Curso:
C1 Advanced
LESSON 53: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
Do you believe in the supernatural? Today, we will examine unexplained accounts, analyze the evidence, and debate the boundaries of reality. Keep an open mind... and leave the lights on.
Discuss these scenarios with your investigation partner. Are there logical explanations, or is it something else?
You are home alone. You distinctly hear footsteps walking up the stairs and stopping outside your bedroom door. What is your immediate reaction?
You see your sibling walk into the kitchen. A minute later, you walk into the living room and see them asleep on the couch. They swear they never moved.
Your dog stares into a dark, empty corner of the room and begins to growl aggressively every night at exactly 3:00 AM. How do you explain it?
Master these terms before reviewing the case files. Hover to reveal the definitions.
With wildly uncontrolled emotion.
Feeling sudden shock or alarm.
A ghost or ghostlike image of a person.
Strange and frightening.
Professionals who prepare dead bodies for burial.
In a careful and prudent manner, avoiding attention.
I am the oldest of six kids. One passed away as an infant.
My two younger sisters and one of my younger brothers used to like to push their mattresses together on the floor downstairs on the weekends and watch movies and sleep. My youngest brother still slept in his crib upstairs, as he was too young to roam the house at night. We had two staircases leading to the basement that he could easily fall down.
One evening, as my sisters and brother were about to fall asleep watching a movie, my youngest brother appeared at the bottom of the stairs. It startled them awake and confused them, as he should have been in his bedroom sleeping. They asked him what he was doing; he just smiled, then turned around and ran around the corner to the staircase.
My sister followed, but when she reached the bottom of the staircase, he wasn’t there. It wasn’t possible. The kid still had to climb stairs on all fours, and it took him minutes to climb them. Confused, my sister ran upstairs and asked my parents what my little brother was doing downstairs. They checked on him, and he was safely in bed sleeping.
All three of my brothers and sisters cried hysterically that night because they knew what they saw, and it didn’t make sense. They still swear by it today.
About ten years ago (I was 8), I was visiting my dad at his house. My stepmother was in the kitchen, and I was in the family room.
We both saw my father, wearing a red flannel shirt and blue jeans, walk around the corner from the living room and start walking up the stairs. I followed him and called his name as he went up the stairs. He turned back and looked at me, got to the top of the stairs, and went around the corner.
I called his name again. Then, from the living room, my dad popped his head up over the couch and asked what I wanted. He had been asleep on the couch the entire time, yet both my stepmother and I CLEARLY saw him, wearing the exact clothes he had on the whole day, go from the living room up the stairs.
It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. Both my stepmother and I still remember it and talk about it to this day.
Can the human mind create false memories or visual echoes? Could the child and stepmother have influenced each other's memories?
Why do ghost stories exist in every culture? Do you believe entities can mimic the living? Share your opinions.
Twenty-one years ago. December, cold and dark outside. I fell asleep in my old room in the attic, and woke up at about half past 5 with my mum calling me down for dinner.
I went down the stairs, was about to turn left into the kitchen, and glanced right. There was my dad standing in the living room doorway, facing away from me, staring into the room. There was something odd about the way he was standing that made me pause for a minute and stare. I couldn’t place it somehow; it was like he was looking at something terrible on the TV.
I turned and went into the kitchen. There was dad, eating his dinner. I turned around—no figure in the living room doorway anymore. A little shocked, I mentioned it to mum and dad. Dad looked surprised; mum didn’t. She claimed she’d been seeing a male figure around the house for years (not my dad).
Eighteen months later, we’re waiting for the undertakers to set up my brother’s coffin in the living room after his death two days before in a motorbike accident. They leave, closing the living room door discreetly and leaving us to it.
We’re all in the kitchen, and dad takes the first step. He walks to the living room door, opens it, but stands there, unable to continue. I’m a few steps behind, and walk past him. As I do so, terrified, I think—where and when did I see him standing exactly like that before?
Did the narrator witness a glitch in time? A premonition of his father's future grief? Discuss the concept of "time slips" in paranormal theory.
We used to live on a farm when I was younger. We didn’t have any animals except a dog and a cat. It was a lovely place, but my mom often said that she felt like someone was watching her when it got dark outside, even though we had never seen anyone outside.
Some years ago, our dog died and we got a new one—a German Shepherd. It was for guarding, training, and fun. As the dog grew older, it started to bark at something in the distance almost every night. It got along with our cat, but we came to the conclusion that it was barking at the cat anyway.
Months went on and my sister got a boyfriend. He used to hang out at our place a lot. One night, when he was about to go home, he felt like he wasn’t alone. Right before he got to his car door, he turned around because he thought he heard something.
The moment he turned around, he heard heavy footsteps running behind him. He turned around once again and saw someone dressed in all black clothing running faster than ever away from him. He jumped into the car, locked the doors, and drove home.
After that, we became much more aware of what was outside our windows and always checked outside if the dog started to bark.
Do you believe animals can sense things that humans cannot? Why or why not?
Was the figure in black a paranormal entity, or simply a dangerous trespasser hiding on the farm? Which is scarier?
It is time to close the case files. Review the evidence and present your final arguments to the class.
Which of the four stories was the scariest or most believable? Convince your classmates to agree with your ranking.
Can fear distort our perception? Are humans simply fascinated by mysteries because we fear the unknown?
As you leave the classroom today, ask yourself: Are we ever truly alone?
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