Pressing in Hale Kahawai

Informant: Male/20/ Japanese ancestry

Location: Hale Kahawai, UH Manoa, Oahu

I’ve lived in Hale Kahawai for two years in the same room, with the same roommate. One night while I was sleeping, I woke up to find that I couldn’t move. I was conscious, but I couldn’t move my body, and I couldn’t speak no matter how hard I tried. A week later, I woke up to a pressing sensation on my chest. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see anyone or anything on my chest, but something was pressing me.

I talked to my neighbor the next morning about what happened, and he told me that he also experienced something strange. He woke up one night to find a Hawaiian man dressed in a malo sitting on his bed. He just rolled over in bed and pretended not to see the man.

I took a look in Glen Grant’s Obake Files book, and found a similar story about choking ghosts in my dorm. The first year that I lived in Kahawai I had a bag of Hawaiian salt, and nothing strange ever happened. When I started my second year there, I didn’t have any Hawaiian salt. Maybe that had something to do with it.

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More Than a Human Visitor

Informant: Female/24/Japanese-European ancestry

Location: Makiki, Oahu

One sunny afternoon Jane was doing her laundry while her roommate, Sara, took a nap in the next room. The laundry room was next door to their apartment, so on this particular day the door was unlocked. Jane retrieved her clothes from the dryer and went to her room to fold her clothes, but she forgot to lock the door.

Once in her room, she thought she saw something in the hall in the corner of her eye, but when she looked up, nothing was there. After a few minutes she heard Sara talking to herself. She figured Sara was just having another odd dream since she was saying “Hello? Who are you? What is your name little girl?” Jane didn’t pay any attention to it and kept folding. A few minutes later she heard Sara say, “No not on that. Let’s go watch it in the living room on the tv.”

That got Jane’s attention.

She put her clothes down and was about to go into Sara’s room when Sara appeared in the hall with a nine year old girl carrying a DVD. She was guiding the girl into the living room and asked Jane why she let the little girl into the apartment. Jane couldn’t believe the little girl was there and said she didn’t let her in. Just as Sara got the little girl to the living room, the girl lost interest and walked out of the apartment without a word. Sara followed her into the hall and saw a woman calling for her. They assumed the woman was the child’s mother. She apologized for the girl barging in like she did.

They shut the door and started to talk about what happened. Neither one could believe it. Apparently when the girl walked into Sara’s room, she went straight for her computer to play a DVD. It was odd because it seemed like the girl knew exactly where to go in an apartment she had never been in. She never said a word to Sara either. They decided to forget the incident and write it off as a bazaar day.

Six months went by, and the building went up for sale. Jane and Sara had to move out. They needed a break from packing and cleaning, so they went to a friend’s house to relax. Somehow the conversation was focused on ghost stories before everyone was about to leave. By the end of the conversation no one wanted to go home alone, and Jane and Sara were glad they had each other.

On the drive home, Sara asked Jane if she ever felt weird in their apartment. Jane asked her what she meant. Sara said that she felt a bad presence in the apartment. She started to notice it around the time the little girl appeared in our apartment. When she was in the bathroom in the morning, she often didn’t want to wash her face because she didn’t want to close her eyes. Or when she was in the shower at night she didn’t want to close her eyes, and sometimes felt like someone was on the other side of the curtain. The shower curtain that they had was opaque so she could tell no one was there, but she felt like someone…someone bad…was in the bathroom with her.

Jane just stared at her in shock and Sara tried to convince her that she wasn’t crazy, and went on to tell her that when her sister visited a few months after they had moved in, her sister had the same experience, and said that she didn’t feel comfortable in the apartment. After a few moments, Jane told Sara that she knew exactly what she was talking about and felt the same things. Jane however thought it was because it was her first time living on her own, and the times that she felt those things, Sara wasn’t at home. So Jane shrugged the bad feelings off as just being afraid of being alone at night.

By this time the two roommates were close to their apartment, but neither one wanted to go back at this point. So Jane kept on driving. Sara continued to tell her that she felt a really bad feeling in her room. She often felt a presence in her closet, a female presence. She even admitted that one night when Jane was away for the weekend, she was so afraid of sleeping in her room that she slept in Jane’s bed. She felt safe in Jane’s room. Jane told Sara that many times she would pick up the mail or have something she wanted to leave for Sara and went to put it in her room, but always felt like she shouldn’t be in there. It was just an eerie bad feeling. Jane shrugged if off thinking it was because it was Sara’s room and she just didn’t want to be invading her privacy. But Sara told her that was how she felt nearly every day stepping into her own room.

Sara said that every now and then when she woke up in the morning, she would feel a pressing on her chest and she wouldn’t be able to move, get up, or say anything. Eventually she found out that if she swore out loud or even in her mind, it would go away. And sure enough, every time she did that when she felt pressed, it would almost instantly stop. The two girls agreed that they felt the bad feelings only in the bathroom, Sara’s room, and the path that led between it.

It was really late and Jane was too tired to drive anymore, so the two roommates went home and did their best to forget what happened. They couldn’t believe that they each felt this way for months but never talked about it until that night. But they were sure glad that they would be moving in a few weeks.

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Paralyzed

Informant: Female/18 years old/Caucasian Ancestry

Location: Hilo, by the side of the Wailuku River, Big Island

When I was about fourteen, I woke up in the middle of the night suddenly. There was no noise, I was just suddenly awake. However, I couldn't move a muscle. My legs, hands, arms, toes, eyelids, everything, felt like it was paralyzed. I started to freak out, thinking something was wrong. I strained and strained but I couldn't move anything.

Suddenly, out of the dark, I heard someone whisper my name. "Julia!" it whispered. The voice was that of an older male, and I heard it right next to my ear. Now I was really freaked out, I honestly felt someone was there.

A few seconds later (that seemed like hours) I snapped out of it and could move normally. I checked everywhere in my room and there was no one there. My brother was sleeping soundly across the hall and I couldn't figure it out.

I laid awake for the rest of the night, wondering if the voice would come back. It never has.

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The Hole in the bedroom

Informant: Female/23/Korean ancestry

Location: Kaimuki, Oahu

I have a friend that can see spirits. I know what you’re thinking, but just go with it. Since the strange goings-ons in my apartment had graduated to actual physical displeasure, I decided to enlist his help in figuring out what the hell was going on.

First let me give you a little more background. Ever since the shadow man, my spare bedroom had turned into this creepy room that nobody wanted to go into. Every time my friends came over, they always steered clear from that room. It’s nothing we really talked about, just something we all mutually concurred on. That room was creepy.

Case in point: a friend of mine came over. He had only been in my apartment living room before briefly, for about 5 minutes. He never saw the rest of my apartment. But he walked into my apartment and immediately turned the corner into the hallway. I thought he had to use the bathroom, but I didn’t hear the door close so I followed him. I found him standing in the middle of that spare bedroom. He turned around, rubbing his arms, and said “This is a creepy room,” to which I said “Funny you should mention that…”

Back to the psychic friend. He asked me to draw him a map of my apartment labeling just the windows and the doors. So the crude picture I drew him (that didn’t showcase my spectacular artistic ability at all, I might add) looked something along the lines of this:

He looked at the picture for a little while, and started pointing out where my furniture and everything was (keep in mind he's never seen my apartment in his life, not even in pictures). He located my couch, and he also located my computer desk (“I feel a strong electrical disturbance here. Is this where you have a computer or something?”). Then he looked at the spare bedroom and said “There’s a hole here.” A hole? What did he mean?

“There’s a hole here where spirits can come in and out of. There is a man in your apartment who walks the line between malicious and harmless. He walks a path from your spare bedroom, into your bedroom, and into your bathroom.” This would explain why I felt like someone was looking over my shoulder sometimes. And it definitely explains why nobody liked going in that room.

My friend suggested moving my bed further away from the door to stop him from pressing me (it had happened about 3 times). I seemed to be in his way or something. But luckily not too long after that I moved out of that apartment. Not because it was haunted or anything, but because someone purchased it. I often wonder if the new tenants ever experience anything out of the ordinary.

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A Wrinkled Hand

Informant: Female/50’s/Filipino ancestry

Location: Lihue, Kauai

Back in 1982 when my mother was 32, she lived by herself in a motel in Niumalu. One night at around 3 am, she awoke to someone holding down her left hand and pressing their other hand against her mouth. She couldn’t see anyone since it was so dark, but she could feel the skin of the hand. Judging by the size of the hand she guessed it was the hand of an old woman. She then started to pray and the sensation let off.

Niumalu is close to the historical Menehune Fishpond. It's a very ancient place where many Hawaiians used to live.

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From the Doorway

Informant: Female/23/Korean ancestry

Location: Kaimuki, Oahu

My apartment was never the same after the shadow man experience. Every now and then, it would feel like someone was standing behind me, looking over my shoulder. Or I would hear a knock at the door, but nobody would be there when I looked out of the peephole. I could deal with those things, but there were some things that I couldn’t deal with in a logical way.

One day my boyfriend (at the time) sister came for the day. She had the key to get into the apartment for that day and was coming back in the afternoon. I decided to take a nap. I fell asleep on my bed in the middle of the afternoon, probably around 2pm. I woke up because I thought I heard the sound of the door open, and keys jingling. I thought, “She’s back, I better get up!” But for some reason, I couldn’t move. But I was able to see the doorway, and it looked like she was peeking through the doorway at me. I could just see a head.

I thought, “Oh my goodness, how embarrassing! I have to get up!” But I couldn’t move. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move. It felt like all my muscles were dead; like they were suffocating, if that makes any sense. The whole time I struggled to move, someone was looking at me from the doorway.

Finally I decided that I should just stop trying to fight it. The moment I did, I was able to move. I got up, went into the living room expecting her to be there, but she wasn’t. Nobody was there.

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Pressing Ghost at the Police Station

Informant: Male/63/ mixed ancestry

Location: Hanalei, Kauai

I'm a retired cop. But when I was still on the force, I heard of stories about a particular substation on the island. It was located on the North Shore in a normal place, nothing iffy about it. But at least three people that I know of had experienced weird things there.

I think this has been going on for about three or four years now. But in the early morning hours, the midnight watch, guys would fall asleep at their desk. Then they would wake up to a pressing sensation on their chest. It would feel like someone sitting on them, or even choking them. This happened to several police officers that I know personally. Not all officers that were assigned there had experienced it, and I don't know if it's still happening now.

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Static in the Doorway

Informant: Male/20/mixed ancestry

Location: Mililani, Oahu

When I was eight years old, I lived in an older section of Mililani. I had a rather paranormally uneventful life until one night.

I woke up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason covered in sweat and filled with a sense of fear and dread. I looked over at my doorway and saw a very tall, white static-like figure filling the doorway looking at me. I couldn't move and I didn't know what to do. For a moment my paralysis ceased and I was able to throw my blankets over my head. I said, "Go away, go away. Please go away." I stayed that way until I feel asleep again.

Ever since then, I've never slept with my door open.

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Sleep Paralysis, or a Pressing Ghost?

Informant: Male/22/Hawaiian-Filipino ancestry

Location: Kahala, Oahu

This actually happened to me a week ago and I'm still trying to make sense of it.

Ever since I was a kid I'd get what most people refer to as "sleep paralysis," along with hearing loud ringing sound that always wakes me up but leaves me helpless for minutes. What usually happens is, I'll be in deep sleep and in the middle of a dream when all of a sudden the ringing sound screeches in my head and I'm awake but unable to move any part of my body. I usually say prayers until it goes away and try to convince myself that it was just a dream.

Anyway, a little over a week ago I slept over at my girlfriend's house in Kahala. While sleeping, I had another "sleep paralysis" episode, but this time I felt the presence of someone next to me, as if someone walked into the room and stopped beside me. Despite the fact that I was unable to move my body, I was just able to open my left eye ever so slightly. I was glad I had some control of my body but I was hoping I wouldn't see anything.

What I saw still haunts me.

I saw a skinny black figure that looked almost like TV static in the sense that it didn't look solid. It was there just for a moment then it backed away and was gone. The craziest thing is that I swear I heard it hit my girlfriend's plastic shelf as it left my range of vision. As soon as it left I was able to get up and was in shock. I didn't even wake up my girlfriend to tell her. I spent over half an hour trying to convince myself that it was just a dream, but I know it happened and I know it's not my imagination.

I'm seriously considering therapy or at least getting my girlfriend's house blessed.

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