well I have had the odd experience that was hard to explain. When I lived with my folks my dad would often leave early in the morning and wake me up to lock the door behind him. Id go back to bed for another hour or so. One time when I was lying facedown on the bed I felt someone lift up the blanket off me and I thought it was my dad getting me to wake up, and then I quickly realized that dad had already left for work and there was noone in the house. Anyway I couldnt move and thought to myself that I will think this is a dream. (I have since heard that its very common in deep sleep or being on the edge of sleep to hallucinate, to feel as if one is floating or feel a weight on ones body as if someone is sitting on their chest.)

and yet,, I do have a story that was told to me by a very good friend. I lived in Japan for a year in 1990 and befriended a woman that lived in the same gaijin house. One day when Yumiko and I were talking about unusual experiences (she had just finished talking about her mother who had died and they were very close) and we got on to the subject of ghosts. She told me her story, when she was an art student at university she hung out with a group of friend who were into motorcycles and would often go on weekend road trips. (this made sense in Japan as its takes forever to leave Tokyo by car on weekend and is much faster by motorcycle) Anyway this group of people was a mix of guys and girls and gradually they paired up in couples except for one fellow who was still on his own. He was a little sad that they didnt go out as a group that much anymore, and they got together for one more trip. They rode out along the coast and had a grand time and stopped at various places to take pictures. Well a week later the one single fellow was riding his motorbike along that same coastal road when he was hit by a freak wave and washed out to sea.

All his friends were quite saddened by the loss, and Yumiko remembered that they had taken pictures the previous week and decided to have them developed and give them to his parents.

She took the film to the film lab at the art school and when she got the prints back she noticed the one picture of this fellow was missing. So she went to the lab to find out what happened with the film. They told her that sometimes pictures dont turn out very well so they usually dont bother developing them and his picture was like that.

Yumiko insisted on seeing the picture that they had discarded and they finally relented. When she looked at the picture of her friend she was so terrified she couldnt move. Here is what she saw.

In the picture he was standing beside his motorcycle with the sea behind him. And behind him, were, hundreds of human arms reaching out for him from the sea.