One benefit I have as a sensitive and psychic medium is that spirits can't sneak up on me without my knowledge. I usually sense them before I visually see or audibly hear them, and I occasionally see them in my mind's eye before I see them with my physical eyes. Having said that, I have once experienced being startled and scared by a spirit at a haunted location, but it wasn't while I was conducting a paranormal investigation. It happened in the middle of the night while I was sleeping in my hotel room. The location I was at was once the most prosperous southern plantation in Virginia before the Civil War.
The main mansion, the slave quarters, the old quartermaster's house and horse stable, and a few other buildings related to plantation life are all on the property. I was given permission to do a paranormal investigation in the main mansion after dark, when it was closed to other hotel guests. The second night I stayed at the hotel, an employee and I went into the mansion after 10 p.m., and I began to use my ghost hunting equipment so he could participate and see something paranormal for himself. I won't go into further details now because I've already posted a thread about my investigation (read it
here).
I inadvertently angered one of the spirits within the mansion, and the spirit let me know later that night. Even though I showed respect toward the spirits and graciously thanked them for cooperating with me, one of them was upset by my presence and let me know about it shortly after 3:00 a.m. that night. It was an older male presence, but I couldn't visually see him or see an image of him in my mind. However, I felt his presence, and it was obvious to me that he was upset with me. I woke up from a deep sleep and bolted straight up in bed because I felt his intense presence in my hotel room. The bathroom light was turned on, and I could see the standing oval mirror across the room being pushed back a few inches to the side while the table lamp on the desk briefly flickered on and off. And then, just like that, it was over, and the spirit was gone. Not only was it an unsettling experience for me because I'd never angered a spirit like that before, but my husband felt the angry spirit's presence as well, which scared him. I smudged the room with white oak sage to dispel all the negative energy I was still feeling from this spirit's presence. Later that morning, I returned to the mansion and verbally apologized to this male spirit. I assumed that he had accepted my apology because I didn't encounter him or any other disgruntled spirit for the rest of my stay at the hotel.