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Original poster

Have you ever 'seen' a loved one after their death?

65 replies

fiveacres · 23/05/2015 12:04

My XH has, so he told me for the first time the other day. I have to stress here how unlike him this is. He has always scoffed vocally and dismissively at religion and my views.

Anyway - I believed him. Whatever he saw, he saw if you see what I mean.

I am left wondering, irrationally, stupidly, why my loved ones have not chosen to show themselves to me. I know it's ridiculous but I just wondered if someone might be able to give me a 'Christian' perspective or at least a spiritual one as I don't want a load of 'what a load of nonsense!' posts.

Thank you :)

OP posts:
SilverBirch2015 · 31/05/2015 20:51

IMO Mediums are charlatans who prey on people's grief. Some of them even believe their own bunkum.

When you lose someone, they still remain in your memories and in your love for them. At times of grief and need, you recall that memory of that presence, sometimes quite vividly through your senses.

That being said, my husband (very rational, logical person) swears he woke up one night in bed, a couple of years after my father died, seeing him leaning over me. I think he had a dream about him as we were staying at my mum's house and had been talking about my Dad the night before.

Vivacia · 31/05/2015 21:22

As with all these things there can be no absolute proof but I think Indigo's experience are every bit as worthy of respect as those of the saysayers who feel they are entitled to rubbish anything they don't understand. Why should anyone feel the need to rubbish something which has comforted a fellow human being?

I wasn't the first to make a personal dig and I will continue to speak out against "mediums" who take advantage of people's grief.

senrensareta · 01/06/2015 00:05

Do you honestly respect ALL opinions? Of course I don't but I don't dismiss others' right to hold opinions that differ from mine or rubbish those opinions. Please don't get me wrong here I don't approve of mediums taking advantage of others either but have seen Indigo get a very hard time and a lot of nastiness on some other threads because of her beliefs.

I am both open-minded and sceptical if such a thing is possible, I'm like Fox Mulder, I would love to believe but I want proof! As I said earlier I have friends who are very into this so have been with them to some things. I saw a medium some years ago who told me some things I would not have thought could be guessed (I am satisfied that she did not know anything about me before and I am very determined in not giving away information), several who have been totally predictable and grasping at straws and one recently who told me some things she thinks will happen in the near future so I'll let you know if it happens!

Vivacia · 01/06/2015 07:21

Seems a terrible waste of such skill. I'm guessing that the predictions aren't for preventing a terrible accident at the end of your road?

RedRugNoniMouldiesEtc · 01/06/2015 07:57

My dad saw my maternal grandfather, in a house gf had never seen, an hour before the phone call. He is absolutely adamant there's no such thing as woo but still will plainly tell how he saw gf walking down the stairs.

As a young teen I saw our beloved dog on the day we moved from the house where she died. Again it simply wasn't woo, she was just there.

I don't know about the seeing loved ones who've passed thing. I can't explain it but I believe it - but I don't believe in ghosts as such. I'm more of an open minded sceptic I suppose, unless it's possible to believe two things totally at odds with each other Grin

I don't buy psychics but I do know a lady who talks to animals and am convinced of her authenticity. I'm just one big paradox it seems - no wonder I spend half my time confused Wink

RedRugNoniMouldiesEtc · 01/06/2015 07:59

Oh, for the record, my father hated my gf with a passion. He was a violent and abusive man who ruined many lives, definitely not a case of emotional attachment!

Longtalljosie · 01/06/2015 08:01

OP I don't want to upset you further but what is your relationship with your XH like? This wouldn't be a form of manipulation / one-upmanship would it? Given how it's succeeded in making you feel?

cherrytree63 · 01/06/2015 08:19

I have a psychic friend. Over the years he's told me things about me and my family that only I could have known.
My husband died of pancreatic cancer. During his illness, he took part in a BBC documentary, along with other terminally ill people, about their beliefs on life after death.
After he died, I watched it with my friend, and said my husband believed he would come back. He was such a "big" character, and I said death must be final, because if anyone could come back he would.
My friend said he was in the room with us. And then told me that I had my husband's watch upstairs, wrapped in his very first love letter to me.
There's no way he'd have known that unless he'd snooped through my bedroom, and found my jewellery box and the key to it.
A few months later, I went to see my daughter sing in a school concert. My eyes were drawn to the window, and my husband was standing outside, wearing his favourite yellow shirt, and smoking his pipe...which he gave up the day our first child was born.
I often smell his pipe tobacco, he smoked cherry sobranie, which he had to go to a specialist tobacconist for.

headinhands · 01/06/2015 18:43

I don't dismiss other's right to hold opinions that differ from mine

Me too. There is a difference between dismissing someone's right to hold an opinion and their right to assume their opinion won't be analysed. I do and will analyse opinions, people might not find it comfortable but I have the right to analyse and do so without name calling and personal insults.

SilverBirch2015 · 01/06/2015 18:48

I agree that people do have rights to their own opinions.

However their rights should not extend to seeking out and gaining financial benefit from people who are grieving for loved ones. It is important that people who do not share these opinions point to the facts as they see them. I have no problem with people seeking solace, as long as they are not being conned and manipulated.

TTWK · 06/06/2015 09:31

Headinhands- No. Indigo has a right to express her opinion and I respect that, but I am no required to respect the opinion/itself. Do you honestly respect ALL opinions? Of course not. I respect opinions that stand up to the scrutiny of factual analysis. People are always entitled to their own opinions but they are not entitled to their own facts.

Perfectly put. I can't stand this fad for "respect" of beliefs. Tolerance is one thing. People can believe whatever they wish and they should not be harmed in any way for doing so. But respect is another thing entirely. I do not have to respect people who believe in what I consider to be vicious and harmful nonsense. I am entitled to actively disrespect them, and will do. I consider it my duty to pour scorn on woo and supernatural codswallop.

Of course it works both ways, and nobody is obligated to respect my views.

TTWK · 06/06/2015 09:40

cherrytree63-I have a psychic friend.

No you don't. You either have a friend who has conned you into thinking they are psychic, in which case they aren't much of a friend at all. Of you have a friend who is delusional, in which case you are not being much of a friend in indulging her when you should be trying to help her.

HTH.

cherrytree63 · 08/06/2015 08:55

TTWK, I just typed out a long list of incidents that would be very hard to explain by any other means, but lost it.
I can't be bothered to retype it.
I believe that everyone has a degree of 2nd sight, but we don't use it and lose the ability.
Not unusual for people to know the phone is about to ring, to think of someone you haven't seen for years and bump in to them, I've experienced feelings of foreboding before receiving bad news.
Each to their own.

SunnyBaudelaire · 08/06/2015 09:00

no but I did HEAR my mother calling my name about six weeks after she had died. Just once. It was the grief talking, not her.

expatinscotland · 08/06/2015 09:01

No. I think the human brain wants to so much, however, it tricks itself into thinking it has. Dead people do not come back, that is why bereavement sucks.

TTWK · 08/06/2015 09:34

cherrytree6-Not unusual for people to know the phone is about to ring, to think of someone you haven't seen for years and bump in to them, I've experienced feelings of foreboding before receiving bad news.

What you are describing here is classic confirmation bias. Nothing psychic, 2nd sight or woo whatsoever.

You think of people from the past all the time and then don't bump into them. But of course you don't record these incidents, you only focus on the hits, not the misses. That's confirmation bias. Wikipedia has an excellent article on it.

PtolemysNeedle · 14/06/2015 10:19

Fiveacres, to answer your OP, I can't give a Christian view, or even a spiritual one, only my own. I very much believe we have a soul, but I don't think that when our souls leave our bodies that they just hang around watching us, and I don't think they can just appear to us at will whenever they or we feel like it. A soul, in my opinion, has a journey of it's own to be on, and they could be in another life so might not be in a place where they can watch us or contact us. That has nothing to do with the love they felt for us when they were in the life we knew them in. If they are in a place where that can watch us and contact us, that doesn't necessarily mean they will, and we just have to trust that with the deeper understanding that they have and we don't, they are better placed to decide which is best.

TTWK · 14/06/2015 13:18

I very much believe we have a soul, but I don't think that when our souls leave our bodies that they just hang around watching us, and I don't think they can just appear to us at will whenever they or we feel like it. A soul, in my opinion, has a journey of it's own to be on, and they could be in another life so might not be in a place where they can watch us or contact us. That has nothing to do with the love they felt for us when they were in the life we knew them in. If they are in a place where that can watch us and contact us, that doesn't necessarily mean they will, and we just have to trust that with the deeper understanding that they have and we don't, they are better placed to decide which is best.

Ahhhh how lovely. And are they surrounded by fluffy kittens and do they live in marshmallow houses.

Grow up!

thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts · 14/06/2015 17:20

That is harsh TTWK

buffyp · 15/06/2015 11:38

TTWK the only person needing to grow up is you. That is exactly the response I might expect from a child and is certainly not the mark of someone capable of intelligent debate. At least the person who posted that shows signs of being a compassionate person capable of understanding and accepting views different to their own.

Medjuel · 15/06/2015 12:46

Nearly all my animals that have passed over have come back to me via dreams (although I can tell the difference when they visit to a normal dream) to let me know they are OK. My horse visited me and showed himself to be happy and healthy and in a field with his last field mate. I contacted his fieldmate's owner to see how he was doing and she told me he had been put down about 3 months prior, she took great comfort from me having seen him grazing with my horse and looking fit and well.

My brother who doesn't believe in any of this "stuff", mentioned in passing that our mum had appeared to him at the bottom of his bed not long after she died.

I have also seen a ghost on a few occasions, felt pockets of energy, cold spots. All fascinating stuff.

I don't really care whether people believe me or not, I know what I know and if it brings me comfort, then that is just fine with me, I never lie to myself or others, if I see/feel/hear/sense it then I say it, if I don't then I will also say that I have not picked anything up.

I hope more people come forward with their fascinating stories :)

TTWK · 15/06/2015 13:15

if it brings me comfort, then that is just fine with me

Maybe I'm odd, but I'd rather deal in reality, even if it makes me miserable. I'm not interested in what brings me comfort, I'm interested in facts, logic and reason.

PtolemysNeedle · 15/06/2015 16:32

If you're interested in facts, logic and reason, and you're not interested in things that might bring you or others comfort, then what are you doing showing such strength of feeling on this thread? Especially when the OP has specifically said that she doesn't want a load of 'what a load of nonsense' posts.

You're either more interested than you're prepared to admit, or you're just being difficult for the sake of it. Either way, I don't think many people who have a faith of some kind care what others believe. As long as it's not doing any harm, where's the problem with each to their own?

MarianneSolong · 15/06/2015 16:38

I had a slightly odd experience immediately after my father died. I was sitting with him/his body in the private room he'd had in the hospice, waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. The nursing staff had laid him out.

I had a very very strong sense - as if someone was giving me an order - that I must get up and open the window.

This worried me slightly as I though the hospice might want the room to be shut off. However, the sense that I must do it was stronger still. So I got up and opened the window.

The atmosphere felt more peaceful after that. As if some kind of agitation had gone.

Only later did I learn that in some societies this is the practice in order to let the spirit depart.

I had no sensation that it was my father asking me to open the window. But 'something' was telling me to do that.

TTWK · 15/06/2015 20:09

As long as it's not doing any harm

But it is doing harm, that's the problem. It's not benign. Mediums, spiritualists and assorted con artists feed off it. And women struggle to get taken seriously in science because it is overwhelmingly women that feed into this stuff, and that is very damaging.