Paranormal or Coincidence? – a true story of my one paranormal experience.
As a psychology student, I moved into a rather dingy and damp bed-sit flat in Oxford. I didn’t have the money for a TV back then, but I did have a transistor radio. I often lay on my bed in the evening, reading the newspapers, or a book, or just listening to the radio. One night, as I was reading a textbook on psychology by a Dr Quentin Emerson, my eyes were curiously distracted to the wall facing my bed. The walls had been painted with cream emulsion paint for my moving in. I remember it was only a slight improvement since I’d viewed the flat in its dingy state, but it was clean and fresh at least. Anyway, as I looked at the wall, I was rather annoyed to see a damp patch had appeared. As I stared at it, I began to notice that by some curious coincidence the damp patch resembled a human face. The more I stared, the clearer it became – like a shaded black and white (black and cream, really) charcoal drawing. I was amazed at the detail that such a random damp patch could produce. Like a charcoal portrait, there on my wall, was a man in his fifties, balding, wearing round glasses, and sporting a distinctive moustache and goatee beard. Curiously, there were no other damp patches coming through the cream walls. I vowed to take this up with the landlord in the morning.
As the evening drew on, I continued to read my book, but was constantly distracted by “the face on the wallâ€. Out of curiosity, I even got up and inspected it. Close up, it was not as distinct. I rubbed the patch on the wall – no feeling of damp, or mould. My rubbing didn’t smudge the “portraitâ€. And when I returned and reclined on the bed, the image of the man’s face seemed even clearer. I could clearly identify the balding head, a wide brow, piercing eyes staring benignly through the round glasses, a prominent Roman nose, and the moustache and goatee beard.
I continued to read Dr Emerson’s book and tried to put the face out of my mind. At this point another strange coincidence occurred. As I focused on my reading, I realised I was reading Dr Emerson’s theory on ‘pareidolia’. This is the well-known psychological trait that allows humans to conjure up recognizable images from random patterns, like clouds, or ink blots. Most of us have “seen†a rabbit form in the clouds or imagined a face in . . . a pattern. It hit me. This must be exactly what I was doing with the damp patch. I was fitting a random pattern to an image in my mind – a human face. Given a differently shaped patch, I might have imagined a sheep, or a giant spider. So that explained it – “pareidoliaâ€. I smiled to myself.
Satisfied that I had explained the mystery, and content at having learned a new term from the estimable Dr Emerson, I decided to turn in for the night. I closed my book, left it down on my bedside table, and turned on the radio to get the late night news before sleeping. I had just reached to turn out the lamp when I was struck as if by a bolt of lightning. I jumped from the bed in panic, in fear, in shock, in dread. As I stood there quivering, looking at the book on the table, and then looking at the wall, I began to sweat. I had laid the book on the table face-down. There, on the back cover, and noticed by me for the first time, was a black and white photograph of Dr Quentin Emerson. It was identical to the face on the wall!
There, in the photo was the man with the balding head, the wide brow, the piercing eyes staring benignly through the round glasses, the prominent Roman nose, and the distinctive moustache and goatee beard. The wall patch was more charcoal-drawing like, but there could be no mistake. The image on the wall was a clear representation of Dr Quentin Emerson.
My mind was racing. Things like this don’t happen. I’m a scientist . . . but the probability of this happening was astronomical in anyone’s estimation. I sat down shaking on the side of the bed – looking at the photo, looking at the face on the wall – back – forth. They were identical. Was I going mad? I lay down again and propped myself up, looking straight at the face on the wall. As I looked, it began to fade. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Slowly, but surely, the image was getting lighter, fainter, fading into the cream, distorting, melting. Then, it was gone. My heart was beating fast. Was this a hallucination? Now the cream wall had not a mark on it. The face on the wall was gone.
I was somehow relieved by its disappearance. For the first time in my life, I had witnessed something that seemed inexplicable – but paranormal, surely not? The odds of this happening – the probability of the exactitude of the apparition . . . I tried to sleep. The BBC radio midnight pips were playing on the radio. The witching hour, hah! I turned it off. I had had enough of weirdness for one night. However, I left the lamp on! Fitfully, I tossed and turned until eventually I fell asleep.
In the morning, I woke with a start. I sat upright and stared at the wall. Nothing. No sign of any image, not even a mark on the cream wall. I was relieved. It had been nothing but a bad dream after all. I sat up, turned off the lamp, and looked at Dr Emerson’s photo. I glanced at the wall half expecting . . . but no. There was no image there. Nothing – no face, no damp, not a mark. I sighed at my own stupidity and turned on the radio. The 9 a.m. BBC News was just ending and I listened as he announcer said:
“The BBC is sorry to report a great loss to the scientific community. The renowned psychologist, Dr Quentin Emerson, famous for his debunking of paranormal claims, died last night AT JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT!â€
I froze!
Now there are some astounding coincidences in what happened in that bed-sit. Indeed, I later learned that, as a young student at Oxford, Dr Emerson had occupied that very flat thirty years before I took up residence. Strange, huh?
Look at what else was strange about this occurrence – the appearance of a “face†on my wall that looked exactly like the author of the book I was reading. The fact that in the section I was reading, Dr Emerson was writing about the human tendency to create mind images of recognizable forms from random patterns. Then there was the strange coincidence that this “imagined†face disappeared at just before midnight, just as the real Dr Emerson passed away. But for the believer in the paranormal there is something stranger still about this story . . .
I just made it up ten minutes ago!
[Actually this is a rewriting of a story I read years ago, but I forget the author. Maybe H.G. Wells?]
