I believe in ghosts. I saw them frequently when I was a kid, but as I've gotten older, it's been a rarer and rarer occurrence. I eventually got to a point where I chalked most paranormal experiences with over active imaginations and the dark inner workings of the human mind. Sure, I still "experience" stuff pretty regularly, but mainly in that half-dream state, where you're not sure if it was real or imagined. So, in order to keep from getting the creeps, I just dismiss the stuff as much as I can. Well, some things you can't just dismiss...

It was this past Friday night. We had my sister, her boyfriend, and their friend over to hang out for a while and they ended up crashing in the living room. We all turned in at about 2:00 am. Went to sleep, everything was fine, nothing out of the ordinary. I woke up at around 6:30 am. I had that thing going on where, I had to pee real bad, but I didn't want to get up. You know what I'm talking about? Well, I lay there for about 5 minutes before I came to grips with reality and realized I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep until I had used the rest room.

It was very dark in my room. It's usually illuminated at least a little by the hall light or bathroom light, but this night the only light was the little bit peeking through the blinds.

I rolled onto my left side, facing the door, looked up, and immediately noticed someone standing next to the bed, inches away from my fiancee. I made eye-contact with them and sat all the way up. The instant we made eye-contact it began to back away toward the door. My first thought was that my sister's boyfriend was being creepy for whatever reason and watching us sleep, or that my daughter was sleep walking or something of the sort. It never occurred to me that this might be something other than a living person. So I stood up as it was backing away, looking at each other the whole time. I could see a body under the face, I could see the shoulders moving as it walked. There was nothing misty or transparent or floating about it. So, with more aggression than fear, I walked towards it expecting to reach out and grab somebody. As soon as I got to the corner it had backed into, I reached out to grab it and there was nothing there. I opened the door, turned on the bedroom light, checked the kids' room and the bathroom. There was no one else upstairs and the kids were sleeping like logs. Then it dawned on me, the floor didn't squeak as it was backing away from me. Our floors upstairs are very noisy. You can't even tip-toe across it without making a big racket. And then I realized it was a ghost.

I normally do my best to dismiss things like this. My fiancee tells me that she "sees and feels" paranormal things all the time while I'm at work at night. I always just figured that she was freaking herself out because she was home alone with the kids at night, or half dreaming. But I was wide awake when I saw this thing, and it's not like it was just something in the corner of my eye, or shadows somehow appearing as a dark figure. This thing and I looked right into each others eyes, and I watched it walk back away from me, all the way across the room. This was real. There's no way I can dismiss this one.