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July 2015 Discussion Post & Upcoming Writing Challenge Theme: Summer Ghost Stories



Estimated reading time — 2 minutes

This month’s discussion post has two purposes: one, it’s a normal discussion post. Clearly. Secondly, I’m using it as a way to give you guys a heads-up on the next writing challenge theme – and the topic for both discussion and challenge are one and the same, once again!

In the past, we’ve discussed the basic question of whether or not you all believe in ghosts. It’s summer for me, and as July/August are pretty traditional ghost story seasons for many parts of the world, I thought it might be fun to do a “summer ghost story” theme for both our monthly chat topic as well as the next Creepypasta writing contest!

Please use this post to share any fun, ghost-related experiences that you’ve had, especially if they happened in the summertime. Have you ever explored somewhere that’s said to be haunted? Have you ever seen a ghost? Do you use ouija boards, and if so, do you believe that they contact the spirits of the dead? Have you ever tried to play Hyaku-Monogatari? Feel free to answer these questions or any other related thoughts!

I’m also hoping that this post will help provide inspiration for our next writing challenge: writing a creepypasta related to the theme of summer ghost stories.

I want to make this clear: the dates for the upcoming contest are not yet set in stone – the contest submission form will go live at the same time as the normal submission form. I’m currently hoping to be ready to re-open submissions in mid to late July, extending both the contest and the open period until mid-August. Yes, it will be a short open period, so that I can (in theory, at least) process it quickly enough to comfortable re-open once again in October, just in time for Halloween. Knocking on wood, here!

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More details about the contest will be released when I formally announce the dates, but I thought I’d give you guys the opportunity to start working on your entries now by sharing the theme. It will likely operate similarly – if not exactly – like the last Creepypasta writing challenge, so please check out that post if you’re curious. I can also reveal that the physical prize this time around will be a package that contains this Ghost Meter EMF Sensor and a paperback copy of The Ghost Hunter’s Survival Guide: Protection Techniques for Encounters With The Paranormal by Michelle Belanger.

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Please save specific questions about the contest for the actual contest post, however – let’s keep this discussion post on the topic of ghost stories!

As always, have fun and I look forward to reading your responses!

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24 thoughts on “July 2015 Discussion Post & Upcoming Writing Challenge Theme: Summer Ghost Stories”

  1. It Was The Lobster

    My best scary experiences happened in dreams, but I do have a few short waking-life experiences that spooked me. A surprising lot of them happened to my parents, my dad in particular.

    1)
    When I was little, we lived in a house where the only one washroom was upstairs. My dad was shaving after getting out of the shower and me and my sister were downstairs watching TV with my mom. There’s a lock on the washroom door that my dad used in case me or my sister accidentally tried to walk in on him. Suddenly the door handle started jostling like someone was trying to get in, he told them to wait a minute and once he was done he opened the door to an empty hallway. My dad called down to my mom if anyone was trying to get in the washroom, but she said both me and my sis were down here with her and hadn’t gone up at all. Not only that, but in the time that the door jostled to the time when he opened the door, it was physically impossible for anyone to get downstairs in that time without jumping off the upstairs banister.

    2)
    Different house, me and my dad were talking about something and he asked me to get him some scissors. We keep the scissors in the silverware drawer, so the drawer always makes a metallic jostling noise when you open and close it too fast. I opened the drawer and grabbed a pair of scissors. I can’t remember what I was looking at, but suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see the drawer close suddenly accompanied by the metallic jostling sound of the silverware.

    3)
    Different house again. My dad usually stays up later than the rest of my family, I was still young at the time. We had a spare bedroom in a small room that also served as a stairway to our attic. Me and my sister’s beds were small, so sometimes when we wanted to sleep with our mom and not kick my dad out of his bed we had to use the spare bedroom. Anyways, as my dad was coming to bed, long after my mom, sister and me had gone to bed, he passed by the spare bedroom (it was the first room on the right after the first set of stairs). He looked in and saw the distinct figure of a person laying in the middle of the bed. He waved to them since they looked propped-up on a pillow but they didn’t move, he didn’t go in because he thought it was my mom and she was asleep. The next morning he looked in on the room again and saw the bed made and almost untouched. He asked my mom is she had used the spare bed and she said she hadn’t. He still isn’t sure what he would have found if he had gone in and checked on the figure.

    4)
    Not really a ghost story, but it was still spooky.
    Me and my dad were driving home, there’s a large city in between where we were and were we lived, he knew of an overpass that would let us go around the city, it was a slightly longer drive is there was no traffic, but it was worth it. Now, the small town where we started heading towards was south of this city, there was another small town north of the city. About ten minutes down the highway heading south, we come across a town and suddenly we recognize it as the town north of the city! He had been travelling straight the entire time, the only was to get here was to make a 180 and go back around the city, neither of what we did! We like to recount it as “our time in the Twilight Zone”.

    Other than that, all I can recount is my parents telling me about how me and my sister would talk about ghosts, I would go on and on about a fat man playing music and the mean lady who would bully him, and my sister would refuse to go in our foyer because she saw faces in the mirrors. Then there was one time I was leaning against a doorway and got poked hard in the back despite the closest person to me being five feet away. Then you have your usual seeing figures handing idle and all that.

  2. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I have had an experience that made me understand why people do believe in them. I’ve got to admit, before it happened I was a pretty skeptical woman, and I had a pretty healthy dose of that nasty smugness that many people fall prey to when they see others as superstitious or silly. My partner at the time firmly believed her childhood home had been haunted, and I would always roll my eyes internally, and say something meaningless and polite before changing the subject.
    It was the same girlfriend, I was staying over at her place that night, and we’d had a huge argument. We’d gone to bed together, but I was still pretty upset and was having trouble falling asleep, so around one in the morning I got up to go to the living room to have a private little cry.
    I was sitting on the edge of her coffee table, and on the wall behind me was a huge old antique mirror. I sat there sobbing with a box of tissues, trying hard not to wake her, for I don’t know how long. It was a really low point in a fairly tempestuous relationship, and I was pretty heartbroken and exhausted, which is how I explain to myself what happened next.
    As I was drying the last of my tears, and blowing my nose, I suddenly became completely convinced that someone was right behind me. I turned to look over my shoulder, and saw something in the glass of the mirror. The normally clear reflective surface was fogged- like a car window, or the inside of a shower stall, and visible as though backlit through the mist was a face and two hands. The hands were pressed up against the glass, like someone was leaning into it, and the face was pushed up close, exactly the way you might hold yourself if you were trying to peer through translucent material.
    There was no possible mistaking it; every light in the room with me was one, it wasn’t out of the corner of my eye, I looked dead on at the thing for a slow count of at least ten seconds. Then, I just got carefully to my feet, walked back into the bedroom (leaving the light on behind me, and the bedroom door open so that the hall light spilled into the room and made it less black) and cuddled up in bed with my girlfriend. I don’t remember how long I lay there. I don’t remember feeling afraid, either, so much as incredibly overwrought and numb.
    I still don’t really believe in ghosts. I believe I was tired, fucked up, upset, and up a two in the morning after a brutal day at the end of a long week at the end of a bad month. I believe two wires crossed in my brain and something sparked. That said, that belief is kind of a position of faith in and of itself. I have enough trust in the doctrine of science to dismiss something I saw with my own eyes. It didn’t feel like dreaming, at all unreal or supernatural, it felt just as real as bumping into a repairman in the apartment hallway. If I had been born a little earlier in history, or maybe been raised in a different way, I would have flat out known this was incontrovertible proof that ghosts were real.
    It knocked pretty much all of my condescension out of me, let me tell you that. I understand completely how some people believe.

    1. Cool story- I respect your willing to be open and admit (I confess much the same!) that we skeptical types can fall into a kind of know-it-all or smug category, without truly meaning to be. (Don’t feel bad… it’s easy to do.) I don’t claim to know what ACTUALLY happened to you, but I have had several similar experiences, and while you probably do not have a sleep disorder or brain problem of any kind (I certainly hope not!) I DO, and I believe my experience(s) have been caused by hypnagogia. It’s like a weird sleep-wake state thing, and when one is upset it is WAY more likely to occur. In fact, it’s often been times that I was emotional AND fatigued, but I’m not sure it goes far enough to explain all of them… I have several times seen a demon-looking entity (dunno what the bloody Hell it is) ’emerging’ from the back of a dark chair in my parlor, only for it to vanish moments later. I don’t believe in demons myself, but it manages to freak me out every single time. I would honestly LOVE to believe… just not sure.

    1. Thank you for that Katherine C. Now how do I contact a volunteer. That’s something I cannot find in here for some reason. Do you know how I can contact a beta reading and where the volunteers are? Sorry to bother you and thank you for your time.

  3. So this was a story when my two pets died. They were a dog and a cat. The cat’s name was Prosha and the dogs was Rocksan. They were both special to all of us. I was probably the only one who cried when Porsha died and everyone cried so hard when our dog died. After when we went home we all started crying for the rest of the night. It was probably one of the most sadest nights of my life. Anyway on to the story…

    Every week on a Saturday afternoon we make or get pizza and watch a movie. It’s a thing that my family does so we can spend, “quality” time with each other. But on this one particular night we were watching a movie. Don’t really know which movie though it happened a few years ago. Anyway when we were in the middle of the movie the DVD player suddenly opened. We all looked at each other and stared back at the DVD player. It was weird that it opened all by itself. I mean nobody even touched it so how was I supposed to know how it possibly happened. A few seconds later it closed and went back to playing the movie. We all just tried to forget what just happened that night and just tried to watch the movie.

    Later that night I went to sleep dreaming the best dreams I ever had in a long time. One with me destroying the school playground with bombs and had an all out war and just going on a great journey with me and my friends. But something woke me up that night. I could hear a bell ring in the hallway. My dog usually had a bell around her neck so we would know where she was but it sounds so familiar and just like hers. My door was closed and my parents were sleeping and I didn’t want to disturb any ones sleep by walking down the creeky wooden hallway/floor. So I just went back to bed just ignoring all of it.

    A few months later it was October and was very close to Halloween too. We were in the beggining of a movie and the DVD player kept on opening and closing for at least 30 seconds then it stopped. We then resumed watching the movie but a few minutes later it happened again. We tried to close it but it kept on opening again. My dad was just yelling no every time when the movie stopped. My mom decided to make at least one or two more pizzas. When she got back we heard a door slam. We turned back and saw my our mother with a shocked expression. We asked her if anyone came in or did you slam the door. Even though she wasn’t close enough to the door. It then opened and shut itself again. It then all of a sudden it all stopped. We went to bed that night with the same bells but not in my hallway. But in my bedroom. I heard dog steps walk out of my bedroom down stairs. Years later we had to buy another DVD player but it still did what happened to the old one and we got another one and then everything stopped. No slamming doors, no opening closing doors and no more bells.

    Later I still think of my pets and still wonder what had just happened to our DVD players and the door. But everytime I can imagine my dog in the hallway lying on the ground starring at me. But the weirdest thing is. When my brother wakes up and gets his breakfast. He asks me. Did you ever see a dog last night?

  4. This was all based on a true event that happened. Now enjoy…

    It all started when my pets died. They wer really connected to me and after the day my dog died which was after the day my cat died. Things started to get weird, and I mean weird. So one day we watch a movie because we have a pizza and it’s a thing to spend family time together. One we were in the middle of the movie the DVD player opened up. As weird as it sounds it just opened up by itself. Everyone said they didn’t touch it. It then randomly closed back in. So we just continued watching the movie as just trying to enjoy this night as a family, as usual.

    A month later we also watched a movie. But there was a twist, it was on a October night. It was near Halloween but just so you guys know. Anyway we were in the beggining of the movie and the DVD player opened up again and randomly closed. We were all comfused with my dad yelling no everytime it did it. It opened and closed multiple times but it then stopped finally. It opened up again and we closed it back in. It just kept on opening up and we kept closing it. It was still doing the same thing. With all of the boredom at this moment my mom went to go get a glass of water or make another pizza or two. She then later came back but then we all heard a door shut. It was the front door. We asked did you close it but she was to far away from the door to even open it. The DVD player was also still opening and closing that night, and then after a few minutes everything stopped and went back to normal as it was sussposed to be. It kept on happening with the opening and closing and we had to buy another DVD player which also did the same and then we bought another one and it all stopped. No more opening and closing of the DVD player and no more doors slamming shut.

    But every night when I go to bed. I wake up in the middle of the night. I think I can make out the shadow of a dog or a cat walking back and forth down the hallway. Sometimes I ask this question. Is this all in my head, or do ghost live amoung us?

  5. biaspeopleareignorant

    When I was young, I was laying in my bed in the early evening. My parents were down stairs and my sister was already in her room. The lights were off in the hallway and my door was shut. Suddenly, the light in the hallway came on. At first I did not think anything of it. Then the light went off and a few seconds later came back on, then a few seconds later went back off. Immediately, I think it is my sister playing a joke on me as the light came back on, went off again, but faster this time. I call for my sister to stop messing with the light and it starts to go faster. I get up and ask her to stop again and it starts going on and off faster. Finally, I open the door, the light went off right when I opened it, and no one was there. My parents were still down stairs, my sister was still in her room, and no one else lived with us. Needless to say, I “slept” with the light on for a few days after that.

  6. TheFriendlyRedead

    I actually explored an abandoned building a couple years ago.

    In July, I think.

    Me and my friends had always been curious about the old house down the block. So, we decided to try to get in, see what we may, find what we find….

    Well, we found a way in near the base of the building, partially covered by some boards, but they were easily passed by. The basement was dark, the only light coming from the crack we had come out of. It was a wide, rectangular room with a pillar in the center and a burned out light bulb above. the floor, ceiling and walls were white from what we could see.

    At the end of the room, on the left wall was a doorway. My two friends didn’t notice it. The doorway was pitch black.

    They looked on the opposite side of the room and I walked over to the doorway. As soon as I stepped into the doorway, it got suddenly chilly. I took a step back and it was warm again.

    It’s not really a ghost story or anything supernatural. Probably just a draft….but I just thought I’d tell it….

  7. Johnathan Nash

    This story fits well with both subjects, it’s a ghost story that happened in the summer.
    When I was till in school my mom decided that she wanted to go to Lancaster PA. Not sure if any of you are familiar with that are, but it is an Amish town. Now to me, being a twelve year old, found that place incredibly boring. So I wanted to stop at Gettysburg the entire time, and finally got my parents to agree to go.
    There were plenty of ghost tours there, and I’ve always been interested in the paranormal, so I got my dad to agree to go with me on one. There was cemetery that the guide took us through and told about how one of the graves was to a woman who was disowned from her family. It is said that the ghost of the woman would tap people on the shoulder she wanted to talk to. Well my dad was blind and I was leading him through the cemetery. To do this, he had both his hands on my shoulders.
    Well I felt a tap in the middle of my back. At first, I thought it was my mom or brother, but they were both in front of us. I’m still not sure who tapped me, or if it was a ghost or not. Anyway, the hotel we were staying at was also on the tour.
    Apparently it was used as a hospital during the civil war. It’s said that some people saw ghost dressed like union solders, others heard hospital noises: screams, gurneys, etc.
    Well after the tour we went back to the hotel. The room was trashed, everything was thrown around, the TV was on behind the closed doors of the hutch, just a mess. My mom and brother had gone to get some ice cream. I didn’t know that they messed the room up before we left though.
    Anyway, when I had gotten out of the elevator, we heard what sounded like a gurney. my dad and I went to see what it was, but there was nothing in the hallway and as we got to where the noise was coming from it stopped. Once we turned the corner again we heard it. So we decided to go back in the room, but because of the mess I noped it out of there.
    We got out into the street and my mom and brother were just laughing as hard as they could. That is pretty much my only ghost story, but it is a fun on.

  8. I had a really weird Ouija board experience when I was around 13 or so. I was at my friend’s house for a birthday sleepover with 5-6 other teenage girls and someone brought the Ouija board out. Her mom was up there with us, egging us on and playing with us. In hindsight, I’m pretty certain she was just moving the planchette around to screw with us and freak us out. It worked. The “game” started with us talking to the ghost of Teddy, who was had died in the house. My friend and her mom had sworn for months that their house was haunted by a rather lazy poltergeist that would randomly move things around. So it was either a long con or just her mom taking advantage of skittish kids (or, if you are into that sort of thing, a real paranormal experience…). He told them where he had hid some stuff around the house (and was supposedly right!), but then Teddy went away and another “presence” began to speak. It identified itself as Satan. Cue mom acting all uneasy, and before long all of us were screaming and heading downstairs. Admittedly, there was cake downstairs. I just remember taking posses of 4-5 people to walk the 15 feet from the bonus room to the bathroom because no one wanted to be alone in the dark for Satan to get us. As I said, hindsight makes me believe it was all a beautiful prank set up by her mom. This was the same woman who, while undergoing chemo, ripped off her wig and threw it at one of my other friends, just to watch her freak out. So certainly not outside of the realm of possibility! That’s the most paranormal experience I’ve had, despite being in numerous spooky and “haunted” places. I’m a pretty solid skeptic when it comes to stuff like that, so I classify it more as a funny story about being a gullible kid than anything else, which is how a lot of summer campfire ghost stories make me feel in the nice light of day. But, who knows? Maybe it was a closer brush with the paranormal than I think!

      1. Like, as a beta-reader or something? Sure. My contact info is on the beta reader page, or you can click on my disqus profile to find a link to an info form on my blog.

        1. It’s actually in the comments somewhere. You can find it. Just scroll down and you’ll see it. I don’t know how to post it as a story or anything but it’s okay. It’s in here somewhere I’m sure you can find it.

  9. I need some context for this new competition. I get the ghost part and the stories part, but what exactly puts the summer into summer ghost stories? Maybe I’ll find something interesting in the comments to write about.

    This isn’t a question, just a joke I thought was funny. Pretty sure the next post about the competition will fill me in on the conditions and stuff

    1. Ah, in many countries it’s traditional to spend time during the summer telling ghost stories – likewise, a lot of countries have ghost-related holidays or festivals, especially in July. Summer camps, Obon Festival, Ghost Day/Ghost Month, that sort of thing. Your story does not have to be specifically set in summer, but as it’s summer where I am, the theming seems right.

  10. Finally! I lost the last submission period,so now’s my chance to take part and submit story that I’m writing!

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