Such an interesting topic! And again some interesting posts! And I must admit, yours caused the hair on my arms to stand on end, JJ!

I had the gift - or, sometimes, closer to a curse - of witnessing the paranormal without any real effort from an extremely young age, and surprise surprise, I happened to live within a house that was well and truly haunted. Both my parents admit they never felt comfortable in the house, especially alone, I had seen covers nudge by themselves, and a few more supposedly far-fetched things, as I'll explain.

I used to spend time in my brothers room - it being the larger - and the windows are very long, and large, and backed onto the conservatory roof, which we could quite easily sit on if we felt the need. One night, both of us were looking at the window, when what I could only describe as a black-clothed man with a true pumpkin-head appeared at the window, grinning in at us, moments after a loud ring sounded, before it disappeared again. I know I wasn't seeing things, because both me and my brother screamed at the same time - at which point my brother described to me, in perfect detail, what it looked like!

There were cases of our beds feeling like they were shaking (My brother even had it on holiday once, in a static caravan), I used to hear footsteps passing over the landing by my door regularly at night - my mother even remembers me asking Who just walked past the door? numerous times..

One case, I awoke in my room, at midnight roughly, and something drew my attention to above my door. There, was spinning a blue orb, with a white spiral in the middle, as solid as day. I hid under my covers with a yelp, and when I looked again, it was gone.

Constantly, in my bedroom, was a presence so strong, it made the air hot, and felt like it was so full of pressure, it pressed against me. I admit that a lot of the experiences in that house mentally scarred me - I still sleep with a light on, I suffer from anxiety - and at one point in the house, at about the age of 7 or 8, I followed my mother around the house everywhere, in fear of being alone, even in the day.

At night, I couldn't leave my room, out of fear of what was outside of it. I used to hear the footsteps, and the darkness down the steps used to seem to grow, and crawl up the walls in the most uncanny way..

Talking of scratching, I heard scratching in the room in my new house, once.. It went from close to the door, to the right, closer to my computer, to the opposite wall, then next to my bed, and then went silent..