Never Alone

As I sit in front of my computer, initiating my next blog, I listen to the study drone of the fan beside me, the only audible sound at the moment. There is no one else in the room with me. I am alone.

But then I begin to wonder.

Am I really?

Most healthy human beings have five senses which we use to perceive the world around us, and almost all believe in the notion that “what you see is what you get”.

But what if there is actually an entirely different world around us than that which we see on a regular basis?

I’m sure all of us, at least at one time in our lives, have had that peculiar sensation that someone is watching us, even when we were alone, as crazy as that may sound.

On rare occasions some of us might see something out of the corner of our eye, or feel an odd sensation, or even hear a brief voice in our ears. We usually think nothing of it and refer to it as “just our imagination”.

I personally believe there is a lot more to our world than we think.

But what?

Or who?

Recently, I was spending some time with an uncle of mine in the backyard of my home. We were talking about my father, his brother, who passed away about five years ago. He told me he was closer to my father than anyone else in the family.

He told me that if the dead really had the capabilities of communicating with the living, he would have received a signal from my father by now.

The sun had just gone down, and we sat under the newly visible stars on the concrete table, a place where my deceased father had sat many times when he’d been alive.

“Let’s see if we can communicate now,” I told my uncle. He paused and gave me an inquisitive look, uncertain as to whether I was joking or not.

“Come on Rob, only stupid people believe in that kind of stuff,” he said.

“Let’s give it a try,” I insisted.

I took an empty glass and placed it on the edge of the table.

“Let’s see if we can get my father to knock the glass off the table,” I suggested.

“Ready?” I began. “Father, if you can hear us, knock the glass off the edge.”

My uncle regarded me with suspicion, as I had anticipated, probably wondering if the only thing that had already gone off the edge was my sanity. He then said, “If it falls off the edge, you pick up the mess!”

“If it falls off the edge I think both of us will end up screaming and running into the house like little kids,” I said, finally putting a smile on his face.

We both remained silent for a moment. Then I repeated: “Come on Dad! If you’re here with us then knock the glass off the table!”

“This is insane!” my uncle insisted.

“Come on Dad! Do it! Do it!’

My uncle gave up resisting and suddenly joined in. “Come on brother! You can do it! Knock it off the table!”

The both of us fervently repeated the same words several times (Luckily the neighbors weren’t there to call the friendly men in white coats).

Nothing happened.

“I told you it’s not real. When you die you die! End of story,” my uncle said, slightly ashamed at his own participation in my improvised (and not so sophisticated) séance.

That night I went to bed with a cloud of disappointment floating around my head. I had some trouble sleeping. After a few hours of tossing and turning in the dark, I heard a sudden “plop” sound. Something had fallen to the floor.

I immediately stood up, turned on the light, and found my notebook, which probably weighs a little less than a pound, lying in the middle of the floor. It had fallen from the nightstand which stands against the wall, to a spot where the only way it could have landed is if an external force had pushed it. Something which could not be mathematically explained otherwise.

Was this a delayed reaction to my earlier attempts at communicating with the dead?

I’m going to be perfectly honest. As previously mentioned in earlier writings, my intention with this blog is not to convince anyone of anything in particular. My only objective is for people to open their minds to the possibilities surrounding them and realize that not everything in nature is as simple and decipherable as it seems.

On the other hand, I myself tend to be skeptical of anything I hear or read which may be farfetched. I’ve watched the occasional TV show about supposed reality ghost hunters and categorize anything I see on television as extremely dubious, taking into consideration the capitalist nature of today’s entertainment sources which are on a perpetual hunt for ratings.

However, I don’t discard –at least not completely- things I hear from those that I know well and trust. An aunt of mine recently told me she believes something very strange is happening in her house because she often feels as if someone is suddenly lying on her bed even though there is no one there. Her husband, one of the most skeptical individuals I have ever met, is now also convinced that there is something inexplicable, and rather terrifying, in their home.

I have a cousin who has dedicated himself to communicating with the dead where he lives, in the state of Nevada, USA. He often teams up with a small group of individuals and spends the night in places (such as old hospitals and reformatories) which are widely believed to harbor the spirits of hundreds of people who have died in the same exact place.

He uses tools known as “dousing rods” (as often seen on the paranormal TV shows) and claims to have conversations with the dead whenever he visits these places.

(Aside from the notebook inexplicably tossing itself to the floor, I have had one other experience which I believe initiated my fascination with the unknown, read more about it here https://robertocguerra27.wordpress.com/2012/07/)

I have also met people in person who claim to have been born with a gift, those who can actually see (or at least believe they can) and feel the souls of the deceased all around them on a regular basis. One woman once told me that “spirits are everywhere, at all times”, a confession that didn’t help me sleep easy that night, I must admit.

“What do they look like?” I had asked her. “It’s not like in the movies,” she said. “The things I see are difficult to explain to the average person. They’re more like shadows, but only in a strange way.”

Putting things into perspective, how many microorganisms are living all around us that we cannot see? These are forms of life that are only visible by way of specialized microscopes. They live on our bed sheets, in our hair, even on our skin and inside our bodies, but we’re normally completely unaware of their presence.