DiCesare goes on to tell the tale of a series of encounters he had with an apparition, including hearing a voice calling his name again and again, repeatedly seeing a man appear in his second-story bedroom, and the unexplained movement of furniture.
It all started the day he met famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorrain Warren. They had come to speak to students at SUNY Geneseo. DiCesare says that when he had an opportunity to speak to the couple face-to-face, neither would shake his hand. He didn’t understand.
About a week later, while writing a paper for a class on ethno cultural non-verbal communications, DiCesare said he heard his name being whispered. He looked around, but found he was alone. The sound persisted, so he put on his headphones. And then, alarmingly, he heard “Chris!” once more in his ear, even while wearing headphones.
DiCesare tried to rationalize the experience and told himself that he was just unusually on-edge and hypersensitive.
He went down the hall to take a shower and try to relax.
Still shaken from the freaky experience moments before, he contemplated calling another student to stand vigil outside of his shower stall, but feared he’d be perceived as gay. He was relieved when his roommate happened to be nearby.
DiCesare says he returned to his room some time later, and began to indulge in a box of Hot Tamales that his family had sent him in a care package. He jokes, “It’s a candy. It sounds like something from ‘Modern Family.’ Like Sofia Vergara.”
At this time he is alarmed to see a figure in his room. He recreates what he saw for the audience: standing back from the mic, to the back right of the stage, Chris hangs his head to the left. He lets his eyes roll back, and his mouth goes slack-jawed. He holds a pregnant pause for what seems like an eternity, effectively creating an unsettling feeling for everyone in the room. Finally, Chris returns to the mic to go on with the story.
DiCesare says that when he saw the figure, he tossed his Sofia Vergara candies into the air, and ran into the hall screaming. “I can’t believe I panicked, “ says DiCesare. “It broke me. The ghost broke me.”
The unnerving phenomena continued over several months. During this time, DiCesare enlists the help of several people. First, he and his roommate try to make audio recordings of the ghostly noises. As the two come to find themselves hiding under a blanket together, DiCesare tells the audience how silly it all felt – two traditionally masculine college athletes cowering in fear together under a tent made of their own bedding.
Later, when DiCesare’s roommate moves out, he turns to another dorm mate – an English major who helps him chronicle his experiences. DiCesare also calls upon a local priest who blesses his dorm room.
Another time during the haunting, while DiCesare is again taking a shower, he says he remembers standing there thinking, “I’m that girl that always dies in the movie.”
When DiCesare later makes direct contact with what he believes is the ghost haunting his dorm, he compares his encounter with a ghost to rape, without actually calling it that.
DiCesare says, “for the most part guys don’t experience things like rape. I understand with all my heart not wanting something to happen, saying no, feeling shame.” According to DiCesare, the unwanted encounter gave him a sense of empathy for women, making him a better dad and teacher.
Soon, DiCesare switches from victim to hero, however. Some time following his rape-like but non-rape experience with the ghost, he says he was summoned to a girls’ dorm room, where in a parallel event, several co-eds were being held down and assaulted by the same ghost.
Healing through storytelling
The tales shared at Dave’s that Saturday are part of the age-old tradition of storytelling for personal healing. Both Tobin and DiCesare wrote and re-wrote their experiences to create narratives that explored their personal identities through traumatic experiences, while helping them both to reclaim a sense of control. Shaping their stories through the lens of the paranormal allow both to avoid psychological diagnoses and stigma. For instance, a psychological perspective might attribute astral projection as a state of mental dissociation, a common trauma response. Premonitions could be interpreted as a product of disorganized thinking and jumbled memories. Hearing voices and seeing apparitions could be attributed to hallucinations.
Instead of seeing themselves or allowing others to label them as mentally ill, Tobin and DiCesare frame their experiences within a ghost story to express fear and vulnerability in a culturally acceptable way for men, moving away from the isolation of individual trauma and tapping into a universal fear of the supernatural. (It may not seem manly to be fearful, but everyone is afraid of ghosts.) The sharing of their stories via monologue, podcast, movies, books and television allow for both to find validation and belonging within the paranormal community.
More info about John Tobin at gloryhaunthounds.com.
Christ DiCesare’s podcast: pleasetalk.podomatic.com.
