Believing in ghosts

[StupidFaces]

I used to, now I think it’s ridiculous. People have been trying to prove the existence of ghosts for over 150 years and yet not one scrap of credible evidence to suggest they exist. I wish they did, I’d love it to be real but it just doesn’t make sense for them to exist does it?

Surely if ghosts were real, abattoirs would be haunted to fuck by the ghosts of dead cows? How come nobody ever sees a ghost dressed in trackies and Nike trainers? Why are they only ever dressed in Victorian/medieval clothes etc?

Do people think ghosts of fish haunt the ocean?

For those that do believe … what do you think about the above scenarios?

For those that done believe … would you be happy to spend a night alone in a supposedly haunted castle?

Ok my experiences that some would put down to paranormal but others (including myself) would say there must be a logical expiation.
When I was 15 I was walking along the drain at midnight with a friend. A little boy was walking towards us (weird at that time in the night but we were young and drunk so didn’t think much of it). He smiled at us as he walked past. We THEN realised that was weird and turned to look at him and there was nobody there. Only place he could have gone is in the drain. We didn’t check but no missing kids were reported around that time.

When I was 18 I was fast asleep when I heard someone shouting at me “WAKE UP, You’re going to miss it!”. I sat bolt upright as I lived alone, nobody there. Looked at the clock … I was running late for my interview and my alarm hadn’t gone off.

Current house - left the living room for something, went to go back in and the side table was in front of the door stopping it from opening. Nobody in that room that could have moved it.

Oh I’ve had a few at work too.
Working on a ward … patient in his last few hours in bed at night, hadn’t moved for days. Was expected to die that night or the next day. I went in to check on him and his arm was outstretched as if someone was holding his hand … I was terrified and backed out of the room and went to get another nurse - told her what I’d seen … she came to look and he’d died - arm still outstretched (he was alive when I went in as could hear him breathing). Nurse said it happens a lot on that ward, it’s the ghost of a nurse who used to work there that they all knew, she died of the same condition that they treat on there and she now holds hands of dying patients. I believed it at the time but now … I dunno, why wouldn’t she hold the hand of all the dying patients? Why only some?

Another one - a different ward … night shift … went for my break and walked past one of the bays to see a nurse standing near the window not moving. I passed another nurse and joked “who’s that in there just staring out of the window?” She went to look - nobody there.

Same ward … elderly patient one morning asked me why we let kids in her room on a night, it’s hard enough trying to sleep without kids messing around. Obviously no kids were in there but the ward used to be the paediatric ward.

I love all these stories but totally freaks me out

I didn't believe in anything like it, but weird things happened in one workplace that nobody has been able to explain. It was on the site of plague pits.

My view is that there is no hard evidence for ghosts existing, but that does not mean it's impossible they do. The fact we don't have or understand evidence that something doesn't mean that the evidence isn't there or it is impossible to understand it. Much like if someone gets murdered and the police do not know who did it, that doesn't mean that they won't find evidence which leads to a conviction.

It's the same with alien life - logic tells me it's 99.9% (recurring) certain there is life on another planet, because there are so many planets in so many systems in so many galaxies, the conditions which allowed life to develop here must exist elsewhere. Until it's proven though we cannot be certain. Equally it's almost impossible to entirely discount the idea of life elsewhere in the universe because to do so would require us to explore every planet in great detail, which is clearly unlikely.

As to why ghost sightings tend to fall into certain types there could be many reasons. If animal ghosts existed it would be easy to mistake them for live animals. A rabbit's ghost from the 1500s might look very similar to a live rabbit today - they probably dress similarly. Why do we not see ghosts of dinosaurs? Maybe there's a time limit for how long spectral energy lasts. Other forms of energy dissipate over time, matter spreads (eventually, if the universe is infinite in lifespan, matter will be equally distributed throughout it). There's no logical reason to assume whatever energy causes ghosts exists permanently.

A reason for ghosts of the past few centuries being more commonly seen might be that ghosts are an element of religious belief. The religious environment of the middle ages to the Victorian era was very different today. Spirits were commonly seen as real things, hence perhaps this belief caused them to exist. In the same way witches don't exist now, because we don't have the spiritual environment to allow them to be widely believed in, perhaps ghosts don't get created much now because we don't believe in them. Go back 400 years and witches were a real issue - people genuinely believed they saw the evidence that was used to convict and execute them.

Or perhaps ghosts take a while to form. Maybe it takes a while for a ghost to generate the energy needed to become visible. This might explain why the ghosts of more recently-deceased people tend to be "felt" or "sensed" or even heard, rather than seen.

TLDR - we don't know.

Some people have hallucinations and/or an abnormal level of self delusion.

@SylvieB74 , my dd said that both her first and second babies (while she was holding them) had smiled and waved at someone who wasn’t there. Always in the same place in the house, where there was no mirror or other source of reflection to account for it. Babies were both at the stage where they’d recently learned to wave.

The wife of the previous owner had died in the house not long before they bought it. But she’d had 3 children and the house had always had a lovely warm atmosphere, from the time we all first viewed it, so although dd was slightly spooked, there was nothing really scary about it.

Winterofourdiscounttentz Thank you so much for singling me out for your snarky comment but I really didn’t hallucinate any of what happened nor am I delusional.

Here’s a nice doggy one.
Friends lived in a semi-detached converted stone barn - very thick stone walls so while inside you were never aware of anyone next door.,

One evening their much loved flatcoat retriever, Charlie, was on his very last legs, with the vet coming the following day to put him to sleep.

Next door, their 20 something son and his GF called in to see his parents and while there he went upstairs to check his emails on DPs’ computer - this was in the days before smartphones.

While there, and intent only on emails, he saw something out of the corner of his eye that really startled him, and asked his GF whether she’d seen the dog.

‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s downstairs.’ (By which she meant their current dog, a Dalmatian.)
But what he’d seen was a Weimaraner*, their previous dog, completely different appearance, dead several years, but who had been best friends with next door’s Charlie.

Thoroughly freaked out, he went straight to the village pub for a couple of pints!

Consensus was that their old dog had come to keep Charlie company on his way.

*Also known as grey ghosts!

Oh don't worry, it doesn't mean only you. You and the others like you.

You did not and do not see ghosts, which do not exist. Hallucinations and delusions definitely do exist.

things that exist are generally a better explaination for things than things that do not exist.

winterofdiscounttentz just because you pooh pooh the whole thing doesn’t mean those who have witnessed unexplainable events have imagined it / made it up / delusional and so forth.

Don’t be so arrogant as to dismiss what other people have experienced. So you don’t believe them - so what? Scroll on by, take it with a pinch of salt and ignore.

It's not the fact that I personally think they are delusional that makes it so, its that they simply are.

Please don't tell me where I can read or comment , or how to behave. You're not the thread police.

I was sitting outside an old pub in Basing village street next to the ruin of Basing house the scene of battle during the civil war. DH was inside ordering drinks. It was very quiet without anyone in sight. A man suddenly appeared in cavalier costume walking towards me in the middle of the road. He took off his hat, bowed and walked on past me. Told DH and we assumed that a civil war re-enactment was taking place in the next few days. When we asked in the pub the staff told us that they didn't take place for several months and joked that I must have been seeing things or the local ghost!

I've had so many odd things happen that I don't bother mentioning them to DH anymore. Although occasionally he is there to see for himself. A few months ago we were in our bedroom one evening, listening to the radio, via freeview on the television.

The ceiling light is controlled by a dimmer dial on the wall, that you turn from off completely to full brightness or anywhere in between, that sort of thing. It's not a push on/off dial, just a rotating one.

Anyway, at this time the dial was turned about halfway, to give a gentle evening low light. The room suddenly went dark, apart from the light from the TV screen. It's a relatively old TV, not one that you can disable the screen if you're just listening to audio. I went to check the dimmer knob on the wall, and it had been turned off completely. This happened while DH and myself were both in the bedroom, door shut, and neither of us anywhere near the dimmer switch.

As I said, too many incidents to describe them all, that's just another one. I'm not sure how I'd feel if I actually saw something, but in seventeen years - the time that's elapsed since stuff started happening - that hasn't happened. Yet!

I try to convince my self that ghosts aren't real and it's all nonsense but who knows.
My mum had a late miscarriage 40 years ago, the baby was a girl due to be named Rebecca. My son (25 years later) used to talk to somebody when he was a toddler. I used to say to him there's no one there and he said he was playing with a little girl called Rebbcca! He'd get so annoyed if I said she wasn't real, he said she is stuck and very sad! Can't come up with any reason for it, he stopped when he was around 6.

I used to live in a house dating from the 1730s. We had a guest room in the basement which was a lovely room with an ensuite in what used to be the old vaulted cellar. Several guests, unconnected to each other and over a period of years, totally unprompted by us told us of unusual happenings...a man waking them by whispering their name in their ear, a man calling 'wake up down there' down the stairs and waking to find 'clouds' wafting across the ceiling. Several people, including a child, told us they felt they had seen 'women in white' in the bathroom and heard a noise like a bucket being kicked around.

We slept in the room before we left and had all those things happen to us.

I don't want to believe, but can't not given the unconnected and prolonged nature of the incidents. Before we moved in the house had been a girls school and a maternity hospital.

@WinterofOurDiscountTentz
You can post what you like. Doesn't mean to say anyone will read your posts. You're very rude. And wrong.

I agree. I find it strange that people who believe they've had paranormal experiences are often so angry and/or offended by the suggestion they might have been caused by known phenomena.

Is it because they associate hallucinations, delusions or sensory illusions with mental illness? If so, they must be pretty prejudiced against people with mental health issues.

In any case, these things don't indicate mental illness. They happen to us all at some point. Brains are incredibly complex and subtle pieces of kit - so complex that science hasn't come anywhere near replicating their capabilities yet. The workings of the mind are fascinating, and it would be a pity to discount its splendour in favour of myths created long before anyone knew much about it.

@MidlandCatGirl

Tell us more!

GarlicGrace Not at all, I was actually pissed off that out of everyone who’d detailed their experiences I was the one quoted and essentially told that I was delusional. I am in no way dismissive of mental health issues so please don’t try to accuse me of prejudice against those that do suffer them.

What I experienced on the Sunday started in the morning and went on til late evening. There is no way possible I could have hallucinated or imagined what happened.

OK. I have a friend who regularly sees the same two ghosts in her ancient cottage. She's had long conversations with one of them. In the summer, she goes into her garden and shrinks to less than the height of a daisy. Down in the jungle of grass stems, she meets fairies and talks with them about all kinds of stuff. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer but, after two chemo treatments, was declared clear.

She isn't mentally ill. She's just a highly creative individual whose mind interprets things differently.
That Japanese artist who sees the world covered in spots is not mentally ill and there's nothing wrong with her eyesight; she's a creative person whose mind prefers a spotted view.
I get ocular migraines and, as I wrote earlier, hallucinate when very tired. The world isn't really full of zigzaggy sparkles, and there's nobody talking in my kitchen; it's just my mind having electrical problems and doing its best to make sense of garbled signals.
If you've had sleep paralysis, it's easy to understand why they used to think they were being attacked by demons in the night. It's a relief to know what it really is, no evil spirits required! Just a briefly misfiring brain.

Like my friend, everybody's welcome to their personal interpretation of unlikely events. As long as they don't force their mythologies on other people, I guess it makes for an interesting chat. But let's not lose sight of how far we have come in terms of understanding ourselves and the wonders of the human mind 🙂

I never have believed and never will. Absolute nonsense.

I've only once seen an unexplained thing, but that was ufo rather than paranormal. I have though experienced possible poltergeist activity in two places I've lived (one v v scary, one v friendly) and heard unexplained things in a hotel and a different place I lived.

No idea if ghosts exist but there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in most peoples philosophy so I remain open minded.

Well, I’ve seen ghosts in
a dressing gown
a puffa jacket, skinny jeans and trainers (don’t know if they were nike, sorry)
A raincoat and plastic headscarf thingy
A crinoline type (?) dress
1920s clothes (2)

Except the 20s ones I didn’t realise any were ghosts till they disappeared, I even assumed the one in the crinoline was dressed up for tourists or something until she vanished.

a puffa jacket, skinny jeans and trainers (don’t know if they were nike, sorry)

Oh heck, they're wearing gangsta fashion in the next dimension too 😂