Weird activity in my house (again)

[MozzchopsThirty]

At the risk of sounding totally insane we have spirits in our house.

Dd (21) has always heard people talking at night, going up and down stairs, walking the landing etc
After my divorce it got worse and lights were going on and off, doors closing etc.
I had a priest round who blessed the house, then a clairvoyant 'cleaner' which made things much better.

Now things are starting again, dd hearing things and now ds1 has told dd he often feels like there's someone in his room.
Last night I woke to him screaming from his bedroom that there were people whispering outside his room and walking along the carpet! He was too afraid to even come out. Now ds1 is a no nonsense rugby playing teen who is certainly not hysterical at any time. He ended up sleeping with his sister (he'd generally rather die than this!)
There was also a cross knocked off a shelf and down the back of cupboards in ds2 room when I was here alone.

Don't know what to do? Do I get cleaning lady back?
Are we all going crazy?
(Sorry didn't know where else to post this)

Oxford English Dictionary definition,

"Denoting events or phenomena such as telekinesis or clairvoyance that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding."

I think what I said fits this definition. 'Beyond' is not synonymous with 'goes against'. It I just means science does not fully facilitate understanding of the phenomenon (currently).

Not going to argue.

It's fine to say "I don't know what's happening here because scientific discovery hadn't got there yet" (although with woo stuff we do know, obviously.)

It's not fine to say "I don't know what's happening here, so it must be a ghost"

"It's not fine to say "I don't know what's happening here, so it must be a ghost"

Yes, but the definition of 'ghost', is not simple, is it? Say we actually achieved real tangible knowledge over what the phenomenon were, people were sensing on some level, people could still call them 'ghosts'. It is similar to how people say they are 'haunted' by a bad experience or music can said to be 'haunting' or say there are 'ghosts in the machine'. That's language. It can be quite creative. Communicating something that affects a preoccupation in the mind and calling it a 'ghost' should not be vilified. People need to be able to communicate their experiences.

although with woo stuff we do know, obviously.

Actually, no. You really don't.

If it's ok for people to say I've seen something with my own eyes that science can not explain in any way shape or form, and in in the absence of all other potential reasons, sometimes it really is potentially something paranormal.

I WAS a sceptic.

Even then, I wasn't as rude to just shut others down with my own limited and dismissive attitude.

"Communicating something that affects a preoccupation in the mind and calling it a 'ghost' should not be vilified"

Well, not necessarily vilified.. But certainly corrected if it's a twig scraping on an upstairs window in the wind.

And certainly vilified if it is someone telling another person that the scraping twig is definitely a ghost and they need to have their house exorcised.

Well, yes, Bertrand, that would be just lying. But I'm sure if we were just talking about twigs against windows here, the OP would not be so stumped.

The OP has refused to consider anything but a supernatural explanation, and got quite cross when it was suggested.

Most supernatural encounters are on a par with my scraping twig. The rest are a bit more complicated. But they all have perfectly rational explanations. There hasn't ever been one that's been investigated that hasn't. Not ever.

But they all have perfectly rational explanations

Do they? I've no real opinion on that. We don't know everything so can't reason everything conclusively. But I'm happy with that. But I'm also pretty comfortable with a Catholic or C of E priest coming round to deal with unsettling phenomenon too, if people want that - as long it does not mean wiring and other health and safety issues are neglected.

"But they all have perfectly rational explanations"

Well, all the ones that have ever been investigated ever have had perfectly rational explanations. And for a long time there was million dollars waiting for anyone who could prove otherwise.

Out of interest, what was the explanation for the images of Roman soldiers seen, marching through a cellar in York? I remember, at the time, it even lead to a discovery of Roman soldiers using round shields instead of the rectangular, as previously commonly believed.

Well, the York Roman soldiers were seen by one man working alone in a cellar. Dream? Hallucination caused by some sort of gas in the cellar? A story he made up?

Incidentally, the thing about round/rectangular shields isn't true. Historians had known some shields were round for ages.

Does your dd have an interest in ghosts, the paranormal etc outside of your house? I have a friend who used to tell me their childhood home was haunted. He was the only one who supposedly experienced things even though family sort of went along with it. Since then, he's lived in 4 other houses, 3 of them brand new builds, and all supposedly haunted too! Footsteps on the stairs, cupboard doors opening by themselves, cats being spooked (well, aren't they always anyway? !). His wife hasn't experienced anything but kind of goes along with him anyway. I find it a little unbelievable that these spirits 'follow' him around. He's always had a fascination with ghosts etc and now I think he really believes some of the stuff he spouts. So just wondering if your dd could have a bit of an interest that's maybe giving her an overactive imagination?

Does your dd have an interest in ghosts, the paranormal etc outside of your house? I have a friend who used to tell me their childhood home was haunted. He was the only one who supposedly experienced things even though family sort of went along with it. Since then, he's lived in 4 other houses, 3 of them brand new builds, and all supposedly haunted too! Footsteps on the stairs, cupboard doors opening by themselves, cats being spooked (well, aren't they always anyway? !). His wife hasn't experienced anything but kind of goes along with him anyway. I find it a little unbelievable that these spirits 'follow' him around. He's always had a fascination with ghosts etc and now I think he really believes some of the stuff he spouts. So just wondering if your dd could have a bit of an interest that's maybe giving her an overactive imagination?

Still waiting on the explanation for the dd hearing the ghosts and the op not despite being together.

Dream? Hallucination caused by some sort of gas in the cellar? A story he made up?

Yes, quite possibly. However it's still a 'haunting' of sorts - cool too that it was historically correct.

Myself, I think it is possible that people could subliminally somehow sense the history of an environment from the environmental impact of what has occurred there. When you just look at biological systems in trees alone, chemical communication, symbiosis, biotic 'trades' between species, what they can sense - it is not that outrageous to think there could be some sort of residual biological trace left by events and people and that this could somehow be perceived on some level by people.

"Yes, quite possibly. However it's still a 'haunting' of sorts - cool too that it was historically correct."

So any dream is a haunting?

And, frankly, if you live in York or anywhere where there are Roman remains you'd have to be pretty unobservant if your dream about roman soldiers wasn't pretty accurate! And incidentally, I think that the guy who saw them didn't tell anyone about it for ages - so he had plenty of time to consciously or unconsciously hone his story.

I'm tempted by the possibility of inherited memory. It seems to exist in the animal world so why not in ours?

I think with science, we may not be able to explain everything yet but we are trying and progressing rather than shutting down explanation by stating that it must be God or spirits.

Yes, beware the God of the Gaps.

So any dream is a haunting

No, only particularly haunting ones!

Thing is if a person is obsessed by the memory of someone, from dreaming, thinking, and even hearing or seeing them, when they are not physically there, it is a type of haunting. They have affected that person very profoundly, almost to the point they 'take over' their senses.

Ghosts are not considered to be physically present are they? They do not physically exist. They only are considered to physically manifest through something that does physically exist. And that 'manifestation' is then a physical event, a physical phenomenon - not considered supernatural, if you don't consider (even spontaneous) physical phenomena supernatural.

shutting down explanation by stating that it must be God or spirits.

It doesn't necessarily shut down explanation, since we don't fully understand what people mean when they talk about God and spirits. The concepts are not fully understood. So understanding still can be sought.

shutting down explanation by stating that it must be God or spirits

or shutting down explanation by stating that it mustn't or can't be.

What I saw didn't have any basis in science. I wasn't obsessed with any notion of anything or anyone, I didn't even give the paranormal much thought at all, mostly I was sceptical because of all the Most Haunted crap on TV.

I had no fixed idea one way or another. I'm more inclined to believe now that there is a great deal we can't explain.

It could be a residual memory, stored in the fabric of places, but for someone who wasn't connected to that place something has to manifest to them, it becomes visible, audible etc.

I had aromas too, afterwards that had no explainable source and were fleeting and came and went without dissipation.

Wow, Hissy, have you had any more of these experiences since?

I get aromas as part of migraine aura. Possibly also answers a lot of experiences.

My Dh had a physical play wrestle with his dead brother. He felt him and his DM heard the commotion. He knows it was his grief and mental anguish. If he was woo he'd say it was his brother saying goodbye.

There is a lot about the brain we don't understand that will likely explain a lot of what people categorised as ghosts or spirits. I would never deny that people experience what they do. I disagree that you can just say that it's ghosts when there will be a scientific answer since ghosts do not exist other than in people's heads.

nope, it was the one place, a building built by my ex family generations ago, we moved to another part of the city a few months after that.

First i saw something, then the aromas came for a few days a couple of times a day, then stopped.

At the time i knew it wasn't about me per se. I never felt frightened, although that took a great deal of focus when walking through the pitch black building during a power cut.

I don't get migraines, was not in any emotional turmoil, not grieving.

it was not in my head. there may not be a scientific answer, but that doesn't mean I didn't see anything, or smell the aroma of really pungent roses in a place that they frankly don't grow (abroad)

I find it RUDE actually to tell me that I didn't see something I did, or to deny me something that really did happen.

I can't explain it, but neither can any of you, telling me I am mad, making it up or just telling me it didn't happen is not on. It was not just 'in my head'

Agree to disagree, but don't shout me down with definite statements you actually CAN'T make.

But how do you know it wasn't just in your head, hissy? Smells, after all, are effectively just in your head, and sight is processed by the brain. Of course I didn't experience what you did, and I understand that you are absolutely convinced, but how can we ever be entirely sure of something that is 'just' sensed? People have dreams, and semi-waking dreams, that they perceive to be very real.