To Question is To Jaunt: What Draws Me to the Paranormal

This often shocks a lot of people, but even though I’ve had some personal paranormal experiences, I’m still probably more of a skeptic than a believer. Sure, I often have prophetic dreams. For instance, I dreamt of such biggies before they happened like 9/11, the Virginia Tech shooting, and the big flood we had here in Nashville in 2010.

DREAM ANALYSIS

However, for as accurate as they are, my dreams are also unreliable. Sometimes I dream of things (like earthquakes) either as they’re happening or only hours before. In the case of the Virginia Tech shooter, he haunted my dreams almost every night for months. With 9/11 and our big flood, I dreamt of both years in advance. (Five for 9/11, about three for the flood.)

But were my dreams truly prophetic? I mean, there were a lot of specific details that, after the events occurred, I looked back and said, “Wow! I dreamt that.”

Yet, there were still plenty more details, important ones, that were off. I dreamt about planes flying into two twin-like buildings –but they were the buildings where I worked in downtown Phoenix.

I never saw the face of the shooter I dreamt about who stalked me around a college-like setting. I couldn’t have described him and could’ve given only limited details of the school. (I basically only knew it was a school because classrooms often factored in my dreams and I was aware of professors, like having to go talk to one or coming from just meeting with one.)

When I dream of earthquakes, I never know where they’re happening. Sometimes I just dream I’m hearing them happen, but I don’t see or feel them. (Those are really odd dreams to have, by the way.)

The flood was probably the closest of any I’ve ever had. I did dream we were in Nashville, and I did dream it was major bad. But, again, I was not at all close time-wise and I could not have specified one.

THE GHOSTS I’VE ENCOUNTERED

I know investigators who would envy some of the experiences I’ve had during non-investigation instances. The first encounter I remember happened when I was small, maybe not even five-years-old. It was in my sister’s room. I not only saw, but spoke to a ghost face, in her bedroom ceiling.

As I got older, I often saw shadow figures in our home. Doors would be left opened or unlocked when they had previously been closed and/or bolted. When I was young, it didn’t scare me. As a teenager, I fled my house, terrorized, in broad daylight more than once. (Or, as was the case on a couple of occasions after school, would refuse to go inside by myself when doors were opened because I knew it would be hours before my mom would come home.)

Then there was my childhood at Cheeseman and the ghosts that haunted my dreams, the encounter at the Shilo Inn with the ghost children, and the experience in the bathroom of Harry’s in St. Augustine.

The only “while on a formal  investigation” experience I had was seeing the shadow thing (it wasn’t exactly a figure, just an arm) at the Old South Pittsburgh Hospital. Although, that’s also about the only formal investigation I’ve done. That’s not exactly my bag.

So I’m aware sometimes odd things happen. Things that can’t be easily explained. It’s why I jaunt. To see if they’ll happen again. For others, even though they’ve had different experiences –or maybe none at all, but they’ve heard of such things and are hoping to experience something– it’s why they investigate.

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

I’ve learned a lot since I started Haunt Jaunts and got more involved with the paranormal community. I’ve been introduced to a lot of different styles, thought patterns, and theories.

Yet, I still have tons of questions that don’t have any answers. Sometimes they even generate new questions. It’s my quest to understand that fires my need to jaunt.

But, truth be told, even if I had answers, I’d still be driven to explore like I do. Like people, ghosts and the places they inhabit are so interesting. You never know who you’ll meet or what you’ll discover along the way.

Courtney Mroch

Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.

Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.