On Liminal Beings and Running

I was listening to a podcast today with an interview focused on liminal beings. This includes shadow people, “old hags,” sightings of real-seeming people who then are suddenly gone, etc. It got me to thinking about two experiences I have had with the liminal world while on early morning runs.

Experiences with liminal beings are odd. For me, the experience is fleeting and baffling. You see something clearly and then suddenly nothing about the experience is clear. I question if I actually had an experience while at the same time noticing the sense of hair raised on the back on one’s neck and a certainty that something weird just happened.

The first experience occurred about seven years ago. At that time, my runs started at 5:30 a.m., regardless of weather or time of year. This happened to be winter and it was cold out and still dark. I was about a quarter mile from home when I could see another runner across the street, mostly in my peripheral vision. I could see the shape of a person jogging toward me, crossing the street, though the image was fairly dark. I could see running socks and shoes, but dimly. I slowed adjusted my pace to give the person room when they reached my side of the street.

They continued running in front of me and then just disappeared through a fence. Instantly, I felt creeped out. I could not make sense of what just happened. I had seen a person running and then they were gone. I stopped and stared at the fence they ran through. There was not a gate they could have gone through. I looked down the street next to the house with the fence and saw no one. I had my headlamp on, so it wasn’t totally dark. There was just not a soul around me. I continued to stare at the street and the fence to figure out where someone could have gone. And I also kept thinking about how non-descript the person was. I was sufficiently disturbed by the event, which ended up giving me a lot of anxious energy for a fast run that morning. I contemplate this event often, as I run by that house with the fence several times a week. Did I see a shadow person? A ghost runner? Did I briefly glimpse a runner in another dimension? Did I hallucinate? I still don’t have an answer.

Earlier this year, I had another, though different, experience. I was running up a gradual hill that is about a quarter mile stretch in my neighborhood. Like the first time, there wasn’t anyone out but me (other people are smarter than me and stay in bed at 6 a.m.!). I reached the intersection at the top of the hill and turned around to head back. I was stunned to see a pair of people just in front of me walking down the hill. It really threw me for a loop. There had been nobody in front of me just a second earlier. Nobody had crossed the street. There hadn’t been anyone on the other side of the street. Nobody had been behind me. The people I saw looked solid and real. They appeared to be older and had on long puffy jackets. They were carrying coffee and walking slowly. And apparently came out of nowhere. I decided to assume they were real, though I was on high alert that something strange seemed to be happening. I didn’t feel like running around them on the sidewalk, so I popped across the street, looked quickly back and they were no longer there. I was so disturbed by this that I ran right back over to where they had been and looked around. There aren’t any other streets there, so they couldn’t have turned onto another street. I ran down a bit and looked to see if they had entered a set of stairs that go up to another block There was nobody on the stairs. If what I saw is to be believed, they appeared and then disappeared. I’ve not seen them again.

I don’t know what to make of these experiences. They are fleeting but perplexing and leave you questioning your sanity. I feel like I did enough on-the-spot investigating to satisfy that I didn’t make anything up, but I still don’t fully trust these experiences. Why did I see them? What was the purpose? Who were they? I guess I won’t ever know, but I do hope that I someday have another odd experience while running. It makes those early mornings much more interesting.