"I could FEEL something touching my hand"

As I mentioned earlier I was given up for adoption at 1 yr old to my grandmothers neighbors (one house separated my grandmothers house where my mother and I lived and the people who adopted me) I lived on South 6th street in Arlington, Virginia. According to what I was told by several people, there were woods outside our fenced in yard that separated the houses and a old high rise apartment complex...according to what I had/have been told the maintenance man at the complex had raped and murdered several women in the woods directly behind our house (coincidentally this was the same house that my adoptive mother had spent some of her childhood in and it had been given to her and her husband as a wedding present by her parents) Anyway, my story is not connected to the supposed deaths of these women but I do remember that strange things happened to me in that house. The way the house was set up my brother and I had separate bedrooms....you walked from the dining room down the hall where there were stairs to the basement on the left and then the bathroom on the right and then farther down on the left was my brothers room and then straight at the end of the hall was my room. I always remembered a little blonde boy who I think told me his name was Nicky but I'm not sure as I have not thought about him in a long time but anyway when I would lay in bed at night he would always come out of the wall above my bed and walk around my room and talk to me. He did not like my adoptive parents and he would tell me that they lied and were bad people and he would tell me to tell them that he told me and that he was going to punish them (although I do not remember the exact conversations I do remember that much) usually after he talked with me he would walk into a picture that was hanging on my opposite wall of a little boy who was fishing at a double waterfall. When I did have arguments with my adoptive parents like a typical 3-5 yr. old does from time to time I would tell them that Nicky told me that he was going to get them and that they were mean and bad people...needless to say they were not amused and I usually got in more trouble for saying that as they chalked it up to an imaginary friend. I did see him on a fairly frequent basis as he would follow me around from time to time...and believe it or not I even saw him in my Sunday school class once. Come to find out years later when talking to my grandmother, when she and him had met he had told her his name was Nicky when really his name was Elliot but he used Nicky as nickname. I think my grandfather had come back to me as a child to help me. I have yet to see pictures of him as a child but as I write this Im still looking.

During the same time in this house I was in the dining room getting ready to eat breakfast when my mother had told me to go and get my brother and tell him breakfast was ready. I turned around and walked down the hall and immediately felt a queasy feeling as I entered my brothers room...he had a larger bed than I did at that time and I remember clearly looking across his bed and seeing an old mans face dressed up as Santa Claus (I only know this because he had a Santa hat on and red mittens) I could barely see his face as it was only slightly visible above the bed, what was really strange and to this day I have yet to figure out was he had toy pistols which every little boy has at that time in both of his hands and as soon as I had seen him he said "bang bang, your dead" well I was FREAKED, Santa had just shot me! Never mind that I had just seen Santa or so I had thought, I ran over to the other side of the bed and guess what...no Santa. BUT guess what... I did find the toy pistols laying there on the floor.

When I was 15, I left my adoptive parents as my biological mother had been attempting to get me back, unknowingly to me she had found out that the people who adopted me were indeed not good people. It was during this time between 13-15 that I developed an affinity for religion. My adoptive parents had over time collected these paintings on black velvet sold along the side of the road that were of Jesus. Over time they ended up in a closet somewhere or the basement that is until I said I wanted them in my room...mind you I was not "religious" I just was interested in "religion" so at 13 yrs old every wall in my room had these huge paintings of Jesus on them, pretty strange for a kid my age. Looking back now I believe I was using them as protection against the aura of evil that I had recently begun to detect regarding my adoptive parents...coincidentally it was during this time that relations with them and myself had gotten the worst.

I left them at 15, finally and moved in with my grandmother...right away strange things and dreams began to occur.

I had horrible nightmares of men in dark hoods surrounding my bed looking down at me, at least 12 of them were present as I stared at them. That incident had me sleeping on the floor of her bedroom for almost 3 months I had constant dreams of my adoptive parents in associations with the devil. I constantly saw things moving out of the corner of my eyes at all times of the day. In one instant I was doing chores and listening to a tape in my tape player when I hear the music stop, I walked over to the equipment and saw the tape button had been stopped, so I pressed it again and went back to chores, a few minutes later the music stopped again, this went on for about 2 more times and on the last time I turned around so quick that I caught a glimpse of a small leg running around the corner...well I was freaked out but at 15,  I was no coward so I went and walked around the corner only to see the same leg running around the opposite corner..min you this leg was small and looked to belong to a small creature but yet human from what I could tell. It was at this time that I decided to run downstairs and get the dog (my grandmother had a Doberman pincher at the time) when I let her out of her pen she immediately ran up the stairs and stared to run around the dining room and living room and kitchen in circles...the same circles I had been running and only catching glimpses of this little creatures leg....I immediately ran out the house and ran to my friends house down the street and called my grandmother up who to this day does not believe me.

Later on when I was stationed in Japan while in the Marine Corps. some girls down the hall from me in the co-ed barracks said that they had been seeing a older man walk from one end of their room to the closet only to disappear. They had found money out of nowhere and were a bit stressed out because they would put it some other place just to see how long it would stay there before disappearing again. They had even had the military priest come and bless their room. Both girls suffered from sleep paralysis continually. I had never heard of sleep paralysis until now and I was fascinated by their accounts. I went in to their bathroom one drunken night and feeling brave challenged whomever or whatever to come and do the same to me as I did not believe it had the power to do so. Boy was I wrong...the next few nights consisted of pipes being banged in my room who no one on either side of my room heard, wind blowing over my bed and shaking the lamp and then a quick gust/burst and it was gone...it was at this time that I had my first experience with sleep paralysis. I even had one of my buddies who knew the girls and who I told what I had said and done come stay in my room to see if he experienced anything....he didnt. I finally had enough when I had walked to the bathroom and had walked back and my dresser which weighted at least 100 pounds was pulled out caddy corner from the wall and the carpet in front was bunched up and my door had been locked and my roommate was back in the states on vacation. After that incident I spoke with my mother about this and she had told me that she had heard that ghosts or demons or spirits could transfer from one person to another by an article of the originally afflicted person(s) meaning the girls who had experienced this before (mind you while I was being harassed by this being they were not. I searched my room and could find nothing that did not belong to me or my roommate as he had been my roommate for a year and this had just started so it would have to have been something I had recently acquired form the girls. I could find nothing..I finally told my buddy who I had spend the night about the object and what my mother had said...he was a fairly tall guy at least 6'2-6'3 and Im only 5'11, so he reached up on the top of the dresser we had in the rooms which were pretty tall and recessed at the top and pulled down a cap and said "you mean something like this?" I had forgotten that on the night I had challenged the spirit, the girls had given me a baseball cap which I had placed on the very top of the dresser which had moved all by itself. I threw the cap away and the trouble stopped immediately for me but started back up with the girls days later. I later found out that the base we had been stationed on had several suicides within the barracks back when it had been a Japanese barracks even though our barracks were fairly new high rises.

I spent the rest of my time in the Marines without incident of this sort. I got out of the military and went to live with my mother until I got a place of my own. She was living in a house that had just recently been renovated after a couple had died one in the house and the other in a hospital, both within a fairly close time frame. Once I moved in, I experienced even stranger things...these events are the events which lead me to this website and which have currently plagued me since 1997. I have just learned to deal with it as a part of life but recently due to lack of sleep I getting annoyed. The only thing I have noticed is that the death of a person is involved before the symptoms show. I have lived in two other places since I moved out of my mothers house. The first was an apartment which I share with a buddy of mine. It was not until the elderly lady downstairs from us had died did I start experiencing problems and I have just recently put the connections together. I began experiencing strange noises when I would get ready to sleep. Old music very faintly but an almost recognizable tune, the sound of thunder and lighting right above my room (we were on top floor and their were only two floors), huge bright flashes of light when I close my eyes so huge that even with my eyes closed the it was as if some super nova flash had gone off and I could not sleep at all, 1 bright white figure standing beside my bed that I saw when I rolled over and opened my eyes and was immediately panicked and then almost as immediately a great serene calm feeling came over me, the only thing I can describe it as was complete and utter bliss and I have never felt anything like it before or since, it was as if I was part of the universe and I was connected to anything and everything words do no justice for it and can not even come close to describing it, and talking about it gives me chills. I can only say I think it could be the only thing that would describe or feel like being a god or being close to GOD if you believe in that sort of thing. Also, it was during this time that a well known pro golfer died in a plane crash...that exact night around 3:45-4:00am I woke up with an intense feeling of heat and I looked around me and saw the glow of fire but saw no flames...my bed had become so hot that I jumped out of it and to the wall and dialed my mother immediately (which I had been doing every time these events happened and she recently admitted to thinking I was completely crazy until I printed out old stories sand myths of sleeping disorders and paralysis etc from this site) I found out the next day that the golfer had died in a plane crash but did not give it any serious though as far as a psychic phenomena. I had several instances of feeling weightless, several instances of being face to face with a shadowy figure and I mean up close and personal so close I could feel extremely hot breath on my face even with my fan blowing directly on me (I sleep with a fan beside my bed blowing on my face and upper body). I also had the feeling of my breath being sucked from me and also instances where it felt like someone or something was attempting to enter my body through my nose while I slept. I was during these instances where I would be jolted awake just in time to fight it off only to feel the bed vibrate viciously. It really is the weirdest sensation!! I dont know if it is spiritual or demonic or in my own head, I just know that I can feel it. After doing some research I found that many people who sleep on their backs experience these sorts of things so I changed my sleeping position and slept on my stomach and side only...which worked for a while. But then it started again although not as intense. It was not until the last few months before I moved out that I found out the lady below us had died and I only found out because they were having an estate sale I had gone tot he beach for a week and came back and found out my roommate had bought some statues from the ladys estate (remember I was told articles from people are highways for spirits) I moved out a week later after 2 yrs in this apartment and moved in with another friend of mine who had a townhouse built. After the first year I had no problems, until the lady across the street was found dead and it started all over again, only this time I have learned to "feel" it coming on but whereas it usually only happened once a night or happened in intervals it is now happening a few minutes after each time I fight it off and the bed vibrations are more intense and JUST LAST NIGHT (7/03/02) as I lay on my stomach with one arm under one pillow and the other arm wrapped around the pillow with my hand out I could FEEL something touching my hand and I was wide awake. It was no hallucination. Ive learned to not freak out about it and just make a mental note of what it feels like and how to fight it off faster and just be aware of everything as it happens in general. As I felt the touch on my hand last night I made sure to remember where I was feeling this touch as I didnt really want to open my eyes (I know funny coming from a Marine but hey the supernatural is scary for anyone) I woke up this morning and checked out my hand immediately and noticed a teeny tiny scratch/scar that I had never noticed before. It was then I decided I need to find a sleep specialist or something cause I cant let this continue even if it as just as interesting as it is scary.