Ghosts...have you seen one?

[elevenism]

People are going to facepalm me here, i know, but i don't care.
I believe in ghosts, and i've seen 'em, goddamnit.

I can't say for certainty what they are. One of the ghosts seems to only be able to do one thing...walk from the hallway back towards my bedroom. This part of the house was built as a place for my great grandfather to spend his final days and die, so i think it's him. But i don't think that it's sentient. I think, rather, that it's some sort of anomaly in the space-time continuum...a memory of the house, if you will. I have no doubt in my mind that the ghost phenomenon will be explained one day, that physical evidence will come to light and "ghosts" will make perfect sense, be they wandering spirits, glitches in temporal perception, or visions of alternate dimensions.

I have seen this particular "ghost" at least 25 or 30 times.

I have several other ghost stories...i believe that i must be "sensitive" to them. I will share more if you share yours.

I KNOW some of you have seen ghosts.
People will laugh at this, but fuck 'em. I'm saying that in advance.

So if you have REALLY seen a ghost, tell the tale!

Happy Halloween, ETS.

[eversonpoe]

i think ghosts are simply remnants of energy left behind after people die. we're all made of energy and it has to go somewhere (and it sure as shit isn't "heaven"). i think that when we die and our energy isn't properly dispersed among the rest of the universe, it can remain concentrated in one place. thus: ghosts.

[allegro]

I'm totally addicted to "Long Island Medium" (Theresa Caputo) and "Angels Among Us" (Rosie Cepero). I've read Theresa Caputo's Book, "There's More to Life Than This." Rosie Cepero, in particular, has a very compelling talent. I don't believe in what we call "ghosts" but, instead, "spirits" or the energy of our former souls or lives that were on this earth or realm or plane of existence? Some of it is scary, for sure; Theresa Caputo has an "agreement" with "spirit" that she will communicate messages ONLY if they are not negative and that no "bad" spirit comes through; the good spirits "protect" her. It evidently has not always been a good "gift" for her; she is plagued with anxiety, these spirits follower her friggin' everywhere, it never lets up.

Edit: my dentist HATES this woman, thinks she is TOTALLY full of shit, lol. I admit that it is just fun to watch and maybe wishful thinking that these people with lost loved ones get "closure."

I personally saw what could possibly be a "spirit" once; not a great experience, a bright light, a longish tall apparition near my bed in the middle of the night not long after my grandfather died, I never hope to see or experience anything like it again, no thanks.

[henryeatscereal]

My grandmother claimed she talked to the ghost of my grandfather many times at night, i never saw him but i wanted to in a way (and didn't wanted to in another way...), not surprised she said that they were together for almost 60 years...

[Ryan]

Yes, I have seen Tool's recent output since 2005.

[Timinator]

<rain on ghost parade>
I have never seen a ghost. I'm certain they don't exist. Here's why:

There's nothing in our understanding of science that hints at a possibility, let alone likelihood, of ghosts. However, science does show that we make mistakes. Human sensory input is remarkably fallible. We often see, hear, and feel things incorrectly, or sense things that aren't there. Most of us create complete, believable reality simulations in our brain every night.

The persistent existence of humans is something that many of us, as humans, would desperately want to be true. Psychology is strong.

Given the number of people that exist and have ever lived, ghost sightings are extremely rare.

There is, therefore, already a complete explanation for why people think they see ghosts, and no explanation for why they might be real. Occam's Razor.
</rain on ghost parade>

[elevenism]

i think that what @eversonpoe said is a possibility.

But i'm also really attracted to the idea of interdimensional "bleedthrough."

I'm going to out myself on having done something really stupid to make a point, @Timinator .

Back in 06 or so i got spun on ice for a little while, and i had a couple of episodes of amphetimine psychosis where i saw...i mean SAW...things that weren't there....not out of the corner of my eye...saw them and walked around them 360 degrees...hell, had conversations with people who weren't there.

So yes, the brain is AMAZINGLY powerful and human perception is INSANELY fallable. Those episodes scared the ever living shit out of me in terms of what's there and what isn't, what's REAL and what isn't, and caused me to always question.

I've also had such extensive experience with various kinds of entities, however, and know others who have had the same experiences, to know that there is SOMETHING there.

Hell, Michio Kaku says that there are invisible time travelers all around us and he's one of the best minds we've got. (i kind of doubt that, but still )

When you get right down to it, we know very little of the nature of our consciousness, the nature of reality, who WE are, what ANYTHING is...
there are still massive, basic mysteries that we just don't think about from day to day.

So i don't think that it's so easy to write ghosts off, whatever the fuck they are.

[allegro]

Tim can write off anything, cause he's no fun lol.

[elevenism]

This house, the house my grandfather built, is so insanely haunted.
When my parents first brought my brother and i here as children, we felt it so intensely that we wanted to sleep outside...no shit.

Over the years there have been countless phenomena, from smells to drops in temperature to objects moving by themselves.
I've seen SO many "spirits" here. An old ets friend, mica, helped me to get over the fear.
Now the whole thing is insanely interesting to me. Through her guidance, i've even managed to get a pretty chilling evp.

The creepiest thing is when two people hear... and especially see...the same thing.
For instance, my wife noticed me staring into the bathroom the other day with a concerned look on my face. She asked me what it was and i said nothing. (a shadow of a person had appeared on the bathroom door.)

She then said "is it a shadow of a man on the door? i've been seeing it on and off for about three weeks."

I know they're there...what i DON'T know is what they are. I certainly hope that we aren't sentient and earthbound in any sort of afterlife that may exist.

As far as the afterlife goes, i believe that it's not that bad, whatever it is. I do believe in a creator and i don't believe in eternal torment.

I could talk all day about this stuff, especially this time of year, but i will write a dissertation instead of a post.

[allegro]

Have you tried smudging?

[marodi]

I've seen relatives after they had died. For 2 1/2 years, back in the 80s, we experienced in our home a lot of poltergeist-like activity. It scared the living shit out of me. Almost 30 years later, I still have nightmares about it.

It doesn't upset me if people don't believe me when I tell them what I've seen; it's their absolute right after all. And I don't need them to believe me either: I know what I've been through. Most of it doesn't have a rational explanation. And I'm a very rational person.

[DF118]

I saw a ghost, recently.

Actually, it was giant, man-sized spider.

But then I realized that @Timinator is right, because ghosts and monsters don't exist.

Boy, did I feel like a moronic, superstitious simpleton then!

People build an interpretation of the world around them- it's not the world around them though. It can't be, because we have to translate that world into something we can process biologically. So if someone is challenged by a psychological blind spot, they construct, to fill in the gaps.

Fairly recently, I had very little sleep for around a week straight (partly because of work, partly because of fairly cathartic partying in-between self destructive bouts of work). When I eventually started to shut down and fall asleep- I became convinced I saw a man-sized spider climbing along the ceiling, coming to eat me.

While very frightening, I was in fact, so tired I was tripping balls.

Take a pinch of mass hysteria, a slice of the human brain being one pattern-matching machine, a spoonful of instinctive, evolutionarily advantageous fear of what may-or-may not be hiding under the bed (otherwise known as "mortal fear of death")... and you have ghosts.

See also: believing in God.

Edit: and Confirmation Bias.

[allegro]

YOU have OBVIOUSLY never played with a ouija board, dude. Or, better yet, hand-made ouija made of an upside-down wine glass on a table (glass is a better "conductor," allegedly). I've done it, will NEVER do THAT again, no thanks.

(Also, you're no fun, pttttthht)

[tony.parente]

Passionate naysayer checking in, representing the opposite side.

[Pillfred]

Once when i was a kid i saw something head towards the basement of my grandmas house at the bottom of some steps that lead out to the garage door from inside. This was midlle of the day just after i had gotten home from school maybe 4 p.m. I can't say for sure if this is when going down there started scaring the shit out of me or before i just remember never liking to be down there alone. Even at 16 when i was back there for my sisters wedding i went down there middle of the day again and it still creeped me out. It was around that time i was talking with my sister and some of her friends trading ghost stories and i mentioned this and she told me that she had seen the same thing before as she used to sleep down there. I had initially thought she was perhaps fucking with me but she swears she wasn't. I even asked my mom about it once and she said one time she saw the same sort of smokey like figure one night herself. That would be the one time i think i have seen a ghost.

Now after having done a fair bit of acid, pushing my limits sleep wise etc i could see how perhaps it could have been my mind playing tricks on me. I still think it was a legitimate thing, maybe not a ghost per se but something. One minute i was tinkering with my toys, i look over and boom. Too counter the cold rationality of Tim and other science minded individuals, while i don't outright disagree i presume that train of logic is based generally on a western scientific idea of nature and physics. There are, and certainly have been many other cultures who very much believe in such things. Some of that could be discounted by western science but if perception is reality than too many peoples and cultures ghosts and things of this nature have been and I'm sure still are a very real occurrence and a definite part of their daily lives.

[Louie_Cypher]

Ouija board story: A few years back we were set to host a Halloween dinner party. I decided to do Ouija board place-mats. I got the first one done and showed it to my S.O. at the time. She dropped it like it shocked her on the dinning room table and said, "That's too whitchy".
We had these glass vases with polished black stones in the bottom kind of like these http://www.cb2.com/black-river-stones/f4540 When she tossed the place-mat one of the vases broke and the stones went spilling across the table, even though the place-mat never touched the vase. Here is the freaky part some of the stones landed on the Ouija board, The letters and numbers TVC15 and Goodbye, just then guess what plays on the random playlist, David Bowie's TCV15. Well the place-mats were scrapped and although not due to this incident our relationship went downhill from there. As the old saying goes "Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball"
-Louie

[butter_hole]

Theresa Caputo

WHAT is UP with her HAIR

http://www.theresacaputo.com/photos/

is a complete lack of gravity considered supernatural?

[allegro]

She uses so much hair spray, she probably has permanent lung damage.

[Timinator]

We're all made of energy and it has to go somewhere (and it sure as shit isn't "heaven").

i think that what @eversonpoe said is a possibility.

It's true that the matter and energy we're made of is conserved. The matter lies there in the ground, and the energy is dissipated as heat. This is quite clear and has been proven and measured many times. Appealing to some other mystical "energy" just moves the make-believe pseudo-science line from ghosts to some other made-up thing.

But i'm also really attracted to the idea of interdimensional "bleedthrough."

Do you see the wording and reasoning you just used there? This is really the crux of the problem. You're attracted to these ideas. They appeal to you. You want them to be true.

I've also had such extensive experience with various kinds of entities, however, and know others who have had the same experiences, to know that there is SOMETHING there.

No, you haven't. You admitted that people can easily fool themselves. Just because you have a high frequency of fooling yourself doesn't prove anything. The fact is that the vast majority of people never see anything like ghosts. That's the frequency you should be looking at.

When you get right down to it, we know very little of the nature of our consciousness, the nature of reality, who WE are, what ANYTHING is...
there are still massive, basic mysteries that we just don't think about from day to day.

We know more than you think. And there ARE lots of people - qualified people - looking into these mysteries every day. It astounds me when we happily leave material science or electronics or mechanical engineering to the pros but somehow feel that we're entitled to a professional-level opinion on cognitive science.

See also: believing in God.
Edit: and Confirmation Bias.

Hear hear.

cold rationality of Tim

I actually get really pissed off when I see people refer to rationality as "cold". If saving millions of babies from lethal diseases, the Enlightenment, and the internet are cold, then I'm fucking frosty, baby.

western scientific idea of nature and physics

We're not living in the 1800s anymore. Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Turkey: the whole world increasingly believes in and utilises modern (not western) science. To think otherwise is perpetuating cultural myths and "noble savage" stereotypes.

if perception is reality

It ain't. See above.

Tim can write off anything, cause he's no fun lol.

Someone misses me.

[Ryan]

Life = death, and we may or may not do something interesting in between. The end.

[elevenism]

It doesn't upset me if people don't believe me when I tell them what I've seen; it's their absolute right after all. And I don't need them to believe me either: I know what I've been through. Most of it doesn't have a rational explanation. And I'm a very rational person.

well said. i wish we had a LOVE button.

hell, i didn't want this thread to turn into an argument. but i kind of knew it would. oh well
@Timinator , just out of curiosity, do you believe in the multiverse theory?
Theoretical physics opens the door for all KINDS of shit.

That's the last of it though. I'm not arguing. There are those of us, like @marodi and myself, who have experienced paranormal things that fucked with us so badly that we might not want to even bring them up.

My family once found ourselves on some utterly terrifying, call the exorcist level shit...for about a month.
People like us can't be dissuaded.

Like i said, i'm really not sure WHAT these beings are...i just know that they are there.

[Space Suicide]

I wouldn't say I believe in ghosts 100% but there is compelling photographic and video evidence that can prove as such.

As for my own experiences, I don't know it's so much as a ghost as it is a sense or acknowledgement of something being there when you're all alone. You know, that feeling you're being watched or there's a presence in the room? I've felt that several times in my life, none truly terrifying me to my wits end but lots of awkward situations when I feel as if I'm with someone and there's no one there. I've been alone 100% every time I've felt such a thing...it's powerful stuff. I believe in matter and energy never truly disappearing after someone has died either.

[DF118]

well said. i wish we had a LOVE button.

hell, i didn't want this thread to turn into an argument. but i kind of knew it would. oh well
@Timinator , just out of curiosity, do you believe in the multiverse theory?

Theoretical physics opens the door for all KINDS of shit.

Except that said shit that can often be tested, reproduced and measured. We know that quantum entanglement happens, because we can observe its effects. From this, we can interpret with some degree of correctness what's going on based on evidence- (waveform function being that evidence in this case). Hence we can build a testable model of reality. Which was how the many worlds interpretation was born.

Making up a scientific theory because you fancy it is absolutely the last thing you should ever do, because it leads to total bullshit.

[elevenism]

I wouldn't say I believe in ghosts 100% but there is compelling photographic and video evidence that can prove as such.

As for my own experiences, I don't know it's so much as a ghost as it is a sense or acknowledgement of something being there when you're all alone. You know, that feeling you're being watched or there's a presence in the room? I've felt that several times in my life, none truly terrifying me to my wits end but lots of awkward situations when I feel as if I'm with someone and there's no one there. I've been alone 100% every time I've felt such a thing...it's powerful stuff. I believe in matter and energy never truly disappearing after someone has died either.

the matter DAMN sure doesn't...worm food and such, you know? Plant fertilizer.
But the energy, that for me is the big question.

I worked as a cna taking care of people in nursing homes (and hospitals, albeit less frequently,) and have been around lots and lots of death.
Once, i became fairly close to a youngish black woman who was having a VERY rough go of it dying from cancer. But her spirit and dignity were SO powerful.
Of course, one morning she died. Word hadn't got back to the kitchen so they sent her a breakfast tray. You've seen those carts on which you can roll trays, right?

Well, i was passing her room, i was thinking "i better give xxxxxx her tray," and then thinking "no more trays, she's gone," with some sadness.

Right at that moment, the tray shot, and i mean SHOT...out of the cart. It didn't just fall off. I and the cart were standing still. The tray ejected with fucking FORCE and slid halfway down the hall.

This made me wonder if our energy can hang around for a little while perhaps...especially if we are conscious of the energy leaving the body, you know? And if it was her, i wonder if she was playful? Angry? Or god forbid, confused?
@Space Suicide , can you turn me on to some of this "compelling evidence?"
I never know where to look for photos that are supposed to be real.

Edit: @Ryan , but "ghosts" could be SO many things other than earthbound human spirits. I feel quite certain that as certain parts of theoretical physics become tangible, we will have a PHYSICAL explanation for many "supernatural" phenomena.
I don't believe in the supernatural exactly. It's all natural! There are just things that are still outside our realm of understanding.
For science to advance, we HAVE to be able to accept the impossible.

[butter_hole]

Life = death, and we may or may not do something interesting in between. The end.

But is death............................................. ........................................ really the end?

[allegro]

Someone misses me.

Except that said shit that can often be tested, reproduced and measured.

Life = death, and we may or may not do something interesting in between. The end.

[tony.parente]

Haha @allegro can that PLEASE be your default reaction to stuff like this?

Also to stay on topic there has never been any legitimate proof without a shadow of a doubt proving ghosts or spirits exist, until there is scientific evidence I will always see the idea as fictional.

[allegro]

Haha @allegro can that PLEASE be your default reaction to stuff like this?

Also to stay on topic there has never been any legitimate proof without a shadow of a doubt proving ghosts or spirits exist, until there is scientific evidence I will always see the idea as fictional.

No, the TOPIC is: "have you seen a ghost?"

(if answer = "no" = skip this thread)

NOT the topic: refute the existence of ghosts (aka "trolling").

Another example:

Title of thread: "This Thread Is For Cat Lovers"

Trolling: "Cats suck." "I do not believe in cats." "Dogs rule."

[tony.parente]

No, the TOPIC is: "have you seen a ghost?"

(if answer = "no" = skip this thread)

I answered the question, and I submitted my reasoning to why I feel as though they don't exist. I didn't insult or bash anyone who felt otherwise.

[Timinator]

hell, i didn't want this thread to turn into an argument. but i kind of knew it would. oh well
@Timinator , just out of curiosity, do you believe in the multiverse theory?
Theoretical physics opens the door for all KINDS of shit.

I'm not going to argue, because we don't agree on valid premises. I've said my piece. Return to your spoooooky thread.

If we were to argue, though, I would suggest that you not try to convince me using physics, whether theoretical or practical.