To think adults believing in ghosts are odd

[nothingmore]

Hi,

Aibu to think grown adults believing in ghosts is a bit odd?

I have an acquaintance who is also going on about going on ghost hunts and 'investigations' at supposed haunted sights. Of course they always seem to come back from them and say the evenings where 'quiet'.

I feel it's a bit odd that a grown adult can believe in this sort of thing. They're obviously not hurting anyone with this hobby but I find it so strange they're certain that ghosts exist.

@CruellaFeinberg How do you know that you saw a ghost, or just hallucinated/imagined/mis-saw something?

How do you explain being sober and it being midday and seeing a woman standing reading a book near your bookshelf, a woman you had never seen before in your entire life, and find out by mere accident many months later that the woman you saw actually existed, and had passed away in your room? Remember, if you had never laid eyes on this woman before, how can you explain the vision of a woman who did exist, as a 'hallucination'? How would your mind know to hallucinate that image, THAT particular person, out of the blue like that, that you have never known even existed? Seriously, I don't think your brain can hallucinate someone that once did in fact exist, if they never saw them before.

@IvanaPee I think you’ll only ever see one if you believe in them

The fact that many who have seen ghosts, did not believe in them originally destroys your argument.

@Lifecraft Isn't is a bit odd that with millions, maybe tens or hundreds of millions of 24/7 CCTV cameras around the world, in shops, offices, houses etc, not a single one has picked up a ghost.

How would you know it hasn't been picked up? In fact there have been reports of CCTV cameras picking up ghosts.

@SperanzaWilde On the contrary. It is usually under-educated and ignorant people who arrogantly think they know everything but their smugness covers up a deep-seated willful ignorance. From experience, most people who say outright that ghosts don't exist, tend to be from lower socio-economic and non-tertiary educated. Their closed mind matches their lack of education. Those that believe or are open to believe tend to be, from what I've experienced, read and heard, to be university educated, often with a Masters (I know 2 with PHDs).

Forgot to add that with only one exception, those who don't don't believe, hadn't even finished high school, let alone gone on to university. Thus the lack of a development of critical thinking skills.

@Sagradafamiliar I little hard to have 'sleep paralysis' when it is THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, and you are wide awake, sober, and doing household chores.

I've been ghosted, and, yes, he still exists.

You don't know everything op so don't dismiss others views!

If you start with the premise that ghosts do not exist, then of course a whole manner of scenarios are going to be a more plausible explanation than ‘ghost.’ Like I’ve said previously I’m not 100% convinced that it is a ghost, I do remain sceptical. However I still don’t think it is my neighbour. I lived there for 25 years with the same neighbour and know that with the proximity of the houses if she or her DC approach their window I can see them clearly from the position I was in at the time I took the video.

I find it strange that so many people are 100% certain they don't exist.

This. The Universe is so strange and interesting, couldn't this just be another part of it.

If you look into quantum mechanics then ghosts really aren't that weird a phenomenon compared to some of the crazy shit in our Universe. Look up quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation, it's bonkers.

As in, should just be called natural not supernatural.

I remember that as a child, I was surprised that some adults take ghosts seriously. I had very black and white views on what was real and what wasn't, and I loved it when teachers asked "could this be a true story?". To me, ghosts were another storybook thing, along with fairies, mermaids, Santa, talking animals, giants. I was even sceptical about rainbows as a child, until I actually saw one. My brother loved the programme "Strange but True", which I thought was silly.

I have a more open mind now, and am prepared to accept they might be true.

I seen a ghost when I was about 10/11. Didn't find out they had died until 5 days later. I kept wondering why I was seeing them out the corner of my eye. Strange one for sure.

Also I certainly do not lack critical thinking skills. Anything but actually.

I used to be the biggest skeptic with regards to anything 'woo', my mum used to spout a lot of nonsense about being 'a seventh child of a seventh child' and other rubbish.

Then I moved into a new home with my husband and we experienced so much weird shit, in daylight, at night time, when we were in the house, when we were in the car say on the drive....

I have no idea if there's an afterlife, or what I think happens to people when they die, but I know that living there made me a lot more open minded.

It is, of course, impossible to prove a negative. There remains the possibility that the sun will rise in the West tomorrow morning, or water will not turn to ice when I put it in the freezer
However, there has never been a case of anything paranormal/supernatural/whatever that has survived any sort of proper investigation.

So as far as i an concerned, I will look to the East to see the sunrise, go to the freezer for ice cubes and continue to say that ghosts don’t exist.

It's because you've never seen a spirit. I think it's energy people leave behind. My fil never believed in spirits actually saw spirits walking though his hotel room a few years ago. It really shook him up. I have seen a spirit and another time heard one talking to me.

I would like to see a ghost. Nothing like a good ghost story as far as I'm concerned. But I never have.

“I would like to see a ghost. Nothing like a good ghost story as far as I'm concerned. But I never have.”

The thing is- you will have seen/felt loads of things that other people would claim as ghost sightings. So have I. We just, rightly, ascribed rational explanations to them.

I used to have a recurring night terror that a giant spider was above me and about to drop. I'd scream and jump out of bed terrified, convinced it was real. My husband would have to reassure me nothing was there.

I also had sleep paralysis just once and it was utterly petrifying. I was sharing a bed with a friend and an alien appeared to pass through the door. It looked like the typical 'grey' we see in so many films. Both incidents were at night and they felt so real, but it was just my imagination with a dose of popular culture imagery.

I once attended a spiritualist meeting when I was on a job shadowing a reporter. The leader would ask the room of elderly believers if anyone knew of a man who had passed away who wore a flat cap and britches (possibly called Frank or George). About half the old dears raised their hands!

Why are ghosts often monks or men in flat caps? Why is it never Shirley who worked on the counter at Kwik Save in the 70s?

My mother lives in a Victorian house and she and my aunt (who lived there for a while) both talk of an old woman who haunts it. I lived there for a year and saw nothing.

It happens in the day sara.
As far as I know, the man who creeps around my bedroom door then stands looming over my face in bed and the old woman who jumps onto my chest screaming at me, are not people I've ever met before, they were new to me but they're a result of a sleeping disorder. Same with the voices or other loud sounds I sometimes hear as clear as day. I'm not sure what GPs really have to do with it, anyone could have sleep disorders, mental illness, lack of common sense or be easily spooked regardless of education limit or profession.
I'm not saying I know anything as fact btw, but the encounters I've personally been told of can be easily explained or just wouldn't make me think 'ghost'.

Sometimes happens in the day*

@Cornettoninja

I don’t know why people are so hung up on visual evidence? I can’t see in ultraviolet but I’m pretty sure that is accepted in court as evidence.
That will be because you can photograph and recreate with the same results

(Ultraviolet photography is a photographic process of recording images by using light from the ultraviolet spectrum only. Images taken with ultraviolet light serve a number of scientific, medical or artistic purposes. Images may reveal deterioration of art works or structures not apparent under visible light. Wikipedia*

As humans we do try and make sense of the world, our experiences, what makes others and ourselves do what we do

And if we want to find a rational explanation we are able to ignore or history a huge amount of truths to do so - to be more comfortable with what we are wanting to believe/hearing/seeing/experiencing - the same can be said for the opposite

I would certainly feel far more comfortable with a rational explanation of what I experienced 30 odd years ago but I simply haven’t found one and neither could the people who knew the person I had seen/vision I had experienced

I know from work there are many things at times we experience that the rational mind can’t quite make sense of, particularly about human emotion and how we can project and transfer feelings much has been written about the subject yet it can’t be measured or explained in a rational way. This I believe is what ghost/visions are a form of emotions somehow imprinted into a space how I don’t get that

And I think some people are just more open to picking up these unexplainable experiences- I don’t think it’s a choice it might be how they are emotionally feeling at the time

@SaraNade

@CruellaFeinberg How do you know that you saw a ghost, or just hallucinated/imagined/mis-saw something?

How do you explain being sober and it being midday and seeing a woman standing reading a book near your bookshelf, a woman you had never seen before in your entire life, and find out by mere accident many months later that the woman you saw actually existed, and had passed away in your room? so you think you remember saw someone in your room, what did you do when you saw her? Did you talk to her? Remember, if you had never laid eyes on this woman before, how can you explain the vision of a woman who did exist, as a 'hallucination'? How would your mind know to hallucinate that image, THAT particular person, out of the blue like that, that you have never known even existed? Seriously, I don't think your brain can hallucinate someone that once did in fact exist, if they never saw them before.

I think that you could quite easily have a false memory, it is 100% possible, that after hearing about a woman that died, you could have imagined you saw someone. I'm not calling you crazy or a liar. My DM is convinced there are ghosts, I disagree

The fact that many who have seen ghosts, did not believe in them originally destroys your argument.

Oh dear

False memory is very common.

One of the most inaccurate things anyone can say is “I know what I saw” ......