I think I’m going crazy! Spooky things in house.

[Bobbybear10]

So this might be a long one and my phone hates me so there may be a fair few typos! Apologies in advance.

It’s also a bit of a possible spooky post so best not to read if you have delicate sensibilities.

Within the last 8/9 months DH and I have moved into a new house.
It’s a lovely place, we are really happy with it. It is very old in places and has a nice warm feel most of the time.
Neighbours close-ish but nobody right next door iyswim.

Now for the point of my post.
I am really quite concerned either I am going crazy or DH is trying to make me feel like I’m going crazy, honestly I am not saying this in a jokey way I am deadly serious.

The first couple of months in the house were quiet and busy! But it all felt ‘right’ like the house clicked and was warm and welcoming.

The last few months some strange things have started.
I want to prefix this post with I don’t believe in ghosts or similar. I have had a few close loved ones die and if there was such a thing they would’ve been the first to make contact, as they haven’t I don’t believe there is an ‘afterlife’ as such.

It started with some odd noises. One time we were sat in the living room and a noise louder than a knock but quieter than a bang went off twice upstairs. We just ignored it thinking, old house, floorboards settling etc. These noises would probably average 4 times a night.

After a week or so of the noises upstairs when we were downstairs we started to hear noises in the kitchen which is down the hallway and to the left of the living room. Again they were quite loud clicking/thudding noises but when we checked nothing had moved or fallen and we just couldn’t see where the noise could’ve come from.

I started to get an odd sensation of someone behind me most of the time but put this down to being a bit creeped out by the noises.

Occasionally we would hear creaking on the stairs when we were in bed. This wasn’t like footsteps literally just a creak. The bathroom door would also be open in the morning when we had closed it and not used it during the night.

One night the TV turned itself off.

The volume on our tv’s sound bar turned itself up and the remote was right in front of us. It turned down again when we used the remote and hasn’t done the same thing again.

The Dog will occasionally act strange and if I’m home alone will start to randomly run to another room and bark like somebody is there. TBH I find this the most frightening as he is a very good guard dog but absolutely soft as shit if someone was actually in the house. I also leave all the doors locked when I’m inside alone.

The most frightening thing that happened two nights ago, we were walking from the garden back into the house and I looked at the dining room. The light was shining through the door as we had left the hall and living room lights on.
In the dining room we have two windows that face each other, one side faces the garden the back other faces the front garden.

My DH was slightly behind my shoulder and we were on a path about 15ft from the window. I was looking through the window and saw a person walk from one corner of the room past the window and out the internal door. I asked DH if he had seen someone and he said no. He said he was looking though the window too and saw nothing. I went in with him to see if someone had come up the path or broken in but no one was there. The dog was with us but didn’t bark at any point.
I got DH to come back outside and stand where we were in case it was his reflection. We walked up and down the path twice checking.
I got him to go inside and walk past the window as the ‘figure’ had. As he did I could vaguely make out the colour of his clothes but the figure I saw was completely black.
It was a fully formed figure and was the size and shape of a regular person.

I honestly felt like I was going mad! It didn’t feel particularly cold or unfriendly in the house but I was a bit uncomfortable.

Last night I heard a strange noise like metal crashing together in the garden when we were in bed. It was fairly loud but DH said he heard nothing.

Today three different light bulbs have blown when I have gone to turn them on. One a side lamp that was ours and two ceiling lights.

I got DH to check the attic hatches as well as the actual attics and there is nothing there.

We have two carbon monoxide detectors and both are working fine.

DH has started to get angry when I talk to him about all this. I’m not sure if he is scared and being defensive or just thinks I’m an idiot.

I still don’t know who the person was and where they are now. Strange noises are still happening.

I don’t know if I am seeing things and should see a DR. I’m honestly questioning my sanity. I saw a person it was no reflection. I do believe what I saw that if it wasn’t an actual person which obviously it can’t have been then I really do wonder if I need to be sectioned.

I feel quite upset and worried, although it does feel better to write this all out.

Does anyone have any ideas?
Do you think I might be going mad?

Still agreeing with Bluntness.

Also, OP, I'm definitely not going mad, nor am I under any particular stress, but I hallucinated an entire stationary lorry the other day where there wasn't one. I saw it as clear as day through the trees in broad daylight I could even describe the lettering and logo of the company as I walked down a path towards the main road and my bus stop, but there was nothing in the lay-by when I emerged onto the road a few steps later, and the road is visible for a long way in both directions.

I don't think this is in any way significant, and I haven't thought of it since, I'm just telling you as an instance of the mind playing tricks.

Op, I want you to try something. It may scare the shit out of you. Light a tealight and place it under a mirror and then turn all the lights out so that the room is completely dark apart from the candle. Stand in front of the mirror and close your eyes. Imagine the face of a demon. Whatever you think one might look like. Picture it in every detail. Now open your eyes and stare directly into your own eyes in the mirror. don't look anywhere else like at your chin or something, just deep into your own eyes. Keep looking, it might take several minutes and in your peripheral vision you will see your own face start to change to resemble the demon. Possibly even movements behind you. As soon as you blink or look away it will vanish. Try it before reading the rest of this.

This is a terrifying product of an active imagination. Almost anyone can do it. It really does work, provided you creep yourself out sufficiently beforehand. It happens because you have this idea planted in your mind.

Now I've said it, your brain will create it. You're putting the idea into your own head that the house is haunted, that there is something there to fear, something watching you.

What you have is a creaky old house with drafts and the most terrifying thing in it is probably the state of the wiring. Your own mind is your worst enemy and the only thing haunting you will be the thought of your bank balance after you get an electrician out.

I think you are still uneasy in a new home, and your nerves are on edge and your imagination is running wild. I don't know what you saw, but I bet it was reflection. Nothing sounds very off to me, and I'm sure your dog would be very unsettled if anything wasn't quite right. I don't think you need to be sectioned! I think you just need to relax!

I'm a Muslim so I believe in Jinns. Basically we can't see them nowadays but they can see us. Most of them to their own thing. It is against their rules to come in front of us, possess humans etc but like humans, some are mischievous.

I remember a friend of a friend bought a house and they had trouble from them. The reason why is because the jinns used a pathway which ran through one of the rooms in the house and once the people moved in they were disturbing that pathway so they basically just stopped using that part of the house and all returned to normal.

The metal crashing sound etc sounds like jinns. My husband went India once and stayed in a building that was not used but when guests came to stay they'd make them stay there. It was the same footstep sounds and crash sounds etc they just ended up staying with the hosts rather than that building.

I'm not sure how long your house was unoccupied for. It could be nothing, it could be jinns. You won't know. But jinns have the mindset of kids. If you shout at them to go away! They usually will. We are taught to say two verses and they flee and it works:

Wa la yaooduhu hifdhuhuma (keep saying this till they leave - they absolutely hate hearing this)

And

Wa la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah (say it out loud)

As mentioned above, they are just like naughty kids. So a person doesn't have to be a Muslim and pray. They also run away when a non Muslim shouts and tells them to get out. They listen when being told off.

Don't be afraid. Just use your courage and anger to tell them to get out.

Wait until you are alone then go round the house shouting at the buggers to sod off it's your house now. Works every time.

Three things spring to mind:

The heating system, do you perchance have a combi-boiler? If so, you could have accidentally switched the hot water mode to its keep-warm setting, which would cause it to cycle every few hours. Additionally, bleed all the radiators and repressurise the system if the pressure gauge is below the green area (if there is no green area, check your manual for the correct pressure, it's usually 1-1.25bar but absolutely don't use this figure as a reference, I wouldn't want you to have a costly repair because of a random message).

Another potential cause is infrasound, if my timelines are correct, you started having this issue around the time of the second cold snap this year. If a fan, duct or vent is clogged or partially obstructed, it could be producing sounds at too low a frequency to hear which will cause the house to creak, create the uneasy sensation of a presence behind you and can even make your eyeballs vibrate, producing non-psychological hallucinations (these often take the form of dark figures in the corner of your vision). There's actually a nice free app for Android called InfraSound Detector . The heating system may also be generating infrasound. In both this case and the former, vibrations may interfere with already damaged wiring.

Finally, you may have an animal infestation. This wouldn't account for all your experiences but it could 'prime' you to pay more attention to certain errors in perception and could also account for the electrical interference.

I also wanted to add, are you sleeping well? Sleep deprivation can produce some outrageously realistic hallucinations. A couple of decades ago, I worked a job that led to me being up for well over 48hrs. The things I saw were crazy, everything from cloaked figures darting between trees on a moonlit night to a whole cottage manifesting on a dark playing field when a headlight shone in the corner of my eyes (not head on, my exhausted brain interpreted the white patch as a white wall and, for a couple of seconds, I was walking down the side of a white washed cottage, with all the details rapidly filling in before the damn thing vanished into the ether).

I often hear noises just as I'm almost falling asleep, they tend to be really loud, but they're not really there, it's my mind making them. There's a name for it but I can't remember what it is...

There's a name for it but I can't remember what it is...

Hypnagogic hallucinations. These can manifest as any of the senses

OP, not to undermine your experiences, but all of this sounds very much like old house noises, dodgy wiring and plumbing (the bangs and clanking noises are often pipes) and uneven floorboards. DH's parents live in an old spooky house and one night last winter a load of books 'jumped' off the bookshelf onto the floor in DD's room. I realised it was the effect of me stepping on a loose floorboard that titled the bookshelf forward slightly, combined with a couple of books being left in an unstable position. It was quite freaky at the time though! If you look for a rational explanation there almost always is one. The person - could it have been a person or car passing at the front of the house creating a light illusion somehow?

I've just googled it, and it's called exploding head syndrome.

Yes this is normal. It’s also normal to think you’ve been woken by a noise when you haven’t.

The person - could it have been a person or car passing at the front of the house creating a light illusion somehow?

That’s what I thought, a shadow cast by the headlights of a passing car.

I would contact the last homeowners to see if they experienced anything similar . It will either make you more relaxed if they say nothing untowards happend or yes there is weird stuff going on ...and then at least you will know for sure

You need a cat. Any odd noise we hear in our house we just blame on the cats. They get up to all sorts and there are all sorts of noises so, in our minds, they match up.

Einstein reckoned that there were four dimensions. We live in three dimensions, but there could be another dimension which we glimpse from time to time and can partially identify sights and sounds from it which might explain people seeing ghosts and hearing strange noises.

A) You're not "going mad". People who are unwell enough to see/hear things that aren't there don't wonder if they're going mad...they accept their version of reality.

B) There are no spooks or ghosts in your house fiddling with the remote or scaring your pets. This is a physical impossibility since there are no such things - which you ought really to know since you, apparently "don't believe in them".

C) Whatever you saw in the window, it was not a person or a ghostly figure. It was something that your pattern-searching brain identified as a person and then constructed a memory of a person figure to explain it.

OP - your eyes see nothing. They are lenses that convey light patterns to your brain so that it can construct a version of reality for you. If you have a memory of a person like figure, the memory is real, and probably quite detailed, but that doesn't mean there was actually a person there.

There are considerably more than four dimensions, Septima. They don't provide an explantion for "ghosts" and Einstein would never have suggested that they did.

I always love being on a thread where @Bluntness100 comments, she (or he - sorry!) talks a lot of sense. I agree here. You're definitely not going mad op

How're the spooks today OP? I have lived in several haunted houses and been house sitting in a fair few more. Some things I have seen and heard have been subtle and some spectacular. You can get used to it I find.

I believe you o.p.

She would have the fires lit when I came home in winter!

Of course 'she' did. FGS.

@Bobbybear10 when I moved into my house (it's 400ish years old) it was quiet for a few weeks, then as we started using heating and things 'settled' all sorts of odd noises. Creaks, bangs, thuds.

I honestly put it down to the house getting used to changes in temp and damp/drying out etc. Now after a couple of years I recognise the creaks (for example when it's really sunny and warm, the exterior wooden fascia boards tick/crack really loudly!!)

I hope you can relax in your new house

Watching with interest as we have just bought a very old house and think we may have “ something”

I live in an old house and I know all of its noises.
A creak on the stair is quite common- floor settling.
Creaking, rumbling-heating system coming on.
Plaster can fall in wall cavity-quite a noisy scrabbling and maybe a thump.
At this time of year light bulbs seem to go. Also mice etc come in from outside so some rattling of plaster in walls and scrabbling which can sound like a large cat in the wall st night when it's quiet.
Door swinging open -depends on the door.
The movement across the room -? Distant headlights swinging across as it goes over a hill, or moonlight going behind cloud?
We had birds landing on the tv aerial which gave a sort of twang when they took off.
Take a note of heating system times also weather conditions eg wind direction and strength. Failing that try the spell link from start of thread.

Oh and another thing!!

We couldn't explain a very weird noise quite recently; turned out to be sparrows nesting under the roof tiles, (as we spotted them flying in from the back garden) they managed to somehow get into a space just behind the plasterboard in our bedroom! Luckily they have gone now.

They were so noisy. I would lay in bed and actually 'shush' them. Which worked; they would probably stop what they are doing and hear my voice