The Haunted Homeowner's Survival Guide

I woke up around 3:00 AM this morning.  I was waiting to drift off to sleep again, but I became suddenly aware of what sounded like a woman screaming outside.  The neighbors have loud discussions from time to time but this sounded more… urgent?  It was high-pitched like a wail of pain.

I listened a bit more, trying to wake up and get my bearings. I heard something similar again, but it sounded like it could be children playing instead of a woman screaming.  I tried to just ignore it, but the sound came again from outside – definitely a woman screaming this time.  And then it didn’t stop.

I got out of bed and stood a moment.  I followed the direction of the screams to the window. I looked outside and everything was still as far as I could see in any direction. It was freezing, so it wouldn’t have been children. Was it a murder? Should I call the police?

Then the cat woke up, yawned, and sneezed explosively. Then she looked at me as if it were somehow my fault.  The sounds from outside simultaneously completely vanished.

I tell this story of a cat’s whistling snore because it has to do with the ‘witching hour’. The ‘witching hour’ goes by many names, but it runs from roughly 2am to 4am for most folks working a normal day shift job. This is the time when your body is starting to release lots of glucose back into the bloodstream so that you have energy to burn when you wake up.

This is the time of day when your body isn’t done sleeping yet, and your brain is halfway high on sugar. It makes for great dreams, but it can also be easy to make mistakes in your perception when you wake up suddenly from a deep sleep. I sometimes think sleep researchers must have a fascinating job, because given the right circumstances anybody can wake up having had a conversation with either grandma, Gabriel, a demon, or Elvis. Or maybe even some random grey alien?

Many paranormal experiences are reported during this time of day.  It can be especially troubling for people with other sleep disorders.  I’m not suggesting that all reports of phenomena at certain times of day should be automatically tossed to the trash. However, it stands to reason that a careful investigator will take an approach that includes human factors into account.  These human factors are many, and include psychological, pharmaceutical, and even hormones and in this case, blood glucose levels.

So, if you’re trying to find a paranormal group to help you investigate a haunting, and you are asked some strangely personal questions, it may be a sign of a really good investigator, rather than somebody out for a joy ride hunting ghosts in your house.  Answer the questions as honestly as you can, and perhaps in the process you’ll learn something about yourself.  It’s not that the investigator doesn’t believe you. They are just trying to find out the facts, which hopefully leads to the truth.

I don’t deny paranormal stuff happens. Some things will happen that have absolutely no explanation, and these might be paranormal events. I, for one, would rather have some facts that tell me something about myself than a lot of guesswork about spirits or manifestations that may or may not be there – or a confirmation of something ‘paranormal’ from an investigator who didn’t bother investigating.