Do you believe in Ghosts?

[dottiedodah]

just that really ,found some interesting things online that made me think .YABU ghosts dont exist YANBU could be something in it

🤣, that reminds me of the Nicole Kidman film where they didn’t realise they were ghosts, who knows 🤷‍♀️

I love reading these threads and hearing about people's spooky experiences.

I'm a non believer. I really want to believe and would absolutely love it if something happened to me, but it never has. IRL I'm often described as highly perceptive to others so it's not that I'm not the right kind of person to pick up on ghosts either. Scientifically they absolutely cannot be explained, so there's that too, but as others have pointed out that may not always be the case - as discoveries change science, so too does our understanding of the world.

So I don't believe, but I don't discount. I've met enough people who I have great respect for and who aren't given to flights of fancy who do believe. While I think the vast majority probably aren't ghost and could probably be explained away, not everything can be and in a world where so much is unknown I think it's probably a bit arrogant of me to assume I'm right and they're wrong.

Predictable, sure, but it’s not wrong in terms of the stories most often shared on here.

If you take out sleep paralysis (which as @Hedgerow2 says is absolutely terrifying, and if you didn’t know what it was, you could easily think you’d encountered a hostile supernatural presence — I get it too), dogs and small children behaving like dogs and small children, stuff that happens on the edge of sleep, or happened long ago in childhood, wishful thinking about messages from dead loved ones (which again, is understandable), nerves and suggestibility in unfamiliar or isolated environments, pranks, or hearsay (‘Well, my uncle said it, and he’s not someone to imagine things!’), you’re not left with a whole lot.

I have a story I very much like because it’s a good story.

A friend I know well heard it from a friend of hers who lived in the same small town. An overseas friend visiting with her young daughter was having coffee in the window of a tea shop on the main (and only) street. The friend’s daughter, who is a total stranger to the place, points to a dignified elderly man walking by, alone — ‘Mummy, who’s that man, with all the funny people walking along in a line behind him?’ The visiting mother says ‘That man? There’s no one behind him, silly!’ The local friend then recognises the solo man, who is the retired town undertaker.

Now, that’s a great mini creepy tale, with a child ‘seeing’ the dead walking behind the man who prepared so many bodies for burial over the decades.

It was told to me by someone I trust and admire, and have known for 20 years, and her source (the friend who was hosting the overseas mother and child, and who recognised the undertaker) was someone she’d known since childhood and thought was both commonsensical and unlikely to have invented it — apparently she had been shaken when she repeated it.

But that’s several levels of hearsay. Do I believe that a child saw the spirits of the dead following an undertaker up the street of a small town in the west of Ireland? No. I still think it’s a good story, though.

I think you mean there's no proof of soul's existence. Evidence and proof are not the same thing.

I've never seen a ghost but I have had things happen over the course of my life that, quite frankly, I could do without. Do I think there is more in heaven and earth than we know, yes I do?

Gettinglikemymother yes I have heard about the house I'm york .thank u off for a Google now ! I think you are right some people are more attuned than others .
maybe that's why some are sure there isn't anything. Often dreams seem real maybe something in that ,when people die they may return in a dream or just be there in front of usf.fascinating

Oh damn it... I come to these threads to read spooky stories (true or not).. humans have enjoyed these tales for centuries..but as usual they are spoilt by those who just want to come and ridicule anyone who has a story...

I have had many strange experiences, later on I often doubt what happened, but there have been many.. I have had sleep paralysis and it was not that. I won't share as I don't need to be told it/they didn't happen. Given the vote is currently 68% in favour of "there could be something in it" I imagine others are not wanting to share either..

@Mummyratbag

I come to these threads to read spooky stories (true or not).. humans have enjoyed these tales for centuries..but as usual they are spoilt by those who just want to come and ridicule anyone who has a story...

The thread is about whether or not you believe in ghosts, it's not a "tell me your spooky stories" thread.

If you want to read a spooky story thread then go find one.
This is a do you believe or not thread. Quite different

I started this thread to ask what peoples thoughts were on ghosts, and whether they believed in them or not its true .However people are welcome to share any of their experiences as well.

I'm not a believer..until something spooky happens and my go to is a ghost, then won't sleep until my DH has gone upstairs or checked the house 😂 by morning i am back to my no way stance.

Ok so I had a poltergeist in my old house . We moved . The next person who moved in had an identical experience to me . I never met her prior to her moving in so could not influence her mind nor did I mention what we experienced to the neighbours .

It was only when the new occupant and I met up by chance that she told me what had been happening in the house. No way was it a coincidence.

I’m not sure … but I lived in a 160 year old cottage for a year and felt uneasy in the tiny spare room, as thought there was a presence. I didn’t like showering in the adjacent room at night. I never mentioned it to anyone at the time. My adult daughter visited that house once (from overseas.) 18 months later I was talking about how cold and badly insulated the house had been. Interestingly, she said the upstairs had felt haunted and had spooked her.

DH and I had a strange experience that I have posted on here before and never been able to explain- the woman we saw was in 1970s ish clothing.
I am not a believer but perhaps people do see 'ghosts' in modern clothes and don't recognise them as ghosts. The woman we saw did not look like a ghost at all- it was just an unexplainable situation.

I'd like to hear more about that, @LuluBlakey1, if you're willing to share the story 🤞

Speaking to the dead is easy! Anybody and everybody can do it. The difficulty comes in getting a reply.

I don’t believe in them. I believe some people experience things that they interpret as being ghosts. I believe those experiences have a rational explanation.

Me and DH on holiday in a cottage in Ireland must be 12 years ago now, late July/early August. The cottage was on a small country estate where there was an old house. The owners, who are friends of our Irish friends, were away and we had the 25 or so acres to ourselves.
Our last night and we sat outside eating, having a couple of drinks (just a couple because we were getting up early to drive to the ferry the next morning), watching the sunset, chatting over the holiday, looking at the photos we had taken.
About 9.30pm we went into the kitchen/ living room (one huge room) which was straight inside the front door. We left the front door wide open, it was still dusky light and warm. We were washing up and talking and we saw a woman walk behind us- in the reflection of the window above the sink.
She crossed behind us as if she was walking from the front door into the bedroom.
We both turned but there was no one there.
She looked normal, dressed in a blouse/ dress, with shortish hair, sort of plain clothing and a bit 1970s looking. She didn't look at us or anything, just walked through the room. I'd have said she was late 30s/early 40s in age. We could only see her top half in the window so can not describe her bottom half really but I have an impression of a dress/skirt rather than trousers.
I remember DH saying 'Where did she go?' when we turned round and me saying 'There' and pointing to the bedroom/bathroom corridor. He went straight and looked and I followed him and stood at the door. It just felt really odd because why would someone walk into a cottage and past the people staying there into a bedroom? If she had that would be weird in itself
When there was no one there we questioned each other about what we had each seen. We both said a woman, described her hair, approximate age, height, what she was doing, where we thought she was behind us, what we could see she was wearing. So perhaps that could be seen as collusion in terms of sharing info which we then both thought we remembered. I recall DH saying 'It was like she did not see us' and me feeling scared by that. DH tried to be Mr Practical
'It must have been the light', 'Maybe a bird flew past the window' but he was scared too.
There was no back door so no other way out just a glass door next to the window that opened into the walled garden- but it was locked and had a blind the length of it. We had never opened it because it was really the owner's private space out there. DH went into the walled garden to see if there were any tall plants which might have caused an effect in the window- there weren't. There were 3 stone steps down into the garden from the kitchen and I could barely see the top of his head in the window so we ruled out someone actually walking in the garden- if they had climbed the 8ft walls to get into it. Anyway, what we saw was behind us, not infront of us.

I would prefer to find a rational explanation for what happened. DH and I can rule some things out that are often possibilities:
Not sleep paralysis- we were wide awake and active
Not expecting something spooky and looking for it - just washing up in a very nice, comfortable place
Not believers- we don't believe in ghosts and had not been discussing anything like that
There was no curtain to 'billow' at that window as it looked out onto a private walled garden
No mirror in the room
No tv in the cottage
No portraits on the walls that might have reflected
Not a hoax or another person- we were the only people staying on the whole estate- the owners had gone back to England for a month. We had 25 acres to ourselves.
We have wondered could it have been something else which we then saw as a person-pareidolia- but we can not think that is the case as it was so clear and it was 'walking' across the room and wearing an outfit that we could see. There was nothing 'ghostly' about it/her. Not pale or translucent or wearing old fashioned clothes. She looked solid and real and normal, as if she was there- but she wasn't.

We barely slept and were up and out really early and at the ferry hours before we could board. We had breakfast in a cafe and just kept talking about it. It was our second holiday in that cottage and nothing had happened before but we didn't go back.

We know the owners vaguely through some Irish friends and the bloke said to DH that 'other people have mentioned the same sort of thing' but that he has never seen anything.

Wow, thanks @LuluBlakey1! What a great story!

I do believe in ghosts, though I haven’t seen one and of course I don’t know what they actually are. I’ve been fascinated by ghost stories since I was a small child, though, and that’s over 50 years now. I feel that some experiences simply can’t be explained away, and it sounds to me as though yours falls into that category.

Thank you for the wee shiver just before I go up to bed 👍😁

I probably shouldn't have read that the night before setting off for a really isolated old holiday cottage where I'll be on my own all day on Sunday 😳

I know this is an old thread so you probably won't see this but I had the same thing happen to me when my sister died. I felt she was giving me some of her energy because I was in a very tricky situation at the time.

@CharlotteLucas3 thank you for your reply. And sorry for the loss of your sister.
I think it's quite nice to have that feeling. It was a very true, visceral feeling that I've never had before. But it was like someone giving me inner strength. It's good to know others have had that experience as I think it does help in some small way during bereavement. X

I am fascinated by people's stories and appreciate that there are an infinite number of things in the universe that we cannot explain. But there is also a lot about the human brain that we don't know too.

There are scientific explanations for a lot of phenomena. The brain fills in gaps and people's memories are notoriously unreliable. There are countless examples out there even down to the "are these shoes pink or green" post that went viral. Half of people would swear blind they were pink and the other half would think they were lying as they were clearly green. Tricks of the light, sleep paralysis and the "old hag" phenomenon, infrasound inducing inexplicable feelings of fear, mould spores or carbon monoxide causing hallucinations. The rational explanations are endless.

Of course, I also think some people that have their own stories of seeing ghosts are making it up but I think the majority fully believe that they experienced something paranormal. That does not necessarily mean that is what happened, even if it feels 100% real to them.

But who knows? Science may come along with an explanation one day or proof of the paranormal. Until then I tend to think they are really good stories.

Yep - defo had experiences with them myself. Otherwise I would definitely have said no

but also, I bloody love a ghost story so don’t care if it’s real or not! 😂

This actually made me laugh!

I have seen what I'm certain is a ghost, and heard one, too.
Staying at a young person's hostel, my own room, on my first night there {I lived there for over a year} ..I in bed, and an elderly man walked in, I thought ''He's in the wrong room...then ''If you weren't so solid, I'd think you were a ghost''...I could see his silhouette, wearing a trilby and overcoat, he was looking around, then down at me..I was looking at him through half closed eyes. I couldn't see his face.He didn't appear threatening, he seemed perplexed.

Next morning, in reception, 'I asked who the man was who'd come into my room.
They said ''no one has been through into your room, there has been someone on duty here all night, there are no older men here, only Eric, and he's away..{When I saw Eric, a few days later, it definitely wasn't him.}

I never saw the man again.
I had to put a date on his clothing, 1940's?