The Phantom Doorbell Strikes Again

by Julia Melges-Brenner. Copyright Sabrina Scott, Inc. All rights reserved. Written for and originally published in Kajama.

Dear Julia:

My father died in 2001, and my little sister died on her birthday in 1995. She was very spiritual, like me. After my sister died, I felt a connection to her now and then, especially on her birthday. Here's my question: almost every night between 2:30 and 4:30 a.m., I hear a doorbell that sounds like mine, and sometimes a knock. I get up but I see no one at the door. I am overweight and don't know if I have sleep apnea, so I'm wondering if the noise I hear is to wake me because I'm not breathing. When I hear it and check, I feel it is real and someone is actually at my door.

Katharina

Dear Katharina:

I first heard about this phenomenon some twenty years ago when my mother told me she would sometimes hear the doorbell ring in the middle of the night and no one would be there. For a number of reasons, she believed this was someone in Spirit visiting her.

In the ensuing twenty years, I experienced all sorts of signs and contact from spirits but I never experienced anything like this. I had actually forgotten all about it when it happened to me for the first time. It was about a month after my father died, and I had been trying hard to contact him directly without much success. I was troubled because I'd assumed it would be easy for me to establish contact with him since I've been able to do so with so many other spirits. My father was not a believer in things like spirit communication, however, which may explain why it was harder to connect with him.

One night about a month after he died, I was sleeping and was suddenly awakened by the sound of the doorbell ringing. I sensed my father's presence in the room, and then I remembered what my mother had told me years ago about hearing the doorbell. As I woke up fully, the experience faded.

My father still visits me in the same way every now and then. Sometimes the doorbell awakens me from a dream visit with him, or I just awaken with thoughts of him in my mind. He has also been known to pull off some amazing phenomena like making the phone physically ring so that everyone can hear it. The phone doesn't sound normal when he does this; it sounds more like a British ambulance. He's done this twice now, once on my birthday and once right after my mother and I had been talking about him for hours. On both occasions, when the phone was answered there was no one on the line; there was just a lot of white noise.

My point is that people have strengths and preferences for various forms of communication when they're living, so it makes sense that spirits would be the same. I believe my father has a hard time connecting with me telepathically, and this is why he has to resort to other methods.

If you pay careful attention, you should be able to discern the difference between your doorbell actually ringing and the sound you hear in the middle of the night that sounds like your doorbell. I call this the "phantom doorbell" because the sound is to physical hearing as a specter is to physical seeing: it's not wholly material or immaterial but somewhere in between.

This phenomenon is quite common, and also happens with other sounds that are designed to get our attention. Like you, many people report hearing a phantom doorbell ring in the middle of the night. Others hear the phone ring, knocking sounds or phantom alarms. Many also experience secondary phenomena, such as a strange smell which they may or may not be able to associate with someone in Spirit, or seeing ghostly figures, lights, or other apparitions.

What I find most interesting about this phenomenon is how it seems to be more and less physical in different situations. For example, when I've heard the doorbell ringing at my house, other members of my family have not, which suggests the sound was heard clairvoyantly. Many people report similar experiences and explain that even their pets fail to respond to the noise as they would if the doorbell were actually ringing.

In other situations, however, entire families have heard these sounds, sometimes when everyone was awake. Further, these events can be accompanied by other puzzling phenomena, such as hearing the voices of living people who aren't present but happen to be in some distress at the time. Some folks have even set up recording devices to run throughout the night, and recorded phantom doorbells and other sounds that never woke them up. This means we may all have this happening while we're asleep more often than we realize.

For the most part, however, this tends to happen in the middle of the night. This makes sense, because when we fall asleep, our vibration naturally rises, which makes us able to perceive subtler energies. Since most of the time the sound isn't physical in nature, we have to be in an altered state of consciousness in order to be able to hear it. When we're in between awake and asleep, we're able to perceive things that are between this world and other dimensions.

I wouldn't be surprised if you do have sleep apnea, for if you are frequently waking up and falling back asleep, you would be in alpha a lot, which is the perfect state of consciousness for extrasensory perception. Many people who have sleep apnea or other conditions/situations that cause them to awake many times throughout the night report unusual paranormal experiences.
 
As for why this is happening, it could be a warning to wake up because you're not breathing properly. (Please see your doctor about the possibility that you have sleep apnea.) These events are often warnings to people that something needs their attention. For example, people have been awakened by a phantom smoke detector or fire alarm and discovered the house was on fire or some other emergency was occurring. Also, many people experience these phantom sounds when they have overslept and need to get up for an important reason.

Most people attribute phantom doorbell and related phenomena to visits from spirits, for in most cases, it begins after the passing of a dear loved one and seems to cluster around dates or other situations specific to that loved one in Spirit. For example, the last time this happened to me, I had prayed for connect with my dad in a dream that night.

Now that you know that this may be someone in Spirit trying to get your attention, it should be easier to take the next step of determining who it is and what they are trying to tell you. If you jump out of bed to go see who is at the door, you'll pull yourself directly out of that alpha state and be unable to receive more psychic impressions. Instead, try to stay in that half-awake state and reach out with your awareness. See if you sense anything or anyone in the room. Pay attention to what may have been happening in your dreams just before you were awakened, and also to anything you may sense or find yourself thinking about. Ask questions in your mind about who or what is causing this phenomenon and see what pops into your head. If, for example, you have thoughts of your sister or your father upon first awakening, you may assume that they are visiting you and trying to get your attention by making this noise.

- Julia



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