SENSES
The five senses of hearing, touch, smell, sight, and taste give us the data we need to make sense of our world. Everything we know comes from one of those senses. When it comes to senses and the spirits, humans are not at all alike. Some of us can use one of the senses to a great extent, but others cannot. Some of us use more than one sense to detect a ghostly presence, and a very privileged few can use all five.
Then there is the sixth sense we call intuition. I believe that intuition is using the five senses but on a level that we are not aware of. Our brain catalogs a lot of information that we can piece together to give us logical answers to the mysteries around us in a nanosecond of time.
So what do the different individuals who use different senses say about their experiences with the spirit world? Here are descriptions of some of my own experiences as well as recollections of what dozens of my guests have told me about this issue.
Hearing
I happen to be one of those people who hears ghosts. This has been occurring since I was a small child. I would hear boots coming up the stairs at night. I would lay in bed and wonder why whoever was coming up the stairs never made it to the top but just kept on coming up. I also wondered why my parents didn’t go and see who was there. By the time I was ten years old or so I knew that there was no one there. When I left home I didn’t hear those footsteps again until I was in my sixties, and then I only heard them once.
At Captain Grant’s, I hear people talking. This is mainly a man and a woman. That is all I can make out. What they are saying is not discernible. Their voices have also been captured by EVP equipment on many occasions.
Guests also tell me of a child who giggles in the hallway at night. It is usually just one guest who reports this, even if there are ten or more people staying in the house. If it had been only one guest one time who said there was giggling, I would dismiss it. However, this is not the case. Over the years many guests have reported hearing the little girl giggle.
The most amazing thing that has to do with sound was heard by a family who stayed in the Collette room. During the day the father sat on the second-floor deck reading to his daughter. The story he was reading was about an Indian boy and his drum. The father held his daughter on his lap while he read to her. I saw them through the hallway door. It was a very loving picture for my memories.
The next morning the father came to talk to me. Either he or he and his wife were woken up in the wee hours of the morning while it was still dark outside. Above the twin bed, where their little girl lay, was the sound of a drum drumming at a slow beat. His daughter was sitting there listening with a big smile.
What makes these sounds heard by a few people and not everyone? What about the “sometimes” factor, such as on those rare occasions when my husband can also hear what I am hearing? This has occurred when the noise has been quite loud. It could have been talking or a disturbance of some sort, such as loud knocking on the front door. The most common thing that my husband and I hear are the two people talking in the Holly room while we are upstairs in the office. There are also other sounds that come from that room.
In my case, I am almost deaf in one ear. This should limit what I can hear, but it does not. Can some of us detect a sound frequency that others can’t hear? Something like the sounds that dogs can hear but not humans? We still don’t have equipment good enough to capture audibly what is said. There is a lot of guessing about what is actually said on an EVP monitor.
My views on clairaudience have changed somewhat since I began writing this book. I have met so many people who can hear the spirits, including my skeptic husband, that I now believe everyone has this capability.
Touch
For about three years, three women came and stayed at Captain Grant’s. They were a mother and her two daughters. They stayed in the Collette room, where there are two beds. The sisters slept in the queen bed and the mother slept in the twin bed. The mother was in her mid-seventies. What struck me most about her was her intelligence. She had been a professor of ancient history and loved to share stories about the Middle East. Every time these three stayed at Captain Grant’s, the mother was touched by a spirit. This did not happen to her at other locations. She described the touch as a brushing of her cheek. She began to expect that this was going to happen whenever she stayed at Captain Grant’s.
Other guests have talked about being able to actually feel a presence. One man described going down a hallway that wasn’t lit and bumping into someone. He turned to apologize but there was no one there. Another guest spoke of being grabbed by the arm. He told the spirit, “Let go of me.” Then the sensation of being grabbed was gone.
Guests also speak about having someone sit on them in bed. Sometimes they get poked. This is quite a common event. I consider that the sensation of pressure against the body. I had a dearly loved Siamese cat that talked to me on a regular basis. In fact, he talked all the time. One day he disappeared. I sometimes feel the pressure of his paws on my bed at night. I feel the jump onto the bed and then the walking toward the head of the bed. He always slept on my head, but the sensation never gets that far. It stops at about waist level.
When guests tell me that they “feel” something, I don’t consider it the same as actually feeling pressure against the body. I believe that the emotion of feeling something has to do with the senses picking up information. In this case the person is not attuned to their senses in such a way that they recognize what is happening to them. It just comes out as “I feel a presence is here.” In this case, if the person were to pay more attention to what is going on with themselves, they might be able to become more astute at knowing when a spirit is present.
My husband and I now have a new spirit in our bedroom. The spirit pushes me. Twice he pushed my elbow hard enough to move my arm forward. Once he pushed my shoulder. I was lying in bed waiting to get into the bathroom. When I felt the shove I said, “Okay, I’ll get up.” I thought that my husband was behind me.
Sight
Being able to see ghosts is truly a special gift. This happens to some of us on rare occasions, but for others it is on a regular basis. Sometimes spirits will appear to someone. By this I mean that they will materialize in our three-dimensional world. The spirit needs a great deal of energy to do this.
For individuals who can see spirits at will, are they seeing them in the spirits’ world? I don’t think that is the case. I believe they are seeing them in our three-dimensional world even if the spirit is only two-dimensional. Their form has no substance, no depth. But it has height and width, which is actually two-dimensional. So how do the spirits take on form? They need energy. Individuals who can see spirits on an ongoing basis must give off enough energy for the spirit to take form. Now that is an awesome feat! How can they do that? Most people believe it is all hocus pocus and make-believe. But then what about the children who see spirits and dogs that growl at the air or cats that try to claw the air? Truly they must be looking at something. Also, are they giving off energy on a regular basis?
For the young children who see spirits, many of them apparently lose this ability as they become adults. What happens to them? Does the more rational mind of an adult subdue their ability to see what others can’t? Does the adult worry about being thought of as different? Or does the child change physically in some way that does not allow them to see the spirits any longer as an adult?
We have had dozens of ghost hunters and ghost-seeking groups stay at the bed and breakfast. Most are young and ghost hunting is just a passing fad for them. However, a few of the groups are scientific in their approach to finding evidence of spirit presence. One of these groups spent time talking about theories of what is going on with individuals who can see spirits.
One theory is that these individuals who can see ghosts received a strong electric shock as a child. Although the guest said that there is a strong correlation between receiving an electric shock and being able to see spirits, it is not 100 percent. For instance, I could hear a ghost when I was a child but I didn’t have a bad electric shock until I was in my twenties. However, this theory may be worth pursuing.
Another theory is genetics. I have met many guests who have abilities and so did other members of their family, especially in past generations. If it is genetic, then we should ask ourselves, what is it that is different about those families?
Smell and Taste
Different smells are said to mean different things. The smell of roses is said to be a “good” smell. It could be a loving relative or a person unknown to us. The aroma of rotten eggs, on the other hand, is said to represent an evil presence. One evening I had a very strong scent of a man who had abused me many years earlier. Were my old fears of this man conjuring up his scent, or was it something else?
Smell and taste work closely together. It is not at all uncommon for someone to smell something offensive and then taste it in their mouth. Smelling lemons can make the mouth pucker.
I am not sure what role these two senses play in recognizing that a spirit is nearby, but I believe that they do. They may be overshadowed by the other three senses. The sense of smell is the strongest one we have in being attracted to another person. We are mostly unaware of this and instead say, “I really like the way he looks” or “His voice is so sexy.” The attraction is to the other person’s pheromones, not to their perfume. Every individual has a particular smell. This is why people will say, “I smelled my grandfather last night.” The man had his own particular smell that was recognized by his grandchild.
At Captain Grant’s, I am glad to say that we seem to almost have an absence of smells other than from living sources in our world. Only the Collette and Margaret rooms have occasionally had a smell. That was of lilacs and also lavender, which were popular fragrances in the past. Just this morning I detected the strong scent of flowers as I went into the basement. The Margaret room smells of pipe tobacco at different times of the year.
There needs to be more research done in this area. It could prove quite useful.