The other night when I was getting ready for bed, I heard my oldest son whisper, “Mom….”
I answered with, “Yeah…” from the bathroom, Noxema on my face. I peered into the hallway beyond my bedroom, but didn’t see anyone. Then I heard laughter from downstairs, all of my boys were down in the kitchen.
My skin prickled, because, as I recalled the phantom whisper, I was certain that it had originated from within my bedroom.
The idea that this whisper could have been borne from a ghostly child was enough to hurry my steps and rush downstairs. But not before I watched in my peripheral vision, through the mirror, as a form grew darker beyond the beveled glass of the shower stall.
“Idiot,” I whispered to myself. Ghosts just don’t suddenly take residency in a house where none existed before. There weren’t Century 21 or Re/Max real estate agents for the spirit world, were there?
But then, I realized, when I turned out the light that night, none of that really mattered, because where ghosts are concerned, there aren’t any rules. Sure, when you’re writing about them, there need to be rules you adhere to so your ghostly characters seem like ghosts, just like you need to adhere to rules for vampires, werewolves, with obvious slight variation for creative individuality. In the real world, ghosts can probably do pretty much anything they want to, including allowing you to see or hear them when you’ve suddenly become more sensitive, or to hear their conversation when they think no one is around.
Sure, not all of us can be like Patricia Arquette in Medium, and hear and see all sorts of ghostly activities, past, present and future. But is it possible, to sometimes, get snippets? Or do we chalk them up to over-active imaginations, drowsiness, stress, maybe even fluid in the ear canal?
However “ghosts” appear; audibly, visually, tactually – it’s probably safe to assume that 99% of these experiences are the result of the human condition. But what about that lonely 1%? Perhaps this small percentage happens when we enter a fugue state, like donning 3D glasses to view a movie. Fugue states, in my opinion, occur much more often than one might think; driving the car, stirring spaghetti sauce, listening to your mother on the phone, waiting in line at the grocery store, and possibly even, applying Noxema to your face. Maybe it’s within this brain wavelength – relaxed, distant – when ghosts do appear, whether they mean to frighten us, or not.