A Very Restless Night (December 2024)

 Last night was an absolute stresser for me. And things only got weirded when I woke up in the morning and realized there was more at play than I had thought.

At around 11:36PM on Sunday, December 29, 2024, I woke up to a horrible dream. Well, my emotions were horrible, but the dream was tepid. My nephew had become a DJ and was abusing me by excessively playing bass heavy music and it was pounding into my head. I burst awake, quickly realizing my left arm is fast asleep. I loosen my FitBit so much, it's barely hanging on my wrist. All of this is done in a daze. And I give a little bit for my arm and hand to wakeup and I try to go back to sleep. But I can't. 

Something feels off. The bass isn't going away. As I lay there, I wondered if maybe I should turn my fan done one. I turned the fans off the other day and I didn't pay attention to what they were set to. I tried this, but it was actually worse, so I turned it back to what it was, as I was starting to feel really hot. I rearranged myself in bed and got comfortable and put in a concerted effort to fall back asleep.

The next hour of events is comprised of experiences while I was falling asleep and waking up.

I couldn't fall back to sleep completely, because I kept feeling the bed vibrating. No, not like the Quarter Machine Beds, but this very faint vibration that you couldn't feel if you stopped to identify it. I've had this feeling in my bed before and I can't ever really figure out what it is. I thought at one point previously that maybe it was the washer or the dryer. Now we don't run washers or dryers at night, because we assumed maybe that was what I was feeling. You know, like when they go into the spin cycle or those damn silicone plastic dryer balls that I loathe using. I knew it wasn't that. A long time ago when I started living here, I thought it was maybe the vibration from the boats on the water. Some of those big boats really pack a punch, but it's 11:30PM in the winter. The river is frozen. You would also hear if it was snowmobiles and it wasn't safe to take anything near the water last night. We've been having warmer temperatures. 

I texted my husband, who I assumed was awake downstairs doing things. I asked him if the dishwasher was running. I got no response, but I swear I felt his heavy footsteps vibrating from downstairs. So I just assumed he was moving around, letting our other dog out, or just doing what he does in the middle of the night. So I once again, tried to get comfortable, but was definitely feeling like the "Princess and the Pea" with this unexplainable movement. And as I snuggled into my pillow, I heard my dog start growling.

Logan, my dog, was right next to me on the bed and I could feel the growl, as well as heard it. I can rule out his growl as the bed vibrations, as they do not have the same vibration frequency. I tried to see if he was facing a certain direction, but he was still facing into the room, so it didn't help me identify anything. I looked around the best I could and then calmed him, once again settling in.

The slight movements of the bed came and went. I even thought I felt something press down on the other side of the bed, just like someone was leaning forward with their hands. It also felt like someone was walking around my bed and I even, at one point, anticipated seeing my husband coming up to check on me. In my state, though, I can't debunk the footsteps or the pressure on the bed. After a little while I finally slipped into unconsciousness.

BARK! Came from right next to my head and Logan was sitting up in his dog bed that he sometimes uses on top of the bed. I looked around for what he might have barked at, again feeling my left arm having fallen asleep, and then I heard a knock from behind me. It sounded like it was from the wall. I turned towards the wall that we share with our neighbor and listened again. I said "hello" into the room, but heard nothing back. I didn't see the flicker of our neighbor's TV and I actually don't even think they were there. Our neighbors are snow birds, so they leave in the winter. Sometimes they come home for Christmas to check on the place and visit family and friends, but they spend most of their time in Florida. I looked around again and checked in with Logan, then attempted to go back to sleep again.

Not long after, I woke up again. This time it was because I was overheating and my arm was asleep again. I couldn't figure why I was overheating. I had a ceiling fan on, a table fan next to my head, thin pajamas, and a heat-sensitive blanket. I heard the click-click of the space heater further away in the bedroom and saw that it was at 77 degrees, which is way hotter than what I put it at. I have it set to 72 degrees. I left it alone and realized my dog's winter blanket had somehow become entangled with my heat sensitive blanket. I'm sure I could give a dozen reasons for it leaving it's place under my dog's bed and my husband's pillow, but it felt wrong to have that blanket so entwined with mine. It is a blanket that really bumps up body heat. I had it for my dog while we traveled and for cold days and I learned quickly that it causes him to overheat and learned I, too, can overheat with it. After untangling it, I discarded it to the other side of the bed and rolled around for several minutes trying to get comfortable and cool down. 

During that time I was getting weird feelings on my legs and my body, like faint wisps of tingles. I ignored it, though, wanting to get back to sleep. And finally I did.

But yet again, at 12:35AM, I was awoken with a start. When my eyes opened, they saw the cat ball on the table at the end of my bed going off. I sat up and quickly texted my husband so I had the information documented. Then I said "Susy is that you?" and the cat ball lit up again and one more time and then I felt consumed with ghost fuzzies and I heard a distressed woman's voice to my left (where the knock came from) saying something like "Go away! Stop!" I actually thought it was my neighbor, like "Oh my goodness! Who is beating Patty! Greg would never do that!" But, again, no light was on in their room. 

And then everything just... stopped. The ball stopped. The noises stopped. I wasn't getting feelings or responses. It was almost calm. I slowly got up to go to the bathroom and walking through the room felt calmer than it had for the last hour. 

I went to sleep one more time and was able to sleep mostly fine for the rest of the night. And when I got up in the morning, I quickly went downstairs to talk to my husband about the whole thing. And while I was retelling things, something clicked in my mind: Two Dark Men.

The men who were harassing my daughter Isabelle. I pulled up my entry on the situation and right there it said everything I was thinking. But this time, Susy Clemens was there and, at the end, tried to make them go away. 

After processing everything, here is my acting theory on these two men:

They are two men who come from the cemetery about a half mile up the way. One of them is taller than the other. They have chosen to behave like boogeymen and get a kick out of "scaring" people. We're not the only people in the area that they've done this to. I feel like they had gone to other houses in our neighborhood as well, especially a certain house on the corner of our neighborhood. When we drove past the house, I felt like they were a prime target for these two men. I also felt that these two men did not know each other in life, but met after death and are from the older part of the cemetery. The other night was not their first time meeting us, but they've been coming to our house for a few years now and we just weren't tuning into what was causing these restless and disturbing nights. The other spirits leave these two spirits alone, because they are so hostile and nasty. They come late in the evening, sometime between 11PM and 4AM, when people are most likely asleep and easily manipulated. My husband has never had any negative encounters, but then he is almost always awake during these hours. I don't feel the taller one always wears a mask, but I feel like he changes up his look to scare different types of people. The shorter one I picture in a tweed jacket and the taller one is in a black suit. 

I tried to communicate with Susy this morning, but we weren't connecting. I have some questions for her later. Maybe she can help me understand what went on. Until then, I worked on a great deal of debunking.

Debunking:

~ My arm was probably related to my own body issues with too much salt and sleeping on it weird. It's not an uncommon thing, but also I don't think it's anything paranormal.

~ The shaking of the bed is not due to anxiety tremors or restless leg syndrome. I also do not have MS and I haven't been tested for Parkinson's. That's what the internet suggested. I'm not going to run out and get tested for these illnesses without other symptoms, but I feel I should at least mention it. 

~ We checked the stability of the bed. It is a giant, heavy wood sleigh bed. It's sturdy. The slats and box springs are also in good order. Our current mattress needs updating, but we recently turned it/flipped it and it's quiet firm. I've been in unstable beds before and, yes, they are a nightmare, but that is not my bed last night.

~ Nothing external from the neighbors contributed to the situation. My one set of neighbors, as mentioned, were not there last night. Our other neighbors do not typically affect our bedroom, aside from the glow of their TV, because they don't shut their blinds.

~ My daughter was in bed and asleep by the time this all started. She does play videos on her laptop on low volume in the room. When I made a bathroom stop after the situation, her videos were not loud enough to hear in my room. Plus the hallway leading to the door to the hallway by her room is on the other side of my bed, a good ways away.

~ The fans could cause matrixing of noise, but not a loud knock or a specific female voice in distress. The most it would matrix is a conversation or maybe what sounds like music 

~ The vibrations are not from the dishwasher (which was run at 5AM and I didn't feel it). It was not the laundry, as it was not run at all that evening. It was not the furnace, which is on the other side of the house and doesn't cause vibrations anywhere in the house. And it's not the sliding glass doors below my bedroom, because no one was awake to use them.

~ The cat was in the hallway outside my room and could have maybe caused Logan to initially bark, but when he jumps at the door, it's a noticeable sound that did not match what I was hearing and also didn't match the location where it came from. 

A Famous Visitor? (December 2024)

I arrived home from a two-week road trip through New England on November 18, 2024. I went to so many amazing places and experienced so many different things that I turned it into its own blog that I'm working on. While on this trip, I had several paranormal encounters. Two I will write about here when I get to that portion on my travel blog, but one encounter happened once I arrived home and realized someone tagged along. It's funny to say, because in my last few hotels, I had that feeling that makes you want to put out some equipment to see if someone is trying to get your attention. I joke that I know a spirit is around, because it feels like someone stuck their fingers into your personal space bubble and started wiggling them. It's not a big bold feeling, just this tiny whisper of something feeling odd. My husband always asks me, "Why did you want to do that?" when, for what seems no reason, I open up some equipment. I always tell him that something is odd and maybe someone wants to share something. Sometimes the spirit is all for interacting with the equipment we've put out once they've made themselves initially known. Other times I might have a spirit who, as a few have told me, hate the noise the equipment makes or they are lower energy spirits at the moment (having maybe expended the energy) and can't seem to make things work. The only reason not using our equipment is mildly frustrating is because we do operate under a more Ghost Hunters style investigation technique where we seek evidence to back up our personal experiences. Well, also... my husband can't feel or know what I'm feeling and knowing from the spirits. And I sometimes wish the spirits would confirm things on the equipment, because I am sometimes self-conscious about trusting my own feelings. 

The long and short of it is, though, that I've kind of stopped demanding "evidence." I don't have to prove anything to anyone. And those who don't believe aren't going to believe if they don't want to. Even our best friend has had experiences, but remains very skeptical. And there's nothing wrong with that. Additionally, these spirits who come into my home or want to interact with me, I've learned, are not there to prove something to me. They are there because they want something from me, which is usually to be heard and acknowledged and sometimes hugged. So what does it matter if I use the fancy, evidence-collecting equipment? I can display my goosebumps to my husband to verify. He can watch me when I'm using my divining rods. He can literally hear me having a conversation based on information in my head and see the rods ebb and flow. Did you know each spirit I interact with for several sessions has their own rod-voice or swing-fingerprint? I can actually talk to all three of my spirit guides at once and I know who is answering what. But all I want anymore is whatever method of communication works best for the spirit. Do I still try for evidence on the millions of things we've invested in purchasing? Yes. Do all the spirits I encounter use them? No. The majority do, but then you get the special cases like our Famous Visitor.

After things settled at home from my travels, I started to notice something odd. Just something in the air feeling out of the ordinary. I didn't push too much, because our friend Daniel (the little boy spirit from the Oshkosh Grand) was still visiting and I knew Becky (spirit guide and active Glenbeulah spirit) was popping in and out now that I was home. Becky did not accompany me on my travels, unlike Peggy and Michael (my two primary spirit guides). (A 12/11/24 interaction with our visiting spirit proved that Becky did come with me on the trip.)  I put out a lantern so that if a spirit needed to get our attention, it was available to them. Daniel pinged on it a day later and we briefly talked, ending with a hug. I haven't encountered him since. And still, there was a strange shift in the atmosphere. I was getting strange tickle-ghost-fuzzies - like when someone is trying to ASMR you and they're not touching you, but they're running their hands just above your skin. This usually means one of two things for me 1) I need to bring myself into the immediate moment and focus on who is trying to reach out to me (spirit guide? visiting spirit? other?) or 2) Someone is trying to reach me and is slowly edging closer, but is too shy to signal a lantern or they goose-ghost-fuzzies me flat out. 

It was the second option. This spirit was hesitant to reach out fully. I started to speak out into the room, encouraging them to come forward to the lantern. Letting them know that if they are here, they have to "ring my doorbell" so to speak so that we can find a way to communicate that works for the two of us. Later that day, the lantern went off, indicating that someone was present and wanted to speak. I asked for them to do it again, so that we could establish a conversation. They did not. I didn't hear from them again until the next evening, this time in my bedroom. The lantern went off just once and no more. But this time I got a blast of ghost-fuzzies. I told whoever was there that I couldn't speak anymore that evening, but that we could speak tomorrow and I would bring some more options.

The following morning, I was doing a late yoga session in my room and I felt compelled to communicate. It was overwhelming, like I just didn't want to get up at all and my gut was urging me to speak. I didn't have any equipment and I explained that I could feel them. Whatever they "just" did made me feel a sensation on my skin. I explained that's the only way I can communicate at the moment and I really feel like you need me to know you right now. And they lit me up with ghost-fuzzies. So I concentrated on what was around me. I asked some basic questions to establish our interaction. And then I closed my eyes, taking in a few deep breaths. What appeared behind my eyelids was something I've never experienced before. I saw a solid dark rectangle and then all of a sudden, like 8-bit style, I saw the portion of a woman's head/hair. My face was turned down, and as I raised my head, it was like an 8-bit silhouette of a woman appeared and when I looked back down, it moved back to the top of her head. I said, shocked, as my eyes flew up and looked ahead of me, "I see you! I see a young woman standing here" and I outlined the empty space in front of me with my fingers. And the spirit lit me up with ghost-fuzzies, not just the gentle confirmation of tapping my leg or shoulder. We continued to communicate as I confirmed she is a young woman, she wants to speak with me, and is a visitor to our home and area. I had to dismiss myself after catching sight of the clock and promised we'd talk more later.

The rest of the day I had ghost-fuzzies throughout the day. Mostly on my leg, like someone was patting my knee or thigh. That evening, I took my lantern, a cat ball, and my divining rods to my bedroom. I set up the ball by my grandma's chair on a shelf that is now there. I put the lantern near the questionable corner (where I see spirits at night often) on the corner of the dresser. I sat in the middle of the room on my chair with my rods. I started out asking the the spirit to make themselves known using the cat ball or the lantern. My husband and I waited for a response. I had gotten a few ghost-fuzzie hits and knew someone was with us, but I hoped to get a more "reputable" sign of their presence. And sadly, nothing.

I held up my divining rods, ready to interact. I felt the spirit move closer. I started asking basic questions (is someone with us? are you willing to speak with us? can you use the equipment laid out? Are you someone I know? - list of people who typically stop in. Are you from here?). Then I start to dig more. I try to learn where they came from and how they got here. I have to use thoughts that pop into my head to help drive the Q&A, else I'm just reaching out at nothing. I learned that the spirit was a woman and she found me during my trip to New England. I started listing off places I had visited and avoiding the one location that was screaming in my head to ask. I was lit up with ghost-fuzzies and I finally asked "Are you from Connecticut?" Yes. "Are you from the Mark Twain House?" Yes. 

I paused, because a new thought pushed to the front of my mind, again, practically screaming while the spirit lit me up with even more ghost-fuzzies. "Are you Mark Twain's daughter?" Yes! "Are you Susy?" Yes! The whole interaction had come to a climax and all of a sudden I felt slack. The realization washed over me that Susy Clemens had followed me home and wanted to interact with me. I felt out of my depth. I felt confused. I politely asked again, just to confirm what I was feeling and, yes, once again she confirmed she is Susy Clemens. I thanked her for sharing and, feeling exhausted yet exhilarated, I asked if she needed something specific from me. Essentially, she just wanted to be around for the holidays and was happy to interact with me. We said our goodbyes and I established my sleeping expectations for visiting spirits (no bedroom once I've gone to bed) and I closed out our session.

I was at a loss for what just occurred. Could I really have inspired the eldest daughter of Mark Twain to piggyback home to Wisconsin? I had just dealt with an Egregor (I think?) in Salem, Massachusetts. But this spirit didn't carry that energy. This spirit shared very specific things with me that caused me to have the feelings that I had. But isn't it a bit coincidental that only about a week ago I booked to attend an Adam Berry event AT the Mark Twain House? Was she the reason I had been looking for haunted Mark Twain House shows on my streaming services? (But not finding the ones I wanted for some weird reason.) My mind was whirling and I was starting to talk myself into dismissing everything, including my own mental state. (I have to stop not believing in myself or I'll never grow and understand who I am and what I am capable of.) I laid in bed trying to devise a way to gather evidence to support the claim that she is Mark Twain's daughter, Susy Clemens. 

Eureka! I had the answer to how I would try to achieve a more assured identification. I would come up with 5 questions and provide 3 answers for each question. I would write them down in a notebook with no answers marked anywhere. Then I would have my husband randomly lay out the three answers on the floor, upside down, and I wouldn't look. We would then ask Susy to answer the question by pointing the rods to the left, right, or center. If she chose center, I would ask to clarify, as it was right in front of me. My husband would mark the answers in my notebook (he didn't know the answers either) and he would not tell me what was selected until we were finished. All the questions were about Susy and things I either learned on my tour of the Mark Twain House or information I learned on the internet.

The questions and answers are above. She answered all of them correctly, even the one I totally screwed up and didn't realize how right she was at that moment. 

My husband asked, on question 2, "Who did you write an Autobiography for?" And Susy hesitated, not sure what to say and then slowly swung the rods, so hesitantly, to the right. I could feel her hesitancy, like she wasn't sure what we meant. I clarified, saying "It was published later. You were about 13 when you wrote it?" My husband had already started moving to change the answers for the next question, and all of a sudden, it was like someone was aggressively tapping my leg or even squeezing my arm, as if to say "No! No! It's this answer!" And my rods swung rapidly to the left to a different answer. And I told my husband mark it. That's the answer she wants. And it was Mark. The first answer she chose was Olivia, which was her mother. Later, I forgot, that Susy's name is Olivia Susan Clemens. We had asked her about an AUTObiography... what she wrote for her dad was a BIOgraphy, but was added to Mark Twain's AUTObiography when he published his. Even in my mistake, she was correct. 

I conversed with her later about equipment. She said she knew of Spiritualism and communicating with "the other side," which is why she is engaging with us. (It was shared with me in a "duh" type thought.) She didn't know what a Ouija Board was and had never encountered something similar. She also said she had no interest in using it. I asked her if she uses my energy to help her move the rods and she confirmed this. She said she has tried the other things we gave her to use, but isn't interested. I'm starting to think she isn't as powerful as other spirits I've encountered, which is why she has been able to be so lowkey on our plane of existence. When I asked her about reports of events at the Mark Twain House being her, she said no to all of the poltergeist-type claims, but did not answer regarding the white lady or her father. I did confirm that her preferences for proximity to me is my right side or in front of me and that, yes, she is tapping my thigh (a friendly female gesture) or touches my arm/shoulder. I promised her we'd talk again.

My husband and I discussed how to proceed. I still needed to find out if there was more to her claim and that she just wanted to be with us for the holidays and that she saw my "light" and felt compelled to stay with me. So we decided to do the questions again (a new set) and this time completely block the answers from my view. I do feel she is who she says she is, but I think she might be okay if we ask her questions one more time, especially if we can have a conversation. The rods can be draining to me, so I can't always go for long sessions. Susy told me the other day, too, that she does draw on my energy to communicate with us. But she just wants to be with us for Christmas. She wanted to travel and see more of the world that she hadn't before and that's why she's here, because I felt like a person she wanted to come home with.

It's funny... that story continues to echo over so many spirits to me. They were drawn to me. They liked my light/energy. They thought they would enjoy being in my space and sharing a small part of my life. I've asked other spirits before what we (my family) look like to them and they've shared that we just stand out "bright." Bright is from our visitor Daniel. Maybe more will be made clear over time. (A 12/11/24 interaction with Susy and a 12/13/24 session with Becky revealed that Becky encouraged Susy to come home with me to help me learn to further learn to communicate with spirits. Becky's spirit guide goal is to develop my empathic abilities.) 

To wrap things up for now, I should share that we did one more set of 5 questions. They were written from things I knew or learned on the tour and two questions from a biography online. My husband was in his closed office with my questions. My daughter had the notebook with the questions and 3-answer suggestions (unmarked and she didn't know the answers). She also randomly put down the answers behind blinders (boxes) so that I couldn't see the answers. I sat on my chair with the rods, communicating with Susy. So I would say to my husband "we're ready for the questions." I would wait for the rods to move. My daughter would mark Susy's answer choice and not tell me. Then my daughter would reset the answers and we'd do the process over again with the next question until 5 questions were finished.

4 out of 5 questions were answered correctly. Again, I was asking these questions to validate that I am actually communicating with Susy, even though my heart and her energy make me feel that it is. It's the Ghost Hunter in me that wants confirmation. This process was the best I was going to get. Two sessions of questions using the rods. And, honestly, all 10 questions were answered correctly. 

The one question on our second interaction that was wrong actually has a story behind it. The second question was "What is your birthday?" When asked, Susy kept the rods straight. When the rods were kept straight, I asked her to confirm that she was pointing forward and I received so much hesitation from her regarding what to do. But she said yes. When the answers were revealed, she had selected my husband's birthday. I asked her again, in the moment, if she could select her birthday. (My daughter randomly put down the birthday answers behind the boxes before the selection was made.) The rods stayed straight again. They didn't move at all, just like before. I asked if that was her birthday and the rods just stayed straight. The answer was, again, incorrect. My husband pontificated that maybe she doesn't remember her birthday and the rods confidently swung to cross as a yes. 

Why wouldn't she know her birthday? To us now adays we just think everyone would know their birthday. We started looking into when celebrating your birthday became a common place activity in America. We learned that it didn't become a common activity until between the 1860s and the 1890s in the American middle class. So for Susy, with her family moving back and forth between Europe and America, perhaps it wasn't something that her family participated in, at least her parents wouldn't have. So Susy wouldn't have a grandiose yearly reminder of her birthday. Additionally, a birth date wasn't typically used like it is today. Today we use it for everything. Back then, a young woman wouldn't have needed to use it except for maybe travel and, even then, travel was usually handled by the leading male in the household. Birthdays were usually recorded in a family Bible and, for women, weren't used for more than an age identification for marriage purposes. This has, of course, changed a great deal since Susy's lifetime and isn't something our modern minds think much about when interacting with spirits from a different era. It definitely heightened my awareness of asking information such as ages and dates that just might not be known. And, sadly, often some of this information is the hardest to identify via research for females who have passed. 

Olivia Susan "Susy" Clemens came home with me from the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut in November 2024. I know it in my bones. I am terrified to share it with the greater paranormal community. I don't want to exploit her presence here. She wants to be with us for the holidays and have occasional talks together, being acknowledged and appreciated. We have a small family with several pets to fill our home with heartfilled warmth during the holidays and I am more than happy to include and acknowledge her in our celebrations. (Sidenote: she was fascinated by our cookie making.)

So there it is. I don't know what her plans are for when I return to the Mark Twain House in January. I also am scared to share what I've learned with those I meet, so maybe I'll stay silent or be dubbed attention-getting. As I read over this I laughed, because writing this is outing my experience. I'm scared at the reception. I am not attention seeking, I am merely sharing my experience to allow others to feel seen. But maybe Susy and I can work on how to use offered energy to wow a crowd, as if entertaining friends or to let us all hear her beautiful singing voice. I'll talk to her about it and see where it goes. Susy is so sweet and I appreciate being a home she wanted to be a part of.