On a possibly haunted coastline, near Oban & connected topics, publ. on the 16/08/2026

At the beginning of July I was in Oban. The trip was not the easiest adventure. It was very wet, preventing me and stopping me from doing a lot there, plus the possibility of there being other plans did not manifest. I feel as though the trip was a necessary part of some greater journey, but that at this moment in time I do not understand how it fits in exactly. Based on that trip though I was able to write more about Lismore Gaelic, with photos (the article in question is on my kielimatka-2-11 website), write an unrelated blog post connected to the trip on this website (the one about the Gaelic dialect of Oban), and a few more bits of writing.

There is another thing though. I won't say exactly where it took place, I will just say that I pitched my tent on the coast (above the hide tide mark and above the maximum points of swell given the weather and tides at the time), somewhere between Oban and the Kerrera ferry terminal (on the mainland). I tried to sleep, but it was difficult, given that by about 2 am it was already getting light; and also given the very strange vibes and sensations I experienced in that place.

It is worth noting that nearby where some cliffs, of ancient volcanic rock, buttresses. Some of the caves along this coastline were used by Mesolithic peoples, known sometimes as the "Obanian" culture. I think that whoever these people were, they may well have given certain things, or a lot of things, to the Argyll dialects of Gaelic, although this is of course not the mainstream view. 

Caves are portals and are dangerous places. I did not camp right in front of a cave though, but in an area that would have been underwater during the Mesolithic period. Whatever I experienced in that place, had something to do with the Obanian culture, I feel, or the continuation of that culture, and aspects of their souls and soul energy connected to that ancient area. 

I found it difficult to sleep, because the vibe just felt too alert, somehow. This is in addition to it getting lighter. The vibe was strange, charged, like my body couldn't rest because there was some subtle "buzz" that my body was feeling all around me. When at that state of being between an awake state and sleeping, I heard some unusual things. This kind of thing can happen I think quite commonly in people when they are literally just falling to sleep, but I have only ever experienced strong sounds during this experience when I have had flu or something. This is why this particular experience was unusual.

Because there was wind blowing and flowing through long grasses around me. I am no stranger to camping in the wild and am certainly no stranger to the sounds of nature at night, including when I am in a relaxed state. But this was different, because in that state of almost being asleep, I was sure that I heard whispering in that grass, among the sound of the wild and the gentle lapping of the waves not too far away. 

It was more akin to a conversation than feeling as though something directed towards me. I did not feel alone, either. When falling asleep I kept feeling a slight "jolting" feeling, and briefly, with my eyes closed, perceived the image in my mind of others walking around me. I wasn't really scared, but I sat up eventually and thought "okay, I might have found myself in a haunted place here". 

At one point when my eyes were closed, and I was facing the sea, I saw a vivid "vision" of a woman of around 30 years old walking towards me. She was like a mermaid, not with a fish tail, but with chest and legs covered in something like scales, that shimmered a silver, to slightly bronze. She looked kind of skeletal, ribs showing, her bust having been reduced to slight mounds, scaly, over her ribs. She was not skeletal in a way that suggests death, but one that suggested transformation into a being that embodies that, whilst being alive, ancient. She smiled at me and seemed to be showing me the sea. Mermaids are associated with drowning sailors, but that wasn't the vibe I got, it felt like she was guiding me towards the islands, the Hebrides, towards my love and connection of the ancient sea and coastal peoples of ancient Scotland. There was nothing evil nor manipulative in her motion, and it wasn't as thought she was physically there, nor that the sea she showed me was that close to me. Note that this is not connected to the haemovores in the blog post previous to this on this website, which I just mention in case anyone becomes confused thinking I am talking about the same thing - I am not. Nor was the vision I had in Oban of a draug. This blog post and the previous on this website are of course completely separate.

The scaled, shimmering and glimmering woman I saw in the vision with my eyes closed, didn't really fit into the traditional Gaelic folklore image of mermaids, who were said to have a fish tail. I am not sure what she was. I don't think she was entirely just of my imagination though; I feel that in some way she was connected to the spirits and spiritual energy of that place, manifesting to me, or relaying a message. 

The next day I booked a B&B room. The familiar northern English accent on the phone set me at ease, (Northerners are generally friendly folk), and she said "alright love, yep pop round then, that's fine". I then said to have "alright ta, lots of love". She paused for a second. "What the feck did I say that for?" I thought, internally giggling. I wasn't really thinking straight and used "love" in the wrong context in reply to her using "love" as a form of address. "Alright..." she continued, "Yep that's fine, I'll see you then."

Whilst at the ferry terminal and about to head to Lismore, I met a physical lady who was also 30 years old and who was also visiting Oban and was from Glasgow. For a couple of days we texted quite a lot, I didn't meet with her again, also having said to her that I had been hoping to meet another person who might travel to Oban and meet me, and it felt kind of wrong to so quickly spend time with someone else, even if she expressed interest towards me. And, she is also a lovely, fascinating person, and utterly beautiful, petite, dark haired, not "feminine" in the curvy, big busted sense, but feminine in an equally beautiful, elven sense. I find that often when I meet adults who have a kind of elven look, regardless of how tall or short they are, it sometimes feels as though we recognise each other. The kind of elven magic and spiritual wisdom that these people give off, is very "to the point", direct, logical and at the same time deeply powerful and concealed. In other words, rather akin to how the elves are depicted behaviourally and in terms of wisdom, in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. 

These people from my experience are unlikely to wear the label of "spiritual", but are inherently spiritual. They smile, they are calm, their mind, body and spirit are in sync, and they use their power and wisdom for progressing their own private spirituality, being less outwardly egotistical and being confident, talkative, but not loud. I discussed, with the elven woman, my own (at the time) relatively recent somewhat polyamorous experience, not in detail, but as something that was at the time very confusing for me. From my experience people with this elven look, and vibe, do not see the potential spiritual magic in polyamory, and that is okay, we are not meant to see magic or to find spirituality in the same things. It's not so much that they judge polyamory, they're just so internally powerful in their own ways that the concept has no meaning or power to them, and they would rather have a connection with somebody who is spiritual but monogamous (not that her and I were discussing doing either between us, it just came up). And in a lot of ways, her perspective, that perspective, is more beautiful and it is I think wiser than polyamory. For me, I see the beauty in both, recognise both as equally real, and non-contradictory, but at the same time, like her, I am also in a sense "elven" in the ways that she is, and despite seeing the beauty and spirituality in polyamory and writing a lot about it, my "inner elf" is perfectly capable of completely dismissing a spiritual concept if it doesn't align; although I do not think this is likely to happen with polyamory. 

I think part of the reason I went to Oban was to meet her. When I go to the west of Scotland, I feel like I sometimes temporarily become a kind of guide, which sounds ridiculous because I don't live there, but I become a guide for those people who seek something spiritual that goes back perhaps a long way into prehistory, beyond the well-known folktales, beyond Christianity and beyond the Vikings. I felt in a sense that I met this person so that we could impart wisdom and energy to each other, although in this case, for both her and me, our experiences around Oban on that occasion independently created nulls and a need to recalibrate how we related to our connections with Scotland. 

I went home knowing that I had experienced, learned and felt some things, which I wrote about, including this, as I have stated; but also feeling that it was very inconclusive, that it didn't go as planned in any sense, and that it was an expensive "part" of a larger journey in going back to Oban, and I felt unable to perceive where it was going. She, similarly, felt a sense of disappointment in her own experiences around Oban I think, and a need to more deeply understand what draws her there internally. 

I think we all need - on our spiritual journeys though, to have points that consist of more nulls, a greater lack of answers than of answers themselves - because without such times, we do not progress and ask the right questions. Before I got the train back home, I met some Swedish people from Norrland, chatted with them in Swedish for a few minutes (the third time this has happened in Oban). I used the coffee machine in the Oban Weatherspoons, which almost squirted milk into my face. I then told some others queuing up and we had a laugh about it. A friend of mine from Cumbria also went to the same Weatherspoons last weekend, and told me that the coffee machine "spat" at him. (The coffee machines in question do not literally "spit" at people or "squirt" at them, rather the process of making the coffee with these things results in bits of milk and what not flying out sometimes, although it was kind of dramatic and unexpected). 

On the way home I wrote an article for a magazine (unrelated to other works on these subjects) concerning polyamory and forms of language, and, ironically, how sometimes the lack of saying something, or implication without an answer can maybe help people to understand things like polyamory and non-traditional gender identities better than trying to analytically and flat-out explain those concepts can. 

I am trying to highlight some things here which I think are important, and I hope maybe that some of my readers might finish this and that some of what I've said, particularly about these "nulls", will be understandable and relevant.

And, I don't recommend camping near the coastline just south of Oban. In my haunting experience when camping, I did not feel threatened or disliked, but it was intense, and my own experience is not to say that sometimes a person wouldn't feel threatened by the powers there, or even be in danger because of them. That's another thing I would like to leave with my readers. But equally I will say again that my experience was not negative, and that it was in many ways strangely beautiful, as were the things I saw when falling asleep (or trying to). Nevertheless, such forces are not to be taken lightly, and I would recommend reading about Scottish folklore to understand why such spirits can be dangerous and potentially harmful. They are not evil or bad, but they deserve our respect, and I set up camp in what I think is one of their places, unknowingly. My experience was not negative, but it sure was eerie, and I will not be camping there again. Note also one should always be cautious when camping quite close to the sea and absolutely take tides, sea swells, and changes in wind and water flow into account, as well as changing weather fronts and how the meeting of low and high pressure can create dangerous seas, even those sheltered, please take this seriously too.

I hope that this blog post was an interesting read, thank you for reading!