Ghosts....?

[Rubyretro]

I saw a cartoon dogs face once, kind of like the end of a looney tunes cartoon face, staring back at me from the canal, I had been fishing all night and as dawn broke just a shadow on the water suggested it to my tired mind and it filled in the rest.
So I dont believe ghosts physically exist, what are the photons bouncing off so that you can see them?
I do believe in a kind of consciousness that we rarely experience, and if we experience it it is easier to believe in ghosts or ufo's than it is to think our mind could mislead us so much.
All the best.

I very much know what senses you are referring to here Martin.

I know that I literally hallucinate when I am very very tired (gawd, I hope Moonbegger never reads this).

One thing I have is being petrified of motorways and speed, and so although I do drive on motorways when really obliged to (rigid in the driving seat and eyes ears everywhere, never relaxing), I always left my ex husband to do that.
Only I forced myself to stay awake on long journeys and I mentally co drove
anyway.;

With the result that on one very long trip I 'saw' a dinosaur next to the motorway. I remember very well seeing it -I saw it.

It was actually the canopy above some motorway petrol pumps - as my kids have often laconically reminded me.

[martin wilson]

A dinosaur is brilliant,much more satisfying than the usual road sighting of a ghost or being probed by some grey in a spaceship.
But we know it could not have been a dinosaur because you dont see many about these days,
But a ghost or a ufo? road hypnotism,tiredness creating an image you thought you saw (parolieda) or seeing a light,pulling over and falling asleep,later to be revealed through the well intentioned but suspect use of hynotism to be an abduction?
Whats more likely? not to discredit everybody who has had that type of experience, I'm sure their ghost was just as real as your dinosaur.
All the best.

[Rubyretro]

But a ghost or a ufo? road hypnotism,tiredness creating an image you thought you saw (parolieda) or seeing a light,pulling over and falling asleep,later to be revealed through the well intentioned but suspect use of hynotism to be an abduction?

I already told you what my dinosaur really was, Martin -a petrol station on the motorway (luckily I had lucid witnesses for my hallucination).

Parolieda, you say ?

[martin wilson]

I mock ye not, its kind of my whole point, its extremely important that to your perception it was a dinosaur, ok you had lucid witnesses, and of course you knew it wasnt a dinosaur but other people on their own CERTAIN they saw a ghost?
Yep, parolieda I think is how its spelt, as opposed to a simulcrum which is something which does look like something else, like a tree with a face in it.
All the best.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Whats more likely? not to discredit everybody who has had that type of experience, I'm sure their ghost was just as real as your dinosaur.
All the best.

I'll just repeat what I wrote earlier:

The great problem with this, as with many other explanations for hauntings, is that it doesn’t cover the whole spectrum of haunting experiences. How do the projections of the mind create EVP’s caught on audio tape? How does it allow multiple observers see the exact same thing? Or allow them to capture images in photographs and on video? And how do projections of the mind cause objects to move, disappear then reappear?

Suggesting that someone who caught something out of the corner of their eye is mistaken, or that their mind has played tricks on them, is one thing. Suggesting that the person, alone in a basement, who turns their back on a chair for only seconds and when they turn around finds that the chair has moved three feet or so and is then positioned to block their exit (as happened to me), is mistaken or that their mind has played tricks on them, is another thing altogether.

Wolf.

[Robert]

Hi Wolf

There's nothing like first-hand experience in these things and I have never seen a ghost, however your story is food for thought because, barring rather desperate explanations such as that a rat noiselessly moved the chair, etc, your story is very suggestive. Also I do not imagine you to be the kind of person given to hoaxes, hallucinations or wishful thinking.

[martin wilson]

I didn't think I was trying to explain every paranormal experience,just suggesting a possible explanation for some ghost sightings.
I would go with altered states of consciousness as explanation in a lot of cases, hoaxes,hallucinations and wishful thinking dont scratch the surface, there is hypnotism,hypnogognia,hypnopompia, sleep paralysis,schizophrenia, fantasy prone personality, temporal lobe epiliepsy, the aforementioned parolieda,simulcra, evidence that tectonic stresses create electrical fields that affect the brain, and the usual suspects,drink and drugs.
Robert is correct though, be here now is the watchword for paranormal experiences,otherwise we are left with a believe it or not,sometimes an explanation can be found,although experiences that have been thoroughly researched and explained get recycled from book to book leaving out that part.
I heard a demonic babble of voices coming from my airing cupboard! turned out to be an old Randall 4033 central heating timer with a worn out bearing,
All the best.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Robert and Martin.

There's nothing like first-hand experience in these things and I have never seen a ghost, however your story is food for thought because, barring rather desperate explanations such as that a rat noiselessly moved the chair, etc, your story is very suggestive. Also I do not imagine you to be the kind of person given to hoaxes, hallucinations or wishful thinking.

Yes. I’m not the sort of person given to hoaxes, hallucinations or wishful thinking. To a large degree I have a healthy scepticism of the paranormal but, having said that, I have personally experienced a great deal of paranormal activity. Name the haunting phenomenon and I can probably tell you a story from my own experiences. This tends to make claims that haunting phenomenon are easily explained by tricks of the mind or some pseudo scientific bafflegab (this is not directed at you Martin) to be funny.

I’ve seen an elephant. Probably you both have seen an elephant or two in your day, as have many others. What would you think if people who have never seen an elephant state with conviction that elephants don’t exist? That it’s actually impossible for them to exist? That anyone who claims to have seen this mythical creature is obviously lying, confused or deluded? I’ve seen ghosts – full bodied apparitions – three times in my life so I know, like elephants, that they exist.

That doesn’t mean that Martin is wrong, however. I’ve talked to people who have told me their ghost story and I have not believed them. The mind can fool you and there are those who so want to have a haunting experience that every little floorboard creak; every pipe rattle and every cool breeze becomes a spectral army marching through their house.

I’m reminded of the people who moved into an old house only to discover, to their horror, that the place was haunted. Every night, at sundown, a ghost, or ghosts, could be heard walking around in the empty attic. This would go on for a few minutes then stop as mysteriously as it had started. Eventually, scared out of their minds, their lives completely unsettled, they turned to an expert for help. He waited till the footsteps began, then poked his head into the attic for a look see. There, in the light of his flashlight, he came face to face with…..a family of racoons who slept during the day and roused themselves at sundown to go out foraging.

Wolf.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Robert and Martin.



Yes. I’m not the sort of person given to hoaxes, hallucinations or wishful thinking. To a large degree I have a healthy scepticism of the paranormal but, having said that, I have personally experienced a great deal of paranormal activity. Name the haunting phenomenon and I can probably tell you a story from my own experiences. This tends to make claims that haunting phenomenon are easily explained by tricks of the mind or some pseudo scientific bafflegab (this is not directed at you Martin) to be funny.

I’ve seen an elephant. Probably you both have seen an elephant or two in your day, as have many others. What would you think if people who have never seen an elephant state with conviction that elephants don’t exist? That it’s actually impossible for them to exist? That anyone who claims to have seen this mythical creature is obviously lying, confused or deluded? I’ve seen ghosts – full bodied apparitions – three times in my life so I know, like elephants, that they exist.

That doesn’t mean that Martin is wrong, however. I’ve talked to people who have told me their ghost story and I have not believed them. The mind can fool you and there are those who so want to have a haunting experience that every little floorboard creak; every pipe rattle and every cool breeze becomes a spectral army marching through their house.

I’m reminded of the people who moved into an old house only to discover, to their horror, that the place was haunted. Every night, at sundown, a ghost, or ghosts, could be heard walking around in the empty attic. This would go on for a few minutes then stop as mysteriously as it had started. Eventually, scared out of their minds, their lives completely unsettled, they turned to an expert for help. He waited till the footsteps began, then poked his head into the attic for a look see. There, in the light of his flashlight, he came face to face with…..a family of racoons who slept during the day and roused themselves at sundown to go out foraging.

Wolf.

Hi Wolf
You have seen ghosts several times and say

Name the haunting phenomenon and I can probably tell you a story from my own experiences.

and yet you dont beleive people who tell you their ghost experiences?

i dont get it.

[martin wilson]

Perhaps its experience Abby, i was on a forum for a while with a bloke 'in the trade' so to speak who was a member of the West Midlands Ghost club and had spent a lifetime investigating hauntings,he never believed a word anybody said!
I have never seen,or heard anything remotely paranormal,despite working in a supposedly haunted building,everybody else had a ghost story about the old church apart from me,who worked on my own for 3 years in the stores.
I wont deny though there was an area upstairs,presumably the old pulpit where I got a very uneasy feeling, so much so I hated goiing up there, so perhaps I can say 'felt' but of course it's very subjective.
Might not have just been me, for a laugh, a couple of the lads had tied the previous storeman to the upstairs rail and turned all the lights off and left him there, wasn't quite so funny when they went back,he was hysterical,so much so he had to be sent home.
All the best.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi A. N.

and yet you dont beleive people who tell you their ghost experiences?

I don’t disbelieve everyone but I always remain sceptical of what others claim. I worked in a haunted building for almost ten years. Some people told me stories that just rang true, or were similar to things that had happened to me. Others would excitedly tell me a story that didn’t really amount to anything; that could be explained away as nerves or a trick of the mind.

Shaken and scared people who described seeing something, or finding that something had moved while their back was turned for just a second, are, I find, more credible than someone who, with mounting excitement, tell of a “funny feeling” they had. Or that “they knew they weren’t alone” or that a certain part of the building was “creepy.”

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. A couple of friends of mine were leaving the building late one night. They were already afraid of being there at that time and went around together turning off lights and locking up. As they were standing in the lobby a light near them went off by itself. It was obviously THE GHOST and they ran out of the place. I came in the next day and found that one of the lights – the one that had gone off by itself I later found – was burned out so I replaced it. Later that day they breathlessly told me their story and I asked them to show me which light it was. I explained to them that the bulb had merely burned out. They refused to believe me and went around telling their thrilling encounter with THE GHOST for years after. From then on I was highly sceptical about anything they said on the matter because it was obvious that they wanted to have a ghostly encounter and a story to tell.

Martin.

I have never seen, or heard anything remotely paranormal, despite working in a supposedly haunted building, everybody else had a ghost story about the old church apart from me, who worked on my own for 3 years in the stores.

As I said above, I worked in a haunted building for almost ten years and experienced almost everything under the sun but there were people there who had worked in the building for over thirty years and never experienced anything whatsoever. A handful of people had many experiences; some had only one or two while others had, as I said, zero experiences even though, as it was pointed out to me, they had been in the building at all hours of the day or night and had, in some occasions, spent the night there.

I can’t explain this other than the “conventional wisdom” that some people are more attuned to these things than others. Maybe some of us are just magnets that draw spirits to them for some reason. I, and my family, have certainly experienced that.

Wolf.

[Robert]

Hi Wolf

I think this is the problem with your elephant analogy. Anyone who denied the existence of elephants would have to embrace a conspiracy theory so gigantic that it would make JTR or moon landing conspiracists look positively sane. Most people who are not mentally ill know that even if they have never seen an elephant in the flesh, they can do so by going to a zoo or India or Africa. There is a method to prove the existence of elephants and the method is, go and look.

However with ghosts, we run into the problem that some people can see them, and some can't. One might even say that a ghost that could be seen at regular times, at a particular place, by whomever cared to show up, would be well on the way to being reclassified as a physical object.

I keep an open mind. I would like to see a ghost but it hasn't happened to me.

[Beowulf]

I just saw a program on Jack the Ripper ghosts. Supposedly you are just crawling with 'em over there

http://www.paranormaldatabase.com/reports/jacktheripper.php

[martin wilson]

We have ghosts everywhere, pubs,museums.libraries, theatres, all types of housing from stately homes to council flats, parks, mines, graveyards, trains,buses,spitfires you name it it's got a ghost story.
I think anyone who ever died in the U.K has popped back for a visit at some time or other,everybody has a ghost story,everybodys seen'em.
Apart from me.
Hence the healthy scepticism I share with Wolf.
All the best.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

We have ghosts everywhere, pubs,museums.libraries, theatres, all types of housing from stately homes to council flats, parks, mines, graveyards, trains,buses,spitfires you name it it's got a ghost story.
I think anyone who ever died in the U.K has popped back for a visit at some time or other,everybody has a ghost story,everybodys seen'em.
Apart from me.

Too true.

I've already said that ghosts don't seem to exist in the South of France, and when visiting England with my (French) stepchildren I used to make scrapbooks of typically tradiitional English things with them, ( to make the trip more interesting and educational) -and ghosts were one of them.

Wherever we went, we could always buy a booklet on local ghosts, or get a story from a local person. We several times found ourselves (all 4 !) squashing ourselves up into the same bed from self inflicted fear of spectres
(but they are good memories -that's what ghosts are for ! The French are missing something).