Don't Mess With The Ouija
Written by Olivia Peters, Culture Staff Writer, and illustrated by Katie Herrick, Culture Editor
I don’t have much experience with ghosts. I watch horror movies fairly frequently, but that’s the extent of it. This semester, however, I am living in an apartment with five believers in ghosts—and suffice it to say—things have gotten spooky.
We have a Ouija board in our living room. This was not concerning to me at first, something I considered just a party game. So, when my roommates asked if I wanted to do it last month, I said why not.
I was called out of my room later that night and entered the living room to find all the lights off, and candles lit throughout the space. My roommates were all kneeling around the board, expectantly waiting for me to join. I walked over and took my place in the circle as we all placed one finger on the planchette—the triangular wood piece that slides across the board.
We waited in suspense for several minutes, asking over and over if there were any spirits present who wanted to talk to us. Dead silence overtook the room as the planchette moved to the word YES. I looked up, half grinning, trying to see which idiot had moved it and if they’d bust out laughing. But none of them laughed. They just looked back at me, eyes wide, obviously exhilarated.
I’ll admit it, I found this fun. It was extremely entertaining. For about a half-hour we had fragmented conversations with different “spirits” as the planchette spelled things out on the board.
Until the planchette started to do things it wasn’t supposed to—things the rules of the game outlined as indicating “dark spirits” present. It spelled out satanic words, it moved erratically, and everyone started to feel tense.
We moved the planchette to GOODBYE, which is how you sign off. We blew out the candles, and went to our respective beds, chatting nonchalantly about the whole thing. I was the least concerned, jabbing one of my roommates in the ribs and telling her I knew she was the ringmaster of all the movements.
My relaxed attitude about the whole game took a turn, however. The next week, I started to wake up every night around 3:30 AM. When I woke up, I felt startled and alert as if someone had shouted at me. I couldn’t figure out why I had woken up, instead just rolling over and going back to sleep.
Then I started to have nightmares. They weren’t my usual stress dreams, they were more twisted. In one, an evil version of myself was standing above me in bed, smiling with black eyes. Evil me’s neck snapped to the side on its own suddenly while the smile remained on the face, unwavering. This dream scared me to my core, it felt so dark.
I relayed this information to my roommates, and they said they were waking up around that time as well. One of them had also had dreams of a dark figure in the corner of their room.
One of two things was going on. One, we accidentally communicated with something very nasty that would not leave us alone, or two, my roommates were pranking me and had gotten inside my head.
I called my mom—someone who thinks that stuff is as silly as I did—for reassurance. I wanted her to tell me that I was being a drama queen, and to suck it up. Instead of the motherly guidance I was hoping for, she said “Oh, man. Why’d you do that? NEVER mess with the Ouija board. Only bad things happen.”
I wish she would’ve told me that sooner. I still tell my roommates I’m a disbeliever, but if I don’t believe—why am I so scared?