One weekend I went away with friends and we rented an old cottage out close to nature. We wanted to get out of the city, be able to take nice awareness walks outdoors and have time to focus on some of the spiritual exercises, like mantras and astral projection.
The cottage we rented was quite old and it turns out it was haunted by the ghost of the man who had built it, lived his life there, and gone crazy. Of course, we did not know any of this history when we booked it, but quickly found out the first night.
The First Encounter with the Ghost
I ended up sleeping on a couch out in the main living area that evening, while others were nearby in small rooms coming off the main living room.
As I got closer to sleep, I felt myself sliding into a dark, chaotic, crazy scene. There was a male figure present, very menacing, and he was shouting expletives and thrashing about crazily, as if out of his mind. The scene felt so heavy and dangerous that I woke up terrified.
One of my friends woke up as well, startled by a crazy man he saw in his dreams. Another friend saw the same dark figure in her dreams.
Every time I tried to go back to sleep, this menacing figure was there, and seeing how we all had similar dreams it was apparent that there was an entity present and tied to the cottage we were staying in.
Dealing with Intense Fear
As I would try to drift off to sleep, I could feel his presence in the main room, right near the edge of the couch, almost as if he was waiting for me in the astral. At one point in a dream I saw that he had a knife, and he tried to cut my leg with it. It was like going into a continuous nightmare.
Because this experience was so dramatic, I felt an intense ongoing fear which basically lasted through the night. It was unusual for me because unlike smaller fears that were more commonplace, like the fright of discovering a big spider in the house, or feeling nervous about having an unpleasant conversation with someone, this was a different kind of fear altogether. It was more raw and basic, and survival-based I suppose.
Tackling Emotions of Fear with Self-Observation
During the night, I found through self-observation that this was an interesting, albeit scary learning experience. I noticed that my immediate reaction to the fear produced by the ghost was to try and avoid it. Internally, it was like wanting to ‘get away’ from the feeling, cover it up, or pretend it wasn’t there. I truly wished it would go away, and that I could escape from that awful feeling of being terrified.
The only thing was that this emotion was so large, and that ghost wasn’t going anywhere, so there was no escaping it for the night. Each hour that went by when I’d drift off to sleep, only to encounter the menacing figure and startle awake, the fear stayed firmly entrenched, producing various effects in my body.
Since I couldn’t escape from the situation, I eventually began to observe how the emotion was functioning inside me, which is what I had learned from Belsebuub’s courses.
In the video below Belsebuub explains how the egos and the subconscious work, and how the consciousness functions when freed from the egos — that is what I was striving to get to internally given the circumstances.
Logically, I knew that I was not in a life-or-death situation. Although the ghost was extremely scary, he wasn’t hurting me physically, and each time I nodded off and woke back up in my body during the night, I was fine. Scared, for sure, but not hurt in any way.
It dawned on me, after several hours of this going on, to finally just look inwardly at the emotion. I noticed how it made my stomach tie up in sickening knots, my heart pound, and my mind imagine all kinds of wild scenarios where I didn’t make it through the night. The other thing I realized was that the emotion and all its baggage was a separate entity from me.
There was me, and there was the emotion inside of me, but it wasn’t actually me. And seeing this separation was so helpful, like a light bulb going off about how to understand and deal with fear.
If the horrible emotion I was feeling wasn’t actually a part of me, that meant there was an opportunity to remove it, whereas if it was just a part of me then I was stuck with it for the rest of my life. I saw how ignoring it, which was my initial impulse, wouldn’t get me anywhere with removing it since it didn’t allow me to see it as a separate thing from myself.
I had practiced self-observation for a few years before this event took place, but this magnified example really let me see how the emotion of fear could totally cripple me. Had it been a different emotion I might have been able to tackle it more easily, but the way I naturally wanted to deal with the fear was to just run away and hide from it.
This presented a problem though, because although running away from fear seemed like the easiest solution, it didn’t actually work. No matter how much I pretended it wasn’t there, the situation forced me to see that it was there, and an absolutely massive emotion at that.
It was also interesting to see how once that emotion got a grip on me, my thought processes became muddled. For instance, why else would I start imagining all the ways I might die at the hands of a ghost when it wasn’t actually hurting me physically? Those were irrational thoughts, produced by the intense emotion I was feeling, and just left me completely frozen and feeling trapped.
Reflecting back on the situation, this was a valuable insight into the mechanism of fear, and what happens if you don’t actually deal with it.
Incredibly, the next morning we found a written history of the property and the family which had lived there for decades. One part of the written account told of the man whose wife had died, and then he had gone crazy, in the end eventually guarding people from entering the house after her death with a knife.
Although the experience was scary I felt lucky to be able to learn firsthand not only about the supernatural, but also about how to observe and deal with a strong ego with detachment.
Being in that place was really something else! 😮 I remember dealing with the fear it brought out for me in my own way, and just how raw it was and how difficult it was to shake it off too. Because in other circumstances I’m not generally fearful of ghosts or the paranormal, but the intensity of that experience showed me otherwise. I think we all had a good dose of dealing with fear for those few days 😀
Hello Dara,
What a great story!
Thoroughly enjoyed reading it, thanks for sharing.
Interesting experience Dara and I agree with many things others have mentioned.
I know the feeling where we find ourselves alone at night and due to some circumstances (like staying in an unfamiliar unpleasant place, or with insects or wild animals crawling around, or a perceived danger in the streets, or sometimes when very ill or whatever) that we can find ourselves having to face these very low states. Where in the night all of a sudden the supernatural feels natural, compared to the rationality of daytime. And then drifting into sleep, which takes us to those regions in our psyche, catching us off guard because our psyche’s sleep state etc. Definitely unpleasant and not easy, hoping for the morning to come although time seems to go excruciatingly slow.
But anyway, I think you did really well in deciding to fight it and make the best of it instead!
I also thought something similar to what Aleksandr wrote, what about future lettings? Did you guys pass anything on to the booking agency? 🙂
Similarly to what others have shared in the comments I was amazed when reading your experience how you were able to deal with that fear all alone throughout the night with awful dreams each time you went to sleep. Your strength in that situation to study the fear is something I can’t imagine. I would have run away. Thank you for demonstrating the power self-observation and self-knowledge have even over crippling emotions like that.
Well considering that it was dark outside and the woods around the place were equally as creepy, running away didn’t seem like much of an option at the time haha. So it was just being stuck with that state. Thank goodness for self-observation, the night would have been way worse without having that learning component there.
This is amazing Dara, how you were able to turn this unavoidable situation to your advantage! Especially when it comes to fear, as it can be such a crippling and paralysing state…
I had a similar situation happening to me when I had a chance to encounter my father’s ghost in the astral plane shortly after he died. Apparently, his ghost/personality was still very fresh and very much like during his life, doing the same things, etc. He was calling me from the downstairs of the house and I was upstairs (where my bedroom was). Being aware that he just died a day ago and that the “thing” that is calling me is just his ghost, I got absolutely frightened for some reason (illogical when looking back, but oh well) and wilfully returned back to my body – something I have never done before when consciously in the astral. I kept being afraid even after waking back in physical and just could not get rid of the feeling. I vaguely remember asking for the elimination of the state, but it kept coming back and i didn’t reach any breakthrough with it. Maybe what you mention about the realization of the separateness of the fear from the real “you” made the main difference.
Oh wow I can definitely see how that situation could bring up fear, Lucia. It is strange when you look back at things logically — logic and emotion can be at two totally different ends of the spectrum! Yes agreed that separateness is important for eliminating egos.
Thanks Dara for telling your experience. Although I can’t relate to such a raw fear, especially from a ghost, I can relate to using self observation to tackle strong emotions. Like you said, the key is to be detached from the situation. In my case the key is to observe what the emotions wants from me without being lost in its fantasies. I know it’s not easy to do for day-to-day emotions, so I can imagine it was very tough for you that night.
Hi Dara,
What an amazing, scary and brave experience all rolled into one! It was amazing how an understanding of the situation gave you the courage to deal with the ghost phenomenon, all though you were scared at first you were still able to eventually deal with the events by understanding what was going on with experience, if only more people could understand spiritual and Esoteric principles then we would be able to understand more about ourselves and whats happening with the world right now and come to an understanding of how to deal with many things in a better way.
Your experience really shows the relationship between events and how understanding of the event both internally and externally are big clues to exploring and finding out about the supernatural side of life and what’s within us. It’s sad what happened to the man that built that house! after reading what happened to him did that change the fear about the house and the experience at all? I meant did you feel different about the ghost experience after reading what happened to him and gaining more of an understanding why the ghost was acting like that? I’m just starting to see the power of understanding and how for me in the past I’ve really underestimated that understanding is very important in doing the inner work upon the ego’s, It’s is such a big thing which helps unlock so much more about events, situations & why things are the way they that it’s almost like a special key in it’s self which unlocks so much for us and also how a lack of understanding can cause so much damage to things.
I agree, all kinds of learning opens up when we take the experiences of our life as a means to find out what’s happening inside. I don’t think reading about what happened to him changed the fear for me per se. Had I encountered him again, even knowing why he was there or what had happened to him, it was just such a raw terrifying thing, to feel threatened and attacked that I wouldn’t be able to control that fear coming up.
For me finding out about his past gave a greater understanding of just how powerful the egos can be, and where they can lead us — ie to distraught, low, animalistic states so powerful that they saturate an environment for decades even after death.
I also felt like this experience was a gift from the divine in a way, because of the way it unfolded. It provided valuable learning, physical verification of something supernatural, and I don’t know, even though it was very scary it was also a glimpse into higher dimensions and how they affect the physical world, so that in and of itself was very inspiring and has stayed with me even all these years later.
I remember hearing about the story of the ghost at that retreat and I recall how scary it sounded at the time but I’m glad to hear about you taking the “bull by the horns” and dealing with it in a productive and courageous way. It sounded like an incredibly valuable experience.
Thanks for sharing this encounter Dara. It’s incredible how these raw emotions can be buried in our subconscious even for years, waiting for the right moment to manifest. As you mentioned, the instinctive survival-type fear you felt was markedly different from the usual anxieties that can often crop up in our daily lives, and it had a tangible effect on your mind and body’s response to it.
One important point you touched upon was how that fear, like any ego state, wants to feed and how it became all-encompassing. You also mentioned that when the intense fear infiltrated the mind, all sorts of irrational thoughts were stirred up. Logically you know that the entity couldn’t harm you physically in any way and yet the primal survival mechanism was still switched on.
In a way the experience was a blessing in disguise, as we are programmed to run away from these kinds of intense fear-provoking situations, or avoid getting into those situations at all costs. Of course, it’s definitely not a wise idea to deliberately seek out fear-provoking situations to observe our responses to them, but being unexpectedly forced to go through your experience eventually allowed you to fight it and detach from it, in order to gain an understanding of the nature of that emotion.
Hey Michael, yes it did feel like a blessing in disguise. I felt fortunate to have that experience as it provided a really unique kind of learning that normally doesn’t come up in run of the mill daily activities. It was amazing really.
That’s an intense experience Dara, wow! When I was reading your story, I saw my mind commenting “Why doesn’t she run away and leave the house.” which was probably a similar thought that was running through your head. Quite brave to face your fears like that and make the most out of the night, not something for the faint-hearted. It’s inspiring to read how you saw that the fear as something separate from you after some time and by seeing it this way, you were able to remove it.
I would most definitively feel totally crippled with fear if I was there at the time. I think it takes a lot of strength to detach and to study the fear in that moment rather than to run away from it. Understanding of the situation can really help this process – I guess you had a very different experience once you learned about the history of the house.
I had to smile when I saw your post Dara, because I remember that weekend spent up at that cabin and I knew it must be your or Jenny’s story. What a wild experience! It was strange that Nicole and I didn’t have the attention of the ghost, but I think we were also staying in an addition to the original house that wasn’t newer and he obviously was very distraught at having you guys right in his living room!
It’s great you were able to take away that learning from being exposed to fear in such a raw way. It was just such a unique situation where the group was able to experience the astral ghost and then be able to read about the history of the place in the book which retold the poor man’s story and his life ending in madness. While it was quite sad in a way I’ve retold that history a few times as a great example of astral learning and of the existence of ghosts.
Yes it was a pretty crazy experience, wasn’t it. Very unusual to get that kind of physical verification. I remember Nicole waking up to the feeling of something dark pushing on her chest I think, maybe it wasn’t seeing the man explicitly but it certainly had an eerie effect on all of us!
Wow, Dara. That sounds like one spooky experience, but it’s so great you used self-observation and self-knowledge techniques to make the most of the situation. It’s such a great illustration of what self-observation can do and how it’s possible to learn from even the most unpleasant circumstances.
I haven’t encountered a ghost in the astral like that, but I’ve definitely found emotions and fears in the astral can be of a much more raw nature, as you described. I hope if I do have such an encounter I can remember your experience and use it for my inner learning!
Well Dara, this is quite an incredible experience, that several of you could see and feel the ghost and everything matched with each other’s experience! Talk about verifying how the other side and the physical world are interconnected! But I like what you shared about how you were able to observe that fear for what it is, and be able to detach from it, that seems to be the key to be able to not longer be under its power!