Ghosts

[Nix]

On the Halloween theme...

Have you ever seen a ghost?

Have you ever researched or looked into ghosts in the town you live in?

Have you ever been on a ghost hunt?

Or do you think its all silly nonsense?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

 

[Mr Trick]

Don't know if I have witness one, not researched them, but there has been enough weird shit to make me believe in them and I just think its pretty stuck up to believe that we are alone on this planet.

 

[EVIL UU]

Ghosts? No. But once I might have seen this:

Shadow person - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It lasted about a split-second. A human-shaped patch of darkness in peripheral vision accompanied by this feeling that there's something there, you know what I mean? Now, I don't believe in supernatural *anything* - it's all a ridiculous load of crap in my opinion. I'm sure that it was just a brain glitch, akin to deja-vu 'caused by me being tired. Besides, I'm not exactly a paragon of mental health. It doesn't happen anymore but I used to "hear" voices. Imagine that you're in bed, tired, trying to fall asleep and suddenly there's this second thought channel ( one being your own thoughts ) going through your head filled with bits of random conversations from people you've never met. Guess what, I completely ignored it and it stopped happening. Brain's a complex thing. Once I didn't sleep for two days straight ( OK, probably a bit more ) and I started hearing noises. Like, I hear the sound of something falling in another room, I go there, turns out, nothing happened. Classic auditory hallucinations caused by sleep deprivation. Sleep paralysis? Happened to me as well, twice. First time it was well, kinda sexy actually ( no, you're not getting any details ) second one was terrifying, with a hallucination of what I can describe as a demon woman, sitting on me and screaming into my face. Oh, and there was another one when I saw a dog-sized spider in the corner of my room but I'm not afraid of spiders, I kinda like them actually, so whatever, I was like oh, a big spider. Cool!

So anyway, let's first completely understand how our brains work and then we can start looking for ghosts.

 

[GwenRaiden]

Sleep paralysis?

Sleep paralysis is terrifying. Only happened to me once and was back when my daughter was a newborn. I was awake but I couldn't move to go get her when she was crying. My brain was telling me there was something in the room and I had to get the baby fast. Ugh. Don't have children.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

So anyway, let's first completely understand how our brains work

But that's assuming they all work the same way, which is not the case. I often wonder if how our brains work directly relates to our personality and self-perception. Or does that affect how our brains work; as each side seems to have its own supporters and detractors. Let me preface this by saying that whole 2% of your brain thing is a load of bunk, but I do believe there is so much more to how our brains work in creating us than we understand.

None of this has anything to do with the topic mind you...
 

Sleep paralysis is terrifying. Only happened to me once and was back when my daughter was a newborn. .... Ugh. Don't have children.

Maybe she is an alien baby that creates the sleep paralysis on you for the sake of doing rectal exams and all those other experiments. Maybe there is a little homing beacon shoved inside your nose like there was with Mulder. Maybe your alien baby is just awaiting you to drift off to sleep to transport you back to the mothership and meet up with Travis Walton.

 

[thetopher]

Well, I like the idea of ghosts, and I've been on plenty of Ghost tours/hunts. The place where I live is a very old town so there are tons of walks/tours of that sort- especially around Halloween.

However, I've never seen one (but I want to) and I've got a healthy skepticism about people who claim they have (jealousy perhaps?). I don't doubt that they've seen something, but what I'm not sure.

I d get a real laugh from watching those awful 'psychic on a ghost hunt' TV shows that were all the rage a couple of years ago. The psychic would wander around for a while and 'read' the area, all of what they 'felt' could've (to me) been deduced from going to the local library and doing some research about those who used to be there.

Basically I'm a credulous skeptic, like Houdini.

 

[JCoatsworth]

I think it's all a bunch of superstitious nonsense which originated in a time when people though the earth was flat, and the sun revolved around the earth, and nobody had any idea how anything in the natural world worked.

 

[Samuel Reyes]

Not exactly...
Yes, allegedly there is an abandoned jail nearby where I live that is reported to be quite haunted.
No, but I plan to one day. Call it a wild goose chase, but spending the night in a 'haunted' location is my idea of fun!
No, there are too many unexplained incidents for us to say that ghosts do not exist. It is these kinds of events that freak me out the most.

It is one of these unexplained incidents that has me convinced about the existence of ghosts: a couple of years ago my family and I moved into a new house, which we purchased at a surprisingly low price. About a week later bizarre things started happening - items would be in different locations from where we last left them, the lights would turn on/off without any explanation... one time we even came home to find one of the windows in the house open. The first two we chalked up to forgetfulness and faulty electricity, but this third happening really got us thinking, since we never ever leave the windows open while gone from the house. Ever. About three months passed with all these occurrences happening regularly, but never were they a disturbance, exactly. Then two things happened which chilled us to the bone and which I still remember vividly to this day. Around the third month we put up a new mirror in the kitchen. While we were eating, the mirror suddenly fell. It was about ten feet away, thankfully no one was hurt, but that's the thing -- we all expected to hear a loud shattering of glass, which didn't happen. When we investigated we found the mirror completely intact. The second chilling experience occurred two months later. By then the stuff with the lights turning on/off and the objects jumping had stopped. We put up the mirror again and made sure it wouldn't fall this time. One day when we were mowing the lawn, however, the lawnmower suddenly started malfunctioning -- it would swerve around certain spots, almost go off onto the street, even came close to ramming itself into the side of the house. My dad, who was the one mowing the lawn, was just as puzzled as the rest of us, saying that it just started moving as if by itself. Nothing was wrong with the lawnmower, though -- got it checked out twice, both times, nothing. Finally about a month later we found a better house with a better price about twenty miles away and we moved again. At her new job my mom had a friend whose brother used to live in the same neighborhood and who said the neighborhood was built where an old cemetery used to be... needless to say we were a bit rattled.

A week later my dad threw out the old mirror and got a better one.

 

[JCoatsworth]

In addition to my earlier post:

Have you ever seen a ghost?
No.

Have you ever researched or looked into ghosts in the town you live in?
No, not in my hometown, but I like a good spook story.

Have you ever been on a ghost hunt?
No, but that sounds quite fun as well.

Or do you think its all silly nonsense?
Yes.

It is generally regarded to be impossible to disprove the existence of something, or prove the non-existence of something. (Can you prove I don't keep an invisible dragon in my garage?) So if there are "unexplained phenomenon", my first reaction would never, ever, ever be to assume it's ghosts, spirits, gods, or aliens. The most rational position, in my opinion, is to say, "I don't know," and wait for evidence that supports a possible explanation. If there is no evidence that supports one position, it is very unreasonable to think that this makes the other more true or more likely.

Here's a phenomenon I find to be quite similar: Crop circles. Some decades ago, a few guys pulled a practical joke by making these shapes in corn fields (I think that was in Britain, but I'd have to look it up). They got better and better, their shapes became more and more complex, and other people started doing it. It was taken seriously by a lot of people and some claimed the shapes were too complex to be of human origin. (Think about it: We have space ships that fly to Pluto, but using a string and a lawn mower or whatever is too difficult.) After a while, the guys admitted they made it up and explained how they made the complicated shapes. And what happened? Nothing. The media ignored them, because the fake stories were more popular and made more money. Copycats kept doing it, nobody listened to them, and there are still people who think aliens are communicating with us.
 
@Mr. Pole I'm not comparing crop circles to paranormal phenomenon as ghost or similar things. I'm comparing the mindsets of people who believe in these things. If something really weird happens and your first thought after not being able to come up with a natural explanation is "ghosts", that's the same as saying "aliens" if you can't explain how those crop circles got there or what that light in the sky was.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I'm comparing the mindsets of people who believe in these things. If something really weird happens and your first thought after not being able to come up with a natural explanation is "ghosts",

But I think that's stereotypical. I've been on 5 and people generally did not think that way. I think it's represented that way for ratings, viewers, reads etc. The times I've been on them it's been more 'normal' than what is shown.

 

[JCoatsworth]

But I think that's stereotypical.

Sure, I'm not trying to generalize. That's never good. It was certainly not my intention to put a label on everybody who believes in, say, ghosts.

I've been on 5 and people generally did not think that way. I think it's represented that way for ratings, viewers, reads etc. The times I've been on them it's been more 'normal' than what is shown.

Not sure what you mean. Maybe I missed it in one of the other posts. Do you mean ghost hunts or reality shows? If that's case, sure, you're completely right. The media likes a good story and they're willing to distort facts for better ratings, more readers etc.

On a slightly different note, there are records of sleep paralysis from way back in the middle ages. Similar as today, it included a group of creatures standing around the person and conducting experiments on their genitals. Back then, however, they weren't called aliens, they were called succubi, I think.

 

[gite63]

No, no, no, yes.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Do you mean ghost hunts or reality shows?

I meant the ghost hunts they show on TV seem very exaggerated. The ones I have been on were nothing like that. That's what I meant stereotypical, because the shows present the stereotypical imagery and then people try to live up (or down to that). Alot depends on why you do it.

 

[GwenRaiden]

Sometimes I mistake my dog in the dark as a headless dog-ghost because of his all white body and black head.

 

[JCoatsworth]

I meant the ghost hunts they show on TV seem very exaggerated. The ones I have been on were nothing like that. That's what I meant stereotypical, because the shows present the stereotypical imagery and then people try to live up (or down to that). Alot depends on why you do it.

Aaah, thanks. Yes, I can imagine how they're completely exaggerated. What were the ones you attended like?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Aaah, thanks. Yes, I can imagine how they're completely exaggerated. What were the ones you attended like?

They just were more "professional". And quiet. Not many people talked and I think once or twice someone may have said 'did you hear that'.. that being said I also like urban exploration and for three nights being allowed access here was mind blowing.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Yes, many, many ghosts of people, a dog, once I saw the skull of a person on fire. Hearing spectral activity can be fun.

Yes, but I've found none.

Yes, but not an organised hunt, I used to go on hunts by myself to known haunted places.

No, I don't think it is nonsense, but I do love hearing sceptics who need to explain it.

I loved hearing about those guys in the UK who said they had made all the crop circle. They must have been seriously well off to go to all the other countries. Did the farmers who lost crops ever sue them?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

, once I saw the skull of a person on fire.

If it were a whole body on fire I would have said Richard Pryor...

 

[JCoatsworth]

No, I don't think it is nonsense, but I do love hearing sceptics who need to explain it.

Hmm... I don't agree with this. Skeptics don't need to explain anything. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and skeptics don't claim to have all the answers. If a person claims that event X was caused by ghosts, then that person better have some evidence. Skeptics are usually open-minded and would have no problem believing in ghosts if there were sufficient evidence.