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A woman claims she had “amazing” sex with a ghost while living in a remote Welsh cottage.

Sian Jameson, 26, says she had sex with a “handsome” man she had spotted in an historic painting.

She had moved to Aberystwyth and rented a fully-furnished 16th century house after breaking up with her boyfriend of three years.

Sian left London saying that: “Everywhere I went reminded me of my ex. I needed a fresh start.”

Describing the property she moved into, she said: “The owner had even left books and paintings.

“One painting in particular caught my eye – it was above the mantelpiece in the main room and was of a handsome young man and dated 1820.”

A writer, she said that being in the countryside inspired her.

“It was great. No distractions – just me, the trees and the sky.

"I was paying my rent by doing bits of copy writing and, because I didn’t want for much in the countryside, I managed okay.

"I enjoyed the peace: after a long relationship, being on my own was quite exhilarating. I started to wonder whether I’d ever want a man in my life again.”

(Image: Jacqui Deevoy)

She began having erotic dreams.

“I’d wake up thinking I was still in a relationship and was quite relieved to find myself alone.”

“A few months after I’d moved in I woke early one morning to find a dark-haired, very good-looking young man lying next to me.

"He was fully clothed – in a loose white shirt, a neck scarf and old-fashioned breeches.

"He had a kind of shimmer to him as if he was behind a fluttering voile curtain. I told myself I was dreaming and rolled away from him.

"As I faced the wall I slowly realised I wasn’t asleep and, suddenly, I was frozen with fear. I felt a hand on my waist but the touch was strange – light and cool.”

She said she knew instinctively that he was a ghost and that she recognised him as a man in the painting.

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“We started to make love.

“He was very gentle and stroked my body tenderly.

"During the lovemaking, I sensed all kinds of things about him – his name (Robert) and when he lived (over 100 years ago).

"We didn’t speak – it was as if he was communicating with me telepathically. His body was soft and light.

"Even when he moved on top of me, pressing down, he felt almost weightless. It was very strange but the sex was amazing.

“I was totally perplexed about what had happened.

“In fact, I started to wonder whether it had happened at all.

"In the end, I told myself it was just a very vivid dream and put it to the back of my mind.”

(Image: Jacqui Deevoy)

Spiritualist Sian has always believed in ghosts and claims to have seen apparitions before. But none of them had ever got intimate with her.

“Again, he appeared in the morning, we made love again but this time, afterwards, I watched him get up, get dressed and leave the room.

"I was expecting to hear his footsteps on the wooden stairs but there was no sound. I watched him through the open bedroom door and saw him kind of fade as he approached the top of the stairs.”

This time she didn’t go back to sleep. She got up and followed. But Robert was gone.

“He appeared one more time after that,” Sian recalled.

“It was night-time and I was just drifting off to sleep. All of a sudden, the duvet slid off me and I could feel a cool hand running up my thigh, under my night-shirt.”

Sian said she knew he wouldn’t be back. “I sobbed after he’d left that night,” she confesses. “I guess I had fallen in love.”

(Image: Jacqui Deevoy)

She said she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“I tried to find out more about him by searching online, and although I found a painting of a young man who looked very much like him by a 19th-century French artist – I didn’t really get anywhere.”

She told a couple of close friends about what she’d experienced. “That was a mistake,” she admitted.

“They looked at me as if I was mad. So I just laughed it off, said something about eating too much cheese before bed, then kept quiet after that.”

Sian is now in a relationship with a living man.

“When I first told him about Robert, he thought it was funny. He reckons it was just a dream. But I know it wasn’t a dream. It was real.

"And the sex was as good – if not better – than any other sex I’ve had. Just don’t tell my boyfriend that!”

What the experts say

Psychotherapist Tina Radziszewicz says: “Although the experience of making love with a ghost felt very real to Sian, the ‘spectre sex’ always happened either early in the morning or late at night, while she was just waking up or just nodding off.

"It’s well known that particular types of hallucination occur during the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnogogic hallucinations) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic ones).

"Such hallucinations can be extremely vivid and bizarre, and can include tactile, visual and auditory. These hallucinations are more common in young adults and women, and certain other drugs (prescribed or illegal) make them more likely.

"Like dreams, the subject of a hypnogogic or hypnopompic hallucination can often be of something that’s been on your mind.

"Stress, anxiety, depression and trauma can make people more prone to this form of hallucination.

"Given that Sian’s feelings after breaking up with her boyfriend were so strong that she felt the need to leave London and isolate herself in the country, that suggests she was struggling with a lot of difficult emotions.

"And, finally, Sian says ghostly ‘Robert’ was a gentle, tender lover. After a bad breakup, who doesn’t feel a strong need to be soothed and cared for? I believe her dream lover represented the fulfilment of that wish.”

But parapsychologists believe that some ghosts do have the power to get quite physical. Ghost-hunter and author of the book Ghost Sex: The Violation, G.L. Davies, says: “No-one knows what motivates ghosts to have sex with the living. Are we like lab rats to them?

"Is there some kind of battle for our souls? Are these ghost demons trying to break us? Who knows?

"One thing’s for sure though, the people who experience it are certainly not dreaming. I spoke to many people – men and women – for my book and some of their stories are pretty shocking.

"They’re all convinced the sex actually happened and wasn’t imagined. And who am I to contradict them?”