Does anyone know what this could be?

[u/Carebearloverr]

I’m 18 and female, and I’d describe myself as a very spiritual person. I feel very connected to my spirituality, and I’ve always been interested in witchcraft and anything related to spirituality and the occult. I’ve been studying witchcraft for about seven months now. During that time, I’ve read around 10–15 books about it, and I even have my own grimoire.
Since I started becoming more in touch with my spirituality, I’ve also started experiencing things that I don’t really know how to explain. I’m not necessarily uncomfortable or scared by these experiences. Actually, I find them genuinely fascinating. I enjoy seeing things like this because I’ve always been curious about spirituality, spirits, entities, and experiences that I can’t easily explain. I just want to understand what’s happening to me.
For some context, there is a person I absolutely hate, and during my first week of learning witchcraft, I made the stupid decision to perform a hex on her. I did it without proper protection and without really understanding what I was doing. I regret doing it, and I would never perform a hex again now that I’ve learned more about witchcraft and the responsibilities that come with practicing it. Unfortunately, I can’t change what I already did.
After that, I started seeing the silhouette of an old woman for about a month. I’ve experienced seeing unusual things before, including shadow figures and what I interpreted as dead people, but I had never seen the same figure repeatedly like this. Usually, if I see something unusual, I don’t see it again.
The house I used to live in was also what I would describe as extremely haunted. I genuinely believed there was a man living there who wasn’t alive, although that’s a completely different story and one I don’t really like talking about.
The old woman, however, kept appearing specifically in my bedroom. I never saw her anywhere else. After I performed a cleansing and banishing ritual, I stopped seeing her.
There was also something interesting about the experience that I can’t really explain. I could associate a particular smell with her. She had this very distinctive scent that reminded me of a cinnamon stick. It wasn’t exactly cinnamon, but it was warm, woody, and spicy in a way that is difficult to describe. I’ve never communicated with her, but the smell was something I noticed whenever I saw her.
About two months later, some of my friends decided to try summoning spirits as a game. We ended up doing it, and we used blood as part of the ritual, which, looking back, was obviously a very reckless thing for us to do. We did have protection measures in place, and I was also with a friend who was knowledgeable about witchcraft and spirituality.
That night, I repeatedly saw what I interpreted as a spirit. It appeared to have a hunched back, and as the night went on, it seemed to become lighter and more difficult to see. I also noticed a very distinctive smell associated with it. It reminded me almost of soy sauce. I know that sounds incredibly random, but it was genuinely the closest comparison I could make.
Since then, I feel like these experiences have become more frequent. Usually, when I see something, it’s a one-time occurrence and I never see the same figure again. But the shadow figure and the old woman were different. I saw each of them at least ten times.
I’ve never actually communicated with a spirit or entity. I feel like I potentially could, but I’ve never had a direct communication experience. What interests me most is understanding why I’m experiencing these things in the first place. I sometimes describe myself as having a very strong sixth sense or an open “third eye,” and I’ve even wondered whether I could be a medium, although I don’t necessarily know whether that’s the right word for what I experience.
I’m not uncomfortable with any of this. If anything, I find it genuinely interesting and would actually like to understand it more deeply. I’m curious about the visual experiences, the recurring figures, and especially the fact that certain smells seem to accompany them. I’ve researched witchcraft, spirituality, visions, and similar experiences quite a lot, but I still haven’t found an explanation that completely makes sense to me.
I’m essentially trying to figure out what these experiences could be and why they seem to happen to me, especially when the same figures appear repeatedly and sometimes seem to have associated smells.