Ouija Board Experience

I had never done a Ouija board before and my cousin encouraged us to engage in this experience. I must admit, I was very afraid. I had heard many stories about spirits and ghosts and previously, I'm certain, had experience with my uncle who had passed away from cancer, just visiting, I'm sure to check that I was okay.
So anyway, this was my first time engaging with the spirits. My cousin told me all the rules and that if I did not believe, it would not work. For it to work, we had to blow on a silver coin both sides and place our finger on the coin in the centre of our own made Ouija board without putting pressure on the coin.
The first spirit we spoke to, I did not know whether to believe or not. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I thought my cousin was putting pressure on the coin and it was a joke as it first spelled: S8N. As in Satan.
One of the rules of a Ouija board is if it starts to go through the alphabet in order it wants to enter our world. This happened a lot that night. Not a great start to my first Ouija board experience and I was afraid that night. To sleep. To do anything.
Later in the night as I lay there, I had been asleep for only an hour and the loud noises of my aunty woke me up, the whole house went dark and I tried very hard to go back to sleep. I suddenly felt cold and felt the foot of the bed sink as if someone was sitting on my bed. I woke up almost everybody in the house and they told me it was all in my head. Still afraid, I made my other cousin sleep in the bed with my sister and myself. The bed began to sink again, and I knew that something was there but was too afraid to look. The next morning, I asked my sister if she felt the bed sink and she agreed.
This is just a basic story of a Ouija board experience. Feel free to leave comments with any questions or opinions about my experience that you would like to express.

Good Friends

One summer four friends went to the beach.
The group was made up of two men and two women. Let's say the men were called A and B, the women C and D, where C was A’s girlfriend, and D was B’s girlfriend. The four friends had known each other for a long time and lived in the same apartment block.

B, C and D went into the same car. A had a motorbike and rode on his own.

When it was time to go home, B said “Shall we have a race and see who can arrive home first?”
A agreed, and the motorbike and the car started a race.

The car was the first to arrive. B and his girlfriend D were thrilled that they had won. But C, who was A’s girlfriend, was not so happy. She knew A was a very skillful rider, and had been so sure that he would win the race; as it happened, A was still nowhere in sight.

He never came home that day. The next morning B and D went to C’s room to tell her sad news. “Well… I really don’t know how to say this..” B started. “I got a call from the police earlier this morning who told me that A had been in an accident. He was speeding when he hit the guardrail… He died in an instant.”

This was terrible news to C, who loved her boyfriend very much, but B and C had something even more shocking to tell.

“I said before that we had a phone call from the police. But well…now, don’t be upset… immediately after the call we had a visitor.”
“A visitor?”
“Yes. And when I asked who it was, guess who answered.”
B paused.
C could see the two were now visibly shaking as B opened his mouth again.
“The person said… that it was A.”

C was not sure if she’d heard right. She just stared at them incredulously.
“We thought it was some kind of sick joke, and I was about to go out and give him a piece of my mind. But then I realized, how could anyone know what had happened to A, when we were the first to receive the news? No one could have thought of playing such a joke. I thought of that, and then I got really scared. I couldn’t open the door. Luckily, after waiting for a few minutes he went away….”

B and D then warned C not to open the door if the same sort of thing happened to her. They believed that the person who came to them was A’s spirit, and that the accident came so sudden that A was unaware of his own death. If C opened the door, they said, he might try to drag her away with him to the next world.
After B and D left, C spent the rest of the day crying alone in her room, remembering all the wonderful time she and A had shared.


Then the night came.


C woke up by a loud knocking on her door.
“It’s him….!”
C tried to stay calm and ignore the knocking. But it would not stop.
“Hey!” said A. “It’s me! Open up!”
C went to the corner of her room and covered up her ears. But after a while, with all the wonderful memories still fresh in her mind, she could not resist anymore.
“Please! Open the door! It’s me!!”
The knocking was getting louder and louder.
C went to the door silently. Through the curtain, she could see the outline of A’s form. He was standing right there in front of her, just beyond the door. C nearly opened it, before remembering her friends’ warning.
A was dead. He had to understand that.

Shaking and crying, she shouted in a desperate voice,
“A, please… you …dead…….”
The knocking got even louder.
C thought that she could at least help him see the truth and leave this world in peace.
Mustering all her courage, she finally pushed the door open.

”A, you are dead!!!!”
“No! You are the ones who are dead!!!!!”

- At that, she lost consciousness.


When she next opened her eyes, she found herself lying on a bed in hospital.

To her amazement, A, who she thought had died, was standing beside her. He was crying with joy.
C did not know what was going on. A started to explain:
“After I’d done the race and arrived home, I waited for you three to turn up but you never did”
He told her between sobs.
“So I rode back the way I came, and saw your car, all smashed to pieces… B and D, who were seated in front, were dead on impact. You got away with only few injuries, but somehow you’ve been unconscious all this time.”

As all the facts started to sink in, C began to understand what had really taken place and went deathly pale.

It seemed B and D, who had met an instantaneous death, had stole into her mind and, through the dream, tried to lure her away from this world. If C had done as they had asked and not opened the door, she too would have been dead - for real.

Different from the dream

A girl dreamt she was being chased by a stranger. The girl ran and ran, shouting for help, but soon she was caught and knifed to death. She woke up screaming.

One day she was strolling in a park, when she spotted a man walking towards her. To her shock, he looked exactly like the man who murdered her in her dream. She panicked and ran straight to a nearby telephone box to call her friend, thinking she could get help. The man, while she was still on the phone, walked right past her. The girl, relieved, got out of the telephone box and started walking again. But she was astonished to find that once again the same man was coming towards her. Her heart was beating hard and her hands turned clammy with cold sweat. She was aware that this time she had nowhere to hide. She looked down and tried to walk quickly past him. And then, just as they passed each other, the girl heard the man mutter under his breath; “Why the hell is it different from the dream?”

Don't Sleep in this room!

This happened a few years back on a new year's day.

All night long I had been out with my friends ; when I came home in the morning I just collapsed on my bed. Then I had a dream in which I was aware I was dreaming.

In the dream I was walking home and somehow all around me, on things like telephone poles and walls, posters had been put up, with words such as “Value your life,” and “No use crying over spilt milk,” in black calligraphic writing.
The street I was walking in was totally deserted and moreover something that looked like blood was splattered all over the place.
I was thinking, god this is some creepy dream!
I kept walking and was nearly home when my mother woke me up.
She had a very serious look on her face and said, “Don’t sleep in this room.”
“Why?” I asked.
She replied, “Right now they have a hotoke-sama (the dead) lying right above your room (we lived in an apartment block). ”

I wondered if that was why I had a strange dream.
Afterwards when we were eating osechi (a new year’s dish) my father uttered, “It was a suicide apparently. He jumped from a building.” When I heard that I was really spooked. Did he regret his rash action after he jumped?

The Monkey Dream

I was dreaming. Ever since I was a child, I was sometimes aware, when I was dreaming, that I was in a dream. This time was the same. I was standing on the platform of a dark, empty railway station. What a gloomy dream, I thought. Then an announcement was made, in a dull, spiritless voice of a man;
"The train is approaching. If you get on it something scarrrry will happen to youuuu." It sounded nonsensical.
Soon the train came in. It wasn't a proper train, but rather like a monkey train (*1) you might see in amusement parks, and there were some men and women seated on it in a row.

I sensed something unusual about the dream, but decided to get on the train, just to see how much fear I could take. If I really found it too much I could always wake up. I was able to make myself wake up whenever I wanted, but the only time I could do that was when I was aware I was dreaming.

I settled in the third seat from the back. The air around me felt so realistically warm it was hard to believe this was a dream at all.

"The train is deparrrtiiiing," said the announcement, and the train started moving. My heart was pounding hard with both anxiety and expectation. The train entered into a tunnel soon after leaving the platform. The tunnel was illuminated with a mysterious purple-ish light.

This tunnel - I thought - is like the tunnel I saw on that "ghost train" ride in an amusement park I once went when I was a child. This thing I'm on too is just a monkey train. After all, this dream, like any other dreams, is just made up of pieces of my own memories. It doesn't feel scary at all.

Just then there was another announcement. "The next station is, Ike-Zukuri, Ike-Zukuriiii(*2)."
Ike-zukuri? You mean like a fish? While I was still wondering, a loud scream broke out from behind. When I turned around, I saw the man in the last seat was surrounded by four ugly midgets ( 3*) dressed in rags.

Before my eyes, the man was cut into pieces with sharp knives and it was really like an ike-zukuri. An overpowering stench filled the air, and the man screamed and screamed until my ears began to hurt. Bloody intestines and various organs were pulled out of the man's body and scattered all around him. Immediately behind me sat an ashen-faced woman with long hair, but she seemed totally uninterested of what was happening behind her, in spite of the ghastly din it was making.

I for one was certainly unprepared for this turn of events, and began to feel scared. I thought I would wait a little longer and see what happened next, and then try to wake up. Before I knew it, the man on the last seat was gone, leaving behind only some dark, reddish blood and chunks of meat. The woman behind me was still looking straight ahead with a blank look on her face.

"The next station is Gouging Ouuut, Gouuuging Ouuuuut," the announcement said.
This time two midgets appeared and with something that looked like serrated spoons they began to gouge out the eyes of the woman behind me. The woman's face, which had been a total blank only a moment before, turned into a mask of great fear and pain; then came from her a piercing scream, which nearly shattered my eardrums. I saw her eyeballs pop out. The stench of sweat and blood was unbearable. I bent over, trembling with fear. This was it. I couldn't bear it anymore. Guessing from how things had been, the next would be my turn, since I sat in the third seat from the back. I was going to wake up - but not, I decided, before I check what the announcement would be next.

"The next station is Mince Meat, Mince Meeeaaaat."
This was the worst I could possibly expect. I could easily imagine what was going to happen. I focused all my energy on waking up from the dream. "Wake up, wake up, wake up....." This intensive praying was usually enough to escape from a dream.
Abruptly, I heard something buzzing and wheezing close to me. A midget crawled up into my lap and held up some sort of device and waved it towards me. It must be a tool to turn me into a mince meat. Still, all I could do was close my eyes tight and pray frantically "come on, please, wake up! Wake up wake up wake up wake up...!" The buzzing sound was getting closer and closer. Finally it got so close that I felt the wind pressure on my face. And just when I thought it was the end of me, everything became quiet and still.

I managed to escape from the nightmare. I was wet all over with sweat, and tears were streaming down my cheeks. It wasn't until after I went to the kitchen and drank tons of water, that I was finally able to calm down. The dream was real - too real; but it was just a dream, nothing more, I told myself.

The following day at school I told my friends about the dream. They just found it funny. It was only a dream, they said, and that was all.
Then four years passed and I became a college student. I kept myself busy with studying and working. So much had been going on in my life that by that time I had completely forgotten about the dream.

But one night, it started again.
"The next station is Gouging Ouuut, Gouuuging Ouuuuut," the dream began from that scene. Immediately, my memories came flooding back. Things carried on in exactly the same way as before. The two midgets were gouging out the woman's eyes. I started praying straight away ."Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

But this time, for some reason, I couldn't wake up as easily as the last time. "Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up....."

"The next station is Mince Meat, Mince Meeeaaaat," said the announcement. The time was running out. I heard the familiar buzzing, and it was getting closer and closer. "Wake up, come on, wake up wake up wake up!!"

A dead silence descended. I somehow managed to escape again. With a huge relief I was about to open my eyes when I heard: "you are going to run away agaiiiin? But the next time is goiiing to be yourrr laaast." It was the voice of that announcer in the dream. When I opened my eyes I was back in my own room.

The last voice wasn't a part of the dream. I heard it in the real world, there is no mistake about it. Why me? What things have I done to deserve this? Since then I have not had the same dream again; but I know that if I ever dream it again, I will die, probably by a heart attack or something. It might appear to be a heart attack in the real life, but it will be a "mince meat" in the other world.....

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Notes:
1* - A "monkey train" is how some people call a toy train in Japan. There used to be a famous toy train in Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, run by a real monkey (actually all the monkey did was just sit on the train and nothing else). You can see a picture of the original monkey train here. The monkey train of Ueno Zoo was banned after people started vociferating about "animal rights." The monkey train is now gone, but the name lives on by itself.
2* - Ike-Zukuri (or iki-zukuri) could be literally translated as "live-making or live-arranging." It is a fish served alive and whole, slices of flesh having been cut and put back in place (kensyusha's new college Japanese-English Dictionary, 5th edition). Go here to see what it looks like.

3* - I've got nothing against little people. In fact, I measure only about 5ft that I might be called a midget myself.

The Big Head-O

A few years ago I suddenly remembered about a village I once visited. It was a friendly little village I discovered by chance while travelling alone. I stayed there overnight and received a most heart-warming welcome. For some reason I don't know, I felt an urge to go there again.

I have good memory and was pretty confident that I remembered the way to get there. Once near the village I spotted a familiar sign post from my car; which, if my memory was right, should have read "___km to __(the village's name)." But strangely enough all there was on the sign were the words "The Big-Head O". I had a bad feeling when I saw it but still decided to drive on.

When I arrived at the village I found it deserted and all the houses were buried in weeds. I was deeply puzzled and was about to get off the car when I saw, about 20 metres ahead of me, something that looked like a human with a very large head looming out of the bushes.
What? What is that? While I was trying to understand what was going on I saw other similar creatures coming out all around me; moreover, they started to come after me moving in a grotesque manner, with their arms lying still against their sides and their large heads swinging side to side...

I was glad I hadn't left the car.
I let the car run backwards at lightning speed and joined the main road. Afterwards I checked my map but the location of the village I visited a few years ago and the place I went on that day were unmistakeably one and the same. However I don't think I will dare to go there ever again.

The Green Man(?)

A while ago, my older sister, who had run away from home ten years ago and who had not contacted us all that time, suddenly came back in the middle of the night. There was only me in the house then to receive her since our parents were out for the night.

My sister seemed scared of something and she kept trembling. "Please, don't leave me alone! I don't want to go back! I don't want to go back!"She cried, and clung to me desperately. She was in a total panic, and all I could do was to take her to her old room on the first floor (which had been left exactly as it was when she left ten years ago) and lay her down on the bed.

Thinking it would calm her down, I said "I'll bring you something to drink," and tried to go out of the room. My sister cried, "Don't go! Please, please, please don't go! I'm scared! I'm scarrrrrrred!!!"

The moment I stepped out of the room, the door banged shut behind me on its own. And from inside the room I heard my sister scream, "Aaaagrrrrgh!! The green man is coming! The green man is coming! The green man is comiiiing!!"

When I finally managed to pry the door open, my sister had already disappeared. I looked under the bed, in the wardrobe, and in the loft, but there was no trace of her anywhere. We still have her tattered shoes at the front door. It wasn't a dream. She just disappeared.

One too many

There was a college student (we call him "D") who loved pulling people's legs. For example, D would go to a restaurant with three friends, and when the waiter asked "four persons?" D would say "come on, look more carefully! There are five of us!"

D would do this often, and people began to think D could really see "it." But of course D couldn't see anything really; he was just amusing himself by watching people's reaction. No matter how many times his friends told him to stop it, all D would do was just laugh at them.

One day D, who was always with someone when he ate, thought he would eat alone just for a change, and went into a restaurant all by himself.

He sat down at a table, and a waiter brought him a glass of water and put it down in front of him... and in front of the seat opposite D's. "That's weird."D thought. " Of course, there was no one apart from D at the table.
"Maybe there was someone here just before I came in, and the waiter thought that the person was with me...Oh well, I will just move to another table if someone comes back"

The waiter came to take orders. D ordered a spaghetti dish.
By that time all other diners had left the restaurant, and D became the only diner there. It seemed now certain that the waiter made a mistake.

After a while the waiter brought him the dish; and to D's dismay, he again put the same dish in front of the opposite seat.
"Why do you put two dishes when there's only me here!?" D said to the waiter angrily.
The waiter, surprised, looked around him quickly. "That's strange! I'm sure I saw there were two of you."
Then D talked to the manger, who was at the door when D came into the restaurant, but he too said D was not alone but walked in with someone else.
D became very upset and stormed out of the restaurant.

Now being (he thought) at the receiving end of the joke he used to play himself, he realized how uncomfortable it felt. He swore he would never do it again.

But that was only the beginning. From then on, everytime he went out people saw someone else beside D. Everywhere he went, whoever he met, D was seen with someone; even on a very crowded train people made a space, just enough for one person, only in front of D.

"Someone is following me...."D couldn't bear going out anymore. He grew paranoid, lost a lot of weight, and became a completely different person.
For many months he continued to live like a hermit.
He stayed in, just so that he wouldn't have to deal with "the other person."

Many days had passed. D gradually came to imagine that, after such a long time, "the other person" must have gone to somewhere else. He stepped outside for the first time in ages. The air outside felt fresh and good.

D went into a random restaurant. The restaurant had a lively atomosphere and D felt quite relaxed. However, he was still scared of sitting at a table so he chose to sit at the empty bar counter.

I had been stupid, D thought. There was nothing I should be scared of.
He couldn't have felt any better.

"Welcome," the waiter said, and put down a glass of water in front of D.
And he put another glass down next to D; and still another one next to it, and another one after that, and another one after that, and then another one after that...!

Inugami

Inugami, or literally "dog-god" is a kind of spirit that can possess a human, and is a type of kodoku(1*) The belief in this spirit was still strong until recent years and was widespread particularly in western part of Japan.

Those who can create and command Inugami is called "Inugami-tsukai" (Dog-god User). Inugami-tsukai creates an Inugami by the following method; first, you take a live dog and bury it in the ground up to its neck. Then you put some food in front of the dog but just beyond its reach, so that the dog can see the food but not eat it. You let the dog starve and when it is near to death and its desire for food is strongest, the Inugami-tsukai must go behind the dog and cut off its head. The dog's head is then buried undeground in the middle of a cross-road; this is to get as many people walk over it as possible in order to intensify its grudge. Finally the head is dug up and enshrined. Now a powerful inugami is born (2*).

Inugami can be commanded to possess a person. Those who are easily possessed by Inugami are the ones who are emotionally unstable. The possessed may act and say odd things, complain of pains in the chest and limbs, and sometimes walk on all fours and even bark like a dog.

In order to exorcise an Inugami you need either eat a charred beast, or ask a Yamabushi (3*)to perform a special ritual (involving use of fire and incantation) for you.

The size of Inugami is about the same as a large rat. Some say it is covered with spots and is blind. It is usually invisible to ordinary humans.


Inugami-suji "The Dog-god Bloodline"

The family which is possessed by an inugami is described as "Inugami-suji", meaning "dog-god bloodline." They are said to be the descendants of the shamans and sorcerers who originally created Inugami.

If the family worships it the Inugami bestows proeperity on it; on the other hand if the spirit is treated poorly it will bring calamity to the house.

In Inugami-suji household, a new Inugami is created every time a girl is born. When the girl marries, she is said to take her Inugami with her, thus making the new household an Inugami-suji too. For this reason normally marrying to an Inugami-suji was the thing to be avoided by common people. In few areas of Japan, some people still check the bloodline of the bride before marriage to make sure that she is not from an Inugami-suji.


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1*Kodoku - a black magic that uses living animals; will be explained more in detail in this blog in the near future.
2*This is the most well-known method. A source says when the dog's head is cut off it should fly and bite the food in front of it.
3* Yamabushi - lieterally meaning "one who lies in the mountain" Yamabushi is a Japanese ascetic and is a practitioner of shugendo, a syncretic religion mixing Buddhist and Shinto elements. (wikipedia).

Seven Misaki

Seven Misaki, or Shichi-Nin Misaki in Japanese, is a name given to a group of seven vengeful spirits.
They are spirits of seven people who had met their ends in tragic ways, such as by drowning. They usually haunt places like sea or riverside.
The Seven Misaki's souls are so full of grudge that they will not rest until they succeed at possessing and eventually killing another seven human beings: only then they become appeased and are able to leave this world.
The unfortunate victims of Seven Misaki become the new Seven Misaki. And they too, must look for another seven victims to replace them, so that they can rest in peace.