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Original poster

If you don't believe in anything "woo"......

37 replies

GameOfJones · 14/06/2024 21:39

What do you tell yourself when something weird happens?

I think I need talking down as I categorically do not believe in anything supernatural and genuinely think the brain is an amazing thing that we don't fully understand. So I think most "paranormal" events are psychological.

But yesterday, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and I genuinely felt like someone brushed past behind me. So much so that I turned round as I wondered whether the door had blown open or something. It hadn't.

Just now, I was loading the dishwasher and thought I could hear one of the DC humming a tune upstairs. Thought that would be weird as they should be asleep so poked my head round the door and absolute silence. Both DC fast asleep.

I'm the only adult in the house, DH is away with work so please do talk some sense into me before I freak myself out!

OP posts:
Strugglingtodomybest · 15/06/2024 07:10

HammockFullOfRats · 15/06/2024 02:14

I think of it like this:

We don't really experience the world directly. It's more like we experience a representation of the world that we create inside our heads in real time, using a combination of sensory input, existing knowledge, useful shortcuts, and guesses, to produce a model that's manageable, useful and meaningful.

People pull out of side roads, and then a car comes "out of nowhere" and hits them. It's possible that they looked at the road, and in the model of the world their brain created, the road was empty. The car that hit them truly didn't exist in the version of the world they were experiencing when they decided to drive forward.

There's a lot of ways for the representation of the world that our brain creates, the one we consciously experience, to be different from the actual objective reality. So when something like your examples happens to me, I tend to assume that it was probably one of those times when my brain tried too hard to create meaning, or didn't include some important detail in the model, or something like that.

I agree with this. I've had it quite a few times when I've been doing something very routine, which I would normally do with DH but he's not been there for whatever reason, and my brain has "filled him in" for a split second before I remember that he's not there.

ATribeCalledQuestion · 15/06/2024 08:10

I once had a scary woo moment where I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and couldn't find the tea bags, I looked in all the cupboards. Then I turned round and they were on the counter, with a mug and a teabag in it. Right clearly in the middle of the counter. Freaked me right out. I called DH all spooked, he said he'd left it like that for me before he went to work. I'd genuinely not seen them on the counter, I'd have put money on the counters being clear and empty when I walked into the kitchen.

Our brains are weird!

Original poster
GameOfJones · 15/06/2024 08:45

Achdinnae · 14/06/2024 23:05

Minor processing glitches. Honest. Fascinating stuff.

We are creatures of habit and don't consciously process input from our senses. It's interesting both the things you experienced happened when you were engaged in highly routine procedures you perform on auto-pilot,probably when you were tired.

Phantom Sensation - this really is a thing. There's been research in this field due to the misery caused to amputees who suffer pain in missing limbs. The conclusion to date is that we know very little about how our sense of touch operates. It turns out that we are not infallible in identifying touch and where it is occurring. We may be more likely to misidentify if we are out of routine. You may have been leaning at a slightly different angle or holding your arm at a different angle. This caused a pressure on your back that you identified as being unusual. Our brain likes to identify things and come to the explanation that someone brushed past us.

Identifying noise - we tend to be bad at this. It's possible there was some slight noise that had a note,tone,or frequency,your brain associated with your child humming. Alternatively it was uncannily quiet,at which point we do sometimes "hear " silence as a sort of buzzing/humming. Is DH usually in another room watching TV while you load the dishwasher or are the children usually there?

Hope this helps.

Thank you to everyone. I found your posts really comforting, this one in particular.

It is fascinating really, both the brain and coincidence. I decided to call DH last night after I posted this as I was feeling a bit rattled but joked to him over the phone "I'm either crazy or this house is haunted." At that exact moment the TV turned itself off. I know it was the auto switch off thing that happens when it has been on a while but the timing really was impeccable! 🤣

At that point I decided to go to bed.

OP posts:

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Spooky & paranormal
Original poster
GameOfJones · 15/06/2024 08:47

And yes, DH would normally be around when I was loading the dishwasher in another room. I didn't feel at all uneasy about him being away, I'm normally quite a sensible person..... honest! It was just both weird things happening on consecutive days and I don't think I've ever had a glitch before that felt so real.

OP posts:
dudsville · 15/06/2024 08:51

You mention how amazing the brain is, and it is. It can recreate memories verbatim and also make up entirely new scenarios. In psychology it is said that it isn't the event itself but the meaning we make of it that causes suffering. So your two events, if the meaning you made was along the lines you went down then it's anxiety provoking, discomforting. But if the meaning you made of it was instead "amazing brain!", then you can shrug and move on.

mumda · 15/06/2024 14:52

TC Lethbridge wrote about some 'woo' - seeing people when they couldn't be where he saw them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._C._Lethbridge
His last two books The Essential T.C. Lethbridge and The Power of the Pendulum make interesting reading.

His beautiful Branscombe house is for sale where he conducted some interesting dowsing experiments.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149012765#/?channel=RES_BUY

In one of his books he writes about seeing the lady who lives down the hill at Hole Mill but she wasn't really there...
That is also for sale.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/146793920#/?channel=RES_BUY

Am I a stalker of dead people? Maybe.
I found his books fascinating and I would love to visit his house (Or the Mill before it was done up tbh).

Check out this 6 bedroom detached house for sale on Rightmove

6 bedroom detached house for sale in Branscombe, Seaton, Devon, EX12 for £1,500,000. Marketed by Knight Frank, Exeter

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149012765#/?channel=RES_BUY

IncompleteSenten · 15/06/2024 14:57

It's the brain getting signals mixed up. We feel, see, hear etc because signals are sent to our brain and our brain decodes these signals. It's inevitable that from time to time our brain will misfire in some way.

I regularly see and hear things that aren't there. My brain fucks shit up.

IncompleteSenten · 15/06/2024 14:59

ATribeCalledQuestion · 15/06/2024 08:10

I once had a scary woo moment where I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and couldn't find the tea bags, I looked in all the cupboards. Then I turned round and they were on the counter, with a mug and a teabag in it. Right clearly in the middle of the counter. Freaked me right out. I called DH all spooked, he said he'd left it like that for me before he went to work. I'd genuinely not seen them on the counter, I'd have put money on the counters being clear and empty when I walked into the kitchen.

Our brains are weird!

That is so common. Happens to me loads.
Seeing what you expect to see. Same for hearing and reading. That's why we have proof readers because your brain sees what you intended to write, not what you actually wrote.

CharlotteLightandDark · 15/06/2024 15:24

mumda I’ve been reading a Colin Wilson book that talks a lot about Lethbridge, it is fascinating. Also clocked that the house for sale, would love to go and have a nosey!

wwyd2021medicine · 15/06/2024 16:02

I once heard sex noises coming from the spare room. I went in presuming I had left a radio on and there wasn't actually a radio in there. It was very odd.

Bobbotgegrinch · 15/06/2024 17:56

I spent nearly a year being haunted. I'd be at home, and I'd catch a glimpse of a figure out of the corner of my eye, and jump out of my skin. They'd never be there when I looked properly. They particularly enjoyed standing at the top of the bottom of the stairs.

Unsurprisingly, all this was going on during a spectacularly stressful period of my life. I was in a job I loathed, my Mum was slowly dying, and my house needed a new roof which I really couldn't afford. I wasn't getting enough sleep, and my brain decided the best course of action was fucking with me.

Oddly enough, once the stress went, the figure did too. The brain is a computer, and like a computer it is absolutely full of bugs. It tries to interpret the inputs it gets as best it can, but it doesn't get it right all the time. Seeing faces in clouds, phantom sensations, deja vu, they're all examples of your brain interpreting the inputs badly.

HammockFullOfRats · 15/06/2024 19:00

like a computer it is absolutely full of bugs

In my case literally. At some point into the third night without sleep, without fail I'll start seeing spiders everywhere. Almost none of them are real. (I do allow spiders to take up lodgings with me in general, though, so a few of them are actual spiders). Luckily I don't mind spiders.

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