How Come?

When the crazies start talking about their “spirit guide” and the like it is always something cool like an Otter, a Cat or (the always popular) Wolf... it's never anything like a goat or cow or duck.   Not sexy and romantic enough I guess.  I am pretty sure that there are Spirit Guides, but they are a part of a more pagan religion; like Native American, African Tribes or South American indigenous people practiced.  Not so much a Catholic or Church of England thing.  And most surly nothing like a spirit guide would come within 100 meters of the Puritans.

I guess it’s funny to me… because I have night terrors, and I have hallucinations at night when I wake up from a particularly vivid dream (my favorite is when I read the Great Gatsby in high school, after reading a party scene and going to bed… now every time I have to go to the loo at night in my folks house, I see a 1920’s party going on in the living room) that all these people talking about seeing “ghosts” and “demons” when what it most likely a sleep disorder (and I have it but can’t remember what it’s called and am too lazy to look it up). Wow. That was quite a sentence.  And, now that I'm thinking about it, I have a tendency to see things that aren't there all the time, not just at night.  I remember seeing  the movie A Beautiful Mind, and thinking: holy shit I have schizophrenia! (Schizophrenia can present in early stages as auditory and visual hallucinations; of course that is dumbing it down a lot; but the gist of why it freaked me out.) It does make for interesting walks to the loo in the middle of the night.  It also means that I have at least two people (Husband and Brother) that will see movies like Blair Witch and that Paranormal State and tell me that I am under no circumstances allowed to watch said movie.  This is after they have both had to deal with a Sivy post creepy movie. 

Don't get me wrong - I totally believe in ghosts. I have lived in a house that had a ghost cat living in the basement; a little black and white fella that would play with Misha and Sassy.  And I will swear that for years after she died, I could feel my cat Sabrina jump onto my bed.  Most people I know have at least one story of unexplained phenomena.  Perhaps at this point, I should also state, that I really find myself agreeing with the premise of Gods and so forth from the novel American Gods.  Yes, I am aware that we are talking fiction here, but there is a rather sound bit of reasoning in there.  As this is a country made up of immigrants, having shoved the native peoples as far away as possible, the people that then settled the country brought their gods and belief systems with them. Think about it... all those little bits and pieces of folk lore, or even that Oden would be here because the Vikings settled Greenland and Iceland.  All the little imps, demons and creatures from the African folk tales would have found their way over from the slave trade; and all the pixies and other bits and pieces that would have shuffled on over with the highly superstitious people immigrating from Eastern Europe. So they would all mix up together with the native religions and Viola! You get ghost stories.  Or something like that. 
 
Now, the creepiest and also saddest thing that I have ever had happen to me was when I was in high school.  There was this big white abandon farm house where my friends and I would go and hang out because we were all cool and goth and shit.  Well, before we started hanging out there someone had painted a pentagram on the floor of one room, and there was the typical "satanic" gibberish on the walls.  (I have a feeling that if met by a true Satanist these suburban weenies would have wet themselves, but I digress).  Eventually, I got more hours at work and daylight savings ended, and generally I just didn't have time to go and hang out at the house.  I really liked the house, it had a fantastic layout, and this super little room on the second floor, that had only a bathtub sitting in it. I used to talk to the house when I would hang out there, telling it how pretty I thought it was; and then one night, I had this very vivid dream that there was blood running down the walls, like the walls were bleeding, and blood covering that silly pentagram on the floor.  And I had the oddest feeling, like the house was in trouble and very cold.  The next day, I drove out to where the house was, and discovered that it was being torn down.  The property had been sold and house was about half demolished when I saw it that day.  And I just burst into tears.  I remember telling the house that I was so sorry, but there was nothing that I could do; and to date, I have not had any more dreams about the house. Where the house stood is now as gas station.