Another unusual occurrence

I had another odd occurrence recently. I make no claims about what was or wasn’t going on, it’s just something that it happened. Draw your own conclusions.

First, though, a sort of pre-explanation. I have this weird thing that happens sometimes shortly after I turn off the light next to the bed. I lie in the dark, eyes closed, and I “see” through my eyelids. I don’t mean that literally—my eyelids aren’t transparent. What I mean is that I “see” whatever I’m facing, and that particular night it was the unlit lamp on my bedside cabinet, the wall a bit beyond that, the door to the darkened en suite.

I opened my eyes at one point, and physically saw the scene really was as my closed-eyes vision “saw” it, apart for one thing: In real life, there was light coming from the en suite window because the neighbours over the back fence still had their lights on (and for some reason, they have no window coverings). I closed my eyes again and what I “saw” through my closed-eyes vision was exactly as it had been—a darkened ensuite with no light coming from the window.

As I lay there “seeing” what I was facing, I noticed a sort of shimmery, out of focus human-shaped figure came into my view. It stopped at the side of the bed, directly in front of me. Although out of focus, it felt like Nigel. After many years and much love shared with someone, it’s possible to feel their presence without seeing them. I have no proof that it was him—I’m merely describing what it felt like, and because it did, I wasn’t frightened or worried or anything. I accepted the possibility it could be him.

The figure seemed to be speaking, but I couldn’t hear anything. I said out loud, “If that’s you, I can’t hear you.” During this time, the figure seemed to reach toward me, as if to touch me. I didn’t feel anything physical. The figure was dressed in casual clothes, with some sort of printed t-shirt. I tried to read what the shirt said so I might be able to work out who it was, but it was too out of focus/shimmery. I also opened my eyes briefly to see if there might be something to literally see, but there wasn’t, so I closed my eyes again and watched the figure.

After only a few minutes, the figure faded away, and when I opened my eyes again, everything was still as it had been. I closed my eyes, but the figure was gone, and the closed-eyes vision faded away, too.

To repeat myself, I’m not making any claims about what happened or didn’t happen, and I’m well aware of several logical explanations—like that the whole closed-eyes vision thing is just a sort of persistence of vision, and the rest was my imagination. But I’m also aware that it could be something I can’t explain. I’m completely open-minded about either possibility.

This sort of thing happened to me once before, something I talked about back in July, after my first unusual occurrence. But something similar to this latest incident happened even earlier, as I talked about in that July post:

This was at our house on Auckland’s North Shore, and I think it was before my stent. Whatever was going on that particular night, I wasn’t asleep yet, but not far from it. My eyes were closed, but through my closed eyes I “saw” my mother walk up along the side of the bed, reach over, and then I felt her stroke my hair. She didn’t say a word, and when I opened my eyes, she wasn’t there. Of course. But it definitely felt real, both physically and in that sort of ethereal way we feel when we’re physically close to someone with whom we have a strong connection.

It’s entirely possible that these incidents were some sort of projection of whatever was going on in my mind at the time, even if it was at least somewhat subconsciously. However, just as I can’t prove some sort of non-corporeal visitations happened, neither can I prove that the “rational” explanations are what happened.

I’m left, then, with a simple conclusion: I don’t know what happened. As I said about that first “unusual occurrence” last July, “it was whatever it was”.

It’s probable that folks I tell this tale to will reject one option or the other. In fact, I can do that and then switch positions, switch again, and so on. Still, I’ve always had a curious mind, one I try to keep open—sometimes succeeding. It’d be nice, though, if over time I could begin to come to some certainties. I have an open mind about that, too.

Still, it was whatever it was.