Although I've had several experiences with what I believe to be ghosts, I can't say that I specifically associate them with autumn. One of the most vivid memories I have of a ghostly encounter happened one January night, when I was woken by a small voice calling "hello?" repeatedly, and when I opened my eyes, I saw a little girl standing by the foot of my bed. She was in a long white nightgown, and was staring at me with an expression somewhere between curiosity and awkwardness. I said hello in turn, and she fidgeted for a moment before blurting out: "I really like pie." Not really what one would expect a spirit to say, but I replied that I liked it as well, and we had a brief exchange about our favourite kinds before she said that she had to leave, and side-stepped into somewhere else. I remember that as clearly as if it happened yesterday, and never experienced any bit of fear or discomfort about it.
Other experiences have been a bit more unnerving, but I can't say that any of them have ever frightened me.
A few years ago, I watched a show called "Ghost Hunters", in which a team of parapsychologists
—along with their pet psychics and a very jittery film crew—travelled to various destinations rumoured to be haunted and conducted a series of experiments to determine whether there are, in fact, otherworldly energies and entities around. In one of the episodes I saw, the crew went to Latvia's Karosta military prison; a cold, damp, cruel place that's said to be one of the most haunted buildings in Europe.
Within the prison's walls, The Ghost Hunters' monitors picked up several disembodied voices from cells and hallways, but the most notable one was that of a woman calling out sorrowfully. Apparently, a female visitor to the prison had taken her own life there several years ago upon finding out that her fiancé had been executed, and she is purported to have haunted the place ever since.
These scenarios make me wonder about the echoes that certain events may leave: In almost every "ghost story", we hear about a tragic occurrence led to a person's death, and as such, their spirit/energy/what-have-you gets trapped in the place where that tragedy happened. One theory is that these entities are caught in time loops, destined to repeat the tragedy that befell them over and over again for all eternity, almost as though the intensity of that painful experience created a rift in time in which that energy was trapped.
Do the ghosts we all carry within us create miniature versions of these rifts? Those echoes of betrayal, love, heartbreak, joy, friendship, despair... Calling to mind certain events can often throw us right back into the emotional state we were in when experiencing them, so are these events actually as fleeting as we believe them to be? Or do they cling to parts of us whether we want them to or not? They certainly seem to whisper their way through us when we least expect them to, rearing their heads and unnerving us with the sudden rushes of emotion/endorphin they induce.
If past experiences are truly ephemeral, why do we find ourselves staring down our own ghosts and demons when faced with situations that remind us of times past? Why would a snippet of music tied to the memory of a past lover cause an aching pang in the upper belly? Why does a scent take us into the past to re-live a past moment with startling clarity? I don't know, but I've experienced it countless times and will undoubtedly do so again... sometimes with nostalgia, sometimes with a bitter trickle at the back of my throat. "This is not then", I'll remind myself. "This situation, this person, this moment, is not that other time, not that other experience"—an attempt to cling to rationality in the hope of glossing over the flicker of déja-vu that leaps forth in full colour.
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