To ask if anyone has had any paranormal encounters/experiences

[HowlingBitch]

Or do we all need another ? I just find it all fascinating.

You all do know that every single example you can come up with is like that photograph, don;t you?

seeker - Who is to say ghosts don't exist? Who, out there, has definitive proof that thousands, upon thousands of people for as long as records have been kept have been fooled by hoaxes, hallucinating etc?

No-one can prove they do exist, no-one can prove they don't.

Personally, I believe that there is something out there that we don't understand. Maybe we will in 100, 200, 500 years time. But we don't yet.

No seeker - for YOU all our examples are like the photo ie fraudulent and can be explained rationally. For those of us who have experienced things, we KNOW they really did happen.

Not all fraudulent, no, of course not. But there has never been a properly investigated bit of paranormal activity that haven't been explainable in rational terms. Hence Jmae Randi still having his million dollars in the bank!

But that's bollocks. 200 years ago the earth was flat - rational thinking at the time held it to be so. 100 years ago God made the entire earth in 7 days 1900 years ago. Dinosaurs and everything. Rational thinking said so. 500 years ago it was rational to assume that a woman with a black cat who could swim was a witch.

If, 50 years ago, someone had suggested a tiny computer that could be held in your hand, accept telephone calls, play music and video and connect with thousands of people across the world via the internet, would any rational person have accepted it?

Rational thinking changes dependant on the amount of knowledge on a subject and rersources available at the time.

Most people don't contact James Randi though, do they? Eg my ex MIL just thought, 'Fuck! I've got a ghost. People will think I am mental if I tell them so I'll just quietly move house.'

Weird stuff happens to people all the time. I'd say about 90% of people have a weird story. It just comes out in conversations like this one.

And I am getting far too passionate about this!

I'm not a believer myself (hope nobody is offended) but my grandmother did have a story which always sent shivers down my spine. She was a very devout Catholic and did not believe in spiritualism, ghosts etc until this happened, as she felt it was against her religious beliefs.

However, one evening (this is going back around 30 years) she was at home alone early evening (around 5pm) and suddenly felt very unwell. She said she suddenly, without warning, felt freezing cold, started to shake uncontrollably and had trouble breathing. It lasted for about 10 minutes and my grandmother was very close to calling for an ambulance, but she said it then passed as quickly as it had come on and she felt perfectly normal again.

She then decided to go and get her washing in from the line in her front garden, and while she was out there, she saw a friend (lets call her Anne) who lived locally walking past on the other side of the lane (they lived in rural Ireland). She said she did think it was odd that the friend was out at gone 5pm and walking seemingly in the opposite direction of her home, towards a very windy, leafy lane that leads down to the sea. She waved and called out to her friend, and her friend turned to her, smiled and waved but didn't stop or say hello. She saw her friend's face full on, and said it was definitely her and that she looked fine, well, happy.

At around 7pm my grandad came home from work and told my grandmother that he had just seen Anne's niece outside their home and that Anne had died at around 5pm, sleeping in her favourite chair in front of the TV (she had had a heart condition). There is no way the woman my grandmother saw could be Anne, but to the day she died she maintained that it was her.

People didn't think the world was flat, you know - that's a myth!

I just know that every single time these incidents are investigated they are explained away. You would have thought that just one might remain baffling even under the cold light of reason.

That's me well and truly spooked, thank God it's a lovely sunny Sunday evening or I'd be sitting here in shitty knickers from the fright.

I love reading these kinds of threads but i always end up terrified, dunno why I do it to myself.

I haven't any scary or weird tales to tell but I am enjoying all of yours. Keep em coming.

I don't believe James Randi's million dollars will ever be claimed. If someone experiences something, whether seeing a ghost or having an unbelievable accurate reading from a medium, it can never be proved.
Now I believe in lots of woo things, and God and angels and the like, but I don't need proof to believe. Sceptics needto prove something is real to believe, so unless something happens directly to them, they will never believe.
Who is it that said "Always keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out". Not particularly a quote I agree with, but I like it :o

I was never interested in this sort of stuff but my ds has been talking about 'not born land' - lots, increasingly and in vivid detail which freaks me out quite a bit (not that I show him).

I'm just hoping it's a thing some other kid at school (reception) as got the other kids going on about. But some of stuff he comes out with makes me really uncomfortable as he's talked about something that I know was from my mum's childhood and she was born half way across the world.

I used to think that I had a memory from when I was about 3 months old of being under a tree with my brother (we moved when I was 4 months old so I can place it). Then I found a photograph in my mum's photograpy album of me, at about 3 months old, with my brother, under a tree.

Yup seeker - that's spooky.

I don't analyse what ds says but I was feeling very uncomfortable when he mentioned this house (in other country that I'd visited in my teens -distant family and overseas) and he described it very well. I've never spoken to him about it (no need to it was a visit about 30 years ago) - but when he mentioned the music that plays by going around and around I did feel wierd.

I just smiled. He even described a smell (a smell I very much associate with this house).

No ghost though thank goodness.

I've never had any experiences and am fairly agnostic about the whole thing, but my grandfather had an interesting story about his uncle's arrival home on leave for the first time during WWI. At this point he was the only survivor of a group of friends from the area who had joined up together. The rest were killed at Gallipoli, but he survived. He was dropped a few miles from his house and had to find his way home alone in the dark (think country lanes in a very remote part of Ireland circa 1916, so no light and not many people). Apparently he used to swear blind that he was totally lost when a light appeared and guided him home. If I remember the story correctly the light looked like it was being held by someone, but no person was visible. I have no idea if this true or not, but I've always liked the story. As a Christian I do think that there are good and bad entities out there and that their existence explains experiences like that, but I also believe that God is in control so I don't worry much about it.

I've had a few unexplained experiences over the years. Nothing truly frightening, and some with a rationale explanation underlying them. For those that don't:

On holiday in france many years ago, stayed in an ancient gite. DD was still in a cot, and a fidgety toddler at night - threw off all bed clothes etc, twisted herself all around the place - we never had a full night sleep as she'd wake up cold. We both woke in the morning and had a panic as neither had gone to her in the night, both rushed in to her room, and found her snug, warm and still asleep tucked into her cot, bedclothes tucked firmly under the mattress - NOT how we left her (she had a quilt cover which I would lie over her). No-one else was with us, no way anyone else could have got into the house.

Nursing home: regularly walked through cold patches, heard doors closing/opening and noises when no-one could be there. Smells especially; rose, lavender in empty still rooms.

Re big cat: near Offa's Dyke, got lost and ended up on some narrow little track with grass growing down the middle, hedges either side. Came around a bend, saw this enormous cat in the middle of the road head down over something - it was huge, filled the road. As we saw it, so it moved away into the hedge, had a v thick, blunt ended tail, like it'd been cut with a knife. Shame we didn't have a camera, could have made a lot of money!!

Quiet you! :o

Awww megagusset you had a nana-style-tucking-in ghost! I used to love sleeping over at my nans because she tucked you in all snug and folded up really must learn how to do that to ds....

I don't have any proper ghosty stuff, but I've often seen things move. Pens, pieces of paper etc., I've seen them slide along a few cms and then stop. It's happened everywhere I've lived.

I don't believe in ghosts, I think we just cease to exist when we die. But I have had a weird experience to tell....

When DS was 3 weeks old he developed severe sepsis (blood poisoning). During the day before he got really sick and was admitted to hospital he was very unsettled, crying frantically for long periods and hardly feeding. After a fretful morning feed it took me the best part of an hour to settle him to sleep, when he had finally fallen asleep I put him in his moses basket which was next to a large sash window. The window was open because it was hot that day. I decided to close the window because I didn't want him sleeping in a moses basket on a stand next to a wide open window. I thought about locking the window but decided against it. The lock was a simple screw lock that went through both wooden window frames. It was old and had a thread that kept slipping, if you wanted to lock it you had to spend about 5 minutes continuously screwing in the lock and pushing hard, and even then it was half sticking out.... So I decided not to lock it because the effort and noise would probably wake DS up.

Anyway, about half an hour later I went in to check on DS, the room had gotten stuffy so I decided to open the sash a few centimetres. I tugged on the window and it wouldn't budge. I looked up and saw that the window had been locked, not only that the lock had been screwed in so far I needed a pair of pliers to unlock it. Some one had to have locked it, it can't have happened on its own, but I am certain it wasn't me and there was no one else in the house! It really freaked me out!

That night DS was rushed into hospital when it became clear that he was very poorly. In the early hours of the following morning, I was asleep and my mum was sat sat next to DS's cot in intensive care. She looked up and briefly saw her partner, who had died in a car accident a year before, stood next to the hospital cot looking down at DS. But DS is named in her partner's honour and her grief was still very raw at the point, which could explain why her DP was on her mind and she saw him there. DS made a full recovery after a week in intensive care, I'm still puzzled by the window incident, perhaps mum's DP was looking out for DS!

When i was around 3 i used to come downstairs and complain about the lady tickling my feet in bed. This went on for months so eventually dm asked what the lady looked like. I told her she had funny feet so dm asked what i meant. I then stood up and crossed my legs so that it looked like my right foot was on the left and vice versa. Well the old lady that lived in the house when my mum was a teen had some kind of deformity that made her feet look like that. I wouldn't have known this as she died about 6 years before i was born

Same house... my uncle and his gf were staying with us for a while in the spare room downstairs. They were babysitting me one night and at around midnight heard the front door open and close, then someone walking upstairs (stairs were uncarpeted). They thought it was dm but after 5 minutes started wondering why she hadn't said hello. My uncle then went into the hallway and as he got to the bottom of the stairs all he could hear was footsteps going up and down the stairs and people talking. Dm arrived home later to my uncle stood at the front door with a bag packed. he left that night and slept in his car even now he wont go into the house as it creeps him out so much. He is a big ex soldier so not one to be taken with a flight of fancy.
my aunt who has stayed has experienced her quilt being pulled of her and someone pinching her bum.
Dm still occasionally hears things but it doesnt bother her, myself on the other hand I don't like the house and have told her not to bother leaving it to me in her will.

True story.
About ten years ago I had a heavy night on the wine, and went to bed feeling very ill. I felt I was dying and then my vision went and I saw a long dark tunnel , with a bright light and an angel at the end. I met God and he offered to send me back as I was a good person, so I chose to come back as a chicken.
I fought off the cats, roosters and foxes for three days before I got serious pains in my belly. Then I laid six beautiful eggs.

It was the smell that woke me up. Sh1tting the bed aint much fun after two bottles of merlot and a kebab

On the labour ward where I work one of the rooms has a reputation. I've been in it and seen a birthing ball move by itself, round and round in circles. The woman and her h saw it too.
Another midwife saw the heavy ctg machine move on its own, moved some distance. Again the woman also saw it.

OldMac I am crying!