Unexpected Guest (May - July 2022)

Since my dad's spirit left my house, I continued to have paranormal activity happen that started to make me suspect that something was still residing with us. 

It started when I got my REM-Pod and I was curious if my animals were reacting to paranormal activity down our hallway or just being furry dummies. So I put up my REM-Pod in my living room and started asking questions. I was excited when I started getting beeps, but they were sporadic-- rare really. Then they just stopped altogether after that first day. At the time I thought I had some vibes about a young girl, related to my neighbors 2 doors down and her name began with a J. So I used that as I went forward, but we still got nothing on our REM-Pod downstairs beyond that first day.

I then decided to bring the REM-Pod up to bed with me at night to see if we had any activity in my room. I set it up on the other side of the room from where I sleep and hoped for the best. We didn't get any beeps, unless our cat slipped into our room to play with it.

There was unusual activity, though. One night I woke up around 2:30AM and I heard a knock on our window. I wasn't sure if I was hearing it right, so I waited again and another knock came. I woke my husband up and he checked for anything that might be causing it and we were left without answers. I was a little shaken and didn't want to fall back asleep. During that same time I felt like I had started hearing rustling near our chair in the corner. Again, it couldn't be explained. 

As I thought about the knock and the chair, I started to wonder if the activity was located in that corner of my room. So that night I moved my stool and REM-Pod to that spot. I turned it on and after a few moments got several beeps. I was so excited, I immediately started asking questions. Unfortunately, I received no responses to any of them and was again left wanting. I was disappointed and wondered if the REM-Pod had malfunctioned when it originally went off, but I left the REM-Pod on just in case something wanted to later reach out to us. 

My husband also did an EMF sweep of the room with our equipment, but he only found my fan and alarm clock to provide notable energy spikes.

After this initial realization, I started turning the REM-Pod on in the corner every night that I'd go to bed. I started getting fairly consistent beeps most nights. They would occur from a few seconds up to two minutes after turning the device on, but only one initial burst. Sometimes it was just one beep. Sometimes it felt like a frantic barrage of beeps. But it was almost always just that one time after turning the device on and walking away. It was during this time I also noticed that goosebumps or tingles would cover my arms and back when I would walk into my room and would typically grow greater the closer I got to the REM-Pod. If that happened, the REM-Pod definitely went off. If I didn't get the sensations, the REM-Pod usually remained quiet.

For multiple nights this continued to happen with the REM-Pod. One night, though, something different happened. My husband and our dog made it up to the bedroom before I did. My husband got into the bed and as he laid there he looked at the windows on the right side of the room. All of a sudden his mind registered a 3-4inch ball of yellow light. As if it had been caught, the ball of light shot to the left of our room and right out the way by the window where the REM-Pod sits in the corner. As it exited the wall, my husband said it made a loud bang. I arrived in the room within minutes of the episode and when I turned on the REM-Pod, we got no responses. 

It was still hit and miss for the REM-Pod to go off. One night, though, around June 26th, things became a little more intense. The REM-Pod had gone off. I had felt all the tingles and goosebumps. And my husband and I laid in bed talking and I asked him to ask some questions, because maybe the spirit was tired of hearing from me. We got on the topic of the spirit just being scared and not wanting anything to do with us and we talked about ignoring the spirit and just letting it be, since it didn't want to use the REM-Pod to talk to us. It was classic "cut off communication" talk from ghost hunting scenarios. But nothing happened. So I turned off the REM-Pod and got comfy-cozy in bed. As I laid there attempting to quiet my mind of all the anxiety attacks assailing it, I felt a burning sensation run down the left inner side of my back. It went from about my armpit to my waist. I didn't dare move, but I instinctively knew that it was a ghost scratch. We had angered whatever was in my room.

The next morning I told my husband about the burning sensation. I pulled my shirt up for him to take a look and there was a scabbed-over scratch running down the left side of my back. I know it wasn't me or the dog, because of the amount of blankets and pajamas. My husband took a picture and we estimated the scratch to be about six inches long if not longer. I'd share the picture, but it has mysteriously gone missing from my phone (seriously... I'm pretty upset about it). But what mattered to me was that even my husband was taken aback by the scratch. He confessed to me that he thought he would check and nothing would be there. I bet if we had checked the previous night, it would have been red and nastier-looking.

I went upstairs that morning and had a talk with the spirit that was in my room. I put the REM-Pod on first to make sure they were in the room and it beeped once. I then used a compassionate voice to try to explain to the spirit that they don't have to stay in our house if they didn't like the way we do things. If they didn't like that we put the REM-Pod out every night, then they didn't need to stay. If they didn't like the conversations we have, they didn't need to stay. I explained that we were more than happy to let them stay and we welcomed them and the only reason we were doing these things is because we want to know who they are, since they're staying in our house. I also said that causing physical harm or harm of any kind was not acceptable if they wanted to stay. Nothing happened during the conversation.

My husband had us take a break from the REM-Pod for a night or two and then it was back on. It still made the noises. I was starting to get frustrated, because I couldn't figure out what it was, but I had convinced myself it was a tween-aged girl. There was no room in my mind for it being someone else.

When I woke up on the morning of June 29th, though, something new had happened. I had gotten up really early, around 4:30AM. I had to go to the bathroom. When I came back, I settled back into bed to fall asleep and I heard someone say my name. I thought it was my mom. Then I felt someone sit at the foot of my bed and kind of rock a little bit. Like a parent would do on their child's bed. I was too sleepy to tackle the issue, but when I got up, I was worried it was my mom and that she had passed away in the night. Luckily, she hadn't and I told her about the situation. Mainly because this was becoming a bigger and bigger issue for me. I needed to figure out who this spirit was.

I was going to see Adam Berry that weekend and wanted to tell him about the situation and get some advice on how to proceed with things, but there weren't any opportunities to do that. I had hoped maybe I could e-mail him and my friend who is his cousin was going to ask, but I never got a response. Then I realized all I needed to do was ask myself "What Would Adam Berry and Amy Bruni Do?" (WWAB2D? or WWAB&ABD?... work in progress). If you're not getting the answers you want using a REM-Pod, start using other equipment! I had become fixated on my new toy and forgot basic good investigating methods. I also wanted to stick to more "scientifically grounded" equipment, as opposed to my divining rods. Nevertheless, it was time to take another approach.

So on July 4, I went upstairs during the afternoon and used my divining rods to ask some questions. First I turned the REM-Pod on and got a beep, so I knew the spirit was there. Then I prepared to dive in to seeing if this would work.

"Is someone here?" Crossed/Yes

"Did you live in this house?" Did Not Cross/No

"Are you from a house in our complex? Started to cross, but stopped. Did Not Cross/No

"Are you related to our neighbors?" Did Not Cross/No

"Are you related to us?" Crossed/Yes

I was totally at a loss, because I had just written about all my family members and whether they were around or not, but I asked, "Are you my grandma Clara?" Crossed/Yes

"Did you scratch me?" Crossed/Yes

"Were you angry at me?" Crossed/Yes

"Is it because of the REM-Pod?" Crossed/Yes

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to to use scientific equipment that's easier to communicate on. I just want to tell you that I love you. I hope you know that." Crossed/Yes

Then I ended my questions, because I wanted to process the fact that this was apparently my grandma. I was just so excited that it was my grandma. I missed her and it felt good that she was here.

Tuesday, July 5 rolled around and it was a horrible day for me. I had a major meltdown with my anxiety over some things going on in my life. When I went to bed that night, I was alone and I just broke down and talked to the room, as if my grandma was really there with me. At some point it felt like she was holding and cradling my head. It was tingly goosebumps running up my neck and around my scalp. And I cried as I imagined her holding me. I thanked her and told her how much I miss her and that I love her. Then I went to bed. 

The next day went on as normal and I chatted to my grandma whenever I was in the room with her. But things got real crazy after that.

On Thursday, July 7 I was sitting in the living room with my husband talking. My husband, while not a skeptic, was a bit more skeptical about this particular spirit encounter. He felt that something about her presence should be showing up on a K2 or EMF detector. Then we talked about how my Grandpa Fritz and my dad didn't want to set off equipment. They just wanted to use the divining rods, which I felt was weird for my dad, who was kind of really into technology stuff like computers, CD players, and DVD players. I pointed out to my husband, though, that I also get "the feels" when they're around. So for example, when I walk into my bedroom I know when my grandma is there, because I get waves of goosebumps on my body. These goosebumps run from my head to my thighs and are almost pulsating in nature. They intensify as I get closer to the stool when I first enter my room. Then they go away and only return if I start talking to my grandma. I went on to explain to my husband that previous night where I was breaking down crying and I came upstairs to talk to my grandma. I described the incident, highlighting the head-cradling sensation I had gotten. 

In that moment I started crying. I was sitting forward on the couch and I bent my head so I could wipe the tears from my eyes. As I lifted my head up, putting my glasses back on, I let out a yell of shock. To the left of me, about four feet away, appeared a grayish figure with some pink highlights running through it. I recognized that hair. I recognized that shirt. In the split second I had to acknowledge the spirit, I knew it was my grandma. My husband did not see this spirit, but he very much did see my reaction which shocked and freaked him out. He said the fright (I was surprised!) on my face was visceral and real.

I cried more and spent my evening in shock that this was my grandma. I had a short talk with her in the bedroom before bed where she did confirm it was her who appeared to me. I cried again.

Friday, July 8 I wasn't getting much of anything from my grandma. It was weak interaction to nothing. When I talked to my mom the next day she said she was performing a pendulum question-and-answer session and said that my grandma was with her that moment. That evening I asked my grandma if she was with my mom on Friday and she said yes. So clearly there is some travel ability for spirits. I just wish I could understand how they travel. 

This is a selection of questions that I talked to my grandma about that evening when she returned to my home from maybe being with my mom. 

"Are you here?" Crossed/Yes

"Were you with Mom yesterday?" Crossed/Yes

"Are you still mad at me?" Started to Cross and Stopped/Maybe? No?

"Is this about mom?" Crossed/Yes

"You just don't like my decision?" Crossed/Yes (I had previously explained to my grandmother why I wasn't visiting my mother as much as some people thought I should have-- my mental health issues.)

"This is just the way things need to be for now. Can you try some of this other equipment to talk to us? It's easier to have a conversation. All you have to do is move in front of it. Can you do that?" Crossed/Yes

We waited a few minutes, but nothing happened and my husband postulated that maybe her spiritual frequency made interacting with the REM-Pod difficult. 

"Thank you for trying if you did. Do you just make the REM-Pod go off the one time to let me know you're here with me?" Crossed/Yes

"Thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it. Do you like when I come in and just talk to the room, sharing stories about the animals or talk about pictures or things like that?" Crossed/Yes

"Would you prefer I do that more than I do the divining rods?" Crossed/Yes

I explained to her how a 2-way conversation is so meaningful. I told her I have so many questions to ask her about things that I wish we had a better way to communicate, but I'm just of the belief that she doesn't want to really 2-way communicate. I then folded down the rods and told her I would try to come in more and storytell for her. I told her I love her and Grandpa Frank and that I miss them very much. Then I put everything away, got ready for bed, and settled in for the night.

Shortly after that, my husband and I heard a huge bang in the corner where the stool is. We couldn't tell if it was the stool or the wall that the sound was made on, but we both agreed it was probably my grandma.  Maybe saying goodnight?

The Sheboygan Asylum w/ Adam Berry (July 2022)

I have a friend who lives in the city of Sheboygan, a little south of me. Last summer she alerted me to Adam Berry and Amy Bruni (from Ghost Hunters and their own show, Kindred Spirits) coming to the Sheboygan area and we gossiped between ourselves about how cool it was. My friend had told me a long while ago that Adam Berry was her cousin and I found out recently he's more specifically her cousin-in-law, married into her family. So as nerdy as it is, I was stoked to have a friend who is related to one of my favorite ghost hunters.

This past spring, my friend again tipped me off to Adam Berry making an appearance at the Sheboygan Asylum near her. Now, I don't normally attend things like this. I've spent many years on the film press circuit and I know what meeting famous people can do to your views of them, so I usually opt out of meeting celebrities of any measure. My friend, though, had expressed a desire to go, especially since her cousin was going to be in attendance. I caved and decided to join in, against every fiber of my being, and decided to try to have a good time with my friend and a billion fangirls with probably very little actual ghost hunting. (I can be a super negative nelly sometimes due to my condition.) I mean, I've had bad experiences with crowded ghost hunts with the public, mostly revolving around the types of people you hunt with. It's just something you have to adjust to if you want to do a public ghost hunt, the price one pays to make up for the typically cheaper dollar-price of a private ghost hunt. 

The day arrived, though, and I found myself as happy as a pig in mud. Was I the one fangirling now? I counted my equipment and made sure everything was working. I packed up my bags and made my trek out to Sheboygan. My friend met me at my hotel and then it was off to the Asylum.

The Sheboygan County Asylum was originally an assisted living place for the clinically insane. It closed in 2002 and was later bought to be renovated. If you'd like to know more about the Asylum's history and how it was stuck with the term asylum, I highly recommend Amy Bruni's podcast about it. I listened to it on my drive out to Sheboygan and really enjoyed all of the history related to the location (you can listen to it wherever podcasts are streamed): Haunted Road S2 – 2: No Longer is Insanity Considered an Affliction

We arrived at the Asylum and met up with the various members of our group - a mixture of family and friends. We then made our way inside to stand in the very long line to get our shirts and meet Adam Berry. I'll spare you the grueling details and just say we eventually made it to the main room that hosted my friend's cousin and his husband, Adam Berry.

First, I want to give a shout out to the t-shirt team who made the shirt for the event. I had been scared about the quality of the shirt, because I'm sort of a t-shirt snob with a collection of over 350 t-shirts. I knew what to usually expect of ordering an event shirt, BUT that was not the case here. I immediately fell in love with the shirt and I couldn't believe how wonderful the fabric felt. Best event shirt I have ever purchased. 

Sadly, though, my nervousness and pure anxiety over meeting a celebrity kicked in. I had warned my friend about this and she was like, "I've got you." As we approached Adam Berry my hands started to shake. I stood back, letting everyone else get their hugs in and their shirts signed and then my friend introduced me and he signed my magazine and asked my name, which he then sang out loud and proud and I derp-ed-ly said "It's the best name."  My friend, though, took my phone camera, which Adam then took, and we finagled ourselves into a photo, which ended up with me right next to Adam. 

It was a bit of a whirlwind, like so many of these experiences are, but he was, hands down, one of the nicest people I've ever met. Genuine kindness just came off of him in waves and it was infectious. I'll come back to this at the end of the entry, as I have more evidence to support this.

After the Meet & Greet, we all prepared for the "lecture." We found some reasonable seats and my friend had her dinner at the food truck that was there for the event. The lecture itself was a delight. Adam Berry is such a card. His stories were funny and his interaction with people was earnest. I loved it. If you can ever go to an Adam Berry event where he's the speaker, I highly recommend it. 

After the lecture they then divided us into the Early and Later investigation groups. Then they divided our early group into smaller groups. Our group was 21 people plus two guides. I won't shy away and pretend like this number didn't upset me. That is too large a number for proper ghost hunting. Perhaps if we were given the run of the place, but not all bunched together following the guides. I've been on enough ghost tours to know the downside of large group sizes. But this was out of my hands and I knew I had to find a way to deal with it or I would ruin my own good time. I'm not going to lie, I have severe social anxiety and even medicated I struggled with the group distribution. But I gritted my teeth and tried to remember that I was with my friends and that was all that was important for the night.

The Nurses' Quarters

Our first stop of the night was the Nurses' Quarters. When we first entered the Nurses' Quarters, I could feel everyone's confusion over what the expectations were for entering the area. But as I walked down the hall, I started to feel the familiar sensation of friendly energy-goosebumps on my arms and my neck and around my head. I stopped where I was and looked into a room across from me. I wanted to take a step towards the room, but was hampered by two ladies who had set up chairs and blocked the doorway. I was frustrated, but I tried to let go of all the stress I was feeling so that I could connect with the spirits in the area. 

The tour guides unloaded and introduced all their equipment and set it up all over the hallway. A lot of it was stuff I had in my own bag: REM-Pod, Ghost Balls (teehee), Spirit Box with Speaker.  I have other fun things in my bag like a K2-Meter, EMF Detectors, Laser Grid Pointer, Laser Temperature Gauge, and my divining rods, That said, they definitely had their bases covered because they also had instruments way out of my price range currently. The tour leaders had an Ovilus, a Paranormal Music Box, a Para-Lamp (detects EMFs using varied colors to demonstrate intensity), EMF Tripwires (a string of individual lights that each detect EMFs using various colors to demonstrate intensity), and Laser Grid Projector. They might have had other equipment, but this is all that I am personally aware of.  After they put out a selection of equipment, they tried to get spirits to respond. Much to our chagrin, nothing really happened, but the night was young and there were so many places to go.

Once we were released to explore for a few minutes, those ladies blocking my path skedaddled. I entered that room across the hall from me and was overwhelmed with goosebumps on my arms, shoulders, neck, and head. I showed them to my friend and she said she felt a little something, too. I didn't know it at the time, but apparently I could have gotten out my equipment and investigated these feelings I was having. I know what I experienced and that's all that matters. Afterwards the tour guides led us out and to another location.

***I rewatched the episode of Kindred Spirits where they go to the Asylum and I realized that the room I had my experience in was the room that Craig Nehring told Amy and Adam a nurse had hanged herself in. I couldn't believe it. This realization gave me a crazy surge of confidence in my own abilities after the fact, but even during the event... as the evening went on... my self-doubt started to erode with what I experienced.***

The Living Quarters

The Living Quarters are across the hall from the Nurses' Quarters. They are made up of numerous tiny rooms and then a larger open space for entertaining as well as a kitchen. We wandered around, looking at all the antiques that were in the room, but we didn't get any notable feelings. At first. Then, out of nowhere, I had the overwhelming urge to leave and find a place to sit down. My stomach was starting to feel uneasy. I thought it was just the high levels of heat, but I wanted to be safe. So I excused myself before all the equipment could be set up.

What I didn't realize was the spirits didn't want me to leave. I was sitting in a chair just outside the door of where my group was.  After some time passed my friend came out and she told me that when the tour guide announced aloud that someone was leaving, over the Spirit Box a voice clearly said "no." Apparently I wasn't supposed to leave! But why? Then my friend told me the Ovilus spit out the words "telepathy", "portal", and "view." The group in the room decided to attach the words to one of the ladies in the group who admitted she had brought a quartz pendulum onto the property. (It expeclicity states not to bring crystals onto the property on the group's website, as they might not have the intended affect or could end up negatively affecting a tour.) I'm personally a bit skeptical of that interpretation-- doesn't really jibe with my instincts. That said I'm not going to project self-importance on the situation and claim the spirit's telling me not to leave had to do with any of the words that came after. I have theories, but I wasn't in the room to see how the session fully played out so it will remain a mystery to me. 

While all this activity was going on inside the Living Quarters, I had my own experience sitting in the hallway outside the door. I was facing the stairs and I had turned to my left to look at the Nurses' Quarters door. As I was turning back to face the stairs, I saw the shadow of a head and shoulders and maybe an arm peeking down at me from the stairs leading to the third floor. It was gone lickedy split. I tried moving my head around and adjusting my glasses to see if I had caught the light the wrong way or something like that. The incident seemed legit, though.

The experience was solidified even more when I was one of the last people walking up the stairs and as I passed the spot where I saw the shadow,  I was stricken with a powerful flash of goosebumps that receded as quickly as it came on. I smiled to myself, knowing that I had definitely had a curious spirit spying on me.

The Third Floor

The Third Floor was the hottest location we visited in terms of summer heat, as the sun was coming down at the perfect angle to hit us the hardest. This area is known for disembodied voices and shadows, as well as footsteps and general noises. We all looked around a bit, but I wasn't picking up on anything. Then the tour guides had us all come to a certain area and sit along the wall, because they had put out all their equipment once again and were going to try to see if anything wanted to communicate. 

No activity was really coming through, but my friend, two of her other friends, and I were really attracted to the far end of the hallway. There were noises of some sort issuing forth from there. I wished very dearly that the talking from behind us would stop so I could try to focus. We were trying to listen and figure out what we were hearing. We did our best to debunk the pops and cracks of the building settling and the birds or bats flying around the windows. I didn't realize at the time, but we could have gone down there ourselves and looked around. That's hindsight and it's 20/20. In the end, once you strip that all away, there did seem to be some peculiar activity occurring in that location.

We were hearing knocks and even heard something loudly fall at the end of the hallway in one of the rooms. My friend was getting scalp tingles and she thought she heard something trying to mimic our tour guide. I swear I heard footsteps shuffling towards us from down the hallway. It felt like something was waking up and just starting to ramp up to full-blown action.

As we got up to head to another part of the third floor wings, I started feeling really sick to my stomach and a bit dizzy. This time a guide took me out, just for safety reasons due to the oppressive heat. I went and got a drink from the food truck that was there for the event. The only thing that was left to drink was the Jamaican drink, Ting! I had flashbacks to my time taking a Marine Ecology course in Jamaica back in the early aughts. I downed the Ting! and took a respite. I was starting to feel better and we eventually rejoined our group in The Tunnel!

The Tunnel

Let's talk a bit about goosebumps. I struggle a bit sometimes processing how I should think about them. Some people don't really put much stock into there being any meaning to the sensation. Sure, you can get them just by being creeped out by something. Nevertheless, after a over a decade of ghost hunting, I put much more faith into the idea that there's energy out there that can trigger that physiological reaction-- especially if you are sensitive to it.

There's different types of gooseflesh that can afflict one in the course of investigating a haunted location. I don't know if these variations carry any special meaning or are happenstance, but they definitely tend to be accompanied by disparate emotional reactions to the sensation. You have goosebumps that bloom out from an origin point, often the extremities. You have spine tingles that trigger goosebumps. There's scalp tingles that reverberate down your spine and shoulders. And then there's the mosquito cloud goosebumps. That's when you're walking along and suddenly feel like you've walked into a thick cloud of mosquitoes flitting against your flesh. 

As we walked into the tunnels, I walked right smack into a "mosquito cloud" of goosebumps that nobody else seemed to. It was like lightly pushing through a field of energy. I rubbed my right arm, confirming their existence, and our guide said to me, "Did you see that episode of Destination Fear?" I said I had and he noted that this was where the picture was taken of the giant shadow person, but from the other direction. Our guide told us that the entity still lurked down here and shows up as a shadow, though not usually as big as the picture in question showed. I believed him, because the mosquitoes told me it was true.

I started to lag behind a bit as we walked towards the Boiler Room where the other members of our group were. I didn't know what was holding me back, but it felt like something wanted me to stay in a certain area. I pushed through the feeling and caught up with my friend and our guide and then took some time appreciating the visual aesthetic of the Boiler Room. 

After a bit the group gathered in the Tunnel. Equipment was laid out and activity started immediately. The lights on the EMF Tripwire started going off and the Para-Lamp was flashing in response to questions. I annexed a nook for myself barely around the corner in the main area of the Tunnel, closer to the Boiler Room. In the flurry of excitement from the group over the things that were happening, it was hard to get positioned comfortably. But that wouldn't matter for me shortly.

The tour guides were talking to a spirit named Paul. We were getting question responses on all the equipment, except the Ghost Balls. He responded on the SpiritBox. He responded on the Ovilus and they were coherent responses to questions that were being asked or things that were being said. He responded using the Tripwire and Para-Lamp. But it wasn't just Paul. There were more spirits there who were struggling to make themselves known. I could feel them around me and soon my stomach started to feel it, too. A friend who was with us said she saw a shadow moving down the hallway and I turned to look, watching the shadow play and sure enough I saw a shadow, closer to the ground, moving back and forth in the shadows by the Boiler Room, which was still well lit from the dwindling sun. But I turned back quickly, because it wasn't just my stomach that was giving me problems. My chest and shoulders began to ache. It was a creeping ache and I couldn't tell if it was physical fatigue or something external and unseen affecting me.

I wanted to ignore the feeling and keep engaging in the activity. I tried to push through the pain, but it slowly swelled and whatever was afflicting me finally crept to my head and I turned to lean my head on the wall. I felt so sick and so dizzy. I knew this was not caused by heat as we were in the extreme cool of the basement and I began to grow certain this was also no mere fatigue setting in. That's when my friend insisted I leave. I didn't even wait for the guide, I just started walking out of the Tunnel with my friend behind me and our guide not far behind her. 

As we got closer to the end of the Tunnel, the guide told me that we were coming up to the place where, if I was having issues due to spirits, I would immediately start feeling better. As we got to that spot, I didn't immediately start feeling better, but every step I took that got me farther away from the tunnel made me feel just a little bit better. I had tarried too long in the Tunnel and should have left sooner it seems. Once we got to the front door, I immediately sat down and started to do some breathing exercises and my friend and the guide went outside. I just sat there letting everything just fall away and finally coming back into my own. It was refreshing and relaxing.

When it was time to rejoin the group again the guide and my friend came back inside to get me. My friend had explained to our guide that I was a sensitive. The guide started explaining to me that the spirits were siphoning off my energy, because I shine like a beacon in the dark to them. He stated that when I feel it starting to happen, I need to send out a big "NO!" to try to stop them from taking me to the brink like they did in the Tunnel. He also recommended that I talk to another lady in their ghost hunting group about the topic, but I sadly wasn't able to connect with her before leaving the event. I cannot say for certain that the guide was right about what happened to me, but my physical crashing coincided with an absolutely bonkers flurry of activity in the tunnels. As my husband would say: "That tracks." 

My thoughts, though, turned to our next location. My most anticipated-- Adam Berry was going to lead the hunt in The Chapel.

The Chapel

We walked back into the basement and through the rec room area. It was here that our guide told me that if I start to feel drained in the Chapel, I should go into the rec room and I'd start to feel better. I was disappointed I didn't snap a photo of the trademark rainbow on the wall, but I was already realizing I had missed a good chunk of Adam Berry's introduction and talk and that was disheartening. 

The three of us entered the room, took stock of the situation, and found spots along the wall to sit and acclimate ourselves. The Tripwire and Para-lamp were out and were responding to questions that were being asked. They were looking for a girl named Hope. And shortly after that, Adam suggested we try the Estes Method (someone is blindfolded and listens to a Spirit Box while wearing noise-canceling headphones as others ask questions). Adam blindfolded himself and then it was go-time.

The voice that originally was coming through at the start of the session identified itself as Hope. That voice, though, quickly was replaced with one they call The Priest (who isn't a real priest). Then it became a back-and-forth of responses between the guide who had taken me out and the voice that Adam was putting out. Our guide said The Priest hates him, so he kept giving comebacks for the comments coming through Adam's headphones. 

One of the exchanges, though, was rather timely. I had started noticing lights moving through the windows behind where Adam was sitting and I knew it was the later group of ghost hunters parking for the night. A voice came through the box that said something like  "they're here." We asked for clarification, but it felt pretty obvious it was referring to all the new people who were arriving outside that we could see the headlights for.

During the exchange the Tripwire and Para-lamp kept going off in front of us. I didn't have any illness feelings in the room whatsoever. Neither did my friend. Perhaps because Adam was the bright beacon in the room for those spirits that were around. 

And then... it was over. 

We all milled around while Adam collected his chair and started to leave with the group. Some people approached him to talk, while others just kept on their way towards the door. I was going to just keep going on my way. As I said, I've had some less-than-stellar run-ins with famous people, even with the best intentions involved. But as we got to the top of the stairs, I saw him step aside from the crowd and I found myself taking at least two steps in his direction and mumbled awkwardly that it was nice of him to come out and do this for everyone. Please understand if you could package awkward, it would be a giant box of me.

The next thing I know I'm in a hug. A hug with Adam Berry. And it was the best hug I've had in years! It felt like it went on forever, but when it was done I couldn't have felt happier. I was a grinning fool. I remember he passed on a compliment to my friend (his cousin) and I gave her a shoulder squeeze confirming that she was as awesome as he said. Then we said our goodbyes and walked out into the cool, fresh night air. 

Overall it was a good event. The ghost hunting was just alright, because we were in a group so much-- a quite large group at that. Nevertheless, the place is brimming with activity. I'm already set to return in August for my daughter's birthday. Meeting Adam Berry was one of my favorite Meet & Greets I've done in all my years. Adam just emanates this positive energy that just makes you want to smile and glow! 

But now it's back to the hauntings in my own life and what can I take away from this event to help me figure out who our mystery guest is. A time well spent. People well met. And ... on to the next.

Coming Up on Ghost Stories: An unexpected guest is lurking in my bedroom.