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

@sortmylifeoutplease

I've had several occasions of waking up and feeling a weight of something on the bed. It doesn't feel threatening and I don't look to see what it is and only feel freaked about it in the morning! It is a definite weight of something though.

This has happened to me. But I’ve never put it down to ghosts or anything supernatural. Just to being half awake/semi dreaming.

Never seem or heard the ghosts of my dogs either much as I would like to.

The only thing I’ve ever experienced was shortly after my lovely MiL died far too young, only in her 60s.
For several days afterwards I had a very strong sense of her presence in our house, where she’d always been happy - not always the case at home since FiL could be difficult. I could almost ‘see’ her sitting on the sofa.
Of course I put it down entirely to my imagination, so when my DF died only 6 months later, I fully expected to ‘sense’ the same.
But there was nothing. Zilch.

@JustNotFunAnymore

God this one is so stupid and must have an explanation but dd and I were walking down a path we'd not been on before. For some reason (maybe a sound?) we both turned to look over our shoulders and saw an elderly lady on a mobility scooter following behind us. We crossed over and as we looked both ways noticed she wasn't there anymore. On the way back to the car we walked back along the same road and there was a big hedge straight down the road so no where for her to have turned off in the few seconds we had seen her. (No exits on the opposite side of the road either.) she must have turned around or something but for the life of us we couldn't figure out where she had gone in the time we saw her and lost sight of her given the layout of the area 😂

This happens to me all in the time in the car. Cars disappear from behind me and I know there hasn't been any turn offs or houses on the stretch of road.

After my cats have died I often saw a tail disappearing round a corner. I didn't think this was a ghost, though. I thought it was a trick of habit.

What a fascinating read these posts are

I'm going to watch that thing on Netflix with DH later, surviving death(?) isn't it?

This sort of thing certainly makes for interesting discussion, whatever side of the fence you're on.

Yes I believe

Not necessarily ghosts, but I believe we don't understand everything yet, and I've had a few really odd things happen to me that I couldn't explain. I've also had people who I really trust tell me weird things that have happened to them.

I do believe some of the ghosts are time glitches.
Also it's been proven electro magnetic fields can cause hallucinations.

But that doesn't explain why I've been seeing things since I've been 3.

Looking out on to our road as a 3 year old and seeing it full of people in older style clothes.
Moving in to a house and knowing there was a 70 year old man there.
I wasn't the only one that knew he was there,he made it quite well known.
From throwing things from the bed,to me actually hearing the hall door opening and hearing him carry a bag in.

My childhood home had my bed being pulled from the wall.

Me going to someone's house and asking who slept in the attic.Ha her face was a picture,her dd did sleep up there.But something made it so uncomfortable she moved in to the bedroom with her sister.

Ghosts don't make any logical or scientific sense. It would literally require breaking our knowledge of the laws of physics.

@MissMarpleDarling

Ì see a ghost in my new house. Didn't tell anyone as it would sound like I'm mental. My brother visited and see the same ghost in the same place and told me as in 'omg I nearly shit myself just see a woman in a white dress with long hair stood in your kitchen'. How would we both see it? Spooky.

How does a white dress get to become a ghost dress? Was she wearing ghost knickers as well? Exactly how do inanimate objects become ghosts?

Two of dd’s 3 little Dcs, when still babies, have been seen smiling and ‘talking’ to someone who isn’t there.

One of the former owners had a major stroke and died in the house not long before they bought it. However the house had a warm and happy atmosphere from the moment they first viewed it, so although she’s been a bit spooked, dd is not too bothered.

@AntsInPenzance

Ghosts don't make any logical or scientific sense. It would literally require breaking our knowledge of the laws of physics.

I think this is interesting

Albert Einstein once wrote: People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, he said, is an illusion. ... He says he thinks time is real and that the laws of physics may not be as permanent as we think they are.

My ds in his 20's was cringing when he admitted he slept downstairs while we were away as the dc running across the landing upstairs scared him shitless!! (detached farmhouse middle of nowhere). Years before he had heard a dc bouncing on his bed and had felt too stupid to tell us!

Yes, not sure if I believe in ghosts necessarily , but I do believe in something being off, I once witnessed a full blown orb about the size of a football float round then out of my room as a child and have witnessed odd things like the hoover turning on and shooting across the room when it wasn't plugged in. My mum said I would talk to a lady when younger who clearly wasn't there

Both DH and I often go to open our kitchen door because we think we have seen someone walk past the window. Visitors have also said I think you've got a visitor coming to your kitchen door. There is of course sometimes someone there but more often than not there is no one.

Not long after my mum died we were sitting watching the tv one evening when I got one of my hot flushes. I puffed a bit like you do when you are hot and felt a draft of air, like when someone wafts a magazine at you. I turned to DH to thank him but he was fast asleep and there were no windows or doors open. But my hair was still moving. I just whispered, thanks mum and the draft stopped.

My friend moved house when her son was about 3. He asked her if the man would be moving with them. When she asked what man, he said the man who sits on my bed and tells me stories about horses. She found out afterwards from a neighbour that the previous owner had been a farrier.

My grandparents used to have granddad's single cousin round for a meal every week. They heard the back door and a voice said, I'm here, so nan went to get the meal out of the oven to serve up. As she was doing this a cupboard door flew open and a box they kept cutlery in shot out over the floor. After they had picked everything up they realised that the cousin hadn't come into the kitchen. Half an hour later someone called to tell them that the cousin had been knocked off his bike and killed half an hour previously.

1. The paranormal is normal. (If any such concept as 'normality' exists, which is questionable).
2. The supernatural is natural.
3. We are all made of the same matter and energy. There is a possibility we will ultimately return to that.
4. The possibility of a multiverse is conceivable.
5. There is nothing to fear from any of the above.
6. Science and philosophy are not so far removed as they're generally cracked up to be.
7. The thing we have most to fear from is other, living humans.

Yes, we have a house ghost / spirit thing. Older man wearing a specific kind of coat. House is very very old. Several people have seen him. We tend to ignore him, it's odd as he seems to pop in if we are doing work on the house etc. Nosy old bugger !

Yes I think I do. This is mainly based on a friend I have who is very susceptible to seeing 'ghosts'. He has seen many. As he is a very sensible, middle aged engineer who tends not to overreact about anything, I'm inclined to believe him. He has seen lots of things at his home whilst his partner has seen nothing at all. I've had a few strange things happen that I cant really explain but I havnt ever seen a 'ghost'

No. It's utter nonsense.

@SmeleanorSmellstrop

I meant to select 'YANBU' but accidentally hit 'YABU' - oops!

You can switch between the 2 options if you click the wrong one.

Do I believe there is more than the physical dimension we can see? Yes. Do I believe in ghosts? Qualified yes. As in, psychologically we can be ‘haunted’ and for some that might project into all kinds of perceptual phenomena. Our eyes can have odd conversations with our brains at times! And sometimes there’s just weird shit that we can’t explain. Love a good ‘woo’ thread!

@umpteennamechanges

There's no point being scared of ghosts though.

Even if you believe in them, there's no evidence that they can harm people at all. Think of all the anecdotes of ghosts - how many were actually harmed?

Although the physical fear response is designed to repel us from harmful things, it often doesn't manifest in that way and - especially in the shock of the moment - isn't something people can rationalise their way out of or control. Seeing something that conflicts with all of your beliefs about the world you inhabit, that you cannot explain and therefore have no idea how to deal with, would be frightening for almost anybody.

In my opinion, the issue is that what is meant by "ghosts" is unclear. I am not remotely "woo", I am a rationalist.

Science has paradigms. During previous ones, if someone had told you that snakes can sense heat on the sand from animals that have moved across it hours earlier, you might have said that is impossible. Now, we know that snakes can sense infrafed.

Previously it was a mystery how some birds managed to navigate their migrations of thousands of miles. We know now that, in some cases, they can sense the magnetic fields of the Earth.

Much other animal behaviour remains completely inexplicable. Yet we observe it, so there must be a rationale that is, as yet, obscure to us.

Humans have five senses because these are the ones that happened to evolve to best assist our survival in our particular environment. That does not mean that anything which exists outside of these five senses, or their range, does not exists. Otherwise we'd have no need for X-rays, for example.

To me, it would be the epitome of arrogance and stupidity if we were to assume that our current science tells us all there is to know. We are, after all, just a clever type of monkey, and we should not forget this. Einstein for example proved that Newton's physics was correct but within the limited bounds of its assumptions, and not applicable more widely.

I do not believe that there are "paranormal" phenomenon. But I do believe that our science is not advanced enough to claim that we can explain everything or that anything that our current science cannot explain doesn't exist. If that was the case then all scientists could retire. The entire purpose of it is to investigate and understand and perceive things that we cannot necessarily perceive directly without instruments that measure things beyond our field of vision etc.

There is also significant support from physics for the theories that there may be multiple dimensions that we cannot perceive, and that time is not linear.

I would also add to this, that the idea that what you see and perceive directly is "real" is a can of worms in itself. What do you mean by "real". A large percentage of matter is empty space yet your table does not appear to you to be transparent. Your brain interprets the sensory information it receives and creates your image of the world. There is no such thing for a human as a direct perception of what exists. See my username: magenta does not exist. Well, only in your mind.

Seeing something that conflicts with all of your beliefs about the world you inhabit, that you cannot explain and therefore have no idea how to deal with, would be frightening for almost anybody.

See, I would be enormously interested to encounter something inexplicable that challenged my beliefs about how the world works -- and it's not for want of exposure.

I've lived in a flat where the previous tenant had (fairly recently) hanged himself, lived in isolated places, including an uninhabited island with a ruined village and a tiny graveyard for shipwrecks, and spent a lot of time in my early twenties staying for weeks and months at a time at the home of a student friend whose parents had died there in a suicide pact a few years before (unsurprisingly, he was a very traumatised person), and there's a family tradition of a ghost in my grandmother's house, and I once did a retreat the Tyburn convent, near the site of the gallows by Marble Arch -- but I have not encountered a whiff of anything that can't be easily explained as a trick of the light, tiredness, sleep paralysis, a wish to see dead relatives again translating into very vivid dreams etc.

Human perception can be so easily distorted by the most ordinary physical things like stress or tiredness, and we do tend to discern patterns in things, especially faces -- when I was seriously sleep-deprived with a newborn, I remember 'seeing' black liquid faces growing out from the shadows on the floor.

@MilkMoon

Seeing something that conflicts with all of your beliefs about the world you inhabit, that you cannot explain and therefore have no idea how to deal with, would be frightening for almost anybody.

See, I would be enormously interested to encounter something inexplicable that challenged my beliefs about how the world works -- and it's not for want of exposure.

I've lived in a flat where the previous tenant had (fairly recently) hanged himself, lived in isolated places, including an uninhabited island with a ruined village and a tiny graveyard for shipwrecks, and spent a lot of time in my early twenties staying for weeks and months at a time at the home of a student friend whose parents had died there in a suicide pact a few years before (unsurprisingly, he was a very traumatised person), and there's a family tradition of a ghost in my grandmother's house, and I once did a retreat the Tyburn convent, near the site of the gallows by Marble Arch -- but I have not encountered a whiff of anything that can't be easily explained as a trick of the light, tiredness, sleep paralysis, a wish to see dead relatives again translating into very vivid dreams etc.

Human perception can be so easily distorted by the most ordinary physical things like stress or tiredness, and we do tend to discern patterns in things, especially faces -- when I was seriously sleep-deprived with a newborn, I remember 'seeing' black liquid faces growing out from the shadows on the floor.

You are very lucky that you are so naturally brave, or have such good control of your innate fear response.

I am sorry to hear about the tragic things in your post.

I don't think the other things we are saying are a million miles apart. Our understanding of physics and or the human brain are still very limited at this point in time.