A year after my childhood dog Max died, my mom and I heard him puttering around the house again. And then I heard some playful barks and howls. It was the same noises my dog made when he wanted to get my attention or was ready to play.

“A year after my childhood dog Max died, my mom and I heard him puttering around the house again.”

I remember that moment as clear as day. I was in my childhood bedroom, on summer break from college, and I reflexively smiled when I heard my dog trotting down the hallway toward my room. I looked at my open door expecting to be greeted with his familiar sweet Lab face. 

I saw nothing. Max died the summer before. 

My mom yelled from the other side of the house: “Did you hear that?” Yes, I said. 

He came back to say hi. At least, that’s what I want to believe.

Ever since I was a little girl, I was always drawn to the supernatural. I collected fairy tales and spooky stories like they were going out of style. I even kept a notebook full of faeries and drawings of creatures I hoped to one day encounter. (Spoiler alert: I’ve yet to meet them, except for ghosts. More on that in a bit.)

Today, I’m a poet and a horror writer and still a long-time devourer of ghost stories. I’m someone who is perfectly happy to entertain the idea that there are things in this world that I’ll never understand. I’m comfortable with the mystery. 

“There are things in this world that I’ll never understand. I’m comfortable with the mystery.”

Myself, I’ve had a few delightfully strange experiences over the years, including two dreams that felt anything but ordinary. The first was a visitation dream from a childhood friend who passed away during the pandemic. The other dream, perhaps very appropriately, featured my favorite film director David Lynch, who sat with me for a long conversation on creativity and presence. Ironically, in both of these dreams, I had profound physical sensations, detailed scenery, and deep conversations that I remembered mere snippets of upon waking.

So, were these just visitation dreams? Or my subconscious at work? And what about my experience with my childhood dog? Did my mother and I both enter a shared fugue state at exactly the same time, only for it to dissipate completely after less than thirty seconds?

I can’t prove any of these experiences, but I’m also not sure if I want to.

“I can’t prove any of these experiences, but I’m also not sure if I want to.”

I don’t think believing in ghosts is necessarily woo-woo. Belief or not, simply making room for the possibility of the supernatural means engaging in a rare practice of living comfortably alongside the unknown. In a world where I can pull a tiny computer out of my pocket and ask it almost anything, there’s something comforting about the idea that some questions are simply left to mystery.

Because of my outlook, I’ve never thought of my supernatural fascinations as particularly morbid. If anything, my penchant for these kinds of stories comes from a place of deep curiosity. For me, believing in the unknown makes the world that much more vibrant and alive. 

Belief makes the ordinary world feel mysterious again

Horror writers like myself spend a lot of time asking: But what if? What if the footsteps you hear upstairs aren’t just a house settling? What if there’s a reason you keep having that same recurring dream? What if an old house still has glimmers of its former occupants?

Look, most of the time there’s a completely ordinary explanation. I don’t automatically assume a flickering light bulb is a sign from some kind of interdimensional communication. But writing horror has taught me to resist closing the door on that kind of possibility.

To me, there’s fascination in the possibility.

“To me, there’s fascination in the possibility.”

Adults are often encouraged to replace whimsy and wonder with certainty. We’re guided to have tangible answers to questions time and time again. We know the science behind lunar phases and thunderstorms. We have apps to identify a song playing in a coffee shop in seconds. We can Google an unfamiliar bird and star constellations, snap a photo of a houseplant for Reddit to diagnose, or even ask AI to interpret a surreal dream we had the night before.

In today’s tech age, the amount of access to information we have is extraordinary. But knowing more about the world around me doesn’t have to contribute to me experiencing wonder even less. 

“A good ghost story asks the reader to linger in an uncertain moment.”

Stick with me here for a moment. A good ghost story asks the reader to linger in an uncertain moment. Maybe the noise in the attic is just a raccoon. Or maybe it’s a woman in a white dress. Maybe the house made a strange noise while you were half asleep. Maybe you heard a whisper before you finally drifted off. I find all of the possibilities irresistible.

Belief — yours, mine, anyone’s — doesn’t mean that we have to accept every paranormal story as irrefutable fact either. There’s plenty of room to exist between absolute certainty and absolute belief. For me personally, believing in the supernatural is less about knowing what exists beyond the veil and more about admitting there’s a lot I don’t know. There’s something wildly freeing about that sentiment.

Ghosts give us a language for grief and continuing bonds

Of course, not every paranormal encounter is delightfully spooky. Sometimes it can be tender, too.

In fact, psychologists use the term “continuing bonds” to describe the way we maintain relationships with people after they die. Instead of just viewing healthy grief as a process that requires “moving on” and detachment, contemporary bereavement research recognizes that our relationships with the dead can continue in other forms. (As an aside, if you’re keen to read a literary short story on continuing bonds, may I recommend Jeanette Winterson’s “Night Side of the River”? There’s a devastating and beautiful work about the grief of losing a partner, who in turn becomes a ghost.)

“Psychologists use the term “continuing bonds” to describe the way we maintain relationships with people after they die.”

How do we do that, exactly? We keep their stories alive, honor and keep their belongings (think your grandmother’s beloved heirloom necklace or your mom’s engagement ring), we make their recipes, we visit their graves, and we talk to them. Sometimes, we can even hear their advice in our heads as we approach new life chapters, big and small. 

Sometimes we dream about them, too. Like I did.

Also, researchers have documented sensory experiences of deceased loved ones during their grieving process, which include hearing a voice, seeing a figure or person, feeling a presence, or interacting with them in dreams. A study of more than 1,000 people reported that these experiences found that sleep meetings were the most common and also tended to describe these encounters as both comforting and meaningful.

Now, I’ve had these kinds of dreams before. Some folks might quip that they’re just dreams. But these two individual experiences have stayed with me because they felt inherently different from other dreams I’ve experienced. Both dreams were highly sensorial, and I was profoundly aware of touch, smell, and the scenery before me. In short, they were pretty vivid in their visuals and narrative. The conversations were deep and highly meaningful.

As I wrote earlier, the first dream visitation I had involved my childhood friend, Theresa, who died. During our dream conversation, I felt her hand on my shoulder and tears streaming down my face. She told me so much, and I kept telling myself I’d remember it all, even waking up a few more times in the night. By the time I woke up in the early morning, I couldn’t remember anything she said, except her smile and the sound of her voice.

“I felt her hand on my shoulder and tears streaming down my face.”

The other came a year after the death of David Lynch. I didn’t know Lynch personally, of course, but his body of work was deeply impactful to my own creative life. Perhaps that’s why my sleeping mind conjured him. In the dream, I wasn’t in a red room or some fantastical landscape; instead, it was a spare but calming space that I knew to be a meditation center with sunlit views and expanses of greenery. We just talked. I remember the conversation ran mostly around creativity (I’m working on a few writing projects, one being a screenplay), and meditation. These two conversation topics mattered immensely to Lynch, and they also matter to me.

When I woke up from both those dreams, it felt like I’d been on a journey.

Every apparition has a story

Now, research into the sensory experiences with the dead has discovered that such experiences aren’t necessarily a sign of pathology. These moments can become a part of a continuing bond, which allows a relationship to evolve despite death. These encounters — and yes, ghost stories — become a form of storytelling and lived experience that connect us deeply to one another, place, and history.

To be real with you, I love that idea. This belief, for me, exercises the imagination. The possibility beyond life or consciousness as we know it. Maybe my mind whipped up those dreams entirely on its own. Either way, these dreams and my other early 20s experience taught me that as humans, we don’t have to solve everything. We can sit comfortably in the mystery. 

“We don’t have to solve everything. We can sit comfortably in the mystery.”

Places hold memory, and perhaps they can remember us, too. Older houses, renovated buildings, nature, winding streets with cracked cobblestones peeking through the pavement — these places hold experience. They hold the passage of time. And these types of tales have been passed down through cultures and generations. These stories are used in part to preserve family histories and local legends, beyond creating lore that, well, excites or scares us.

Even when these stories seem over-the-top or embellished, these narratives can enrich our lives by revealing insights into our collective imagination. Besides, isn’t it fun to think about what may or may not be lurking in the shadows? I take solace in the idea that we don’t disappear from the world completely.

The beauty of the unknown

Imagination thrives in the realm where knowing ends. Darkness transforms into a story. Secrets are given weight, a backstory. Unexplained noises find a purpose. The things we can’t explain take on their own shape.

“The things we can’t explain take on their own shape.”

Not every insistence is the supernatural knocking on your wall. A dream can be just a dream and nothing more. So I’m blending curiosity with critical thinking because they aren’t always on opposite ends of the spectrum. I appreciate a scientific explanation and feel moved by said experience that seems to defy rational or scientific explanation in the same breath. It’s permission to remain curious and luxuriate in the beauty of not having an answer.

I’m leaving the doorway to the esoteric cracked open. Maybe love and connection are perpetually looking for ways to linger. And maybe the dead do come back to say hi.

Stephanie Valente is a Contributing Editor at The Good Trade. She is a copywriter and editor covering wellness, commerce, lifestyle — and more — for publications like Brooklyn Magazine. Based in Brooklyn, she’s often writing poetry, getting lost in a book, or hanging out with her dog.