Sunday December 10, 2006
She hears dead people
BY EVON GABRIEL
WHEN I watched the movie The Sixth Sense, I thought it was impossible to see dead people.
I had never come across anyone talking about possessing this ability until a few weeks ago, when one of my students actually wrote about a similar extrasensory ability in her essay.
This student can actually hear dead people. Creepy, eh? It’s true.
She has been having this “sixth sense” since she was a child, when she began to hear “dead people” whispering or even having a conversation around her.
She can only hear their voices but can’t see them.
“Hearing their voices is creepy enough, if I start seeing them, I don’t know if I could take it,” she said when I questioned her after reading her essay.
She recalled how it all started at the age of eight when she stricken with a viral fever and hospitalised for weeks.
Eventually she recovered but, after that, she started hearing strange voices around her all the time.
At first, she found it difficult to handle the situation. She used to cry at night, afraid of the voices. Although “they” didn’t harm her, she could feel their presence everywhere she goes. Eventually, she got over this fear.
I was impressed with her because she handled the whole situation on her own without much help from her parents.
Being illiterate, they didn’t bother to take her for a proper medical check-up and simply concluded that she was hallucinating because of the medication she was taking.
Tired of being accused of telling lies, she stopped complaining to her parents, and she eventually got used to the situation.
Nowadays, she hears voices everywhere around her, when lessons are going on, when playing with her friends, when watching television and even when she goes to the toilet.
However, one good thing about it is she doesn’t understand “their” language.
One day, in the wee hours of the morning, she heard someone crying in her room. I wonder what I would have done if I were in her situation.
Life was usual for her even with this strange situation which keeps haunting her.
But recently she heard her name being called: “Ling, Ling!” She turned around to find no one behind her. She felt a cold shiver running down her spine.
I advised her to consult a monk or, better still, to see a psychiatrist for help.
She’s afraid “they” might harm her if she tries to get rid of the voices.
However she did go to a monk and she was given some talismans to ward off the spirits. But nothing happened.
One day, we were talking in the teacher’s room at about 3pm, after school was dismissed. Only the two of us were there.
She suddenly stopped talking and stared right through me.
“What happened, why are you staring at me?” I asked her.
“Ma’am, I can hear someone talking behind you!” she said.
I just stared at her.
RSS
