Feeling Emotions And Seeing Images That Aren't Mine

For as long as I can possibly remember, I have felt "different." Different, in the sense that I feel and see things that others cannot. It started in childhood, and I was greatly ridiculed by mostly everybody. Nobody believed my "stories" or claims, and most of these experiences were attributed to and dismissed as me being a highly creative child suffering from ADHD.

One of the very first experiences that I can remember happened when I was around 8 years old. I was playing in the backyard of my childhood home and noticed out of the corner of my eye some movement and shadows in the woods near the edge of my yard. I remember having a strong intuitive feeling at that point that's quite difficult for me to explain. The sensation was similar to the feeling you will get when you have another person standing or being in close proximity to you. I could feel a presence nearby, but I was alone. This feeling I had was drawing me to that area of the woods. As if something in my mind was telling me that I HAD to go over there. I couldn't dismiss it. I walked towards that feeling. I could no longer physically "see" the shadows or movement, I was walking towards what I felt, and following that presence. As soon as I could feel it was at its strongest, I began to see images in my head. I began to hear words and phrases that my own mind was not creating. The words, images, phrases just popped into my head as if they were my own thoughts but I knew that they weren't. I saw an image of a field, at sunset, the sun was so beautiful and vivid and bright, shining all across this field. The wind was blowing the grass, and there was a strip of bright red fabric flowing through the air. The words and phrases that I was hearing were "I'm over here," "keep searching," and "chimes." I would hear windchimes occasionally as well, off in the distance, but there wasn't any object to make these sounds.

The experience never bothered me and I didn't see it as anything strange at the time, I was just a kid. I knew that somebody was trying to tell me something but I wasn't aware of the importance or any other details regarding this. I never tried to look into it further either. I told my mom what had happened when I went back inside after this. She brushed it off and didn't really dig deep into it or take me seriously. Years later, when I shared other experiences with her, she told me that as a kid I was constantly telling her and my father that I could see ghosts. That I would say things to them about seeing other people being in certain places that weren't actually there. She also told me that there were many occasions she would see me outside playing and I would be mindlessly wandering off into nothing, talking to myself as if I had other people with me. I would also do this in my sleep. Sometimes my parents would find me sitting on the lawn in the front yard in the middle of the night, with the door to our house left wide open and the security alarm blaring. I don't remember any of these specific instances.

There were several occasions that I can remember being woken up in the middle of the night during childhood, and having random words or phrases pop into my head this same way. I also remember seeing figures during these experiences. I'd wake up in the middle of the night because I'd hear somebody saying something to me and I would think it was reality. When I opened my eyes, there would be a dark figure, sometimes more than one, standing either in my doorway or next to my bed. I never, ever, felt afraid of this. I ALWAYS felt it was welcomed. Like they were messengers, and I had to figure out what they were trying to tell me. Sometimes I would follow them out into the hallway (hence probably my sleepwalking) but I always thought I was dreaming about these instances, I never realized I was actually physically doing it.

I would tell friends at school about these experiences, and they all thought it was batshiat crazy. We had an old historical cemetery on my elementary schools property where the kids would have recess. Every time I was outside or anywhere near that cemetery, I would feel an overwhelming sense of urgency, that I HAD to go over to it. I had to get inside that gate, and I had to be in that cemetery. Somebody was trying to tell me something in there and I needed to figure it out. I actually got in trouble by one of the teachers at school, for attempting to get into this cemetery when the gate was closed and nobody was allowed to do that. I remember telling my principal and guidance counselor that I couldn't really control where I was walking off to, and that I just knew I needed to go in that cemetery. I remember being told that it was dangerous and I had to stay away, and I remember being confused about the supposed "danger?" Because I never felt I was in danger. It didn't make sense to me.

When I walk into a room of people, my head vibrates. It's like sensory overload for me. I can hear thoughts, I can feel energy. No specific words or anything like that, I just hear noise in my head and feel overwhelmed. I almost always need to remove myself from situations where there's high energy or many people in one enclosed space. It's not claustrophobia because I do not feel this when I am alone. It is only when there are other people near me.

If I am in an old structure or building with a lot of history, I see images in my head. It's like I'm looking at what's in front of me and I can differentiate between that being what's real, and the images in my head being what was there before? If that makes sense. I'll see the present, and my brain almost "flashes" to that same space I'm looking at, but during a different time. These images are blurry and hard to make out unless I can pinpoint specific elements in the images - like a piece of furniture that is still there, or other things that are present in the actual space I am seeing as well as the vision in my head. Then the image becomes more clear to me and I can feel sensations of emotions and other things that may have happened in that space.

I lived in an apartment last year that was certainly very high in spiritual energy. It was an old mill building that was converted into a living space, and there was a LOT of unfinished business for one man who's presence I felt daily. The day that I moved in, I instantly felt threatened. Like something did not want me there. Like I was invading somebody's personal space. I constantly felt these emotions, that were not my own. This man was scared, he was not aware that he had passed on. He was trying to protect the building, I think. He was always looking over and around me. There was not a single moment that I was present in that building when I did not feel his energy. Before I understood all of this, when I initially "felt" him around me, I saw images in my head of what this presence may look like. I saw a dark, shadowy figure of a man. In a black overcoat. With a top hat on. It felt like he was either the owner of the mill, or he aided in constructing it, something like that. But the building was certainly his accomplishment, so he felt tied to it, he needed to keep it safe. The people who converted the mill into apartments had a lot of historical photographs hanging on the walls in the hallways of the building from the 1800s and such. There was one specific area of my apartment where I would feel a stronger sensation of this spiritual energy. It was in the bathroom, and in a dark corner/hallway type area in the bedroom, leading to the bathroom. On the opposite side of the wall was the hallway and a stairwell that led to the outside of the building. The day that I moved in, I walked out of the apartment and down the hallway on that side, and saw a photograph hanging on the wall. It was of the mill building, shortly after they finished construction in the late 1800s. Standing in front of the building in the photo, was a man. Dressed in all black with a long overcoat. And a top hat. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was the man in my visions and the man who's presence I would feel. It clicked in my head. Then I began to feel his emotions. If I were in the bathroom, he was threatened. It was his office before he passed. If I had water running, the feelings and sensations were intensified. He was using the running water as an energy source to contact me. I saw images in my head of him sitting at a desk in my bathroom, writing, reading through papers. I saw images of machinery, there was an accident. Something happened with a machine in that room - my bathroom. It was never made fully clear to me exactly what happened. I always just saw flashes of him at his desk, and of a scene where there was a jammed machine, and dozens of dirty rags drenched in blood spewed across the floor. Feelings of terror, like somebody unexpectedly saw something horrific. When I would get home at night and get inside, as soon as the elevator hit my floor, my chest tightened. Every inch of my body had an intense tingling sensation. The second I walked outside, it was all gone.

One experience I have had has stuck with me beyond any others. I feel this experience is what made me start to think about/understand what I am.

When I was in college, I was taking a history course. My professor had assigned us a project having to do with historical cemeteries. We had to visit these cemeteries and take accountings of the headstones and the verbiage used on them and write a research paper. I've always had a fascination with the occult, I've always felt "drawn" to cemeteries. It's like a high for me. I can gain so much information from just being near a cemetery. I can feel emotions of every spirit in them. So, I found this one cemetery. It was very, very old and in poor condition. The coffins were very close to the grounds surface, you could see humps in the soil in their shape. The second I pulled up to the cemetery, I could feel a presence. My mom waited in the car while I got out, walked around to take photos and notes. She told me that at one point during this, she saw a shadow in her peripheral vision that looked like I was waking behind her car. When she looked up, I was standing across the other side of the cemetery, nowhere near her car. She said she felt threatened, but I did not feel that way. From that day on, this cemetery became a major importance to me. I had to go back there. The sense of urgency for me to return to this cemetery was so intense, it happened constantly. Voices in my head telling me I had to go back to the cemetery and "find Sophia." So I went back. Alone. And followed the feelings and sensations I was having, like I did as a child in my backyard. I had my eyes closed, I tried to think phrases in my head, I had a feeling somebody could hear my thoughts? Like they were communicating with me through thoughts. As soon as I felt the presence was it's strongest, I stopped and opened my eyes. In front of me was a grave, and it said the name "Sophia" on the headstone. I froze. I knew I wasn't crazy or imagining these things anymore. I sat down in front of the headstone, and I started to talk to Sophia. Tried to see if I could communicate with this presence I was feeling so strongly and intensely. I didn't get anything that time. I just felt warm, and accomplished? Like I followed the right steps up until that point. I left that night, and knew I had to go back again the next day. I visited this cemetery every single day for a year, each time becoming more intense than the last. I would go there alone, because if I brought people with me then the feelings weren't as pronounced, as intense. This entity wanted to communicate with me, but didn't trust anybody I brought along with me. It was a female presence. She was emotionally unwell. Very distraught, very sad. And she did not have anybody to relate to in her world. She felt outcasted, she was alone. I think that because I also felt this way most of my life, there was some sort of connection there - trust almost, she was trying to tell me something she could never tell somebody in her world. Daily, I'd visit Sophia. I'd sit against her headstone, with my eyes closed. I'd talk to her in my head, saying things like "why do you keep calling me back here?" And "why am I here?" One night, I felt her touching my shoulder, and moving my hair out of my face. I saw images of her and her life in my head. A long, black dress. A field. A farmhouse. A river. A small, wooden box with a brass lock on it. Another time, I was just driving by the road. I had almost driven past it, but something in my head was screaming GO THERE NOW. GET OUT OF YOUR CAR AND GO THERE NOW. So I did. And I stood there, frustrated because I wasn't understanding why I had to be there and why this feeling wasn't going away and what my purpose for being there was. I had spent almost a year trying to understand it and I couldn't. So I started speaking out loud to her now. "Why did you call me here? What do you want from me?" And I heard her talking. "The river. The stream. Behind me. There's a box. In the river. Behind me." I had no clue what this meant or if I were just crazy. So I looked at my location in the map on my phone. Something I hadn't done before. And right there before my eyes, a river. Directly behind the cemetery. In the woods. I walked into the woods trying to find this river in the pitch darkness. But then I started to feel another presence. I was no longer safe, and Sophia was talking to me in my head, saying "no. Get out. Not safe." So I ran back out to the street, where the cemetery was. The feeling was gone, and now it was just her presence again. I sat in my car trying to process all of this. I had my windows open and my eyes closed and my hands faced palms upwards to my sides. She was holding my hand and then I began to see more images. A baby that died. Her husband left her after that. She's depressed. She's angry. He has another woman. A rope hanging from the ceiling. And feet, lifted up off of the ground, with a long black dress. Her dress. The same dress I first saw. She killed herself. That was the last time I felt her presence at that level of intensity. I still feel her there if I return to the cemetery, but it is as if she is at peace now and has passed on.

I don't understand any of this. I don't understand how I know these things. I don't think I am crazy, or imagining it. It is all very, very real in my mind, I can tell the difference between my own imagination and this reality. I've done pretty extensive research on this kind of stuff, but I can't seem to find exactly the answers I am looking for. I've considered seeking advice from a renowned medium but I do not trust that I'll find a legitimate person who isn't a fraud jumping on this societal "trend." This stuff is very real to me, and most people I've encountered don't understand that. I am hoping that by sharing these (very few out of many more) stories here, I will be able to connect with somebody else who does understand, and who can help me make sense of what all of this is. I'd like to use my gifts, if that's what this is. I'd like to be able to master all of this and to understand it better than I do now, to control it.