Children's Hospital

30 May 2007. About 3 weeks ago I was staying in a Children's Hospital in Brisbane with my 18-month old daughter. True, I was sleep deprived, and I think if you're going to imagine anything, you'll do it in the middle of the night. But it wasn't a dream. The best I could explain it in logical terms is a bizarre hallucination.

I was staying in a ward room with 3 beds and a bathroom. I had just finished feeding my daughter during the night, went to the bathroom, then grabbed a drink of water at the sink just outside the bathroom. As I stood there drinking, a girl stopped just in front of me outside the door to the bathroom and looked around. I assumed she was from the cubicle next to mine, as she seemed to come into view from that direction, and also I noticed those cubicle curtains move slightly. She seemed very confused and was looking from bed to bed - I assumed she was just another patient and was checking to see if the bathroom was occupied before going in. Because my mouth was full of water I kind of gestured that it was okay to go in but didn't actually have a chance to speak before she turned and went into the bathroom. Strange thing was she didn't seem to push the door far open to get through or to close it behind her and there were no noises coming from inside the bathroom and she didn't come out either. Something just seemed strange about her, I can't pick what, and I decided to check she was okay. When I peeked around the corner through the open bathroom door there was no one there. I thought, "My God, I've just seen a ghost!" But there was no creepy, spooky feeling, she just looked like another patient.

Since I don't believe in ghosts and am always telling other people who think they see ghosts that they are having some type of temporal lobe seizure, I decided to grab the nurse to see if I needed to be committed to the psych ward. She and another nurse came to check the bathroom and room for intruders. They found no one there. The nurse asked me where I saw "him" and I said, "It was a young girl." The nurse went really still and gave me the strangest look. I made some stupid joke about being sleep-deprived - I was pretty embarrassed.

The next morning another staff member said to me, "I heard about your experience last night. Don't be embarrassed. I believe you. But there's nothing to be afraid of. She's a good one. We lost her about 6 weeks ago. A girl in the bed next to yours. She died in intensive care."

Now that made me think.