This really does not qualify as a ghost story nor is there any reason to say it is paranormal, but it is odd and true. This event is a personal account of a message from my deceased mother via a dream. While it can be explained, as a combination of memories and personal experiences, this type of dream is unusual for me. I cannot begin to explain the feelings that accompanied the dream. The scientific side of me knows that my mind generated the dream. As a paranormal believer I know that it was an extraordinary event.

For years, I have had a hummingbird feeder hanging in my backyard. Occasionally a hummingbird would scout around the yard, but I had never seen one drink from the feeder. Despite moving the feeder around to various locations, the tiny birds just did not seem interested.
Last week I was relaxing in the backyard. It was around 9:00 AM and the weather was fantastic. As I sat enjoying my coffee, I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. A female hummingbird was flitting around the feeder, drinking from several of the small red flowers attached to the bottle. “Finally” I thought.
The bird was only an arm’s length away and I could see every detail in her body, wings and head. Suddenly she backed away from the feeder and flew towards me. I was startled for a moment but continued to watch while the bird appeared to be studying me. It cocked its petite head side to side then apparently decided I was no threat and flew back to the feeder. After a few more sips of nectar, she flew off and out of sight.
For some reason this event made an impression on me but by the end of the day, I had forgotten all about it. If nothing else had happened, I would not have written this article. A few days later, I woke up from a morning dream, feeling much like I had the day I saw the hummingbird. In fact, the dream involved hummingbirds.
My mother died years ago and the pain of that event has faded. In my dream I was at a house I did not recognize, but I knew my mother was with me. I could not actually see or focus on her face but I knew it was her. She brought me to the kitchen window and showed me two fabulously colored hummingbirds in a tree just outside. One was blue and yellow and the other was red and blue. I decided to walk outside to get a close look. Before I could open the screen door, one of the hummingbirds came to the screen and stuck its beak through the mesh in the screen. I reached out with my hand and the bird’s tiny tongue flicked out and licked my hand. Then the bird flew off.
I woke up almost immediately. I had the intense feeling that my mother had sent me a message from the other side. She was telling me to look for hummingbirds and they would serve as a reminder that she was looking out for me. My friends know that I enjoy bird watching and it seemed appropriate that my mother would connect to me through birds. Regardless of whether this was a paranormal event or just a random firing of synapses in my brain; I am still awestruck by the mysteries of the universe.

In Alameda, there is a small Victorian House located on a corner in an old established neighborhood. My niece had started a new job in the bay area and needed a place to stay. She found two other female co-works who were willing to room with her and rented the old house. The location was good, the rent was reasonable. Within a week of finding it, they had moved in.
We all know that old houses make many noises so when this one creaked and groaned none of the girls gave it a second thought. Small unusual things kept occurring, but no one was thinking about paranormal things, and none of the girls paid much attention. A few times the girls joked around and talked about the ghost but that is all it was, talk. None of them believed there was really a ghost.
One night, my niece and one of the roommates were at home. The third girl was working out of town. After a quiet evening, the girls went to their separate bedrooms. The rooms were located just down the hall from each other so all the girls felt safe sleeping alone. Sometime around 3:00 AM, my niece started dreaming.
In her dream, she was walking up to the house. She noticed there was an old woman standing out front. The woman didn’t say anything but smiled as my niece approached. My niece noticed that the woman appeared to be blind. Her eyes were dead and fixed somewhere above and behind my niece. My niece asked the woman “Is it alright if I come in?” The woman smiled and gestured with her hand towards the front door.
My niece suddenly woke up with a start and the dream still vivid in her mind. She lay back down and stared into the darkness contemplating the strange dream she had just experienced. Within seconds, she heard a blood-curdling scream coming from her roommate’s room, then quiet. Paralyzed with fear my niece waited for what seemed like hours and finally managed to squeak out, “Stacy? Are you OK?” Just as hesitantly Stacy answered, “I think so…” “Stacy, do you want to come in here with me?”
In a flash, Stacy came running in and jumped in the bed, immediately pulling the covers up to her neck. “What happened?” Stacy was shaking and it took her several minutes to calm down. Finally she spoke. “I’m not sure!” She began to recount what led up to her screaming. I was having a dream that an old woman was standing at the end of my bed. She grabbed my covers and pulling them off the bed. She was very angry and telling me to get out of her house. Suddenly I woke up to see my covers hovering above my bed about four feet. That is when I screamed. When I did, they dropped to the bed again.
My niece now had the look of terror on her face as she asked, “What did she look like?” “I don’t know, just an old woman” “Describer her to me.” Stacy though for a moment and said, “She had kind of frizzy curly hair down to her shoulders.” “She was wearing a light colored nightgown” The similarities were just too bizarre to ignore. My niece and Stacy spent the rest of the night sleeping in the same bed until morning. Once the sun was up, they sat and compared notes about the mysterious old woman that had haunted their previous night’s sleep.
The old woman visited none of the girls again, but she had left an impression on all of them. Ever since that, night there seemed to be more activity in the house. The sound of footsteps was quite common along with closing doors, and scratching on the walls. Probably most disturbing was the feeling of being watched.
The girls decided to do some research on the house and found that it had been moved from a different location in Alameda. It had actually been the servant quarters to a much larger house. There was a story attached to the house that there was a woman that lived in the house who had some kind of disability and relied on someone from the larger house to meet her needs. Eventually she died and the two houses were separated to their present locations.
Was the old woman in the girl’s dreams the same one that lived in the house? Was the disability that caused her to rely on others blindness? It seems that most of that information has faded with history and we may never know for sure. Maybe she was pleased that my niece asked for permission to enter the house while Stacy just assumed that she had a right to be there.
We will never know… in this lifetime.

Copyright 2010, Dave Mace, All rights reserved

The two set up camp and spent a quiet evening in the park’s glorious surroundings. There was no sound of popping beer cans, boom boxes or motocross racers, just the wind blowing across the grasses and occasional call from a distant animal in the night.

The next morning the two arose to a stunning sunrise. White bellowing clouds snuck up one side of mountain peaks then rushed off the tops leaving only dark blue sky. They were experiencing nature at its best.

The guys set off again, deeper into the Yosemite wilderness, hoping to lengthen their solitude with nature. They stopped for lunch, digging into their backpacks for some quick energy food and water.  By now the sun was high overhead and even though the sun was warm, cool air blowing off a nearby glassier chilled them through their flannel shirts.

Anxious to get going again, they cleaned up and headed off down the trail. After about an hour, they came to a place where the trail ran straight for a long distance until it bent to the right around a grove of trees. Just at the bend, both hikers saw a male subject emerge from the end of the trail walking towards them. Initially they were curious as to who would be out here alone this far from any regular camping facilities.

As he came closer, they began to have other questions.  Why was this person wearing shorts and a t-shirt, completely inappropriate for the environment? Another thing that really stood out was he had a pair of tennis shoes tied together and hanging around his neck. While this all seemed odd, there was nothing alarming about seeing this lone individual on the trail.

Eventually their travels brought them together and before the two hikers could greet the man, he suddenly began talking. “I just found my tennis shoes” “I fell down the glassier a couple of years ago and lost them.” I just went back and found them.” Then with out warning the man continued on his way.  There was no other exchange. No, how you doing? No, where you from?  Nothing.

The man walked on and eventually disappeared in the distance. The two hikers walked along silently a few paces when one of them blurted out, “That guy wasn’t real.” My friend asked. “What are you talking about”; knowing full well what he meant. “I said that guy wasn’t real” “Who falls down a glassier hard enough to loose their shoes and them comes back two years later to get the shoes?”  “That guy was a ghost.”

Was he a ghost, or was he just a strange individual who cherished his shoes? While the facts are very strange is nothing to prove the stranger was the remnant of an unfortunate hiker who met an untimely end. The story is true but you believe what you will.

Copyright 2010, Dave Mace, All rights reserved

Sometime before 843 BC, the great philosopher Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” The first time I read the quote I was sure Buddha was talking about our own individual destinies. Think positive thoughts and positive results will follow. Think negative thoughts and your life will be filled with misery.
While this may be true, I now believe that his meaning may have been more literal. “With our thoughts, we make the world.” If you follow current scientific theories, some scientists believe just that. Our thoughts may have something to do with the creation and maintenance of the universe.
This brings me to the real point of this article. I have often wondered why, if the spirit world exists, why various cultures have different spirits. In Hawaii, many of the ghost stories involve Pele, the goddess of fire, and the Night Marchers, ancient warriors who pass through the Islands in long processions. In India, many of the ghosts and spirits center around Hindu gods. They either take the form of the gods or are involved with them in some way. Native American ghosts visit the earth every night. For a warrior, the ghost of a friend appearing was not a good thing. Spirits brought bad luck and had bad intentions. If you are sailing near Japan, you might meet Shojo who is a harmless ghost that likes to drink and party. Many of Japans ghosts are more like demons, than the remnants of deceased persons. Their ghosts seem to be creatures with strange eyes, tails and weird or non-existent bodies.
I began wondering why ghosts were so different for various cultures. If the afterlife were one place, why would the ghosts be different? Sure, you would expect our dead relatives to be representative of our own historical pasts, but why would some of these ghosts be so weird looking? Does Shojo ever appear to other cultures? Does Madam Pele ever show up in people’s living rooms in Nebraska? I do not know. At least I have never heard of that happening.
For the pure scientist cultural beliefs and ghosts being nothing more than the hallucinations created by a strong belief system explain these variances. Well, maybe. I am not opposed to that theory and I actually think that it does apply to many of the claims I have investigated. The problem is there are too many ghost stories out there. I have probably read or heard a thousand or more believable ghost stories over the years, and I do not believe that all of these people were victims of their own brains.
This leaves me trying to explain the phenomena with the peculiarities I have noticed. This is what I have surmised. Ghosts may be the result of our reaction to energies that our limited brains cannot explain. Therefore, our human minds create a form or being to fit what we are feeling. “With our thoughts, we make the world.” Suppose these energies are in fact life forms for parallel universes or the remnants of a person’s essence after they die and earthly death.
What if the physics of the natural universe does not allow them to interact directly with us, but our essence knows they are there. Our brains react with the knowledge of our world and its limitations and our thoughts create the ghost. However, there are missing elements and not everything can be explained. Thus, the ghost is sometimes transparent, or appears as a partial body. Of course, it appears according to our cultural and religious beliefs explaining why they are all different.
Once created, they are real and no longer dependent on us even being there. They exist whether we are there or not. While I cannot say that this is exactly what is happening, I do believe that this could be close. It intertwines the science, philosophy, and actual events into a plausible explanation for ghosts. People around the world or even in the paranormal community have yet to come to an agreement on ghosts. Until they do, ghosts may be doomed to remain improvable since their makeup is as nebulous as the current proof of their existence.