Do you believe in ghosts/paranormal?

[Glitterandpolkadots]

I am curious to know if people do believe in ghosts/paranormal? If you do, what made you believe in it?

I think I do. Have had odd things happen. Once went to a campsite up by Blackpool, very odd atmosphere as soon as we arrived, we all just felt flat. I couldn't sleep one night due to snoring and I saw a bright white light/figure outside the tent and a childlike voice saying it hurts over and over again. Just couldn't wait to leave.

It all depends what is meant by 'ghosts', OP ?

I mean i don't feel strongly enough to argue very hard, but ''no one has proved it'' doesn't feel like a good enough reason to dismiss the whole thing. Equally no one has disproved it. What ever IT is.

Eh? You cling to a belief that paranormal phenomena are real because nobody has ever proved a negative? Which is impossible, by the way.

Nevertheless, the fact that nobody has ever proved that ghosts or orbs or whatever are real is no impediment to your faith that they are genuine.

@Iamthewombat - nope but nice try! the shelves were against the wall so no possibility to go behind them and there was one way in and out of the room. Would have been impossible for someone else to be in there and not be seen

I’ve never experienced anything myself, but I know of very level headed, non woo people who have.

I also know of a dog that refused absolutely, for no apparent reason, to enter part of an old property relatives had moved into. A friend of theirs (said to have ‘the gift’ but didn’t charge) said that was because someone who should have moved on, was lingering there.

She asked him to leave, and evidently he did, because after that the dog had no problem with that part of the house.
I dare say someone will now tell me that the dog must have imagined it.

Yes I wholeheartedly do. I mean I could try not too but I simply would still believe.

I don’t think it’s a choice. I believe in a higher power, but what that encompasses I do not know, none of us do.

I think we are naive to believe that we have discovered everything scientifically. I don't believe in ghosts as in a specific person haunting a place. But a build up of energy in a certain place, yes.

I don't believe, but I do love ghost stories and spooky, gothic things of that nature.

What I don’t understand is if I were a ghost I would March up to 10 Downing Street call a press conference and tell the world about it. Not throw boxes of crisps about.

Yes - I find the thought of an afterlife comforting

@Tiredmum100 the incident with me and DH?

Broad daylight, cold and bright. Basically me and DH both saw 2 people who were there walking towards us and the next second they were gone. Massive flat empty field. With nothing bigger or taller than a blade of grass to hide behind for hundreds of meters in all directions. And no big holes!

I can still remember them. Both of them in navy blue waterproofs, holding hands, strolling towards us about 10 meters away. Woman about 6'' shorter than the man.

I like to think no, it’s a load of old flannel, of course there’s no such thing.

I had a very odd experience a few years ago when out walking my dog, even my normally very laid back, calm, friendly, not scared of anything dog was freaked out by it.

I told my DH and some friends about it and of course, they told me that there’s a logical explanation, a trick of the light, someone was hiding somewhere, my imagination playing games, didn’t have my glasses on, had I been on the wine, etc, and I kind of laughed along and brushed it off. But it did happen, my dog also reacted to it. I remember it vividly and I’ve been past the same spot several times since and there’s no way someone could have been hiding

Yes.

I grew up in a haunted house.

My sister is a psychic.

I watch Paranormal: Caught on Camera.

[quote FrenchMustard]@Iamthewombat - nope but nice try! the shelves were against the wall so no possibility to go behind them and there was one way in and out of the room. Would have been impossible for someone else to be in there and not be seen[/quote]
It gets really tedious having to do this, doesn't it?

I got fed up with telling my stories, only to have people explain to me patiently what actually had happened, with the implication that I am too stupid to have thought of that myself. Then you have to explain to them why their explanation is invalid, and then they come up with an equally impossible one and you have to explain to them again that, no, that couldn't be it either.....

Yes, it must be tedious trying to defend a load of old bobbins that has never been scientifically proved in thousands of years.

Are you seriously suggesting that a teenage Saturday girl warned by her new colleagues that the basement was haunted by ‘Fred’ wasn’t, you know, a little bit suggestible? Or easily spooked? And somebody could easily have balanced a box of crisps such that it fell when somebody went into the basement.

But go on believing the least likely explanation if it makes you feel better (I see that you are invested in ghosts being real, since you claim to have grown up in a haunted house and have a psychic sister).

I got fed up with telling my stories, only to have people explain to me patiently what actually had happened, with the implication that I am too stupid to have thought of that myself. Then you have to explain to them why their explanation is invalid, and then they come up with an equally impossible one and you have to explain to them again that, no, that couldn't be it either....

It sounds like there were perfectly plausible explanations but you chose to believe the more exciting supernatural one.

@Iamthewombat

Yes, it must be tedious trying to defend a load of old bobbins that has never been scientifically proved in thousands of years.

Are you seriously suggesting that a teenage Saturday girl warned by her new colleagues that the basement was haunted by ‘Fred’ wasn’t, you know, a little bit suggestible? Or easily spooked? And somebody could easily have balanced a box of crisps such that it fell when somebody went into the basement.

But go on believing the least likely explanation if it makes you feel better (I see that you are invested in ghosts being real, since you claim to have grown up in a haunted house and have a psychic sister).

But, in my case, there were no explanations that you could come up with for the things that used to happen there that would hold water.

Poltergeists (not the same as ghosts, I know) are accepted as a real phenomenon in the scientific community, even if that phenomenon cannot yet be explained.

And there are researchers investigating psi (again, not the same phenomenon as ghosts) who are designing very elegant studies that offer proof that precognition (for example) exists and can be measured.

Extraordinary Knowing by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer has a good bibliography of these studies.

@Rosehugger

I got fed up with telling my stories, only to have people explain to me patiently what actually had happened, with the implication that I am too stupid to have thought of that myself. Then you have to explain to them why their explanation is invalid, and then they come up with an equally impossible one and you have to explain to them again that, no, that couldn't be it either....

It sounds like there were perfectly plausible explanations but you chose to believe the more exciting supernatural one.

No. No-one could ever come up with a plausible explanation for several of the events that happened there, and it was painful watching people try.

I'm not sure (like most). I too grew up in a "haunted" house, it had actually been exorcised by the previous owner (a very sensible and eminent solicitor), but clearly hadn't worked. Numerous guests and visitors over the years had unexplained experiences (including DH who doesn't believe in this stuff but maintains to this day what he saw, and my WW2 fighting grandad, who also wasn't easily spooked). However, it was a very old, 16th centaury house, so there could just as easily be environmental factors at play. My parents eventually moved and I stopped visiting, I've never experienced anything unusual again. It makes for interesting dinner party conversation at least

@NarcissasMumintheDoghouse yep, I don't know what it is about things like this that encourage people to be completely patronising twats to others.

Just let people believe what they want to believe, not doing any harm is it

I'm fascinated by it all, I'm not sure what is there.

I have a had few paranormal experiences, I've also had messages come through dreams. One particularly bizarre one was when I was staying with my first ever boyfriend at his house and had a dream that he had a sister, similar age to him, who was beautiful and friendly. I remember her smile she really was beautiful, this dream occurred about 15 years ago now. I woke up confused because he didn't have a sister, so I said to him, "I had a really weird dream, you had a sister" and his face drained of colour and he asked me to repeat what I'd just said and what I'd dreamt, he then told me he had a sister who was a year older than him but she had died in infancy. Neither he nor his family spoke about her. He hadn't told me previously, he didn't know where I'd got it from, it was obviously shocking and very painful for him to hear.

I was also grieving my Granny who had been mourning her husband and son in life, by the end she had lost the will to live and was desperate for the release of death, it was quite painful for us left behind. One night close to the funeral she came to me in a dream and firmly said, "stop calling me back, I don't want to be here. This is the last time i'm coming". I told my Mum who was shocked because that is exactly the thing she would have said. She was true to her word too, she has never come back to visit.

I could go on but ultimately these experiences still haven't proved the existence of life after death for me. I want to believe but I'm still on the fence.

Nah. Oddly enough, I saw a figure in the same spot a few times when I first moved into my current house. But, I was exhausted, had constant migraine, was going through a grieving process from leaving my old house and very emotional so it was easily explained in my opinion.

No.

Plenty of 'unexplained' events and phenomenon to go around, but absolutely nothing that suggests any of it is down to 'ghosts', the 'paranormal', or any other such Dark Ages backward nonsense.

Poltergeists (not the same as ghosts, I know) are accepted as a real phenomenon in the scientific community

Do you have a link for this?

I believe people have strange experiences but that is not the same thing as thinking the souls of the dead have come back to communicate with us.

Lots of supernatural-seeming phenomena have scientific explanations. Just because some don't yet, it doesn't mean they won't one day. Doesn't mean it's a 'ghost'.

That said, DD told me last night that she heard someone kissing her when she was trying to go to sleep and a part of me thinks it's my mum (who died last year).