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.

I saw the shadow/silhouette of a man

Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango

I saw the silhouette of a green man when I was little too- in our pantry. I spooked everyone in the family- until sometime later somebody got down to my level and saw the splash of paint under a shelf. If nobody has thought to look I would probably believe to this day I had grown up in a house haunted by The Green Man.

I do have to chuckle when believers say triumphantly “well you can’t prove they don’t exist!” as if that somehow makes it equally likely that they do exist as if they don’t.

Google Bertrand Russell’s celestial teapot. We can’t prove it doesn’t exist. Is it now as likely to exist as not?

You can bleat on about videos (ffs really? 🙄🙄🙄) and that time you went all cold, and how you always find feathers after making the bed and it must be your guardian angel helping you make the bed....but the fact remains.

There has NEVER been any convincing evidence for anything paranormal or supernatural. Ever. In the history of anything.

Whenever a cause for “something strange” is found, it is ALWAYS natural. In order to attribute anything to the supernatural, you’d have to prove that the supernatural exists because things that don’t exist can’t cause other things. The supernatural hasn’t been proved therefore it can’t be used to explain anything.

Right - well I think everyone alive has had some sort of spooky experience. Some thing unexplained they have seen/heard, some sudden feeling they can't explain!

This is perfectly reasonable and is simply down to the way the brain works. What I think is different from person to person is how able they are to distinguish that all these weird feelings sensations and audio-visual inputs are being generated by their own brain - either directly or as a misinterpretation of actual sensory input.

Anyone who has seriously studied the operation of the brain should really be able to understand that nothing you see/hear/feel can be relied on to be an accurate representation of reality. They really should not be buying into their own ghost experiences....At the other end of the scale people with paranoid schizophrenia are going to seriously struggle to work out what is real and what is input from their brains no matter how rationally they try to approach it.

Everyone else is somewhere on that spectrum.

I don't think it should be embarrassing or odd to be a person who struggles to recognize the shortcomings of their own brain in this regard, I guess I just feel a little sorry for people who can't separate the fake news from the real - it must be really disturbing on occasion.

Yep, very odd indeed.

I actually find it quite depressing that educated adults can believe some of the things I've read on here. A deceased loved one summoning up a shooting star, FGS!

I saw the shadow/silhouette of a man

Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango

😂😂😂

If people seriously believe birds don't sing at concentration camps, based on something they were told or read, then it only goes to prove that people are very open to believing any old cobblers, especially if it confirms the rubbish they already believe

Quite right.

On eof the least accurate statements uttered by human kind in general is : "I know what I saw"

I mean one look at the attached photo should cure people of that particular dumb idea but I guess its harder for some people to grasp than others.

Unless you have seen one you aren't expected to understand

I've 'seen' one. I remember it clear as day, a white misty shape walking from the bathroom into my parents room. Scared the bejesus out of 8 year old me.

I don't believe in ghosts. There isn't one scrap of reliable evidence that proves their existence. I was probably dreaming or it was a child's over active imagination. I very much doubt there was anything supernatural about it.

I wouldn't call believers odd though. It's wishful thinking, the hope that there is something after you've gone. I can understand that. I lost my first daughter, it may have been a comfort to believe that she still existed in some form. Has to be nicer than our loved ones just being 'gone'. It's more rational sure but it's very final.

Your average ghost believer I have no issue with, where I take umbrage is with 'mediums' like Psychic Sally putting on twee little baby voices for grieving mothers while she pretends to talk to their dead children. That's what I take issue with.

"I know what I saw" is closely followed in the stupidly wrong stakes by "I was definitely awake", and "I definitely wasn't dreaming".

See also "It could not possibly have been a hallucination".

I mean how on earth do people think you can definitively tell whether you are asleep, dreaming or hallucinating? The whole fucking point with a proper hallucination is that you can't tell its not real!

Yes it’s funny how many supposed ghost sightings are at night or when the viewer is in bed but “definitely awake”

There’s also quite a lot of “in the corner of my eye/ peripheral vision” claims. Full on, front facing focused vision is unreliable enough!

Yes it’s funny how many supposed ghost sightings are at night or when the viewer is in bed but “definitely awake”zzzz

But i dont care if you believe me or not.Doesnt make a difference to me.
Laugh at me all you like,i couldnt give a shiny shite.

I quite like the thought of believing....had a few experiences many years ago....
May be imagination or whatever anyone thinks it could of been,but I was bloody scared....have always been interested in the paranormal....everyone has there own opinion or beliefs....

dustarr73

Eh? I’m pretty sure neither I nor M3lon, with whom I was agreeing, mentioned you at all, far less laughed at you. Not sure why you got so angry and defensive

@NearLifeExperience i know you didnt tag me,its just that post jumped out at me.

Im just pointing out,that i dont care.And its not angry.Just stating a fact.

I would love there to be ghosts....

I’ve seen one, but I was open to the belief of then existing before that. I think it’s pretty naive to just claim they definitely don’t exist.

I’d love it to be true too. Why wouldn’t anyone want it to be?

A woman I know is A Great Believer In That Sort Of Thing and really annoys me when we get on the subject.

Her: What, you don’t believe in any afterlife?

Me: No. No reason to think it’s true.

Her: But don’t you want to think your mum is still around somewhere?

Me: Lovely thought. Doesn’t make it true.

Her: oh but I really LOVED my dad! I like to think he’s still around.

Me: Yes I really loved my mum 🙄 still doesn’t make it true.

Etc etc.

It’s the implication that if you can’t delude yourself, you clearly didn’t love your dead relatives enough 🙄

Lifecraft I have had one or two odd experiences but mainly I do believe in ghosts as one guy I knew well who was the most straight (ie honest), pragmatic, objective guy I have ever known has experienced all sorts of things including his late father coming to visit every single Xmas Day.

@Hilolilo 😂😂😂😂

@Lifecraft sorry that should have been at you! That was funny.

YANBU, OP.
I can just about understand that someone could believe if they were credulous and lacked the rationality to consider the likely mundane explanation for their experience; but to believe because a friend (or other person) tells you about their experience or because of YouTube videos, or whatever is baffling.

Lifecraft I have had one or two odd experiences but mainly I do believe in ghosts as one guy I knew well who was the most straight (ie honest), pragmatic, objective guy I have ever known has experienced all sorts of things including his late father coming to visit every single Xmas Day.

Xmas day being a day when people's thoughts often turn to loved ones that are missing from the dinner table, a resulting sense of melancholy, coupled with the consumption of more than the usual amount of alcohol.

Agreed on the hearsay stuff, @TheYeaSayer. Especially when witness statements demonstrate how flawed and partial human observation and memory so often are.

The otherwise objective, pragmatic friend who claims to be visited by his dead father every Christmas could well be construing the appearance of feathers, robins, certain songs coming on the radio as ‘visits’.

This is quite a good book - ‘ghosts - a cultural history’ by Susan Owens - it shows how our depiction of ghosts has evolved, depending on our social surroundings eg when we started to believe ghosts wore shrouds round their necks/were white with sheets over their heads/sat on clouds/etc etc - well worth a read -

www.amazon.co.uk/Ghost-Cultural-History-Paperback/dp/1849766460/ref=asc_df_1849766460/?hvlocphy=1006506&linkCode=df0&hvptwo&psc=1&psc=1&hvnetw=g&hvadid=344360825970&hvpone&hvlocint&th=1&hvpos=1o1&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl&hvqmt&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&hvtargid=pla-681111334493&hvrand=11953613509466648610