Sunday, 27 July 2025

Phantom cat or is it just my mattress settling?

 


I've been experiencing this for about 10 years, I think. Not really scary (at least to me), but definitely an oddity. I wonder if anyone else has known or even heard of this kind of thing - or something similar? 

Nearly every night soon after I get into bed and put my head on the pillow, I feel the clear sensation that a cat has jumped onto the bed to join me - thinking that one of my, at present, two pussies has done their usual habit of coming to me to sleep with, which they'll both always do off and on during the course of the night, punctuated by their slinking off to go outside for their nocturnal prowls. But when I feel this 'phenomenon', I sometimes used to switch on a bed-side light, look aound the room, and there they both are, sleeping soundly in their respective favourite well-separated locations in the bedroom, either on the carpet in a corner or on a pile of discarded clothes awaiting washing. I don't even bother to look nowadays as I know what to expect. This feeling of one of them having leapt up to join me (it's always near the foot of the bed or behind my back when I'm lying on my side) is so similar to them actually having done so it's quite uncanny.
Now I ought to say that my present mattress is old, by some 30+ years, my having acquired it from a former address when I was in 'digs'. How long even before that my then landlord had it, I don't know.
So, the much more likely cause of this interesting, frequent, though minor 'disturbance' is that it's something to do with the bed rather than being paranormal (it hardly need saying!) - but the regularity of it, and its uncanny resemblance to the antics of a cat is remarkable. It's always around the same time - when I'm still awake, not yet nodding off and, oddly only at night, never during my daily afternoon snooze sleeping on the very same bed - a 'cat-nap' if you will. It's not in any way unnerving, in fact it's oddly reassuring.

Maybe I should say in passing that since I moved to the current address I must have had around 10 different cats as co-residents at one time or another, mostly in singles but occasionally a two-some like now. A few of them have actually died here, but none of them (yet?) in the bedroom, the last one happening in the bathroom, before that in the kitchen, then a couple being put to sleep at the vets (in my arms with my copious tears flowing as they were given their final jab). So a 'phantom' cat, highly questionable as it is, is never far from my mind. Maybe it lingers there because I like to think of it as such. All the cats I've had here have, every one of them, been very affectionate towards me - that's why they've stayed - so it makes me wonder, could it be?.......

P.S. Couple of hours after reading Mitch's response below regarding his own late cat, Tuxedo - Don't know why I didn't do it before, but having written in my opening sentence above that all this business started with me "about 10 years" ago, I've just looked at my notes of significant dates in my life, and the cat I owned who had the greatest effect on me, and who loved me to an extent no other cat since has done, was my dear beloved Blackso, who died in July 2017 and whose passing devastated me like no other - although of course I've also loved every other one of them too, even if Blackso was the most special one of them all. Tonight, when I feel him(?) jumping onto the bed I'm going to whisper his name. And why not?



21 comments:

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    1. I think it's something that might make some people 'freak out', Mitch, but luckily it doesn't bother me in that way. It's a curiosity!

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  2. I know exactly what you mean. I feel a cat on the bed next to me and reach out to pet it, and it's not there.
    I say it's Tuxedo just checking in.

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    1. Not that is VERY interesting, Bob. VERY, VERY, VERY! I'd never ever heard of anyone mentioning this 'phenomenon' happening to someone else, let alone having known it themselves! Obviously your own experience hasn't fazed you and you are reconciled to just accepting it, as I myself have done. Your reaction reassures me enormously. (I don't think you've mentioned it in your blog - or have I missed it?).

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  3. We once owned a house that we purchased after the death of the owner; his name was Ralph. He built the home in 1938, lived there over 40 years, and actually passed away inside the house at the age of 95. Ralph was definitely with us in the 30 years I lived there. He occasionally let me know he was around in very quiet unobtrusive ways and always when least expected. I was very comfortable in the home. I actually felt guilty moving away many years later and (while speaking into thin air) invited him to come along with us if he chose. The next owner called me a few months into her ownership and asked if the house was haunted. She would sometimes see a dark, transparent little man wearing a Fedora in the very dim area of (his former) basement workshop. So for all intents and purposes, I guess Ralph (who his relatives told me always wore a Fedora) is still there to this day. And Ray, I have absolutely no doubt your sweet kitty Blackso is still very quietly with you and enjoying your company. Take care.

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    1. That was a somewhat creepy tale of yours, Camille, though it sounds like whatever 'vision' it was that the owner was seeing it wasn't threatening. But even so I'd find it quite unnerving. I've never seen such myself but what I do find most intriguing is that there are so many reports of this kind of sightings that I can't believe for one minute that they are ALL lies. There's SOMETHING going on after death (of animals too, it seems) which we don't yet understand, though I'm sure will do in time. Being non-religious myself I'd rather not believe in an after-life, but IF there is it would be so wonderful to be reunited with my dear Blackso once more.
      Thanks for your visit here. I wish you too all the very best, with good health being top priority. Maybe 'speak' with you again another time?

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    2. I believe in the afterlife Ray after my experiences with Bill. Absolutely! I have no doubt there is more.

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    3. If it's so, Ron, and (big proviso) there's no more suffering in it, I'm all for the notion - as surely would everybody. Meantime I await evidence which I would avidly welcome.

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  4. Rationialists would say you are experiencing a hypnogogic sensation - if you go for such and explanation. I like the notion of ghosts and spirits.

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    1. oh, i am the master of hypnogogic hallucinations over the last few years. They're not as freaky to me after my shrink assured me I wasn't crazy.

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    2. Had to look up the word (spelt 'hypnAgogic' I've just also learned). Reassuring to read that the sensation is entirely harmless as well as being more common than I'd suspected..

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  5. I'd love to have even a phantom cat - be it Kylie, Tovah or Sophie.

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    1. Your blog is always replete with animals, B, either your own or other peoples', that being the principal reason why I follow you. I was initially flummoxed by the three names you mention, which I first assumed to be three female celebrities (the 2nd and 3rd puzzling me) but when I googled all of them together it referred to a quite recent posting of yours whih had escaped me, so all is clear now.

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  6. I do remember as a small boy being woken by a cat jumping onto the foot of the bed by my feet. I stayed motionless for what seemed like hours not wanting to disturb it. Eventually I turned on my bedside light and there was nothing there. The door and window were both closed.

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    1. Your eerie tale suggests, C.M., that you haven't had a similar experience again since your then early years - or maybe that's the only one you recall involving an animal? If this one was of a cat unknown to you then that would genuinely have been strange, and quite troubling to the youngster which you then were. However, you got through the experience though, of course, the memory is still firmly lodged there - understandably.
      Thanks for your visit here. Your input much appreciated.

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  7. Ray,
    I believe, absolutely believe that is Blackso coming back to visit you. His spirit. Bill often comes back to me, like he did tonight via a burned out Christmas light. After he lost his vision due to macular degeneration, he asked me to keep the Christmas lights around our living room year round. He could not see directly out the center of his eye but he did have peripheral vision and he could see colors which he loved. When Bill had his strokes in January of 2021 and I was his full-time caregiver for the next three years, we often talked about "the other side." He said he would try and contact me when he reached that side. A few night after he died in February of 2024, while I was in the kitchen, my peripheral vision noticed one of those burned out lights blinking. There were about seventy-five burned out light of a string of maybe three hundred colored light. Only that one was blinking. "How odd" I thought! Then I realized, that was Bill! He was letting me know he was with me! It was appropriate since he was an electrician by trade. He found a way to let me know he was in Heaven, waiting for me. Since then he has reappeared many times by that burned out light. Just tonight he did it again, and yes that light blinked. None of the other burned out light have ever come back on, just that one. I absolutely believe the spirit of our dead loved ones continues on after this physical life. I truly believe that one day you will be reunited with all your previous cats. Their spirit lives on. This I know and I suspect Blackso is visiting you. He knows how much you loved him and he loves you. We will all find out eventually that this physical life we live now is only a millisecond in our spirit's life in the vast universe.Nothing else makes sense to me. This does.
    Ron

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    1. Ron, your story about Bill just took my breath away. Of course I can't, with any confidence say that there ISN'T a 'life' after death (can ANYone?) but what you say gives me further pause on top of all other similar stories we hear of all the time.

      My Blackso was a true treasure. He came to me while living in a large house just 10 doors down this road - and very quickly moved in, his former owners not making enquiries as to his whereabouts. I accidentally got to know a bit of his back-story once when we were both in the living room here. I just happened to roll up a newspaper once when he quickly got up and hid under a table, watching me and cowering. So I assume that being hit with such used to be a regular punishment at his former home. I never did it again with a newspaper in his presence though I'm sure that other people finding it out might have done it just to frighten him for their own 'entertainment'.
      He'd love me to pick him up into my arms. He'd purr loudly and rub his face against my bearded chin over and over again. Such a sweetie!
      If only my current experience really IS him, as I so want to believe.

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  8. I think if it gives you comfort you can think of it as Blackso and his spirit is still with you. He is still in your heart.

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    1. I'll try to do that, Carol, though it's an awfully big leap of faith. In my heart he certainly is.

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  9. This happens to me regularly Raymondo

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    1. On one level I'm astonished, JayGee. though on another I'm not in the least surprised as I can't imagine anyone more appropriate than yourself to have the experience. I'm certain that that if anything noteworthy happens your blog will report it.

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