I was in upstate New York working on a short film (a horror film, of all things) in an old farm house years ago. The cast/crew were on the first floor, and I went to get something I left in the upstairs hallway. When I swung around to head back down, I caught a glimpse of an old woman laying in one of the beds, and my entire body went cold. When I looked again, there was nothing but a fully made bed. I went downstairs and told the home owner, and completely unsurprised, she said, "Oh, you met Martha! She's a nice one." When I look back at that time in my life (a less rigid one with far fewer earthly responsibilities taking up my brain) it makes sense that my awareness was more open to that sort of thing. 🤷♂️
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My GF and I have seen two ghosts in my room in an old Chicago apartment.
I saw a man with a top hat and an old timey suit with a big red beard staring over me one night and it slowly dissipate.
Then a month or two later my GF saw a women in an old hoop skirt sit on the bed and she slowly dissipated as well.
Both of these happened after waking up in the middle of the night but I don’t think there is any coincidence at all! I believe these two ghosts were the first couple to live in/build the apartment I live in.
My GF and I have not seen either ghost since our only encounters with them.
Feb 20, 2024
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So I lived in a house in Erie, PA which was haunted as fuck and I had several experiences there.
1. I helped the landlord (who is a good friend of mine) before I moved in because he got a report that someone had potentially broken into the house. We walked around the house and as we were leaving I went to close the door and something ripped it out of my hands and flung it open. I screamed but we didn't see anything there.
2. I holed up in this house during COVID and at the time only myself and my friend/landlord were living there and I began to really notice the activity when I had been there for a while. I would constantly hear walking through the house, even when we were both in our rooms or he was gone for the day. The walking was not just the house creaking, it was footsteps sounding off the ground. There was also some more conventional spooky stuff like seeing stuff peeking at me from hallways/doorways and shadow men standing around places.
3. The worst experience came when I was talking to two of my roommates one night (this was probably in fall of 2019). We were just chatting and suddenly I felt a hand come down hard on my shoulder. Nobody was behind me, nobody else was home but the three of us, so I have no idea what did this. I screamed and I'm not even sorry. To this day it is the most terrifying experience of my life.
There was some other minor activity and I had some friends tell me about a few weird things that happened when they hung around the house. My friend just told me he is selling the house so I suppose someone else will be saying hello to that house's other residents soon.
May 26, 2024
I think ghosts are energy that lingers over time and, if it’s not cleared or amplified, it can be made manifest. Not to be metaphysical—I see the clutter that arises out of hoarding in the same way, but that’s a whole other can of worms. Houses, especially those steeped in history, are inherently liminal spaces—they exist at the threshold between the past and the present, the seen and the unseen.
We were once afraid of the darkness in the open expanse of the wilderness at night, and now the darkness is contained with us within four walls. You don’t know what’s going on in those four walls until you’re inside and staying there for a while, whether it’s an overnight stay as a guest, a lease with a fixed term, or a long-term purchase.
Mark Fisher’s concept of the weird captures this unease perfectly. The weird is that which feels out of place—an energy, an object, or a memory that doesn’t belong but refuses to leave. Houses are often full of these anomalies: a creaking floorboard, a shadow in the corner of your eye, a strange layout that never quite makes sense. These small dissonances accumulate, creating an atmosphere that feels uncanny, as though the house itself is alive and aware of your presence.
The trap of the house is also deeply modern. Once you discover its unsettling secrets, you have to stay there, tethered by responsibility and the cost of leaving. The house becomes a site of entrapment—a perfect example of Fisher’s liminal, where you’re stuck in a space that isn’t quite safe but isn’t immediately escapable either, with whispers and presence making themselves known to you from out of time.
If this resonates, you might enjoy my autobiographical contemporary gothic story about living in a house that used to be an old maternity hospital (pictured), where I explore these feelings and ideas. You can read it here: Haunting.
Dec 28, 2024
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