Haunted areas in Bray

Rasmus

Please do elaborate! My house in Bray was 'haunted' as well and I can relate to not sleeping for years!

MissingBray

Hey all, So, now I'm debating. One, I have written the whole experience up somewhere on my computer and, on the one hand, might like to put that up. Or, I can just go ahead and tell it here off the cuff. Most of what I experienced was an exact replay every single night. But, there were a few additional "events", the last of which, was the most bizarre, and which, I think, being about 11 or 12 (actually, I don't think my age was relevant to my reaction), so shocked me, I blocked that particular memory because I really couldn't reconcile it with anything - I was a pretty logical kid. Anyway, then my mom reminded me once we moved to British Columbia, for which my first reaction wasn't thankful lol. Anyway, let me think about this. I also have this weird thing where there are some times I don't mind thinking of this, but sometimes, when I think back on it too much, I get creeped out, and just want to stop. I just thought of this last night for the first time in a long time, and looked up this topic to see if anyone had finally written about Sancourt Lodge. Anyway, let me think a bit. Btw, Rasmus, I'd like to hear your experience, as well. I did, eventually, sleep through the night. But, took about three months. Of course, there were the trains to get used to, as well. The trains, as you may know, at least back then, ran at night, literally right in front of our front yard over the low stone wall. So between those two things LOL, I had a rough couple, three months.

MissingBray

PS: Sorry to be so wishy washy, but now, after I've offered to write about this, I realize I'm not sure I want to think that deeply about it right now, which will have to happen, if I am going to write about it. Yeah, still conflicted about it after all these years, however weird that sounds. And when I encourage the memories, they come flooding back in more intimate detail than the last fifteen years of my life for me. Off to sleep for now and will think on this. I do want to share, if for no other reason than to preserve some history of the place, get it out there, before it's lost for good, as we humans don't live forever lol. And also, I can't really ask Rasmus to share, if I can't share myself - quid pro quo . Good night.

Wicklowandy

If you change your mind, please post it here or on the bray did you know facebook page, a lot of fabulous social history and personal tales are lost, and we're a nosy bunch

Calibos

After my grand parents had both passed away our family bought my fathers siblings share of the house and we moved in and renovated the house the following year. I sleep directly over the spot my grandmother was found dead. I slept soundly from Night One. After the second time I heard a weird sound within the walls 2 years later (this year) I had reasoned out what it was. The fireplaces at the back of the house were blocked off and the Chimney stacks within the walls were filled in with rubble by the builders/renovators to stabilise the gable wall. The vibration from the dart line 100 yards away was causing the looser smaller elements of the rubble used to fill the chimney stacks to cascade down the stack. Another weird sound I reasoned out to be the branches of a tree rubbing the metal corrugated roof of a building behind us when the wind is from a particular direction. The tapping I often here is when water flowing through a particular pipe causes thermal expansion in the pipe and it makes a friction tapping kind of sound where the pipe runs through a joist. The apparition of Jesus in the back yard was the reflection in the back door window of a towel hanging on the chair beside me superimposed over something hanging on the side of the shed out in the yard and my brains pattern recognition centre guessing wrong for an instant.

Whats the difference between me and all the people who see/hear ghosts???

As a sceptic, I worked from the basis that these incidents where something mundane but they were an interesting puzzle for me to stimulate my brain. No fear or jumpiness clouding my judgement. No preconceived notions of the supernatural. No running off to tell someone about what I had heard or seen before I had given it any rational thought. I heard the noises and said to myself I wonder what that could be. I thought it through and came up with hypothosis and then in the following minutes or hours and in some of the cases days and weeks, tested those hypothosis or had to wait for them to happen again and figure out what conditions were common to both instances.

My hypothosis about the noise in the wall was as I described at the beginning. It was confirmed the third time it happened. The second time I noted the sound of some locomotives being moved at the train station during the wee hours. When I heard the sound and locmotives the third time I knew I had the complete explanation.

The tapping during the night was confirmed the second time when I investigated and say that someone had left a hot water tap dripping. Enough to cause thermal expansion in the pipe going through the pipe.

The Jesus apparition stopped me in my tracks. Rather than running of screaming, Instead I stopped instantly, knew I wasn't seeing what I thought I was seeing, studied it until the illusion collapsed and realised what I was seeing. I was then able to make the apparition of The white robed Jesus appear and disappear at will, much like the candle stick illusion (One instant its two faces looking at each other, the next instant its the candlestick) The cause is the part of the brain that has evolved to play it safe when it recieves insufficient sensory input. Your eyes sees movement in the bushes beside the pliestocene camp fire. If your brain makes a guess that its a sabretooth tiger and draws such on your visual cortex, well if it actually is a sabretooth, you just jumped out of the way in time and someone else got caught and eaten. If the brain guessed wrong and it was just a bush branch blowing in the wind, well you just laughed to yourself. UG, me just thought I saw sabretooth Hurhur . ie. The result of guessing wrong about the sabretooh 9 time out of 10 is an adrenaline burst and a chuckle to ones self. The result of the brain waiting for more sensory input all the time so it can guess correctly 100% of the time that its a branch is that those 9 times the branch moves you don't get your shot of adrenaline and a chuckle but that one time when it really was a sabretooth means.....you're dead cause your brain took too long to work out what the movement in the bushes was!!

The brain does this all the time. I once walked out the back door and saw a big brown rat run past. Except it wasn't a rat. I happened to walk out one door looking at the ground. My mother happened to come out the other door at the same time. She happened to be wearing grey slacks that camoflaged her legs against the grey concrete. So what I was actually seeing was what looked like the disembodied brown shoes moving along the ground. The brain is subconciously thinking that shoes don't move on their own, What brown thing the size of a shoe would move across the yard like that. Why a big brown rat of course. It draws a big brown rat on my visual cortex and thats what I see/percieve.......until my gaze shifts a little, I catch the rest of my mothers body in my peripheral vision, the illusion collapses and the rat disappears and my mothers....shoes...and the rest of her appears

This happens to everyone all the time. Everyone has had those, "Jaysus, for a second there, I thought I saw a......"
The difference is that when it happens during the daylight hours one sees it for what it is. For some reason when the caveman fear of the dark creeps over us at night time, the very same people don't see that the ghost they saw/heard is the very same type of common neurological glitch that they laugh off during the day.

briano.de.rhino

Quite,
Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, I still wanna hear 'Missingbray' tell here story.

Rasmus

briano.de.rhino wrote: »

Quite,
Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, I still wanna hear 'Missingbray' tell here story.

Don't think that's gonna happen!

CozyasToast

Whippersnapper wrote: »

I remember a story from inside Loreto. In the convent part of the school there is a staircase leading to the top of the building and at the bottom is a marble floor. Story went that on a certain night each year you could hear a girl scream after falling over the top banister and you could see a red stain appear on the floor. We were told that by the teachers and I vaguely remember sleepovers being held on the night so people could scare themselves silly.

The staircase story got me a murder mystery weekend away with my sister... This is how it happened. When in Loreto, we all heard a story (totally made up) that Lord Putland had chopped off his wife's head and that it rolled down the stairs leaving a permanent blood stain at the bottom. When my sister was in Prep, she and her classmates came over to the convent (where I was in 5th year) one morning at break-time. We were still in class and heard them giggling and running along the corridor. A friend and I went out to see what the commotion was and while they were all hyperventilating they eventually managed to tell us why they were there and were very disappointed at not having found any stain. Thinking on my feet, I told them that no-one would ever see the stain until the stroke of midday or midnight. My friend and I suggested they come back at lunch-time for a look.... of course we went to the art room, got paint and marked a large spot under the mat at the bottom of the stairs and waited..... Lunchtime came and very shortly after the bell had rung we again heard the clatter of excited feet and whispers. We waited just outside our classroom door trying not to laugh. Then the worst happened. 13 shrieking and crying hysterical 12 year olds tore past us and went straight to the Principal's office... Detention was the reward for my friend and I.... many years later, in the month of October, when I was expecting my 4th and final child, my sister rang a radio station offering a murder mystery weekend in Renvyle House Hotel in Connemara as a prize to anyone who rang in with the creepiest ghost story and she told the whole story of what happened all those years ago! We had the best craic driving over in the rain in a beat up old car full of rust (rain came in through the floor!!) and I'd brought my "maternity ward" bag with me too just in case!! The weekend was great fun, and baby number four was born the following week!

Seanieke

Powerscourt.... ask for Justin (as seen in the video)

cognizant

Has anyone heard about any ghosts up bray head? I'm sure people have died up there by accident or murdered or anything but I was walking up bray head one time with a few people and caught what looked like a white ball in the air floating it was kinda like a shadow started feeling a bit weirded out but the people i was with started sensing something if you get me? just wondering if anyone knows anything about bray head hauntings or spirits good or evil

Will O the Wisp, most likely.

briano.de.rhino

Ive been up there late in evening and early pre dawn etc and never seen anything odd. Though I did meet a chap once who was into shamanism(and probably mushrooms and psychonautica) who said he lived in a tent on Bray head one summer and he would hear strange ghostly sounds and see lights floating outside his tent at night, if I recall properly.

Calibos

I've been up on the Head at all hours for astronomy and I once heard whispering in the wind. It said.....

theres no such thing as ghosts!!

Will O the Wisps are very common around seaside areas. My grandfather taught me about them having experienced them in his early 20s, visiting my grandmother on her holidays in Greystones. Especially this time of the year when the air is warm during the day and temps drop rapidly at dusk.

Thargor

I was up there the other evening, was running for the seafront then decided to run up to the cross when I saw the paragliders floating around up there, got to the top and the paragliders had disappeared and the sun had dropped out of the sky, did not enjoy coming down through the forest to the gate across from the Wilton hotel, lots of loud cracks and screeching in there when its dark!