People who believe in ghosts

That’s the thing isn’t it - easy to be a sceptic until suddenly it’s not x

There is something in my house that I can’t explain. The house is L shaped and used to be a stables for a big house with a coachman’s apartment above. One half of the L is double storey with a spiral staircase going to the upstairs of the other bit of the L. There are double doors at top of the stairs. Every morning those doors are open even though there’s no draught and the catch is firm. The doors never open by themselves during the day. Also I’ve had 2 sets of visitors who thought they heard horses neighing in the night even though there are no horses anywhere near. I had not told them the history of the house.

I absolutely agree where people talk about energy.
I believe things like trees, stone etc all take on board imprints of energy of previous people's lives, emotions etc. You rarely hear of hauntings at happy places or where there weren't many people...

There’s not a trace of doubt in my mind …

I experienced numerous difficult to explain things over a couple of years in my pre-teen years (well, everyone that lived in the house, both human and animal did).

I would quite like to be a complete non-believing sceptic but it’s made it impossible. I could not even consider watching anything like Paranormal activity, I’d never be able to be alone again.

My mum lived in a house like that when she was dating my dad. Neighbours, tradesmen etc. She found that multiple exorcisms had been commissioned on the house through the 20th century in local parish records.

So something was happening in that house that gave numerous independent witnesses the heebies.

My dad has a physics degree, and not woo at all. He's considered all sorts of angles on it related to quantum entanglement. He just believes that there's science we don't know yet - which is obviously true, or we'd stop trying to discover things.

I believe in ghosts and have had a few experiences. I also think that one day there will be a scientific explanation for paranormal events.

I find it irritating that some people are so sure believers are nut jobs. Once upon a time the accepted view was that rainbows were a message from god and that earth was the centre of the universe. People were punished horribly for thinking otherwise. Thankfully there were enough open minded people to persevere and our knowledge grew. Some people are arrogant enough to believe that we know it all now. I think that’s ridiculous.

I lived in a house where there was a recurrent 'sighting'.

Multiple people saw it in the same place. Family members, visitors, even completely unrelated people - tradespeople for example said they had seen it with no prior knowledge of the situation.

None of us were scared or told the story - we were just used to it - so no attention seeking there at all. It didn't matter to us if we believed or not as we all knew what we'd seen.

We eventually moved house when we were downsizing. A year or so later I met the woman who had lived in the house before us and told her we'd moved on. She said, 'Well at least you won't have to put up with - in the dining room any more'.

Whether ghosts/whatever are real or whatever I don't really know or care, but it was all bloody hard to explain.

I actually think ghosts are a residual energy, like an imprint of some kind but not something that could be communicated with.

people have reported seeing Catherine Howard running down the long gallery at Hampton Court, and I believe they have seen her. But she’s not actually there, it’s just the energy that remains

This is why I absolutely love the Uncanny crew. Kiaran always acknowledges that an experience can be frightening even if there's a rational explanation for it. He's never contemptuous of fright. That's how I try to be. I look for rational explanations to help reduce the fear not mock someone for it.

Your choice of 'a' reality is very interesting.

Bereavement and life events can shift a person's view of reality.

My husband and I have completely different views on ghosts and the paranormal—I’m a believer, he isn't. But as adults, we give each other room to hold our own beliefs. That's why it's so frustrating when sceptics treat believers with condescension. Mocking someone just because they view the world differently isn't clever; it's just plain disrespectful.

It’s always the die hard non believers who believe their beliefs are irrevocably the right ones.

it’s always atheists who insist that people who aren’t atheists must be a bit dim.

no one can possibly know for certain

I 'believe in' ghosts because I've seen one so it would be foolish not to believe in what I had seen. I also had another uncanny experience that may or may not have been a ghost, but it still both disturbs me and brings me great joy. There are more things in heaven and earth etc. We keep making discoveries about the physical world that confound us, and change our perspective. Quantum Physics is unbelievably weird. What makes us think we know all there is to know?

I believe. 20 odd years ago I was in bed and it was dark. They was a darkish shape on the bed than I was aware of but I assumed it was the position my husband was sleeping in. I was in between being asleep and awake. A few hours later I woke up and realised my husband was lying flat so it was something else. It then started to move towards me and I screamed and it disappeared. It terrified me and I was shaken. Only my husband knew and didn’t believe me. About a week later our vicar turned up. Used to come around a lot as we were heavily uninvolved in the church. I wasn’t home but my husband was. My husband said nothing but the vicar independently said that he could feel a ‘bad presence’ in the house. When my husband told me I freaked out. The vicar and a few others came over to pray and there’s been nothing since. I was not a believer but know what I saw.

And is the opposite true? You're just insistant on NOT beliveing? It's two sides of the same coin.

Is that all you've got? Pretty thin.

Please tell!

It was also covered by Smashmouth and featured in the movie Shrek, so it’s pretty well known 😊

I have the same opinion of people who believe in ghosts as I do of those who believe in astrology or superstitions or the concept of heaven.

Whereas I hate it when you tell someone what happened and they try to debunk it, with one explanation after another. All of which you have already considered yourself because you're not stupid and found just don't make sense.

But when you give your detailed reasons why the first explanation they chuck out doesn't work, or the next, instead of becoming thoughtful and curious they get frustrated. In one case, someone yelled "you just want to believe".

I'm very much on the fence about whether or not I believe in ghosts.

I certainly think that there are many things in this world that we simply can't explain, but for me seeing and experiencing would equate more to believing. So "proof", if that makes any sense.

I've not so far seen or experienced anything paranormal but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist/happen. I have occasionally been places with a less than welcoming vibe about them though, and there are certain places I wouldn't want to be left alone (at night especially) for some reason which isn't always clear.

My DD (27 now) works as a housekeeper in a local hotel which is a very old building and was a 14th century former coaching inn. She says she has sometimes heard sounds like footsteps approaching the door or children running along the corridor shrieking only to look out of the room she is cleaning to find nothing and nobody there. She is also sure she felt someone grab her clothes once or twice, but again, nothing and nobody was there. Others on her team have experienced these phenomena too and some even say hello to their unseen guests.

I've not experienced ghosts myself, but never say never. I live in a very historic small town in Essex which apparently has a fair number of them running about in some parts if various accounts are to be believed.

I've a had a few experiences I couldn't explain logically but a lot of the desire in people generally to believe in ghosts is ridiculous. I saw a pic on facebook yesterday that someone had posted as "proof" they'd accidentally photographed a ghost at a tourist attraction. I assumed most of the hundreds of comments would be sceptical, but no, even in an era when all of us have digital photo manipulation at our fingertips, most of the comments were declaring it was "definitely 100% a ghost". Even when someone posted another photo from the public domain that had clearly been superimposed onto the pic of the OP's family member, people insisted it was the second photo that was "AI" and the first photo was for real. I guess the desire to believe in ghosts is just very, very strong.

When my DH was dying of bowel cancer he found comfort in things like robins and white feathers etc Maybe there's nothing in it, maybe there is, I don't know, but it's shitty to scoff at people taking comfort in whatever they can when they are facing death and they know it's coming, especially if they are relatively young like my DH (46). Shitty to scoff at people who are grieving who find comfort in those things also. There's a huge amount of emotional pain and fear lurking behind the decision to believe in those things, so if it helps and if it gives comfort just leave them be, it hurts no-one. My DH believed there was something more after death, and he was brave and clever and intuitive. I believe he was right.