Believing in ghosts

Have seen what may have been a ghost wearing trackie bottoms. Thought nothing of it until I realised no person could have walked away via the route the person I saw took.

I think the James Randi prize stopped being offered years ago, actually.

@Dithyramb you forgot to wheel out the statement that, do you know, there is a prize of a gazillion gazillion quid for the person who proves in a laboratory that ghosts/telepathy/ state your woo poison, is real. Don't worry, I've helped you out :)

I lived in a haunted house once...central Liverpool...an old warehouse had been. converted to flats. Rent was dirt cheap.

I looked around and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife..it was electric...but not threatening. Better than living flatmates I thought!

The first week I invited a friend round and she said it was haunted straight away.

8 months later someone at work asked me where I lived. When I told them, they said immediately " our colleague xxxxx used to live there. It's haunted...she saw a man walk through a wall."

The hairs on my neck stood up. I never saw anything but there was an electric energy. Hard to explain really.

I have a 1st in a science so am normally very logical but there is unexplained.

I would like to agree with you OP, but the number of accounts of pets sensing something “eerie” makes me think that we either choose to or choose not to follow instincts - maybe because we have become so certain of our place in the world that we arrogantly assume we are always right.
Having recently become a first-time dog owner, I would definitely trust my dog’s instincts over mine - even if that meant removing myself from a situation that I would logically not think was threatening…

Depends what the definition of Ghost is. Actual manifestations of the long or recently dead? No I don’t believe that. Something like String Theory and Parallel Universes where there is a crossover of images of beings- human or animal- , hmm, maybe.

I've seen a ghost at Longleat there was a patch of mist on the lawn and inside it was a woman in period dress.

My husband saw an old lady walking down the road towards him, then she vanished.

Produce any credible evidence, and I’m sure @SunnySaturdayMorning will consider it. I certainly would.

Oh Wise and Perfect person who knows absolutely everything and nothing.

How do you choose which totally unsubstantiated things you do believe in and which you don't? Dragons? Unicorns? Pixies? Gods? You really don't need to be 'wise and perfect' to think it's silly to believe in something for which there is no evidence.

Ghost stories are interesting in terms of what they say about a particular culture’s worldview, but the sort of thing you get on Mn ‘woo’ threads is typically a mixture of superstition, gullibility, suggestibility, wishful thinking and coincidence. If you take out the stuff that posters heard about from somebody else (who is always extremely practical and sceptical), stuff that happened in childhood, stuff that happened when the poster was in bed, dozing or abruptly awakened, or in poor light, or stuff that happened when the poster was somewhere unfamiliar they considered ‘spooky’, and coincidence, there’s not exactly a lot left.

Oh Wise and Perfect person who knows absolutely everything and nothing.

Or perhaps its just that you can't see them?

I don't believe, never have, and yes I'd happily stay the night in a supposedly haunted castle. I don't believe in any kind of woo stuff or deities.

I’ve seen a few things. I saw my old dog around the house lots of times for ages after he died. He was a cross breed and had a distinctive coat and bushy tail. I would only ever see him out of the corner of my eye, he’d randomly walk across the kitchen or I’d see him sitting on the step and then I’d look up and he’d be gone. My mum saw his tail wagging in the garden as well. I saw my grandmother looking at me through the window just hours after she died, she look about twenty years younger, like she did when I was a child.

None of this was scary. I can’t explain any of it.

I can’t help but think, if they were real why has no one ever caught one on camera? I want to be open minded but I think most things can be explained

When we visited my great uncle in hospital when he was very ill he said 'My mammy was here last night' he said he felt her presence and then she sat on the bed with him. He was almost blind but he said he could see her clearly but when be reached out to touch her and she disappeared. He then turned to us and said 'it's time'. He died that afternoon.

Regardless of what he did or didn't actually see we were quite moved and reassured that he died peacefully believing his Mammy who had brought him to the world in would bring him out. He wasn't the type to believe in ghosts but I hope I leave this mortal coil believing the same thing.

@jaundicedoutlook snort 😂

It sounds crazy and the rational part of me says it can’t be so, but I have heard and seen things that I can’t explain. And they relate to something I found out about later but had no idea about at the time.

I don’t know if I really believe or not but I do think that there’s a lot we don’t know about the human brain and it’s ability to project and see patterns and familiar shapes.

I think ghost stories probably originate from a time when people knew less about brain power and were more easily led by religion and myth and legend.

(Because I feel like it’s more about our brains/beliefs/culture/primal instincts sensing danger in the dark etc and I find it so interesting.) I wouldn’t stay alone in a ‘haunted house’ because I couldn’t trick my brain to not be scared even though I don’t rationally believe in ‘ghosts’.

Can you tell us a bit more about what you've seen? @MidlandCatGirl

I’ve had a couple of experiences that are spooky/can’t explain but I still don’t believe in ‘ghosts’, not really. I love hearing about people’s own ghost stories though.

I find it odd someone wouldn't believe in ghosts but would believe time slips happen though as there's no evidence of that either.

I've never seen a ghost but have felt one. I stayed at a friends house once and the dread I felt in bed was unreal, I was terrified. I could sense it looking at me from near the window but couldn't see it. Never mentioned it to my friend until after she moved out and she'd never mentioned anything to me, but she felt it too. I've never felt anything like it before or since.

When you think about it properly, it is ridiculous. I used to believe as well, or not so much believe, but be a bit more open minded to it. Not so much now. I always think it’s curious how it’s always old buildings and Victorian clothes, untimely tragic deaths, and never just Peter from down the road who died last year of natural causes.

We all have decent phones now that take photos and videos very readily, yet not once has a ghost ever been convincingly captured. I guess I just learned the art of critical thought more as I got older 🤣