.

When I think about my childhood, I feel it is odd, that, in a family which delighted in all kinds of spooky tales and Hammer Horror, nobody ever mentioned the Nasty Thing on the top floor.  Of course, not everyone had cause to go up there, but some of us spent plenty of time in the attic, and I had my bedroom there for eight years.  I still do sleep there, when we visit, very frequently.

The Nasty Thing is best understood through the metaphor of the elephant in the room.  You squeeze past it, but you cannot stretch your mind to comprehend it, or to figure out how there ought to be more space in the room, because it is so heavily there.  You cannot talk about the elephant in the room, because it is so big and so obvious that we are all alone with it.  We cannot even perceive it properly.  I never spoke about the Nasty Thing until the new, younger generation broke the ice, and even now, I have not said much.

Today, I have been giving this some thought.  I have been going over the reasons for not speaking up, and I have been considering the consequences of silence.  I certainly would cringe with embarrassment if I had to admit I was taking seriously the stuff of our Friday night entertainment.  There is more to it, though.  I am not that much of a coward, and I do not think many other people are, either.  We can all give ourselves a prod, speak up, and then recover from a bit of social shame.  If that were the only problem,  we could all cope.  What keeps the muzzle firmly on is a kind of social conscience.  Not in front of the children… don’t worry anyone…I expect it has gone away now… if I don’t make a fuss, it won’t happen to anyone else.    These reasons may well be good reasons.   Maybe blabbing would result in all kinds of hysteria and discomfort.  Who knows what might happen?

Results also flow from not blabbing.  Perhaps we non-blabbers have slowed down the progress of human knowledge.  No wonder the paranormal is such a mystery, if we don’t all share what we know.  Networking  - sharing and swapping experiences, must be one of the oldest, most basic ways of building group understanding.  If the only people sharing paranormal experiences were thrill seekers, or poor souls hungry for attention, then that group understanding would have very wobbly foundations indeed. 

So; to blab or not to blab.   I am certainly not responsible for finding answers to that dilemma, but, as this is my personal journey, I will personally blab this much:

I slept in that room between the ages of ten and eighteen.  Sometimes, I experienced heart-sinking sensations of chilly sickness.  These always passed very quickly.  Although I felt afraid, this fear also passed immediately: it was part of the sensation, it was not generated by the sensation.  I did not draw any conclusions from these occasions.  It could be likened to experiencing an injury from time to time – like often stubbing a toe on the same piece of furniture.  Sometimes, I used to let the dog sleep on my bed. (Many young girls do this.  I believe it is nature’s way of preparing us for the nocturnal sounds and smells of married life.)  The dog often growled in the night.  Once, I watched her head moving as she growled, following the path of something unseen, moving from the door to the window.

That is my blab.  As we all grew up and moved away, the room was used less and less.  Now, our children are young adults, and one or two of them have started to blab among themselves.  I feel some responsibility.  I want to make it better.  Looking through the information I received today, from the Rational National society, I have found mention of ‘infrasound’.  This is sound we cannot consciously hear, but which can affect us, giving rise to sensations like those I experienced.  This gives me a lead to follow, something to learn about before I go back there

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