Being There And Knowing Things

Ever since I was a young child I've had the "ability" to see ghosts. They would communicate or try to with me. Some of my earliest memories are of ghosts interacting with me. As I became older I began to experience powerful feelings and overwhelming emotions. You could say that I had my "awakening" while on a family trip through civil war battlefields in MD, PA and VA. I was around 13 when we were on this trip. As we traveled around these sites I would feel things which I believed were associated with knowing that the place was a field hospital or a mass grave or any area where many people died. I thought that these feelings were just because of knowing the history of these places. What didn't make sense were the feelings I would get at places that were not part of the battlefield parks.

The first one of these feelings that was not in the parks was rather traumatic. We were at a gift shop in an older building in Fredricksburg VA. The place was a two story building that must have been remodeled on the outside since it didn't look like something from the civil war era (1860-1865). On the way in, according to my mom, I did not want to walk through a particular area on the covered porch. While in this shop I had the distinct feeling that there were people in there; I felt despair, hopelessness, and fear. My parents went upstairs to the other part of the store. I did not want to go up there; needless to say I was parentally compelled to come with them. I remember distinctly feeling abject terror as I walked up those stairs. There was no apparent reason to feel any of this. There were no plaques or markers identifying any historical significance to this building. The store had lots of stuff dealing with the civil war, but there were no museum displays or any artifacts on display. As I went upstairs I started to panic, but I tried to keep my composure. As soon as I reached the top the sense of terror dissolved into a feeling of grim resignation. I thought that my imagination was just being overactive until I entered the front room of the second floor. Once in that room I felt a crushing sensation. The air was unbearably thick and suffocating.

Now here's the weird part. I found compelled to walk around the perimeter of the room or down the central part of it. There were no obstacles I needed to navigate away from. While in that room I felt pain. I also felt exhaustion. I smelled a sticky sweet smell up there that my parents did not. At this point I thought I saw a table in the corner near one of the windows with whitish cloth and a shiny object on it. I tried to investigate it but this is when I saw a ghost looking at me from the opposite corner of the room. He was wearing what I thought was a brownish dress. I panicked and ran down stairs being quickly trailing concerned mother. The rest of the trip was not like this, the feelings were more confined to the parks.

My mother had purchased ghost books and macabre history books of Fredricksburg and the battle that was fought there. About a month after the trip she found a map marking the locations of union encampments, supply depots, and field hospitals. The gift shop was a very busy field hospital after the failed assault on the heights outside of town. My mom contacted the shop and found out that the operating theaters were located in the upstairs room that I fled from. Much later in chemistry lab in college I smelled the same sent that I smelled in the gift shop. It was that of chloroform. I cannot say with total certainy that it was the same smell, but it triggered this memory.

Since then on other trips in the USA and in western Europe, I have had similar feelings in places we visited. They were not as frightening as the first experience I had, but they still were disturbing. It's eerie to know things about places that aren't in the published guilds to these places. It's neat to know this type of information, but when you tell people about it, especially tour guides, you draw very weird reactions. I am very fortunate to have a mother that's very supportive in this area. I found out that she has been able to interact with ghosts since she was a little girl. She totally understood where I was coming from with these feelings.

I have read through a few books on psychic abilities, but I'm still not sure what to call this ability of mine. Through reading these books and talking to the owner of the metaphysical shop they were purchased at, I learned how to control these feelings so that I'm not perpetually crept out going to unfamiliar places where traumatic (physically or emotionally) events occurred. He also did a past lives regression on me (which I'm not sold on the concept of this existing). He related that I was a surgeon at one point in my "past". This might be why I've been drawn to the medical profession since I can remember (currently in medical school).

Any and all input would be appreciated! Thanks for reading!