Castle Walk

When I was a little child, strange and fascinating things were always happening to me. Some of them followed me into adulthood. I can recall the chill of the room, where I lay trying to go to sleep. I was about 5 years old at the time. I had recurrent insomnia, and also (when finally asleep) the most vivid dreams.

Did you ever had a dream so real that when you awoke, you must pinch yourself or do something you can feel to make sure you are conscious?

Well, in this dream, I felt everything I did. So therefore it seemed very, very real. I was a young woman. I was dressed in my sleeping gown, which seemed to me to look Victorian. As I walked down the hallway, which was cobbled with stones -- I thought how cold they felt on my feet. Where were my shoes? I did not now. I stopped to gaze out a small window, and saw I was gazing out of a castle window. What a curious place for me to be. Why was I there? What was I doing in a castle? I could see the hills, dark green and lovely, and the water in the moat surrounding the castle was gray and murky. It looked very cold. I heard voices down the hall, in a lighted room. So I walked towards them passing a larger window on the way. A breeze that made me shiver blew down the hallway and I seemed to hear footsteps behind me. I had this dream many times until adulthood.

Now I am of Scottish ancestry. I have also been a waitress on and off over the years. One day I went to the table to take an order from a very elderly couple. The woman looked up at me and turned as white as a sheet and could not speak. I asked her husband what could the matter be and then she asked me about where I was from. I told her and she asked me did I have any relatives in Scotland or Europe. It seems they had been to a castle in the Scottish countryside inthe past year. The Castle had been rumored to be haunted. They spent the night. The next day as they walked the grounds around the castle, they saw a woman in the small stone window in which the hallway led to a tower.This apparition was the one that had been reported by many of the castle goers. She appeared to be dressed in her nightgown and stopped to gaze out the window. Since no other visitors were in the castle, they called to her, they said she looked at them as if they were not even there. She moved from the window and they saw her pass a larger window further down, with her arms wrapped about herself, as if chilled. Then she looked to the right, squinted at something and moved on. The way she went led to a tower, where captives were held. I asked the woman why she had told me all this...as now I already had both chills and goosebumps as this person I had never met described my childhood dreams to me -- with no possible knowledge of them. Her reply "the woman I saw all those years ago - was you." I was floored. Did I walk there somehow in my dreams? Or was it something else. I don't have an answer, but I do know it was me.

Submitted from: Maryland, USA