In addition to my about-to-fall-asleep vision earlier in the QOTW
there was this one time, when I was very young, I was returning home from school absolutely knackered and I walked through the front door.

Sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, as vivid as everything around him, was my dad taking off a pair of boots. He shouldn't have been there, he wasn't with us anymore, but I was for a split second so happy to see him. I told my mum and she told me that I couldn't possibly have seen him as he wasn't with us.

Well, the reason he wasn't with us at home is because he was still at work - it was a weekday, and he only wore his boots on weekends when going out in winter.
It's looking back on this, after my last story, that I came to realisation that (for me at least) most of these encounters with spirits and the likes are usually the result of a change of perception due to sleep deprivation, or the consumption of some mind-altering substance or other and also the susceptible nature of your mind to environments such as the dark mainly due to a natural fear of being eaten by a big fuck off wolf or some such.

This is just based off experiences for me, seeing my dad when he was away, but sure as hell alive (when I was tired), and seeing some bloke plunging a knife into my chest (when I was tired) and some other minor occurrences which gave me the creeps. I'm not speaking for the rest of you, just me.

b3ta.com/questions/unexplained/post192152 other story for context
(Frozen_Banana Shaved against the grain; thoroughly unrewarding., Sun 6 Jul 2008, 19:31, Reply)