Part One
Over the years, I have seen many paranormal entities and more than a few incredibly weird and surreal encounters. I’ve seen anything from the vague, non-corporeal shadowy forms flitting from room to room right the way to strange and out-of-this-world entities, and more often than not, those things make their way into my novels are some form of entity.
There are also some creations which come from something slightly more vague and more dreamlike, rather than from something I have seen with total certainty in the waking world, though no less real. I used to meditate all of the time, especially at night when I couldn’t sleep. I would astral travel and explore the spirit realm which gave life to many aspects of The Sirin Chronicles, and I came across a plethora of creatures, demons and interesting locations.
While even admitting such things may come off as really weird, there are some things I’ve been writing about for years. Either I’ve noticed a theme with other writers that have their own takes on what I’m writing about; or I’ve started researching one thing on the internet, fallen down the rabbit hole that is the internet and landed up reading something else, only to have my mind was blown as I read some new discovery or some such that is, again, something along the lines I’ve been writing.
So, here are a few creatures from The Sirin Chronicles that have been inspired by the paranormal in my life:
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Khavinas – Ghostly Feline Entities
I’ve seen plenty of ghostly cats around me, possibly previous pets checking in on us, or whatever cat business they have to attend to (Honestly, who knows what a cat gets up to? All I know is Wunjo is clockwatcher and gets annoyed at me if I’m late or in any way mess with her routine.)
Possibly the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen was back when I was fourteen. I was walking into town – probably going to the library as I pretty much lived there for my teenage years when I wasn’t at school or at home. Walking towards me was this feline-like creature with shadowy, evanescent flesh that seemed to peel away from the body in places.
I remember coming to stop, the creature really was quite horrific and by far the darkest thing I’d ever come across, particularly while fully awake. As it was, the grim feline simply walked down the street without so much as a cursory look at me before walking back into the void and vanishing again. I can still see it vividly in my memory and really wish I had any skill as an artist so I could draw a faithful recreation of how it looked rather than a long narrative to describe it. (Link to Khavinas. Possibly edit the article on Khavinas and link back to this one.)
I’m also certain that nearly 15 years later, I had another encounter with this particular beast (or certainly one very similar to it) while staying with my parents, I felt a presence close to me and saw a creature move through an errant beam of moonlight and I could see it clearly. It sort had the face like when you’re fussing a cat and fold its ears back; and still the gaping maw with needlelike teeth in a grin somewhat reminiscent of Cheshire Cat. This was another moment of reaching out to stroke it, and the thing vanishing as my fingers reached where flesh and fur should have been.
I know one of the ghost cats I encounter at my parents is one we lost a few years back, and even my dad picks up on his presence as in life, he always caught certain floorboards on the way to the kitchen – a sound which happens every now and again to this day. It’s a noise too specific to just be the house moving, expanding or shrinking.
Lately, I also seem to have one ghost cat in particular that I see most days, even to the point of almost tripping over thinking it is Wunjo, only to watch the shadowy form dissipate or rush through a wall. I’m not sure where that one comes from, or it if lived in the cottage before I did and that’s simply his home.
Another of the times I’ve been staying with my parents, and just drifting off when I’ve felt the presence of cat leap on to the bed, even seen it and reached out to stroke it was that tangible, only for my fingers to reach into nothingness, the creature gone and Wunjo looking at me as though I was a traitor.
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Death Elements
I used to have a real fear of the dark and shadows, especially when the moon was full and would last such an eerie light on everything. As a child I’d see these misshapen and half-formed creatures of writhing darkness and hear a death rattle for a breath, the sound of static or words that seemed to come to me from a different time, their meaning lost to a mess of nonsensical words. I’d hide right under my quilt in the tightest ball and be so still and tense until exhaustion knocked me out, terrified that if I even breathed too deeply, they’d find me; an irony that I was so haunted while a part of a Christian high church.
The hauntings only really stopped when I got into witchcraft and started learning about protection, bindings, incense and crystals. While it worked on preventing the nocturnal hauntings, that is also when I started to intentionally meditate or astral travel, and I’d see these creatures in even more detail on the plains where they wouldn’t just stand and watch, but rather start to follow and hunt instead.
It made sense to utilise and refer back to these grotesque demons when creating the death elements and puppets that Khafune can summon and control in A Dawn of Dreams
I’m really not sure to this day what triggered those things to come to me, or if it was simply just how cursive that town was. The first place I lived had a place known as “Mill Lane House” at the open of the close, and as kids, we’d all joke it was haunted and play games to see who could go in there and spend the longest.
I think I was about five or six and had no fear back then, so I climbed the cold iron steps and went in through the broken door and started looking around by myself. I can still remember the vile smell of rotten carpet, damp MDF and an overall putrid stench of the place. It was icy cold inside, even for a hot summer’s day, and I think I got to the second-floor before having this bone-chilling sensation and total fear take over me before flying down the stairs and hurtling past everyone else that was still loitering on the outer steps. There was something truly evil in that place, and that is perhaps what latched on to me and started the hauntings. Also, to this day, black and white floor tiles really unnerve me.
Both houses my parents moved to had such a dark and evil atmosphere to them and I still keep nagging them to leave their current house and ideally that town. I never felt at home in that town, and I always wanted to move far away from there, and even having lived in Wales for a couple of years, I still hate that town. If anything, it feels more unsanctified each time I return – which seems to couple with people moving away from Christianity, the buildings and the land becoming de-consecrated and goodness knows whatever else…a post for another day perhaps.
There’s one demon in particular that still seems to be lurking about that really terrifies me. It’s always been somewhere nearby me in the spirit realms, close enough to send a shiver down my spine if I stopped too long, or I’d have the same dread feeling I’d had as a kid come over me. It seemed to have gotten closer or stronger since I lived in a really toxic situation (still in that wonderful town called Pershore…) with the landlord who lived in and was a real piece of work.
I was meditating in my room, and I knew he’d returned to the house without waking up because the world suddenly turned to pure darkness and treachery, the ground becoming like quicksand and holding me captive as that same dread feeling overpowered me. That is the closest I’ve ever gotten to seeing that demon, I could just see a behemoth being of darkness coming towards me. I forced my eyes open and left the spirit realms in an entirely uncouth manner and started putting up protection around me.
I never dared to meditate in the house again, and didn’t go anywhere near the astral planes until I moved to Wales a year after. Though the bridge to that place is weakened. I spent so long having to put up protections, bindings and wards around myself, that somewhere along the line I ended up severing my connection to it all. Now it takes too much energy to reach the spirit realm.
That loss of connection to the arcane and the exhaustion it creates is what prompted me to have the Engels have energy burnout, disconnection and weakness if not remedied, particularly in the case of Aengal where her soul doesn’t resonate with the physical body she is born into, and even regaining her essence isn’t enough to heal the corrosion of her existence from the power of the energies that move through her.
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Crystalline Spirits/Puppets
These are the rarely seen entities that live within the various crystals in The Sirin Chronicles. Aengal senses them throughout A Dawn of Dreams before encountering them at the end, and Vaenel also comes across them during Dancing Shadows.
There was a moment as a child when I said to mum I saw a fairy in the hedgerow. I was maybe 8 when that happened? I hadn’t been looking for it, nor did I especially believe in fairies. I simply stated the most logical statement for what I had seen, and bless my mum, she just asked me to describe it.
I’m not entirely sure what I did see and whether or not it was a fairy or something else, but it was as clear and real as that car we were in. It was an iridescent orb that fluttered around the flowering hedgerow with similar moments to a butterfly. Though between the movement of traffic, I only saw it for about ten seconds before we were passed and couldn’t get mum to stop or look either.
I’ve also never seen anything like that since. whether actively looking or not. Though now, with the loss of my connection I doubt I’ll see the like of it again without a second awakening.
For the crystalline spirits and puppets, I also took some inspiration from Sulliman’s spirits in Howl’s Moving Castle by Studio Ghibli. I required something more animated and which had more to it than just a beautiful orb of shifting light.
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There are plenty of other weird and wonderful things I’ve come across; all of which have gone into the formation of things like the Sykajume, the Vaejume and the ethereal realms.
{Paranormal Experiences – Part Two}
I don’t have many experiences of seeing anything in the waking world
Apparently when I was 2 before I can remember I was in my grans house upstairs alone and I came down stairs and asked who the man upstairs was; only to be told that there was no one upstairs. I made a hair comb over action which it what my granddad used to do, he had died a year earlier. I now occupy the room this happened in, at this very moment i am typing this
I was once at at church coffee morning probably when i was about 12/13 and looked at the stall they had. There was a can there for sale (which i bought) that had Ghostbusters marketing on it. The can was un-opened and ’empty’ (presumably it was from a promotional gift set). On the can it said ‘do not open’ so as most people would i opened it. obviously nothing happened. I went to sleep in the evening and woke up the next morning, as i was waking I saw a silhouette of Slime from Ghostbusters drift over the wall then it disappeared.
My gran said she could see ghosts. we were once on a family holiday in Weymouth. We were staying in an old Victorian house (i think) which had been converted into flats. We had the ground floor flat as my gran was disabled with a fractured spine. One night my dad, sister and I went out to see a comedy show (I think) and my gran stayed in doing her knitting. She was concentrating on her knitting and could see someone out the corner of her eye. She started to talk out loud; thinking another person was there only after a while realising that we had all gone out and she was on her own. She told us this on the last night we were there, my sister and I had been creeped out all week that there might have been a presence in the flat as the twin room we were sharing had a wooden chair in it that we envisioned a ghost sitting on. That night me and my sister wanted to leave so late in the evening on the last night of the holiday we left
My gran also mentioned a few years before she died that she was once at Dover Castle and had a vision of herself in medieval clothing and a pointy hat falling down the stairs and breaking her neck. She was a traditional high church christian but did say towards the end that reincarnation maybe real
I some times feel that I sense a presence where i’m living but they don’t show themselves because they know it would freak me out (maybe not so much these days) whether is just my over active imagination i don’t know
The rest of my paranormal experiences are dream based.
Summer 2009, I have slight asthma but don’t take a preventative inhaler for it (just the reliever one when i feel weezy when its humid during the summer nights) I had a dream where all around me was brilliant white with 5 circles of blackness with a voice saying ‘we’re in control of your breathing its going to be ok’ then i woke up and shot up in bed unable to breath
October 31st / November 1st 2014 – a few weeks after I had the dream telepathy experience with my manager at work (as described in my previous comment on your dream telepathy post) I had a dream that started with 2 people outside one of the local pubs / B&B but instead of the rooms being with the pubs grounds behind a wall they were wooden slated motel style rooms with the doors facing outwards towards the car park. These 2 people were talking about poltergeists. Then the dream switched to the exact same room I was sleeping in in the real world (I had fallen asleep on the sofa in the lounge) in the dream I was sleeping in the exact same position as in the real world and the room was dark with the light off like it would have been in the real world. In the dream I looked up at the top of the wall in the lounge above the door to the hallway. I saw a jet black entity with white piercing eyes, it started to propel itself of the wall and came ever close to my face. As it got right up into my face I woke up and shot up. The next evening I had a dream where the background was a shimmering grey and a circle in the middle (like a portal) and I was peering over someones bed (couldn’t see who it was) From what I read on the internet (which was a small snippet) it may have been a spirit that wanted to get back into a human body (dream possession) in the walking world they co exist in the mind of the host and only show themselves in dreams (I didn’t feel any different when I woke up) I guess it moved from me into someone else as it found my life boring lol
I seem to contemplate death a lot and wonder what it is as my mum died when I was 2, one night I had a dream where I was standing on a grassy hill at night, I could see a small island with a house on it. I propelled my self over the water to the entrance. I walked in and the walls were all perpendicular with abstract artwork all over the walls all positioned at an angle. As I walk through the house I hear a voice saying ‘this is death’ and I start to walk towards a door at the back of the house with a white shining light coming through the gaps in the door. As I go to open it I wake up
Another dream I was in the house i’m living in now and I was in the kitchen helping one of my cousins dry the dishes, I walk through into the lounge and see another one of my cousins and my cousins wife sitting on the floor. I go and sit on the sofa and then I say ‘this is dream telepathy’ my cousins wife asks ‘How do you know this is dream telepathy’ i said ‘because i’ve done it with my boss at work’ I then see my deceased gran sitting in her chair (which i there in the real word to this day) I try me best to try and talk to her but nothing comes out and I just smile at her. She tilts her head back as though she doesn’t want to talk to me, then the dream ends
I could go on forever, I have so many memories of dreams over the 35 years I have been here. I store so much information these days about dreams than I do any other information lol
Woah, that’s a lot! Thank you so much for sharing them with me. Children are really open to seeing the spiritual world. When my brother was one, mum heard him laughing away and came down to have a look at what was going on – he was sat in the middle of the room and propper belly laughing as though someone had told a joke. She’s certain to this day it was my grandad who hadn’t long passed away.
What goes on in dreams is fascinating, it’s a shame there were only every a few psychotherapists that did studies into dreams beyond the basic symbolisms. I definitely think there’s more to it than just the brain processing the day’s events and memories. Thank you again for sharing your experiences! I don’t know when I’ll get to come back to this topic at the moment because of my university studies, but I definitely want to try and look into it more =)
lol yeah it was a lot. i’d had a couples of nights of waking up early after some vivid dreams so felt like writing about my past experiences.
I’m already on it, emailed a few academics about my experiences a few years ago and recently. Started to build up my own collection of informative books that i hope to expand into my own small library. Check in with me when ever you want to see what more i have found out.
Not sure if you have seen it in the news recently but scientists have been able to communicate with lucid dreamers and have them respond without waking up.