to actually consider a psychic to sort out my daughter's sudden fear of her room..

[brightongirldownunder]

OK, I know I'm being a prat, but I'm at my wits end with this situation. Over the past 4 days DD refuses to sleep in her bedroom. She lies there with scared, wide eyes and tells me the windows have been rattling. It freaked me out too...
She'll happily play with her toys in there but as soon as she has to get into bed to lie down, she starts screaming.
She's 2.5 yrs old, with an extremely vivid imagination, but she normally loves her sleep and her bed.
Gaahhhh....I'm knackered.............

I do agree that certain people are more likely to see 'ghosts'.Those who want to believe them and that certain conditions are more likely to induce the particular type of brain activity necessary to induce such sightings.

I find the workings of the brain and what it can do to our perception far more fascinating than the thought of a spirit world.

I'm not Boff but I have I was lying in my bed once,quite awake,or so it seemed and my bedroom door began to vibrate,very rapidly, so much so that it became a constant hum.
This continued on for at least 5 minutes before ceasing.

Perhaps if I was of a particular personality type I'd put it down to a poltergeist activity but even though I saw that door vibrating I know that it didn't really happen. It was most likely that I was experiencing what's known as sleep paralysis. It can induce hallucinations because one is awake yet still not fully out of the sleep cycle.

Even when awake the brain can do the most extraordinary things.

That is I have had a very odd experience.

I have an open mind about ghosts, spirits etc. and have once visited a spiritualist church (came out feeling very peaceful). I think spiritualist churches have people/mediums who will come and cleanse a house and I don't think you need to pay if that helps.

I agree with everyone who says if small children are scared of monsters, you should do something about it, rather than just dismissing their fears - which are very real to them.

With ds, at various points, things like moving his bed, shooing the monsters away and telling them they weren't allowed in the house, putting a favourite soft toy in his bed to protect him, or giving him something of mine to keep in bed (an empty jewellery box or something similar) have all helped.

The human brain is very good at seeing things that aren't there - it works by spotting patterns and completing them, even if it's mistaken. That's why you can read text even if the words are gobbledigook as long as the first and last letters are in the right place and in lower case. Same thing applies to other visual cues.

So it can make a convincing image of a ghost out of a half-glimpsed shadow, even if there really is nothing there.

blondes, it SO makes me laugh - the amount of times you hear on these threads

"I woke to find this or that at the end of my bed"

It's so, so often when someone is has been asleep....

spooooky, that

counted there are nine posts on this thread alone about people seeing stuff when they are in bed/bedroom. Wonder why kids don't see this stuff when they are playing the Wii

Well, ghosts are people who have died, maybe previous generations find modern living rooms with TVs and Wiis and everything just too noisy for their tastes? 'I can't hear myself ruddy well THINK in here, maybe I'll pop upstairs later and see if I can make anyone jump?'

It isn't just when you're asleep though. I've been out hunting with the hawks, in a small copse and saw a dark figure moving about at the far side of the wood. I was alone, the wood is very isolated and rather spooky so the conditions were right for me, skeptical as I am, to interpret a shadow or branches or whatever it was as a figure.

I still don't believe.

As Edam said we try to make sense of everything. We try to see things that are familiar to us e.g faces in random patterns because then we can make some sense out of it.
We use smilies like these online for example.But it isn't really a smiley face is it? it's two dots and a bracket but our brain will interpret it as a face anyway.

I favour Occam's razor,which says that the simplest explanations are the most likely,and the simplest and therefore most likely explanation in the case of ghosts is not that there's a spirit world.

slowreadingprogess - there was def a man/figure sittin on the bed

and must have been my granddad as he died early am

where as at work, it is several buildings joined together, about 500years old and was downstairs by the fire/chair

and dog senses something ......

i def beleive there is something/ghosts about and in op case i odnt think it can do any harm to have room cleansed

Don't laff people.

I 'saw' a person with a spooky hood on sitting in a chair in our new house around the time we moved in, and it said 'you will experience the death of many people while you live here but none of your close family will die so it's ok'. We then had five unexpected deaths in the extended family within a year or two. I then 'realised' it was myself from the future telling me this. Even creepier.

I also 'saw' my grandad walk into the chapel at his funeral, stand looking at his coffin, mutter he was glad that was all over, and then stride off, Alpenstock in hand, for a hike.

Both times it was visible and invisible at the same time. I assume it's what people mean by the third eye.

Still don't believe in ghosts and put this down to brain short circuit.

Bumping for Hallowe'en and, and...

My DS has never slept through the night ever. He is two and a half.

He can only say a few words and I'm wondering whether he is being woken up by er, people but he can't tell me. Most times he wakes he doesn't actually want to OR he is wide awake and totally ready to play. At 3 a.m or whatever.

My DD wasn't quite as bad a sleeper but she had her moments of constantly talking about her "sisters" when she was very little. God her sisters were a constant presence. And there's this:

Daughter had a dancing thing thirty miles ways and one of the other attractions was a "reader" so out of boredom I went to her. No cards, no crystal ball, nada.

She looked at me and told me the names of my mother, aunt and uncle who were in Ireland that week. And she also said the name of the fourth child of my grandmothers who couldn't go. For example, "Mary, Grace and Gerry and there's Kathleen, also on earth but not with them" That's how precise she was, from nothing.

I was reeling a bit at this point.

Then she said that my grandmother was very sorry for always picking up and cuddling DD in spirit and that she knew it made it hard for her to sleep.

No I'm wondering whether the my beloved granny has been doing the same to DS

AIBS? (Suggestible?)

transposing adult belief onto children experience is problematic

and an adult who is susceptible to believing paranormal is likely to project that interpretation onto rational childhood experience.rather than seek a more rational explanation

Wow Trick whatever else was going on, the psychic's story about your Gran cuddling dd is lovely.

every body has their own choice about what to believe or disbelieve, whether they experience anything or not and even then it's up to the individual whether or not they believe that anything has happened.

i can only say what i have experienced and i don't expect or even think that anyone else will believe me (or not )

Trick, that is a really lovely thing to be told - when dd was just over two, she said i can see nanny', i told her to go and give nanny a hug then and she did. as for the comment earlier about things being visible and invisible at the same time, i understand completely wht you mean