A Malaysian Ghost Story

[davewilson]

I am someone who must never sleep near an opened window.

A few years ago in Kuala Lumpur, I tasted a ghostly encounter...something familiar and old...something that could never be logically explained and yet could be seen with my inner eyes.

I had stayed at a friend's house for the night. I had had a busy day, was drowsy and soon ready for bed.

The large creaky window was opened. I stayed quiet, lay in bed and thought of many things. But the night was peaceful and I was tired. I must have dozed off.

Soon, I was awakened from sleep into a direct consciousness, by someone poking rudely at my body. I froze. I did not know the time. Instead, I was frightened to feel the touch of human skin when I knew that I was alone.

I was fully-dressed by the way, having been too tired even to change. At first, in the darkness, I saw nothing. My eyes trained on every corner in the room and still, I could see nothing.

But I could feel the movement of human skin on my body and someone taking its times to poke me here and there...to grab at my toes violently without warning and to jab me in the corners of my waist.



I soon saw an apparition - a vague image of an old bent Asian woman.

Someone evil considering the pokes were causing me undue pain. I knew no more. She kept showing me the face of another Asian man...someone I knew.

It was an image of someone I liked as a friend but did not love and never would. I could see his face right in front of me. An instant picture in my mind like a sudden Polaroid. Again, I find this almost-illusive moment troubling and wondered if it was a hex sent by someone else.

In Malaysia, we call it putting a 'charm' on someone.

I found myself unable to move or scream. I lay encircled in a strange orbit of pain in a way that stays difficult to describe and consciously hard to feel.

But everytime I turned my head, I appeared to touch something that was far more painful than anything I remembered. I groaned. All I knew was not to turn my head.

I made the kind of loud sounds that you hear from prisoners in the torture chamber. It was a series of painful groans that I had never made in my life but watched on television when someone was being violently tortured. I was shocked at my own sounds. I thought I saw this woman move around the room and picked up once more the sensation of someone or something evil. She would move around though not like the way the rest of us moved.

The scene was shadowy and hazy.

Then she would come back to grab at my toes and her touch was so painful. At the time, I was too frightened to care. For some reason, I knew distinctly that she had come in through the window.

In the end, I called the name of Christ. The word stumbled out with a twisted moan. Still, it sounded loud and recognisable to myself.

Instantly, the woman and pain vanished and I was able to move again. I put on the light. I was fine. Not a mark or bruise on me. It was 12.30am. I paced around the room for awhile knowing from an old experience that while the room stayed garish with its brightness, the apparition or whatever it was, would not and could not return. I made a coffee, drank it quickly and went back to sleep with all the lamplights on.

I refused to contemplate what it was and what it could have been. I did not want to go down that dark road. All I knew was that a divine power had appreared to rescue me from my terrible predicament and that was enough. I also stayed relieved with a secret knowledge that it was harder for such apparitions to appear in lighted places.

Perhaps I had rescued myself in good time....who knows but thankfully, I was none the worse for wear.

Such a thing had happened to me once before too, in 1990. I stayed with a close friend in the township of Section 9, Shah Alam in Malaysia. It was a beautiful new suburb with many young Malay families setting up home. I had my own room.

Again, the window was opened. I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. I could smell the strong aroma of coffee. I was younger then and more easily frightened than I was now.

I slept to my side and then I heard a woman lying next to me, her head on the pillow close to mine and breathing heavily. I could feel the texture of human breath brush against my skin.

She muttered something in the Malay and laughed. She wouldn't stop laughing. I heard only half-syllables. Remembering that very fear still rattles me today. It was the kind of fear that tends to appear when you suspect something terrible is about to happen to you physically. Then she suddenly vanished. But it seemed like forever. It was as if time stops being dead and the air becomes light again. You start to hear other little sounds like the frogs and the night insects. Shivering, I got up to quickly close the window but stayed afraid all night and could not sleep.

The next day, my friend said, why didn't I come to knock at her door where she, her husband and their baby slept. Not believing my ears, I laughed. I said that at the time when you're too frightened to even turn on your side to see who's lying next to you, the last thing you are able to do is to jump off the bed to call for help. People always think it's easy to flee such a situation but that is nothing short of miraculous. Intense fear enjoys paralysing its vicitm.

I also remember an incident with my friend, Rose, once before. She was a devout Christian - and I was nothing like her. She was also used to the idea of seeing more horrifying things than me.

Once she stayed with a friend in SEA Park, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. The houses in Sea Park are old. Rose was lying on a mattress on the floor while her friend slept on a bed. They were bunking a room together. It was a somewhat messy double-storey house...the kind that hints of a dark history.

Suddenly late into the night, while Rose's friend lay in deep sleep, she was awakened rudely, from the sound of continued knocks on the locked window.

Rose jumped. All my friend could see was a young Chinese woman's face. She had no neck, no body, nothing. Just a face and a hand was visible. The face dangled like a lantern in slow motion.

She looked at Rose and kept pointing to Rose's friend.

Then she kept making gestures that indicated she wanted that friend to come to her and for Rose to open the window. Just repeated slight gestures but enough to give Rose a major electric shock.

Rose kept telling her no; waving her finger from left to right and mouthing the distinct alphabet 'O' to say no. She told me later that she probably did it by instinct, but she was in reality, scared. She also told me that the girl looked pitiful and very sad and kept indicating
that she wanted the friend and for Rose to open the window. Rose was terrified out of her wits. I don't know how I would have handled that. Perhaps I would have screamed.

Rose started to quote Bible verses. Her friend continued to sleep soundly. The girl at the window kept knocking and calling out to Rose. After a long while, the face and hand suddenly vanished.

I often say, don't open the bedroom window for those of us who can see the things that others cannot, or for those of us who can see the things that we musn't see.

Just never open the bedroom window at night.


I hope this wont affect the lads qualifying?


The Stig




 

[Ian]

Drink more red wine Stig then you'll sleep like a baby all night, trust me, I know.

[davewilson]

Took me ages to do that related topic,to the next GP.
The Stig

[claw_grrl67]

The incident you describe (with the toe-pinching) reminds me of many stories I have read and heard about over the years.  Paranormal investigation is something that I've sidelined in for about 25-30 years.  The sensation of being visited by a female entity (usually described as elderly or haggard) and of not being able to rise, breath, speak, etc. is common in many cultures around the world.

Some people explain it away as being visited by spirits, or by a certain type of spirit, a Hag.  Some call it being 'hag-ridden.'  It is prevalent in many Asian cultures.  I have a book about paranormal investigation that devotes an entire chapter to hag visits.

Scientists take a slightly different approach to this phenomenon, calling it a trick of the brain when we're in the half-asleep/half-awake twilight.  It's sometimes described as a sort of semi-conscious form of paralysis, like the body being awake, but the brain being still asleep and not enabling the body to respond properly.

Thanks for posting about your experience.  It was a fascinating read.

Claw_grrl

[davewilson]

You should check out our chat room,there  are some funny things going on in there?

[romephius]

I have actually experienced waking up and not being able to move......after about 5 minutes the feeling and movement slowly crept back in......scientifically speaking, it can be caused by waking directly from a deep R.E.M. sleep......where the brain shuts down the movement so that you can move in dreams without actually moving your body.....or so I have been told......who knows

Rom

[Ian]

Any scientist worth his/her salt will readily admit they know very little about the brain, my daughter works in The Brain Hospital in London and she says they are only scratching the surface.

[davewilson]

No i am not walking into that one!

[Ian]

No tricks Stig, I promise, no, she got her degree at UCE, done 18mths in trauma at Kings, then onto Charing X, now she's gone into neurology.

[davewilson]

Credit to her i thought is was a set up for me.Anyone who can deal with Mental Health has my upmost regards
Good on her.I was teaching Art and pottery at a Centre, which dealt with mental health issues.I got invoved because my late mother was there and i found it very rewarding.
The stig

[cosworth151]

There was a bar in the town where I did my undergrad studies, Athens, Ohio. (Ohio University) It had been a bar since the late 1800's. It even had a speakeasy in the back during Prohibition. It was haunted by the ghost of abootlegger named Quicy Anders. I was in there on a dead calm summer day shortly after the bar changed hands. I asked the new owner if had heard about Quincy. He said it was the dumbest thing he ever heard. Just then the front door swung open a full 90 degrees, paused for a moment and then slammed shut! There wasn't so much as a breeze outside. The new owner turned white as a sheet and promptly left for the back room!

[davewilson]

Nice to know he left you in charge of the spirits,cosworth

[claw_grrl67]

*sigh*  I miss Quincy.  Haven't heard from him in a few  years now.  I think he's moved on.

The brain/sleep/paralysis stuff brings to mind the still-being-researched phenomenon of blacking out under high G-forces.  Apparently the effects of passing out due to lack of blood in the brain is much akin to what people describe as near-death experiences: the sensation of euphoria, and a (I kid you not) light at the end of a tunnel.

Ah, science versus magic versus science.  My favorite topics....

Clawz

[Dare]

[Ian]

Many years ago I was helping my uncle clearing some old council offices in London, they were old buildings with windows that went virtually from floor to ceiling. It was the middle of summer, a hot day so we opened all the windows to let some air in. When we started, my uncle, who was a big and hard man, had done time in prison and was'nt scared of anyone went into one room to start clearing it and told me to start on the next room keeping back anything  that was any good. I'd been working for 10 maybe 15 minutes when my uncle came in and said he'd carry on in here and told me to carry on where he'd been, I just said to him that he'd told me to do this room, he just looked at me and said "do it", so I did, I went into the other room and carried on , when all of a sudden, bearing in mind, it was a hot day, the sun was belting through these massive windows, the room got icy cold, I felt the hair on my neck and head lift, and this cold went right into my bones, Ive never believed in ghosts, but I have honestly never felt such an evil presence, if that is the right word. I was out of that room and into the other one in a second, my uncle took one look at me and said "you too", all I could do was nod, I could feel myself shaking inside and I have never been so scared, I could'nt even speak. "Come on, we're out of here" he said. When we were sitting in his van down the road smoking, I said to him about the money he was losing over it, and it was a fair amount of money too, all he said was "f*ck it, I ain't going back in there". Even now, all those years ago, it must be around 40, I can still vividly remember it and my skin goes clammy and cold.