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An Encounter I Had with a Poltergeist in a Nightmare

Jenny
Experience submitted by Jenny

I once had a very extraordinary experience with a poltergeist, which I only understood because of a revealing nightmarish encounter with a ghost.

A Haunted House Gathering

Some years ago I went on a small retreat with a group of close friends as well as some acquaintances I made through Belsebuub’s various courses. We wanted to have a few days in nature to get a break from the business of the city and focus on various meditation, astral, dreams, and self-knowledge exercises we had learned in those courses. One of my friends found an affordable chalet not too far outside the city and so we booked it off and organized our little gathering.

The moment we arrived at the chalet, something felt rather odd. It was evening time, the sun had already set, and the darkened winterscape and bare tree outlines gave the place a bit of an eerie feeling — I assumed that was why I felt a bit uncomfortable.

While we were unloading our things, some people went for a walk and I stayed behind with my husband and decided to rearrange the house so as to create a more cozy and pleasant gathering space, a makeshift meditation room, and so on, as well as incense the room. While doing that things began to go a little funny.

Paranormal Activity

While moving couches in one of the rooms the fire alarm from the smoke detector went off without anything to set it off. I worried that perhaps it would alert the fire department and didn’t want them to drive all the way out to the place over nothing, after trying to turn it off unsuccessfully I asked my husband to remove the batteries from the smoke detector temporarily. He removed them, but the detector paused for a second and then continued to beep without the batteries in there.. unexplainable and eerie…

I then had a small accident while incensing which seemed completely bizarre. I just couldn’t understand how the burn could have happened. It was not logical, but I just suddenly had a burn on my hand from a flame that seemed to have a life of its own — jumped off and floated rather abnormally onto a plastic bag that I reached to put out and burned myself on. Sure it’s possible to burn yourself, and accidents can easily happen, but the way that flame moved and that incident unfolded was completely unnatural.

I could tell my husband was a bit uncomfortable due to the environment and these happenings, but neither of us said anything.

Hearing Voices from the Other Side

Everyone got back to the cabin, and exhausted from the drive up we decided to do a short meditation exercise and go to bed.

During the meditation exercise I began to hear voices. Whispers in my ear that sounded like incoherent babble with some audible swear words in there. They were swear words and expressions I’d never ever used (they were silly and even had I chosen to swear I’d never think of using those particular expressions — they were clearly not my own thoughts / words). I brushed it off as just being tired though and went to bed. The following morning I mentioned this to a friend who said she experienced the same thing during that meditation.

A Presence in the Woods

At night we did some more practices and once again I heard the muttering whispers in my ear. The same thing happened at night as I was trying some astral projection exercises as I went to bed.

A Nightmare

I awoke in the middle of the night from a terrifying nightmare, to the sound of myself screaming. It was the type of scream you’d hear only in a true nightmare, something abysmal. The sound of suffering and being unable to escape — I was surprised at myself as I heard my own voice making those unusual sounds.

My husband was shaking me and calling my name, telling me to snap out of it and that it was just a bad dream, yet it took me a few solid minutes to shake off the feeling of horror from the nightmare and actually wake up and then be able to speak and explain what happened.

Not to digress, but the feelings that nightmare brought out in me were incredibly low — very low energy-based, and very difficult to shake off afterwards. It took me a while to really stop feeling afraid, even long after I had woken up and knew it was just a nightmare.

Belsebuub explains a bit about the darker feelings experienced in nightmares in this video:

Meeting a Ghost in a Dream

In my dream / nightmare I was in a house and there was a man there. I felt he was up to no good and a bit crazy, felt incredibly uncomfortable that he was there, and tried to alert the other people in the house that that man shouldn’t be in there. The man was asked to leave at my request, though not directly by me.

Encounter with a Poltergeist in a Nightmare
Public domain image found on Pexels.

Later in the dream I stepped outside the house, trying to walk “home” and the environment suddenly felt eerie. I could tell I was in a slightly different place outside though — more similar to the vibe of the neighborhood I lived in in the city. I felt alone outside in the dark and suddenly realized I was there by myself face-to-face with that man. He was upset that I was the cause of him being kicked out and was there to challenge me.

I suddenly realized that he was completely livid, but also very crazed — his eyes were black and completely hollow, the kind of look that was hypnotic and somehow evil and impossible to escape, and all he wanted was revenge and to have me out of his way. The look in his eyes reminded me of something abysmal — someone who could not be reasoned with at all.

I became incredibly frightened and paralyzed with that fear. I stood there frozen, while the man ran at me with a big knife aiming to stab me, and I was stuck in place against my will, unable to escape. That is when I began to scream in the dream, which also came through physically, and that’s when my husband began to wake me up.

Once I snapped out out of my shock from the nightmare, the dreadful feeling of which I couldn’t shake off for hours after, I noticed that a bunch of other people were up as well — awoken by my screaming. Apparently they had an uncomfortable night as well, some of them had bad dreams too. My husband had a nightmare of a similar nature just 10 minutes before I did, which is why he was awake to notice me having a nightmare and tried to snap me out of it. He said he had a dream with a man in the house that shouldn’t have been there…

It was hard for me to fall asleep afterwards. I was too shaken up by the nightmare, and that man with the knife. Not to mention, every time I came close to sleep again I began to hear his obscene whispers…

The Story of the Place

The following day we were all discussing what had happened through the night. I described my nightmare in more detail. A few others said they had uncomfortable dreams, the experience of someone hovering over them, the whispers, etc. It was odd that so many people had such a strange night.

After having this discussion seated in front of the fireplace I saw a bound book on the mantle. I picked it up and began flipping through. The book was the story of the chalet. It was a cottage that was a part of a government-owned conservation society and told the story of the place. I skimmed through it — read that it was donated to the society by kids who inherited the chalet from their parents some years ago but had no interest in its upkeep… and then flipped through and landed on an interesting part: the story of the man who built it.

The book explained that the chalet was built by a couple. They raised their kids there, who later moved away, and the elderly couple remained to live there by themselves. One night the wife passed away in her sleep. The husband was so completely distraught at that that he lost his mind. He didn’t want his wife taken away or to part with her.

The cabin being remote, it wasn’t until days later that friends came by to check up on the couple after not seeing them for a little while and found the man guarding the front door with a knife in hand — he didn’t want anyone near the house, didn’t let anyone get inside, and just stood there babbling incoherent swearing.

According to the booklet the man never recovered from the shock of losing his wife and the crazed state of mind it put him in, and the following years continued to be unfriendly and hostile, refusing to allow people in the house, threatening people with a knife, and just muttering obscene words and incoherent sentences to himself.

It also mentioned he spent his time wandering through the trails in the forest, muttering to himself (could that be the explanation for feeling followed in the forest trails the day before?). After a few years of this going on his children relocated him to a retirement home, where he passed away a few years later.

Piecing It Together

I had heard that people who had very strong personalities in life, and people who had some kind of terrible mental / emotional upset or disturbance near the time of their passing would often linger around the places they lived in in that very state. I also read Belsebuub’s explanation about people’s “personalities” or ghosts carry on doing the same things they’d done in life after death, lingering around their old hangouts and familiar places, and also that it was possible to meet these ghosts in the astral.

Reading through the history of the place I was left speechless. Suddenly all the different events of those few days made sense. I realized the man I saw in my dream must have been that very man, the builder and former owner of the chalet, and he carried on his crazed and disturbed behavior from those late years in life right into his death. It appeared that his ghost was still dead set on not having strangers in the house, on mumbling obscenities, and trying to scare “intruders” away with a knife in hand.

Through those few days, I, as well as others there felt his presence as a strange disturbance in the place, heard his strange murmurs, felt his “suffocating” presence at times, especially in moments close to sleep where the barrier between the physical and astral world (where dreams take place) seemed more loose. But none of us thought of ghosts, nor knew anything of the history of that place to jump to any conclusions. We thought of the possibility of negative entities trying to disturb our weekend, but that’s about it.

It was really that dream that provided a setting for meeting the ghost / poltergeist up close and personal, and gave a context and some insight into the situation. It was through the dream that I was able to feel his angst, his violent attitude, and understand what all the swearing and disturbances were about. I could see that his ghost was still lingering around the place and was disturbed by our presence. I understood his behavior. He seemed trapped in low states, unable to shift or move on.

I could also see that I seemed to get the brunt of the negative experiences partly because I was in the part of the house he was in most (the original few rooms he had built, and not the addition later added to the house), and partly because I was the one doing all the rearranging of furniture, the clearing of the environment with incense and so on. I was disturbing him and his way of being in that place, and he showed his objection as best as he could.

Though not the most pleasant, it was a really unique experience to have — a way to see a clear connection between waking life, the dream world, and even certain elements of the afterlife of a deceased person. It was incredible to be able to obtain information from dreams and then verify it physically.

One other really weird coincidence about it all was that the booklet mentioned the man lived out his last few years at a retirement home that was situated at the end of the street I lived on in the city at the time. Could that be why I saw myself outside in my neighborhood outside in that nightmarish encounter with the ghost?

29 comments
  • Wow Jenny, that was an intense experience… intriguing how this person’s energy was still lurking about, and how it was haunting those coming to stay in the chalet. Trapped in low states (as Belsebuub describes) and unable to move past them, therefore affecting others who would visit the chalet years later…

    Interesting also, is the connection made in your dream, of being in your neighbourhood, and this man having lived his later years nearby, how you were able to piece it all together in the end…Incredible how much (more) information can be provided or understood in the astral…(even if it is in a nightmare…)

    • Yes, it was really interesting. I feel like without knowledge of the astral a huge piece of the puzzle would have been missing. Just knowing and understanding these things really helped to understand the situation in a much broader way — even down to the little detail that we shared a street back in the city.

      • The smoke detector working without batteries is normal in most cases. All the other phenomena – even the whispering can be explained.

        You had mentioned you were tired. Aural hullcinaions are not necessarily uncommon when fatigued and stressed and in an impressionable state of mind to begin with.

        The burn seemingly unexplained might have a rational explanation that you neglected to see at that time. The dream fed off your anxieties possibly that day.

  • This sounds like an unforgettable experience Jenny โ€“ thanks for sharing it. It sounds like it was revealing for you, even though it was extremely unpleasant to go through. It seems the dream encounter in particular really tapped into that raw state of fear, which Dara mentioned as being like a survival instinct in her post about the same weekend.
    Iโ€™ve also encountered a few sinister figures in dreams, who have tried to attack me in some way. On one occasion, I was in quite a subconscious state and completely forgot about using the recitations to expel the attacker, so instead I just reacted angrily as I tried to get him off of me. That did absolutely nothing, but then I suddenly remembered about one of the recitations Belsebuub mentions in The Astral Codex and as soon as I did it, I woke up from the dream.

    The unearthly voices, the poltergeist activity you described, and the shared experiences of others who stayed during the weekend all seem to indicate that there were influences beyond the three dimensional world occurring during your stay. The fact that you knew nothing about the history of the chalet until reading the guide book also seems to corroborate this and puts those experiences into perspective. It also makes sense that you were on the receiving end of most of the disturbances, as you were staying in the main quarters of the deceased man and altering his environment.

    The twist at the end of this tale is particularly thought provoking. The events so far appear to be too connected to be mere coincidence and it makes me wonder if the fact that the builder of the chalet ended up living down the end of your street is also just coincidence. Your account certainly gives a lot of food for thought.

    • Yes, there’s a lot to reflect on — so many pieces to this story. Like an intricate weaving of extraordinary circumstances.

      I responded to Dara’s story sharing my feelings as well from a psychological perspective, but I’ll share them here too since I didn’t touch on this in the story above. In real life I’m not easily phased by things like ghosts, negative entities, and the usual “scary” stuff that sometimes sends people into panic, etc. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m fear free by any means or that I don’t get uncomfortable, but overall I generally have a pretty high tolerance. That experience though really showed me that what I thought of as “tolerance” is just the surface, but that deep down there are really raw uncontrollable states — like sheer raw instinctive fear — that are a different matter altogether.

      I remember how when I woke up from that nightmare I felt dread for a long time. I tried to reason myself out of it — intellectually I couldn’t care less that there might have been a ghost or that someone tried to attack me in a dream. But the fear flooded through me so much that I couldn’t get rid of it no matter what I tried at the time. I spent the rest of the night awake because any time I came close to sleep I started to be terrified again as I could feel the man there and the last thing I wanted was to re-live the feelings of that nightmare. When I describe it like that, I even think to myself now — what’s the big deal? just get over it, what’s the worse that can happen?… — but holding that view or having a mental grasp of a situation definitely doesn’t do anything in the face of raw instinct.

      • Thanks for sharing that Jenny – I think you touched upon an important point. The raw state of fear you described shows how layered the subconscious is and highlights the importance of gaining self-knowledge, as there is so much going on underneath the surface, which is unseen but which can influence us greatly.

        I can also think of instances where I thought I didn’t really have too much of a problem with a particular inner state anymore, as it wasn’t something that often manifested strongly in my daily life. But then when new or more difficult situations came up, I realised the same inner state was hiding beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to manifest.

        Likewise, I can relate to the difference you mentioned between the logical mind and the instinctive drives, which can bypass any kind of rationalisation and even manifest physically. One particular incident stands out from a few years back, where I unexpectedly became embroiled in a difficult situation, which resulted in police involvement. On the one hand, there was no actual physical danger to me and I was trying my best to resolve it rationally and diffuse the situation. But underneath, the raw state of anxiety was building up and I even felt my body starting to tremor at one point.

        As with the ghostly encounter you described, it wasnโ€™t a pleasant situation to experience, but I feel a gained some valuable insights by going through it.

      • I also find it a good point you mention here Jenny. I personally feel quite ‘stable’ normally in the face of fears for example. But when certain extraordinary situations occur it can bring up these ‘dark side of the moon’ deep fear states which are so big and overwhelming they can definitely shake that foundation we have. And, a bit like you say, thoughts and believes, that mental energy, is simply of a weaker level and doesn’t hold up and is no match for those abysmal energies. So it’s the strength of the consciousness we have and our acquired faith that helps us face it.

        It’s interesting when such situations happen because even though I wouldn’t have experienced them for so long in daily life, there is a recognition or familiarity of them from childhood. It seems that in childhood, both in the astral and physical, we go through the whole spectrum of ego states we can experience.

  • It’s really interesting that so many of you all had similar experiences in that chalet, even though they were unpleasant. Even someone very skeptical about the mystical side of dreams or the astral plane would have to recognise how unlikely a group would experience something like that by chance. It is very sad to hear about what happened to that man and how trapping his grief became. One can only hope his essence would be able to learn from that hard experience and move on in peace, even if the ghost is left as a remnant of some tragic situation. Thanks very much for sharing.

    • Yes it is also quite sad to see how the grief and sadness took over the sanity of this man – how these egos became madness from the pain and despair.. So much so that it continued onto the other side.. In a sense, this is a big learning as well..

    • I was definitely hoping he’d be able to move on. It must really be hellish to just be trapped like that : /

  • Incredible story. The kind of thing you’d read in a Halloween book or see in Hollywood these days. I wonder what happened to the Chalet since, and what the reviews were like for the place. It does not seem to be suitable as a rental because of the possibility of long-lasting shock to its inhabitants!

    Other than that I really enjoyed reading your recap of the story. It is interesting to hear how the fire can move and voices can be heard. With the example of the fire, I find that I am often quite careless in how I do things, thinking that it’ll be ok. However, negative entities and ghosts are real and it’s worth being careful enough to take into account unexpected (or unexplained) things happening, especially when it comes to safety.

    • That’s a good point about the extra safety with fire Aleks, I never thought about it this way, but there may be something on it.

    • ” I wonder what happened to the Chalet since, and what the reviews were like for the place. It does not seem to be suitable as a rental because of the possibility of long-lasting shock to its inhabitants!”

      That was too funny Aleksandr, you had me laughing ๐Ÿ™‚

    • To be honest, I have no idea what happened to the chalet. It was a very small independent operation — they didn’t have any reviews online or a reviewing system. We didn’t speak to anyone about it (the key was picked up from a box from the nearest post office and dropped off there, so we never met the people in charge). But I doubt we were the first to experience all that.. You know, in Canada it’s illegal to sell a house without disclosing a death if one happened in it at any point in history. That’s because some people might be superstitious and therefore want to know, or in some cultures it’s seen as an inauspicious thing. I used to think it was funny (like surely with time’s passing someone will die in many houses — it just seems a part of life, so why make it a law to disclose things like that), but after having that experience (and later hearing of others from other people) I can see why people might want to know. Had that been advertised on the chalet’s website we probably wouldn’t have booked it. Although on second thought, maybe I would have anyways, because without having this experience I would have brushed it off as just a “meh, so what if there’s a ghost…” sort of thing.

  • That’s an extraordinary set of experiences Jenny, all coming together to tell the story! The whole story really shows the existence of dimensions above and below the physical world and how it’s all connected.

    I think your experience also shows the reality of the importance of one’s inner state, and how it’s connected to one’s fate in a way.

    You describe that nightmare experience very well, I could really relate to and understand from experiences of my own.

    This whole article is a bit like reading the script of a Horror movie ๐Ÿ˜‰ Those films though are often based on nightmarish experiences and principles, and aim to evoke and be fuelled by those deep fears and low emotions.

    • That was my thought too Karim โ€“ the experience Jenny described sounds like a scene from a horror movie, particularly the encounter with the crazed knife man. As you also mentioned, some of the content of nightmarish dreams does actually make it into horror movies, which the public then go and pay money to watch. Whereas Jenny used her experience to gain understanding about the nature of these raw fears, itโ€™s a bit of a sorry state of affairs that itโ€™s such a popular pastime these days for people to actively seek out horrific images and scenes by watching horror movies. I think that says a lot about the nature of our psyche as a humanity, as it shows we are drawn to darkness, rather than light.

      • I can definitely see how nightmares can be turned into horror films, and also dreams in general being turned into fiction. But personally, knowing what it is I am experiencing in a nightmare — the last thing I’d want to do is go and recreate that experience for others on a large screen ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

    • It was a bit like living in a horror movie for those few days, to be honest. But I don’t regret having it — in fact, I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to see and go through all those things as it helped me understand certain things in a way I don’t think I could have otherwise. But it was no walk in the park back then, that’s for sure ๐Ÿ˜‰

  • Ugh… this must have been very scary indeed. I can imagine how you probably felt the presence of the man very vividly and all his emotions and anguish. Interesting also how many of you who were doing the practices at the same space have encountered this individual! Its very sad as well, that there are many people living elsewhere on this planet who are suffering in the same way or even worse during their lives, and then becoming these shadowy ghosts after their death… ๐Ÿ™

    • Yes, I agree — it’s sad. Makes me wonder about my grandmother who is still alive, but lives in another country (I haven’t seen her in many years). She has been clinically a “vegetable” for over a decade now; lost her memory and subsequent reasoning and ability to function in the years before that that due to Alzheimer’s and multiple strokes. I often think about people like her — alive, but not alive at all. She can’t speak, doesn’t recognize anyone, doesn’t do anything.. Apart from displaying occasional bouts of fear, violence, and aggression (which I heard are common for people who suffer from an illness like Alzheimer’s), she doesn’t seem to interact with the outside world. But I wonder what goes on inside her? What does she feel? Is she thinking? Is it just the case that she can’t translate her inner states into physical expressions? Or is she really in another mindset (like the guy above was upon discovering his wife passed away)? What keeps a person like that alive — connected to the physical world while being physically disconnected? What happens to someone like that at death?

  • Wow Jenny, what an experience. Though it must have been unpleasant, especially that hellish dream, like you say it still has shown you something of the reality of the other side, and how much is happening around us, just beyond the perception of our senses. It is awful when you see people who have lost their mind in the physical, and really quite incredible that this mental energy continues even when the essence has moved on. To think that this mental fixation that controls the person while they are alive is so powerful, it continues after death; makes me wonder how really alive most people are, and how truly alive I am.

    • The situation definitely made me see the power of thoughts, emotions, and inner states in another light…

  • Wow, that’s quite a dramatic experience and it’s great you were able to piece it together using your dreams. It is sad how a person can go to extremes and sometimes we don’t even realise the scope and repercussions of it..

    • Yeah it makes you wonder how much that guy was suffering. There must have been really dark emotions keeping that ghost so active.

      • Yes, the force of it was very overwhelming. You could just feel the tide of emotions surging through the whole place. You could see how powerful the impact of emotions and states of being can be — it was like looking at that impact under a magnifying glass.

  • I’ve always been afraid of ghosts, and this seems like a really scary experience. But also sad somehow. Somehow learning about that man makes me feel sad, the way he had gotten himself stuck in a very dark place.

  • well Jenny, I can’t imagine that you’d know that re-arranging furniture would lead to such events, and I’m sure it was far from being a pleasant experience to go through, but looking back, it is simply amazing that you were able to get physical information that matched what had taken place in your dream, from the behavior, the location, the knife and even going back to your neighborhood!

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