Last year my best friend and I decided to experiment with a Ouija board, just to see if it worked. We made our own out of paper and used a regular drinking glass as a pointer, so we were pretty skeptical. We were in for a shock.

It took a while for the board to "warm up," but once it did, it became apparent that we were surrounded by relatives who had passed away. The glass moved extremely slowly and there was nothing scary being said or done. However, half way through our session, two of our other friends came bursting into the room laughing and joking. Once they calmed down, we got back to the board.

This time the glass moved extremely fast. We could hardly keep our fingers on. It started spelling out names and words without us even asking questions. The words spelled out included MURDER and LUST. We ended the session immediately as we were pretty freaked out.

After that, everything went back to normal for a few days, but then I started waking up at 3 a.m. every night with an unexplainable feeling of dread.

This waking up continued for a few weeks and I started becoming depressed for no reason.

Then one night at about 1 in the morning, my friend was walking me home. As we were walking up the road, he claimed he saw a black figure of a man leaning on a fence staring at us. We laughed and joked about the place being haunted. We did used to hear bells chiming every night on that road. That night I woke up again, but this time I was being pinned face down on my bed by what felt like a man. I tried to struggle, but I couldn't move. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. He started speaking in my ear, but I don't know what he said. Then he was gone. I hid under my covers (like that would help) and soon fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning, I put it down to a nightmare, though it felt so real.

A few days later, we had family visiting. My gramma, who claims to be very perceptive, came in and said she felt there was a presence in the house. My mum said she thought so too, ever since I'd done a Ouija board in my bedroom, but she didn't think it was harmful. My gramma disagreed and said she thought it was evil.

The next bit is really hard for me to explain as I don't really know how I felt.

As they were arguing, I began to get the same dreadful feeling I had so many other nights, and I began to feel something was wrong. It felt as though I was being pulled into a tunnel further and further away from the room I was in. I tried to tell my mum I didn't feel right, but I couldn't make myself talk or move. It felt as though something was trying to control me. I finally managed to make myself talk, but I screamed it: "There's something wrong with me!" The next thing I knew, my sister was beside me, hugging me, and I was crying and shaking uncontrollably. My family said I'd had what looked like some kind of seizure.

We got a priest to bless the house, and while he was doing so, all the pipes in the house made a huge screaming noise. They didn't stop till he'd finished the prayer. After that, everything went back to normal.

I still can't explain what happened to me. It scares me to think of it. - Jessica M.