Do you believe in 'ghosts'?

[Bump2021]

I'm not a woo person by nature, I'm more of a sceptic but there has been two or three occasions where I've encountered something unexplainable.

Do you believe in the paranormal?

YANBU - yes (please explain why)
YABU - no, it's a load of bollocks

The ghosts of the Underground is really good.Its just ordinary people retelling their experiences.

The one where the man talks to the ghost is really good.I would have definately asked him more questions.

@MariaAngustias

People see ghosts - whether these 'ghosts' are something external to that person's brain or summoned up inside their brain who knows. I know 2 people I am very close to who have seen 'ghosts' and I know for sure they are not lying and they did indeed 'see' a ghost. I have read that this may be due to some sort of electrical brain activity and that people who see things are more prone to temporal lobe epilepsy. Also more common at certain times and if that person is very sleep deprived. Interesting

Yes very interesting. I do believe that people see/hear things but believe they are more likely to be brain tricks than anything else.

@LunaNorth

I’ve just watched the last episode, on reincarnation.

It’s blown my mind.

Yes, very powerful stuff.

I think I am more persuaded by the reincarnation stories than anything else. It’s just so common for small children to come out with this stuff. You hear it all the time. There have been some amazing threads about it on here, actually.

I believe in reincarnation.

To me, it's all part of the same picture.

We (our soul, spirit, energy) are born into a particular life. When we die, our soul (or whatever) returns and eventually we come back again.

Often we have memories of our previous lives which we remember as children but forget as we become more settled in the new life/more stable.

Ghosts are our soul (or whatever) that haven't 'returned' properly for whatever reason. Perhaps those in denial that they've died or that are clinging on to their old life for whatever reason. Eventually all souls do return which is why ghosts don't stick around forever (see the Ghosts on the Underground for one that stopped being seen in 1972 for example).

The bits I'm not yet clear on are exactly where we return to...and what our purpose here is.

Some believe we are here as part of spiritual development...that our souls come to this place because they are faced with many challenges here and only once we have reached a certain level of spiritual development do we stop coming back.

It also means that people here (their souls) are all at different levels of spiritual maturity.

Some would say that if you want to know what your soul is, that it's the bit of 'you' that observes your inner voice.

So your inner voice is more like your ego...the bit of you that hears it chattering on and which can objectively consider your own inner voice and whether what it's saying is actually right or wrong is your soul.

And I used to be very anti-anything not scientifically proven, an atheist, non-spiritual.

I suppose I'm now agnostic. I believe there is something but not quite anything that any of the organised religions believe. I believe that all religions - both ancient and modern, Eastern and Western are all trying to describe the same thing but have been bastardised to various extents by the humans involved in recording them.

I realise this is very woo, but that's what I believe currently.

I also believe that there are things we haven't scientifically proven yet - only perhaps glimpsed threads via quantum physics and perhaps in the future we will start to understand more.

This has happened in the case of many things that were once scorned and that pre-date science - like meditation. Which is now proven via MRI scans in studies at Harvard to alter the physical structure of the brain but before that was disregarded as 'spiritual nonsense'

Also...in terms of people talking about what is, and isn't scientifically possible.

Our understanding of this shifts all the time.

It's possible that we (or some of us) can more easily sense things that are not sensed by others.

I'm not saying this is linked to ghosts but as an example we now believe that some of us can sense magnetic fields, albeit subconsciously.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/can-humans-sense-the-magnetic-field--65611/amp

Just remembered another odd instance.

I was somewhere around 2, in my cot bed at home. My mum had left the nightlight on, but came up to go to bed herself and found it switched off. She checked the bulb, but it was fine. In the morning apparently I told her that 'Billie' had been to visit and turned it off.

Billie was my great-grandmother (called Lily but I couldn't pronounce it). In life she was obsessive about turning lights off. She'd died a couple of weeks before this happened, which at that age I had no grasp of. I have a very clear vision of being in my cot and her sitting at the other side of the room in a chair, but don't know if that's a 'real' memory or something I've conjured up since.

A decade or so later my Mum went to a medium who was confused because she thought a lady was trying to get a message through, but the only name she was getting was 'Billie' so maybe it was actually a Man. Nobody outside of our immediate family could have known that I called her that.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

Talking of Roman soldiers, *@1dayatatime*, a few years ago when a dd and I were spending a weekend in York, we visited what (IIRC) is the very old Treasurer’s (?) House. There was an old B&W film of a chap who’d long since died, speaking about the time he was working in the cellar as a young electrician or plumber, forget the details. I think it was in the 50s.

He said how he’d heard what he thought was a trumpet, assumed it came from above, paid no attention until Roman soldiers started coming through a wall. He was petrified, flattened himself against the wall, but they took no notice, just marched on silently - and they were visible only from the knees up. He said they looked weary and dishevelled. There were a lot of them, eventually all disappearing through another wall.

He was questioned by historians at the time as to their dress, helmets, etc. And was told that what he’d described was wrong, but a few decades on, it was found that what he’d described would have been correct after all.

The other thing nobody had realised at the time, was that the building was on the site of an old Roman Road. Which would explain why they were visible only from the knees up - Roman level being well below even the cellar.

He wasn’t the only one to have seen them - someone else working in the same place had seen his white face as he eventually emerged and said, ‘You’ve seen them too, then.’

Dd and I paid our £3 each to look at the cellars but felt nothing spooky alas. Just damp!

This reminds me of when i went to work in an accountancy firm. We had a cellar where we kept alot of records. We called it the dungeon at work.

I went down to get something the first week i was there. Saw half a person walking through the door, turned around and went straight back upstairs. Two colleagues saw my face and burst out laughing and said 'You saw it then!'.

I've never seen one, however, when my ds was a baby he would suddenly just stop and stare at a certain spot on the wall for ages. When he was a little older and could talk, he asked one day who the man was on the ceiling?! 😱 My ddog stares at the same place now, so who knows.

@anothernamereally

A couple of unexplained but not ghostly things - time slips maybe:

Looking up on a summers day sat in the garden, blue sky with a few small fluffy clouds, watching a plane that went behind a cloud and didn't emerge the other side - I was really expecting a report of a missing plane!

I drove through a rainbow- I know this isn't possible- still did though, my dc were in the car and we all commented how pretty the colours in the car were for a second or two.

I'm sure I drove through a rainbow with my dad on the way back from Wales once, certain of it 🌈 What does that mean?

Re animal ghosts, our long gone ddog was very attached to me, would follow me everywhere round the house, like my black shadow.
If I was upstairs she’d follow me there and usually jump up on our bed and curl up there. The bed was fairly high, so once she realised I’d gone down again there would be a whacking great thump as she jumped down. It happened so often and was a very characteristic noise.

Not long after she died at over 14, I’d once just come downstairs when I heard that exact same thump. Of course I went up to see what could have accounted for it - nothing.

Many years later I still have her water dish in the kitchen. Handy for visiting pooches of course (we’ve never had another dog) but also so that her little ghost doesn’t think I’ve forgotten her. 🙂

[quote umpteennamechanges]

Thought people on this thread might enjoy this video about Ghosts on the Underground on YouTube.

Very well done so I assume it aired on TV first.

The interesting thing is that a lot of the ghosts / back stories mentioned are from reasonably modern times like the 1950s

Some things there are obvious explanations for. Many of them less so.

[/quote]

This is a fabulous documentary. Highly recommended. Have watched it many times over the years.

Yes thanks for the Underground Ghosts link, just what I wanted to watch yesterday. Anyone know of any more ghostly documentaries? I completed surviving death in two days

Place marking for tonight

@niceupthedance

Yes thanks for the Underground Ghosts link, just what I wanted to watch yesterday. Anyone know of any more ghostly documentaries? I completed surviving death in two days

Hello!

I've never found a discrete documentary quite as good as that one, but I've very much enjoyed both of the following two series, which I watched on YouTube. They're excellent, on the whole - no stupid screaming or hysteria - but because they're both a bit old the film quality isn't as good as today's stuff. I've found them so good, though, that I haven't minded.

The Extraordinary - this is an Australian thing. It's not just ghosts - all sorts of unexplained things. I've included a link below, but the easiest way to make sure you get to the right series is to go to YouTube and search for Telly Savalas ghost story. I think that was one of the early episodes, and that's the series I'm talking about. What a bizarre story that is, but completely compelling!

m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk-ZsD8QHlOPoz7YiVR_lPJGznhzfzAIL

The other one is Strange But True, with Michael Aspel. This was around when I was a child, but it's really good!

I hope you enjoy. Do start with Telly Savalas and please let me know what you think :)

When I was a kid I used to LOVE Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World. Must see if that’s still available somehow.

It may not have aged well though!

100% have encounters regularly

[quote umpteennamechanges]Also...in terms of people talking about what is, and isn't scientifically possible.

Our understanding of this shifts all the time.

It's possible that we (or some of us) can more easily sense things that are not sensed by others.

I'm not saying this is linked to ghosts but as an example we now believe that some of us can sense magnetic fields, albeit subconsciously.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/can-humans-sense-the-magnetic-field--65611/amp[/quote]
You're scaring me a bit @umpteennamechanges (although not really ) with this link. I've just finished a Stephen King novel, 'The Institute' and also, at the beginning of the 60s, me and my sister had this type of EEG(?) test done, with the 'reason' given for it being done; they wanted to find out, as twins, if we were identical.

@umpteennamechanges

I believe in reincarnation.

To me, it's all part of the same picture.

We (our soul, spirit, energy) are born into a particular life. When we die, our soul (or whatever) returns and eventually we come back again.

Often we have memories of our previous lives which we remember as children but forget as we become more settled in the new life/more stable.

Ghosts are our soul (or whatever) that haven't 'returned' properly for whatever reason. Perhaps those in denial that they've died or that are clinging on to their old life for whatever reason. Eventually all souls do return which is why ghosts don't stick around forever (see the Ghosts on the Underground for one that stopped being seen in 1972 for example).

The bits I'm not yet clear on are exactly where we return to...and what our purpose here is.

Some believe we are here as part of spiritual development...that our souls come to this place because they are faced with many challenges here and only once we have reached a certain level of spiritual development do we stop coming back.

It also means that people here (their souls) are all at different levels of spiritual maturity.

Some would say that if you want to know what your soul is, that it's the bit of 'you' that observes your inner voice.

So your inner voice is more like your ego...the bit of you that hears it chattering on and which can objectively consider your own inner voice and whether what it's saying is actually right or wrong is your soul.

And I used to be very anti-anything not scientifically proven, an atheist, non-spiritual.

I suppose I'm now agnostic. I believe there is something but not quite anything that any of the organised religions believe. I believe that all religions - both ancient and modern, Eastern and Western are all trying to describe the same thing but have been bastardised to various extents by the humans involved in recording them.

I realise this is very woo, but that's what I believe currently.

I also believe that there are things we haven't scientifically proven yet - only perhaps glimpsed threads via quantum physics and perhaps in the future we will start to understand more.

This has happened in the case of many things that were once scorned and that pre-date science - like meditation. Which is now proven via MRI scans in studies at Harvard to alter the physical structure of the brain but before that was disregarded as 'spiritual nonsense'

I have pretty much the exact same viewpoint. It's fascinating to see the similarities between all the major religions. It's as if they are all based on the same fundamental truth but have all developed different rituals and trappings to enable their followers to access the truth

When visiting a friend's house for the first time, I was coming down stairs from the loo and stepped over a cat sleeping in the sunshine which was coming in through a window onto the half-landing, tripped and fell down the rest of the stairs. Her mum rushed to make sure I was okay, and I said something like, "I'm fine, and I don't think I kicked the cat."

"Oh," she said, "that must have been old Pompey. He isn't really there."

And she explained that they used to have a cat, which had died several years before, and when alive he often slept stretched out in the sun on that landing. Apparently quite a lot of people who had never known him stepped over the place where he would have been if he'd still been alive.

I have yet to hear of or come across a ghost (by which I mean a visible seeming of a dead person) which had any point at all in its existence, and tripping up trying not to step on the not-there cat is the closest I or anyone I have ever known has come to being actually harmed by one. So whether I believe in them or not doesn't seem to matter much really.

Paranormal covers a lot of things other than ghosts, though, of which I do believe in some sort of premonitory sense: some people have it, some don't, and it sometimes can be useful. An example would be a very sensible Naval officer I knew who had to catch the first train up to London one day, and would have done so if he had not suddenly been absolutely sure something was wrong at the docks; he said "bugger the train" and got in the car to check, and was in time to extinguish before it got completely out of control a fire which had just started spontaneously in a paint locker. He also woke up one night certain that he had to go and check his moored boat (recreational not naval) which was on a trot in the river; he got to the nearby river-bank just as she started to drag the trot down-river with her on the ebb, and was about to ram the boat next down the line. Both times there was no reason for him to have expected anything of the sort. Both times his having been uneasy for no particular reason and gone to check saved an awful lot of trouble later on.

And I know someone who became hysterical on a car journey and was absolutely certain they should not go down a particular bit of motorway; she became so upset that her husband pulled off the road for several minutes. Then suddenly she was fine, couldn't think what had been wrong with her, and they went on, only to find themselves in a tailback from a major accident on the bit of motorway she'd had the grue about, and which had happened at about the time they would have been just there if she hadn't thrown her wobbly.

There may be nothing in it at all; but honestly, if something like that happened to me I would check, just in case. And I do know about confirmation bias, and not noticing the umpteen times nothing happens and only remembering the one that does, but the risk seems great enough to attend to, especially if the person feeling the unease has form for having got it right before.

@MagentaIsDoesNotExist

I believe in an afterlife not in a spiritual sense but from a quantum physics sense.

I believe discovering where our consciousness comes from is the key to what happens after we die.

I recommend reading "consciousness beyond life" by Pim Van Lommel if you're into this kind of thing. I really buy into it.

There are some things nature doesn't intend for us to prove, and I believe this is one of them.

Imagine having irrefutable proof that our minds live on after death? People would be checking out in droves whenever the going got tough.

I also recommend reading up on some of Peter Fenwicks offerings on the subject too.

It's all bloody fascinating.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I once had a weird experience but no way of knowing what would have happened if I'd ignored my gut feeling...

I used to run at 5.30am a few times a week....down to the local village and then back up along the canal. Did the same route a million times and no bother.

One morning, I went to get onto the canal path and it was like my muscles just didn't want to comply. I had an insanely strong feeling that I should not go down by the canal.

I started to brush it off as me just being silly and took a couple more steps and I just couldn't go any further.

I've walked by myself a lot in the dark so I'm familiar with that general 'feeling a bit spooked about walking on your own' thing.

It was SO much more than that.

So I backtracked and went the road way home.

To this day, I have no idea why I couldn't go down there that morning but I feel sure something would have happened if I did. But obviously no way to know!

@umpteennamechanges

That's the thing: if you have one of those sorts of feelings the chances are you will never know what might have happened, and it is not something which can be tested in the laboratory because a paint-locker fire, runaway boat or motorway crash doesn't happen in the laboratory. So not provable in any way.

It's the same with knowing things over distance, back in the days before instant mobile phone communication. How likely is it that for instance someone will fall and break their hip whilst someone who knows them well is being tested under clinical conditions? And it can't be faked. But I know of once or twice when an accident has happened to someone living alone, and the person who "knew" something was wrong (though not what) has gone to check on the injured person when they would not otherwise have been visiting them that day. Again, that could be coincidence; but if it isn't, would you take the risk? I wouldn't.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Fascinating stuff! Many thanks for posting.

[quote umpteennamechanges]@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I once had a weird experience but no way of knowing what would have happened if I'd ignored my gut feeling...

I used to run at 5.30am a few times a week....down to the local village and then back up along the canal. Did the same route a million times and no bother.

One morning, I went to get onto the canal path and it was like my muscles just didn't want to comply. I had an insanely strong feeling that I should not go down by the canal.

I started to brush it off as me just being silly and took a couple more steps and I just couldn't go any further.

I've walked by myself a lot in the dark so I'm familiar with that general 'feeling a bit spooked about walking on your own' thing.

It was SO much more than that.

So I backtracked and went the road way home.

To this day, I have no idea why I couldn't go down there that morning but I feel sure something would have happened if I did. But obviously no way to know! [/quote]

I find this kind of thing truly fascinating. Many thanks for posting.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime could it be that you'd watched something or seen something on the news in the lead up to that? I sometimes find that seeing/hearing certain things can play on your mind and come out unconsciously later and has affected me in similar ways. I once felt i couldn't walk home and had to get the bus...