Help needed if you can! - had the most bizarre experience - ghost/mental breakdown???

[Ginismedicinal]

Need someone who won't think I'm nuts... unless I'm legitimately loosing my mind!
I was in the states, in my brothers house, down in the basement about to do some laundry. I was alone, I heard a noise coming towards me from behind, a slight rush of air, and as I turned to look (thinking it was my brother), and about to say "omg don't creep up on me, you nearly made me jump" a man was stood next to me that I most certainly did not recognise - very tall, was only visible for a split second before he literally disappeared in front me! I have never really believed in ghosts, never really thought much about it. The thing is, I woke at around 3am that morning (around 5/6 hours before I saw this 'thing') with the most horrendous body/muscles aches, I could not get back to sleep at all... I've never ever felt so uncomfortable. I felt ridiculously agitated. This persisted right up until I saw this... thing. Soon as this 'man/apparition' disappeared, I ran upstairs to tell my brothers girlfriend - I have never ever been so terrified in my life, I simply couldn't even get the words out to tell her - it was as if I couldn't catch my breath. I just gasped at her. She said afterwards I was almost grey looking, and my body was shaking violently for a good half an hour... it was truly horrific - it even shook my family up for days simply because we've just never ever experienced anything like it.
I'm truly not looking at purely 'ghost' explanations, my dad was very scientific, so I've been looking at any explanations at all...
I've tried just forgetting about it, but my mind just keeps going back to it.
I'm a Christian, and although I don't disbelieve the idea of ghosts, I am trying to keep an open mind.
If ANYONE has any ideas - I'd be so grateful for you're input... of any kind - I'm not judgemental of people's feelings/beliefs at all... any ideas/thoughts are welcome as I'm beginning to think I'm loosing my mind 😭

For the record... (please try not to judge me - I know how ridiculous this sounds)... I had a dream/premonition of a family members death a couple of years ago - in GREAT detail, which two days later came true - and my dream was EXACTLY spot on, even to the clothes he was wearing, and the position he was laying in on his floor when found... I've only ever told my mum and dad BEFORE it happened, which only freaked them out aswell... I've never told anyone else as I know how it sounds 😒
Could these things be related in some way??
Sorry for the long one... I'm just frustrated by all this and desperate for help/advice TIA xx

My immediate reaction is that low frequency noise could have caused you to hallucinate. Quite common in a basement resonating with the sound of a spin cycle.

The "non-woo" explanation is quite interesting though it must still be a scary experience.

www.theguardian.com/science/2003/oct/16/science.farout

I think it was probably a combination of tiredness after your bad night, being in an unfamiliar environment (particularly in a basement) and the unusual (to you) movement of air/noise - you were expecting to see a figure, so your tired brain supplied one.

There its also the possibility of some kind of gas leak in a confined space (particularly given your physical symptoms) - that might be something to get checked

Agree, it’s a combination of tiredness, strange place, maybe you have a low lying fever. I currently have a medical issue where I keep having wired bodily sensations, kind of but not quite panic attacks. Not got to the bottom of it, but some symptoms quite similar to this. Might be worth seeing a go.

Weird and gp

Thank you Rosehugger! 🙏
I'll take non-woo or woo explanations lol!
I've even considered my friends jokingly suggesting I had some kind of mild stroke 🤦🏻‍♀️🤷‍♀️... I do assume I didn't though for the record!

You don't sound well at all. Muscle aches, agitation she hallucinations all go together with some medications and illnesses. If you've recently started medication I would review it.

Everything you experience (sight, sound, taste, smell, touch) is your brain trying to interpret and make sense of things happening around it. It’s an incredibly complicated and quite amazing process, and we take it completely for granted. Sometimes it can misfire though.

I think we are reluctant to believe that that can happen as it challenges our sense of self, if we can’t trust what we think we see and hear then where does that leave us? We should probably cut it some slack though, and as long as things like this are rare and infrequent it is just part of the wonderful mystery of the brain!

Yes - strange surroundings etc. Was at a much higher altitude then home (UK) aswell... never thought about that.

I've not started any new meds no, but I have considered seeing my gp... I very rarely go to the Dr as I had a bad experience a couple of years ago, and I just have no faith in them. Also - it honestly concerns me that upon hearing me say all the above he/she will think I'm absolutely mental... as it does sound abit crazy I know 😬😕

When you say I was in the states do you mean the USA? And had you travelled there relatively recently when this happened? Some of what you describe in terms of your general discomfort (not specifically the episode in the basement) sounds like it could be jetlag - and even if you travel frequently jetlag can be odd in how you experience it on different routes, over time, if already tired/stressed, etc.

Also, at the risk of being woo: this situation really does sound mundane rather than supernatural. If there had been a (ghost, spirit, apparition, energy manifestation), why would it go to the trouble of appearing to you and then vanishing a moment later when you didn't use any language asking/telling the entity to go?

Nesbo - absolutely! I find the brain, and it's very complex processes fascinating!... I think the greatest part of my terror and panic at the experience, was that in the moment my brain was desperately trying to find a logical explanation for what just happened, and when I couldn't - it felt like it 'fried the wiring' lol...

Teddeh, yes sorry, was in the USA. I had travelled there about two weeks before, so I don't think jetlag was a contributing factor, although it's a good point to consider... I'll consider anything.
I am far more inclined to go with non-ghostly explanations, as I'm usually pretty logical/scientifically minded, however, I do acknowledge there's alot about the universe we don't know - so an open-mind is important.
I agree though - I certainly never 'invited' any kind of spirit or asked it to leave... if that's how it works? 🤷‍♀️

Were you overly tired? I experienced the most vivid hallucinations (person in corner of living room with a knife, inanimate objects spinning around etc) in the first few days after my ds was born after no sleep for 72 hours. Possibly the same for you?

Wow thank you for posting this really interesting. I’ve had an experience similar to this but not as dramatic in an old stately home. I am open minded and I had read previously about electromagnetic fields and how they can affect the body.

I get occasional auditory hallucinations even when I'm perfectly well. I also sometimes get visual hallucinations when I'm ill and have a temperature. Once I saw a cat, I don't have a cat and when I went to investigate there was no cat so I assume that was an hallucination. I also get Alice in Wonderland syndrome when I have high temperature, I remember when I had pneumonia standing in my bathroom thinking that the loo was so tiny how was I going to be able to crouch that low to use it.

The hallucinations seem real at the time and I think your experience would freak me out, but I find it easy to rationalise it away afterwards.

@667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast I saw a TV programme about it a few years ago, though I can't for the life of me remember the title. It featured the guy in the article.

They also talked about loud sounds travelling and being heard somewhere else due to atmospheric conditions. It was very interesting!

My husband who is a paramedic has said it is possible to get hallucinations during a stroke, so just to be safe I would speak to your GP. They are not going to have you sectioned etc ! I can understand your worry though. It would be good to get checked just so you can rule out any health cause. The other thing is have you been under stress etc ? I’m not saying it wasn’t a supernatural experience I’m open minded about these things and I don’t think you have to invite or call things like this to you, if they do exist, I think some people are just able to see or feel things others can’t. But like I said I’m not 100% convinced either way about ghosts etc

Well it could have been a ghost? It seems like you are wanting persuaded it wasn't, when what you experienced was unexplainable? Fair enough.
I'd ask a priest to bless the house just on the safe side.

I also get Alice in Wonderland syndrome when I have high temperature

Oh how interesting, I didn't know there was a name for it. I remember coming in and out of consciousness with a fever as a child and the world going a bit "soft" and blurry round the edges. The best way I can describe it is it was a little like the Softmints advert in the 1980s. Which sounds terrifying, but it wasn't actually entirely unpleasant. I used to get under the covers so I became even hotter to see what would happen.

Also quite enjoyed making myself dizzy and also breathing too hard to deliberately hyperventilate. Yes, I was an only child and often bored. As you hear people often say, "We made our own entertainment back then." 😁

Used to hallucinate at night from patterned wallpaper turning into things, and also from the bedroom light if I stared hard enough at it. And when I was very small I recall hearing snippets of conversation or someone say my name while no-one was in the room, or another conversation going on while adults were talking. It seemed to stop by the time I was four or five. I guess some would say it's clairaudience but I think it's vastly more likely to be glitches in the developing brain.

Many years ago I saw a TV programme in which a scientist 'saw' something that really should not have happened. Being a scientist he looked for a rational explanation. He realized that when an extractor fan ossilated at a particular speed and if his head was tilted at a certain degree the 2 things together caused the phenomenon. If his head was in a different position or the fan was on a different speed, nothing untoward happened. I think probably something similar has happened to you, another set of circumstances would have caused nothing to happen. BTW his experience was very similar to your own.

I don't have these in the day but I have almost identical hallucinations at night, so someone or a figure standing there by the bed (not freaky at all!) Or things rushing at me similar to the DeathEaters in Harry Potter. Not nice and I often scream. They are hypnogogic or hypnopompic hallucinations, and in my case are caused by medication (beta blockers, some anti-d's also cause hallucinations if the dose is wrong), stress and also if my sleep is disrupted early in the night, which is why I think jetlag may also play a part here.

If you carry on having them, I would check them out with GP as hallucinations can be a sign of illness as well, so epilepsy, stroke, and psychosis at the more extreme end, but they can often occur in everyday life as not a form of illness, so don't worry for now.

The brain is weird and it's not a sign of breakdown to experience this unless there's a lot more going on.

I've had sleep paralysis most of my life, less at night now since I use a CPAP machine for other reasons but more in the day when I am excessively fatigued by jetlag or chronic illness. Could your night time experience be that? Then your laundry room hallucination could be because you were that tired after the night time issue.

@Ginismedicinal thanks for sharing your experience. You're not alone that's for sure. You said you were at your brother's house but not what his response was. Has he ever had any issues with his home?

Thanks so much for all your info and advice everyone 🙏 really interesting reading all your thoughts etc. I think I'll be good and go have a chat with the gp... I've had many years of stress and sleeplessness over the years (left on my own with four children) and as a result I've had various 'odd' experiences I could easily relate to stress, being tired etc... but this was a million miles from anything like those. I am finding the low frequency theory and interesting read though...
@Muddays - actually yes, my brother and his girlfriend have mentioned their "ghost" in the basement many times... my brother laughs it off and fondly refers to 'him' as Fred! He says when he's been down there working (renovating) and he feels something, or sees something he just says "get lost Fred and too busy" and he goes... he thinks it's hilarious and couldn't care less, so his response was "ah so you met Fred then?" 😳
His girlfriend however, has said from day one, she hates going down there, won't go down at night, and frequently feels like she's invading someone's space. She asked me on many occasions if I felt anything while I was down there... being (usually) pretty chilled out and logically-minded, I said I honestly didn't, no - its just a room like any other, and it never felt wrong in any way! - if anything, it 'was' lovely - it was cooler down there (was very hot where we were), a small window was letting a beautiful glow of sunlight in, and it smelt of fresh laundry...
When I experienced this thing, and ran upstairs, I think it freaked her out as much as me 😬

Check for a carbon monoxide leak (possibly from the boiler). There was a famous case of a guy posting on Reddit about his weird experiences with stuff moving around in his house, he thought the landlord was poking around when he was out. The paranoia escalated over several updates to his post until a Redditor told him to get a carbon monoxide alarm and sure enough he was being slowly poisoned by a leak and hallucinated the whole thing! (Or was it carbon dioxide? I can never remember the difference)

@ThrowawayALotta - I'm a stickler for checking carbon monoxide, we always have everything checked, and CM alarms fitted. Otherwise yes, I can absolutely believe a leak could cause all sorts of weird symptoms!