When people see or bumped into ghosts, there are two ways to explain the situation. One, ghosts really exist and what they saw are actually real ghosts, and two, they are hallucinating. There are people who don’t believe in ghosts, people like Agent Scully of the X-Files. Ok ok bad example. In real life though, I’ve not encountered anyone who don’t believe in the existence of ghosts, but I’m sure there are many non-believers out there. I myself, have seen ghosts on two occasions, or they could be just my hallucinations. Theres no way of telling which one it is.

I’ve also experienced a number of times when in the middle of sleeping at night, I was “awaken” by the feeling that something was pressing on my body, was unable to move, feeling helpless, desperately trying to wake up and get out of the situation that seemed to have lasted forever. Science people said that the experience is known as sleep paralysis. But how do you explain the black figure often seen when these sleep paralysis episodes happen. Hallucination?

Im sure everyone, at least in Brunei, has that one or two relatives or acquaintances who claimed that they could see ghosts, like the boy who sees ghosts in the Sixth Sense, or the main characters in the TV series the Ghost Whisperer and the Medium. But there’s one big difference here. Those fictional characters interacted and communicated with the ghosts. It doesn’t work like that, at least not according to the people who could see ghosts that I know. Yes, I know a couple of them, my brother and my nephew. From their accounts, they are just able to see the ghosts with the ghosts seemingly unaware that their “invisible cloaks” don’t work on these people with the special eyesight. No His no Byes, no communication, no interaction whatsoever. So, this means that their supposedly “special power” is not special after all, since there is no good use for it. In fact, they considered it as a curse, took their privacy away and very distracting given that they see them everywhere, in the living room, on top of the cabinet, in the toilet, outside the window, at the roadside. Some are also hideous-looking and cringeworthy to look at.

Banana Tree Lady: Along the Tutong-Muara Highway, right before the exit to Jerudong Park, there is a group of banana trees. My nephew sees this lady standing there between the bananas everytime he passes by the area.

Curious Onlookers: At a birthday party, curious onlookers could be seen but they stayed outside the gate, except for one “girl” who seemed to be enjoying the party bouncer.

It was close to 1am. We were driving along the Muara-Tutong highway. There were five of us in the car, me, my friend Lily and 3 boys. Back then, the highway was not lighted as it is today. It was in the late 1980s. I was at that phase of life where breaking rules was cool and boys with cars were fun. In other words, the phase where all decisions made were bad decisions.

Earlier that evening, me and Lily snuck out and were picked up by the boys. It was Saturday night and we were going to crash parties. Yep, that was the in thing for youths back then. After the third party, we decided to call it the night.

We were cruising down the highway. It was quiet and dark. Once in a while, headlights from another car could be seen. We were all tired and dozing off. It was still quite a distance to go, when we heard the turn signal sound, tik-tok-tik-tok. The car made a left turn into a dirt road. “I need to take a piss”, the driver said. He drove further down the dirt road before stopping the car. He went out and the other guys decided to take a piss too. He left the headlights on and the music blasting.

Sitting at the back seat, I scanned around. It was pitch black, but I could see that we were surrounded by thick forest, then realised that we were in the middle of a road construction site that cut through the dark woods. With the headlights, we could only see 200 feet ahead, and nothing beyond that, just more darkness.

It took forever for the guys to get back into the car. I could see them chatting and goofing around. Are you kidding me?? I said. I could only hold my cool for so long before I broke into nervous sweats, the hairs at the back of my neck began to go haywire. I reached to the front to turn down the music volume. Lets go already! I yelled.

Well, instead of listening to me, the boys thought that it would be funny to scare us girls. One of them said, Hey ghost! Are you here?? If you’re here, show yourself!” OMG! I was completely speechless. My jaw dropped.

My head down, I nervously panned my eyes around, bracing for the backlash. Then, a speck of flickering red light appeared out of the darkness, far down the dirt road. Lily softly elbowed me and made gestures to let me know that she saw it too. We looked at the boys and they were looking at the direction, but they were still not budging.

We continued to stare at the red light which appeared to be getting bigger and bigger, before realising that it was actually slowly moving closer. Then, all of a sudden, a black human figure became visible, cradling the light in its two hands and the figure was walking towards us. The boys scampered and in a millisecond were already in the car, screaming like girls, gas pedal slammed to the floor, wheels screeching, rocks and dirt flying. We were back at the main road, even before we could finish one breath, at least it felt like it.

Phew! But not so fast. We looked through the back window and the red light was still right behind us. Everyone yelled for the car to go faster. After what felt like forever, it finally disappeared from sight.

It was silent the rest of the journey. Everyone was too shocked to say anything. Me and Lily were dropped off and safely snuck back. We went straight to bed, didn’t say anything to each other. Surprisingly, we slept well, no nightmares.

We didn’t tell anyone about that night. We couldn’t anyway, as no one was supposed to know that we snuck out. We also agreed that we were not going to talk and discuss about it. It was an unpleasant experience that we rather forget. So, we put the ghostly encounter behind us. But not so fast…

More than a week later, we bumped into one of the boys from that night. It was only then that we found out about their week of hell. The three boys we were with are brothers. After dropping us off that day, they went home. Despite the cold and eerie feeling they felt in the car, nothing peculiar happened.

The next day, they went about their normal daily routines. The older brother, the only one old enough to drive, was to send their 12-year-old sister to school. But, instead of getting into the car, the sister ran back to the house and began to cry hysterically. She was inconsolable, wailing and crying profusely. No one understood what was wrong with her and when asked, she just screamed some more.

Her condition remained like that throughout that day. Their parents had to write a sick leave letter to her school while they were trying to figure out what was wrong with her. By the second day, she had stopped screaming, but would just lie in bed, sobbing, wasting away.

An Ustadz was called in to look at her. The moment the Ustadz pulled in to their driveway, he knew right away what they were dealing with. He saw a black figure at the back seat of their car. It turned out that the thing followed them home that night. But only the sister could see it. The boys had to come clean about what happened to us. The Ustadz then did his thing and later informed that the figure had left.

If there are any lessons to be learned from our experience, I would say, they would be firstly, boys..never ever ask for a ghost to show itself to you if you are gonna scream like a girl when you see one. Secondly, if you are driving and you see a ghost, then the ghost disappeared, chances are it might be already getting cosy in your back seat. Thirdly, and the most important one, girls…never ever sneak out without permission.

As for the sister, she came out of it just fine. If you ask me, she was probably just being a drama queen and didn’t want to go to school. Who knows.