Meg's Intro Post

Hey y'all. Meg here. I tend to write a lot. I'll try to be concise, but my apologies in advance.

As I mentioned in class, I don't do scary movies; I'm much too good at freaking myself out. Also, there's this show that comes on the Discovery Channel called A Haunting and there's one episode called A Haunting in Connecticut and I swear it is the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life.

I am a big fan of vampires--in high school I discovered Anne Rice and have read at least five of her vampire novels, including the big three in the Vampire Chronicles: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned. I've also read all of the Twilight series, and while I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan, I admit I have defended it on occasion (on the grounds that it is, while stupid, just a teen novel and not a model of behavior that I believe any girl would want to emulate... though, I don't know, maybe I overestimate the capacity of some people?)... and may have dressed up like Bella once. I just like costumes.

--Anyway, I've read some random other things that are fantasy-ish: a little Neil Gaiman, some Stephen King (I'm not too fond of him; I did enjoy Dark Tower but didn't finish the series), the entire Sookie Stackhouse vampire series by Charlaine Harris (before I'd even heard of True Blood, which I have only seen the first season of). I've watched a couple of episodes of Supernatural (clinging to my boyfriend and hiding behind him at the worst parts), loved this old show that used to come on Disney channel called So Weird (all about the paranormal--it was SO COOL, but it freaked me out), used to watch Are You Afraid of the Dark? but only while the sun was still up, and still turn on Ghost Hunters even though it sometimes leads to me staying up all night because I'm terrified. >< I'm also a fan of Japanese anime and manga, so I've seen a few things that I think count as horror (e.g. series called Blood+, Witch Hunter Robin, and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust). I also read at least six or seven of the Vampire Hunter D novels, but I quickly picked up on how formulaic they were, and they weren't as "beautiful" as Anne Rice's vampires, so I lost interest.

Oh, and Harry Potter. If you were at the Cobb Theater standing in line outside for the midnight showing of the seventh movie, you may have seen me:

An attempt at Bellatrix thrown together in the chaos of Thursday football game-ness.

--Briefly I'll share some interesting stories: there's an antique store in my hometown that the owners claim is haunted, and my mother has told me that she and some friends once lived in a house that was haunted (she awoke to see a man standing over her bed, and she knew he was a ghost so she shouted the Lord's Prayer at him until he disappeared).

When I studied abroad in Japan, it was really interesting to find that ghosts were basically part of everyday culture. I went to a museum that had an exhibit of art devoted to ghosts, demons, etc. and it was fascinating--it's just a part of Shinto and a part of tradition that even everyday objects can turn into ghostline entities if you mistreat them. --There was some legend about the property our university was on; I don't remember what it was, but it was something about the fact that it had been Komatsu plant property (the plant was behind the school) and there was a big explosion and a bunch of people died so weird things happened on that part of the property, or something.

Also, the dorm I stayed in in Japan was right next to a graveyard. My friend who lived in another dorm (which was NOT next to the graveyard) told me that the "dorm mother" where she lived liked to watch the security monitors and supposedly saw ghosts on them. She never saw them in person, but every now and then she'd see a visitor with an entity following him or her as they moved through the dorm. It was a fact that she only saw ghosts following people who lived in my dorm--supposedly because we picked them up from the graveyard next door. I never wanted to ask if okaasan saw a ghost following me.

Lastly, I personally had, freshman year here at UA, what I thought were a few paranormal experiences. I would be having dreams where I was in a completely empty house but I knew something was there and it was making me increasingly uneasy. Finally at the end I would be panicking and trying to get out, realizing I was dreaming, but I couldn't move or open my eyes. I felt my body in my bed, but I couldn't escape. Once I felt like a force was pushing down hard on my chest, pinning me to the bed, and another time I dreamed that I woke up to the head of my bed rising up off the bedframe, slowly sitting me up, as if something was pushing it. When I awoke for real the covers were undisturbed, so I figured it couldn't have really happened, but for the longest time I thought that some kind of demon had been attacking me in my sleep. I have since randomly come across articles on the internet and concluded that all of this is connected to what is referred to as "lucid dreaming," which is a frightening phenomenon to read about in the first place. Whatever the case, I almost never sleep on my back anymore.

Thanks for reading. ^^;

~Meg