Nursing Home X
and Other Personal Accounts

My Personal Accounts of Ghosts Inhabiting a Nursing Home in Illinois

DISCLAIMER: I cannot name the nursing home, for several reasons. One, I don't want to get sued - two, patient confidentiality and a set of laws called HIPAA - and three the nursing home is still in business. The nursing home is a good nursing home, there are no tales of horror involving residents, or resident abuse. The staff at this nursing home does sincerely care about the well-being of residents who live there. To announce the name of said nursing home would endanger the rights of the residents.

• Tales in the Intermediate Care Unit and Skilled Unit
• Tales of the Special Care, or Alzheimer's Unit (the Land of 'Alz')

I won't give the name of the grocery store either, the daughter of the manager believes it is haunted, but the manager refuses to believe it. I worked there in the late 1990's when I was in community college. A few things happened to me when I worked there, but not as many as Nursing Home X. If I can reach the manager's daughter, I will try to get her to submit some of her personal accounts of the store also.

• My Dad, and his passing
• My son, and our Apartment
• My very-much alive grandma

Personal Disclaimer: The above stories to my own knowledge are true, I don't expect you to believe them. If you do, that's great, if not hey oh well. Call me crazy, I don't care. I'm an educated person, and I am also a skeptic to a certain extent. I have tried before to logically figure out these events that happend to me, I can't. The lighting in both these places (the grocery store and Nursing home X) are constant flourescent bulbs, (with the exception of the alzheimer's unit, which also had soft lighting of the wall-sconces) so it couldn't necessarily be a trick of the lights, a flicker or whatever. A Nursing home is also a fairly constant environment, with the exception of holiday decorations at different points of the year, so the walls and other aspects of its general environment pretty much stayed the same. I honestly wish I had known more back then about "ghost hunting" and the like, but rather than be analytical I had just let things happen. Most of the time when things did happen I was preoccupied with cleaning (as per the grocery store), or some other sort of menial task that would otherwise not require much thought, something I did on a daily basis. Doing such tasks sometimes produce a state, known as a light-trance state, or some call it the "Alpha" state of consciousness. You, the reader, probably experience while driving, making supper, cleaning the house, taking a long bath, etc. It's just something that everyone experiences every day, but we don't realize it. Meditation also produces this sort of state, the act of clearing your mind, and relaxing. There is something about this state of mind, and partially disconnecting oneself, the Alpha State, it is usually the state of mind I was in when I experienced seeing 'ghosts'. Now if I sat down and specifically thought "I am going to see a ghost" I would be less likely to see one. I don't believe I am a psychic, a medium, or whatever, I just see ghosties on occaision. My family, however, has some interesting folks in our family tree (see "my grandma" link above)

One other point I would like to make. When I have a 'ghost' experience, I never really sensed anything that would make me afraid of them. I am more afraid of my son being struck by a car out in the street (who never goes near the road), than I am of ghosts; I am more afraid of strangers that look rather creepy at the mall than I am of ghosts; I am more afraid of catching something at the hospital where I work (flu or otherwise) than I am of ghosts. Statistically, ghosts are less likely to hurt you, than the possibility of getting struck by lightning. Seeing a ghost out of the corner of your eye is really no big deal. I am rather fascinated by them, I haven't been hurt by them, and I do not know anyone who has been hurt by them. I have heard several urban legends, but to this date, nobody I know has been hurt by a ghost.

For more information, visit the links on ghosts and ghost-hunting on the main page.

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