# Paranormal experiences?



## Ichthyosaur (Sep 21, 2013)

_I know the topic is a bit controversial, but I was just wandering what people thought about it? Believer or not? Have you ever experienced anything yourself? _


Personally I believe that there is something after life, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. Compared to the rest of my (mother's side) of the family I have had hardly any paranormal experiences. I could tell you some of the stories of my mum's experiences, but I'd be here all night typing, and I wouldn't even be able to cover them all. So instead I can share a few of my own.  

My earliest experiences have been told back to me by family members who witnessed them because I was too young to remember. The first house I ever lived in (a Victorian house) was haunted by what my mum described as an elderly couple and a dog. I would often be found talking to someone who wasn't there in the kitchen, and would talk about "the lady in the kitchen". My parents would see a black dog out of the corners of their eyes, and feel a brush of air, as if someone was walking past them which would smell like old fashioned cologne. My parents also told me that they never felt scared or intimidated by these presences. Funnily enough I now live about 2 minutes away from this house, I'd like to go back and see if I can find out if they really are there, but obviously that would be awkward to explain to whoever lives there now.  

My second house was also Victorian, and in an estate which is literally over the road to where the first house is. While living there I would sit directly in front of the chimney and talk to someone. I would tell my parents about the 'boy in the chimney' so often that they thought it was a game I'd made up. One day my aunt came over to visit my mum and I came into the kitchen talking about the little boy again. I told them that he was scared, and that he could see a light, but he didn't know what to do. Under the advice of my mum and aunt, I went back alone to tell him that everything would be okay, and that he should go towards the light. I should tell him that I would be there, and that he wasn't alone. After me doing this, my aunt and mum have explained, that I never sat and spoke to the chimney again because the boy was gone.​


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 21, 2013)

So you have no memory at all of these events? Somebody else reminded you of something that happened that they didn't experience themselves, and that you don't even remember. That isn't very compelling evidence, to be honest; and you both believe in the paranormal, so already it's a little biased. You have to be open to all the possibilities:

1. You may have lied. Children lie all the time. Because you don't remember it, you also don't remember if you were being truthful at the time. It doesn't matter if you're not a dishonest person. That isn't proof you didn't make it up (no offense). Your mother may have embellished the story slightly -- from your words, it sounds like she's a firm believer in this stuff. 

2. Children are incredibly imaginative. You may well have been talking to something or someone, but that doesn't mean it was real. My sister says she had an imaginary friend called Josephine when she was little. They would play and eat cakes and tell stories to each other. My mother couldn't see her, and neither could I (I was also a child). Now some people might make up their own rules and say, "Children are closer to the other world. They can see and sense things that adults can't." There's absolutely no basis for that, so in the end, all I can say is it wasn't real, because I couldn't see it. What's more likely out of the two? That I have ghost blindness, or that my four-year-old sister made it up?

3. You said your parents saw things out of the corners of their eyes? Things in your peripheral vision often look completely different in full view. They can lose their shape, colour, and definition. We are pattern-seeking animals, so our brains will see a resemblance to another image and link the two. This can play tricks on us -- very frightening tricks. I've experience it myself, thinking I've seen faces behind me, and things like that. Even extending to the auditory kind. There are a few songs I listen to where I'm sure someone is screaming my name in the background, but obviously that's not possible. Lots of other words sound like my name, know what I mean? It seems a little convenient to me that they never saw a full ghost standing right in front of them, only glimpses. 

4. I feel gusts of wind all the time. Sometimes they feel subtle, almost exactly like someone walking beside me, but that's not the only possibility. There are hundreds of other explanations that are more likely than supernatural phenomena. What's more likely: a ghost walked beside them, or it was the wind?

5. I mean no disrespect, but your mother and aunt can't possibly know the rules of the afterlife. For them to say you didn't speak to the little boy ever again because he went towards the light is . . . well. I don't know what it is, but it's so unscientific.

Overall, based on everything I've heard, I still think there's no afterlife. There's no evidence to suggest it exists, and the stories people tell to me are often so vague, and they've usually filled in the gaps with their own beliefs. If the supernatural is real, then the believers aren't doing much to expose it, to be honest. They seem happy to just believe in it. I'm not. I want more than spooky stories and blurry photographs of orbs and shadows. I want empirical, irrefutable proof.


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## Charlaux (Sep 21, 2013)

I don't believe or disbelieve, but I am very curious about ghosts and supernatural things.

I haven't seen a ghost or experienced anything like you described (cool story btw.), but I used to experience sleep paralysis a lot and the symptoms of that are quite similar to what people who see supernatural things describe - feeling of intense fear, sensing 'evil' presences, feeling out of body experiences, and once I even had the intruder hallucination where I woke up and thought I saw something watching me but was unable to move my body. That was terrifying; it was sitting in profile but was like something out of a Picasso painting so I could see facial features at the same time.


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## Ichthyosaur (Sep 21, 2013)

Firstly I'd like to say, *Bruno Spatola,* that I never claimed to know the answers of the afterlife and I wasn't trying to sway your opinion in any way. I'm very respectful of the opinions of others. I am perfectly accepting of the fact that my personal experiences are quite weak because I can't remember them, and that I may have lied about them since I was a child. I personally believe in these things not through my own experiences but because of my mother's - I wont go into her story, because if I had a week I couldn't type it all up, and I doubt you'd be very interested anyway. It's hard to explain why I believe her stories without using examples, but lets just say: seeing her visibly upset over something that has happened and also talking to people who've been with her when she's 'seen' something who saw it too has helped me to believe her. I may be totally wrong in believing her and others and I'm open to the idea that the paranormal may not be real. 
I'm sorry that my story isn't scientific enough for you, but that's what I had to say on the topic and I wanted to share. Again, I was not trying to change anyone's opinions here, I was asking what people themselves thought. I cannot give you actual stone cold proof from my own experiences - I don't feel like believers should have to justify their beliefs to non-believers. Why don't the non-believers step up and prove that there is no afterlife? Because they don't have to, they're entitled to their beliefs like everyone else. Thank you for posting though, your argument was an interesting read. 

*Charlaux,* thank you. Sometimes I've felt presences, but never anything evil. That must've been quite scary! I would hate to see things or hallucinate, I'm already scared of the dark.​


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 21, 2013)

I never said you knew the answers; I can tell you weren't trying to change my opinion, too. I never said that. Sorry if you thought I was being confrontational, I really wasn't. In fact, I have an extensive interest in the idea of ghosts and the afterlife. I've read dozens of books on the subjects, and am highly influenced by it all. Most of my fiction has a supernatural vibe to it.

You can't prove that there isn't an afterlife. You can't prove a negative, it'd be silly to expect that, just the same way that you can't prove I'm not Jesus Christ reborn. Nobody, in any way, shape or form can disprove that this is the case. That means nothing.

I was talking about evidence that it _does_ exist, which is much, much more important, and actually possible to obtain. I also strongly believe that those who perpetuate these beliefs as anything but beliefs have the burden of proof, if anything, not the other way around. That's topsy-turvy.


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## Ichthyosaur (Sep 21, 2013)

Sorry for going on the attack a bit. I didn't mean to come across nasty at all, sorry if I did! I'm glad you have an interest in the subject though. I'm just used to people shooting me down without really knowing what they're talking about. 

I'm sorry I don't really understand, why can't you 'prove a negative'? Ah, I see what you mean. Sorry, I think I just got the wrong end of the stick with that last part. ​


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## PiP (Sep 21, 2013)

Ichthyosaur said:


> _I know the topic is a bit controversial, but I was just wandering what people thought about it? Believer or not? Have you ever experienced anything yourself? _
> 
> 
> Personally I believe that there is something after life, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. ​



Hi Ichthyosaur,

I most certainly believe in spirits and life after death - almost as if we exist in a parallel world. I'm very much in tune with nature and my surroundings, so perhaps this helps and because of this I would _never_ dabble in séances, EVER 

PiP


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 21, 2013)

With séances I get the feeling that people are so swept up in the hysteria and mysticism of it all that they become more receptive to things that they normally wouldn't. Annoyingly, the ghosts always seem to speak in riddles as well. If I were a ghost, I'd scream everything I knew, but the mediums or whoever make it seem as if their energy is really weak and all that. They're frustratingly fruitless exercises. I've attended maybe ten or eleven.

Why do some people claim it is only humans that become ghosts? A lot of people who believe it say that animals don't have spirits, even though humans _are_ animals. I have no idea how they could know these things. Surely the spirit is an immeasurable, metaphysical essence. To claim knowledge over something so fundamentally unknowable is, if anything, a tremendous display of confidence.

I don't know what to think.


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## Morkonan (Sep 21, 2013)

Here's one of my experiences:

I was in College and moving into a condominium. The condo had been owned, previously, by my step-sister and her husband. However, he and his brother had been tragically killed in an automobile accident. (Hit by a drunk driver.) and my stepsister no longer wished to live there. Since it was close to the school I was attending, it made a perfect fit for me.

I was standing in the small kitchen and using my new phone. It had just been hooked up and I was calling a friend of mine to give him the phone number. Nothing else had been moved into the condo, all the cabinets were still closed, waiting for me to fill them, and nothing was out of place since there wasn't anything there to be "in place." I looked around the kitchen as I was talking to him and distinctly remember looking out the small window over the sink. I turned around and faced the wall, leaning against the countertop, and then returned to gazing out the kitchen window. All the cabinet doors were open... ALL of them, even the kitchen pantry door....

In the space of less than five seconds, all the cabinet doors in the kitchen (about a dozen), had come open several inches. I hadn't touched any of them and the small counter I leaned on was not connected. These were sturdy doors with secure hinges and latching mechanisms - They required significant and purposeful force to open and there was no evidence of any such force having been exerted. (No earthquake or strong wind or anything like that.)

I lived in that condo for years and had several other very unexplainable and somewhat dramatic experiences. The friends who visited me, and it was a great many, also related their experiences to me over the years and many were hesitant to go into certain places in that condo. (It was a three story condo.) Being a college dude with a big place near the school, I got lots of visitors and received lots of comments regarding "cold spots", "uneasy feelings" and all the sorts of things one would see on an episode of a ghost hunter's television show.

I'm a very "Evidence and Mechanism" minded sort of guy. I have my own spiritual beliefs, but don't accept the idea of "ghosts" very readily. However,after a couple of years of these sorts of events, I had a "sit down" and decided to "confront" whatever (if anything) could have been the cause that I couldn't measure or observe... After that, things calmed down considerably.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 21, 2013)

I would make a distinction between unexplained and unexplainable, but that's a very interesting story.


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## PiP (Sep 21, 2013)

Bruno Spatola said:


> With séances I get the feeling that people are so swept up in the hysteria and mysticism of it all that they become more receptive to things that they normally wouldn't. Annoyingly, the ghosts always seem to speak in riddles as well. If I were a ghost, I'd scream everything I knew, but the mediums or whoever make it seem as if their energy is really weak and all that. They're frustratingly fruitless exercises. I've attended maybe ten or eleven.



You are brave! I would never dabble in the unknown. Girl friends have suggested having a ouija board evening, and I thought: over my dead body! (no pun intended).



Bruno Spatola said:


> Why do some people claim it is only humans that become ghosts? A lot of people who believe it say that animals don't have spirits, even though humans _are_ animals. I have no idea how they could know these things. Surely the spirit is an immeasurable, metaphysical essence. To claim knowledge over something so fundamentally unknowable is, if anything, a tremendous display of confidence. I don't know what to think.



I also believe a spirit is an immeasurable, metaphysical essence, and as I said, you are dealing with the unknown. There is a simple balance to life so why try and force a connection with the other side? We don't know, that's just it. My husband was very cynical until he nearly died on the operating table. He had an out of body experience which changed his whole philosophy towards life and death. I actually wrote a poem about this.

Interesting topic, *Ichthyosaur. *  

Hey ho, onwards...

PiP


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## Ichthyosaur (Sep 21, 2013)

Hello, *Pigletinportugal*! I know what you mean. I have been made to promise that I will never attend a séance in my life. They can have terrible outcomes, and also disappointing outcomes. And thank you, I'm glad you found it interesting!

I strongly disagree with people who claim that animals do not have spirits for the same reasons that *Bruno Spatola* suggested. I think it's just a case of man believing he is 'the one and only' in many ways. I also disagree with people who believe we are the only intelligent life forms in the entire universe, but that's a whole different topic.

Very interesting story, *Morkonan*. I haven't experienced doors opening, but on a few occasions I have had things fly from (safe positions on) shelves/desks with too much force for them to have simply fallen. These experiences were sometimes followed by strange, uncomfortable feelings. I think one possibility could be that someone, or thing, was trying to get your attention in the only way that they could. ​


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## J Anfinson (Sep 21, 2013)

I think a lot of people are hesitant to share their experiences because they're afraid people will think they're crazy. Me? I could care less what you think of me. I've had numerous spooky experiences. Here's one:

My best friend in high school died in a car wreck the summer in-between Junior and Senior year. I'd decided to move into my grandmother's mobile home just across the driveway from my parents house, so it would feel like I had my own place. She was long dead, so I had it all to myself. Not long after school started back up again, I had just woke up to my alarm and was laying there in that half asleep "man I don't wanna get up" haze, when I heard a car pull in the driveway. It sounded like a standard/manual shift, and I thought "that sounds just like (my friend's) truck". I knew that was impossible, but for some reason I was just plain convinced it was him. I'll admit, I was actually scared and pulled the covers over my head. Then there was a knock at the window next to the bed. I wasn't even going to look. The knock repeated a couple times. Eventually the truck started back up and left.

A few minutes later, my mom came over and asked me if I'd heard anything strange. I said "yeah, why?"

She said she heard my friend in their house, calling for me, asking if I was awake yet.

Group hallucination? Possible, but I'm not convinced.


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## Jeko (Sep 21, 2013)

I'm not too interested in investigating it myself. Aside from my biblical beliefs there isn't much for me to talk about.

One thing I do _hate_, however, is shows on TV that try to expose 'ghosts' and show examples of 'real' people who have had 'supernatural experiences'.

That said, I like anything that treats the issue ambiguously, like _The Last Exorcism_. But I stay away from anything that tries to push an agenda.


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## OurJud (Sep 21, 2013)

I love a good ghost/horror film - in fact my favourite sub genre is classic Brit horrors (1965 - 1979), but I am also a firm believer that there is no such thing as 'paranormal activity'. I'm not only a firm believer, I know it to be the case.

How do I know? I know because I've yet to see any 'evidence' that can't be explained away rationally. When paranormal activity / ghosts / etc become fact, I'll be happy to change my opinion, but while all I have is some idiot on youtube claiming that the 'orb' that flew across the lens of her camera was her dead aunty (rather than the moth or particle of dust it actually was) I'll remain a non-believer.


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## Angelicpersona (Sep 21, 2013)

I believe very strongly in the afterlife, and myself and all of my immediate related family have had experiences.
- Starting from when I was about 2, I used to tell my parents vivid stories of Elvis coming to me in my dreams and taking me on trips to heaven. I don't remember much, but I do remember that there were cows there (maybe most animals are inherently good and go to the beyond place, which is why not many spirits are animals?) This went on until I was about 6.
- My brother, when he was about 5, started talking about his "5 grandfathers", and how they were always around him. When my mother asked him to describe them, he described nearly perfectly my mothers father, her two grandfathers, and my fathers two grandfathers, despite the fact that I don't remember ever seeing pictures of them.

There was a bit of a lull in between, and then when I was 18 and getting ready to move out, I started seeing a dark man. I was scared at first, but quickly started feeling that he was no threat to me. I'm convinced that it was my grandfather, come to watch over me while I was making this big life transition.
After I moved, my husband and I moved into an apartment which was in an old hospital. We had several experiences there:
- The elevator in the building was the REALLY old style, with the gate you had to close across the front, and a plain metal door with a window in it to enter. It was constantly breaking down. One day, while waiting for the elevator, I was looking through the window and saw a little boy sitting on top of the elevator and playing.
- One night while I was trying to sleep, I was woken up by the sound of sirens just below my window. I looked down and saw nothing, and the next day I asked our superintendent and he said that there had been no vehicles with sirens that had come to our building (it was up on a hill all by itself, so it couldn't have been going to another building)
- You entered our apartment into the kitchen. One night, very late, my husband was up making himself a snack. He said all of a sudden the cats freaked out and ran all the way to the bedroom, which was the other end of the apartment. Then he heard a rattling sound coming down the hallway and a gust of frigid air came from below the door. He is not someone who believes or gets freaked out over minor things, but he said he was so freaked out by this that he left what he was making right on the counter and followed after the cats.


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## Ariel (Sep 21, 2013)

I don't like talking about it or in "performing" but I am a bit of a medium.  Animals do have spirits and many, many spirits take the form of animals.  Places (which can explain hauntings) and even plants can end up having spirits of their own--I think it is something to do with accumulated belief.

By which I mean that in a place where people gather where something has happened (Londen Tower, for example) people believe that some part of these events stain or mark the place.  The belief is passed from person to person and more begin to believe.  Eventually the place _is_ haunted merely because of all the people who _believe_ it is haunted.

I always face "mediumship" and the paranormal with skepticism myself.  I would much prefer having scientific and measurable facts but I also have to reconcile my own experiences.

And no, by medium I don't mean I go around telling people they have a message from a departed loved one.  In truth, the dead rarely have advice for the living.


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## J Anfinson (Sep 22, 2013)

Another creepy experience:

I rented an old house for a while where all kinds of stuff happened. My girlfriend at the time had a little girl who had one of those little Leapfrog learning pads. They were gone one day and the toy started going off, making all kinds of noise. I tried to shut it off and it wouldn't, so I tried yanking the batteries. There weren't any in it. I'd forgotten that it had gone dead and I still hadn't put new ones in it, so it was operating with no power.

Another thing was that I had stored a bunch of stuff up in the attic. One of the items was a mattress. While laying in bed one night, my girlfriend and I heard it fall over and thump against the ceiling over our heads. Then the sound of someone jumping on it started. I checked to see if it was her daughter and she was in bed even while I could still hear it going on. It didn't stop until I opened the attic door. It was after midnight and I had to get up early so I was kinda peeved even through the fear, so I yelled up the stairs that whoever did that better get out. Never heard it again.

On the humorous side, I used to play a game with the toilet seat. If I left it up, I'd come back later and find it down. If I left it down, it'd be standing up later. And THAT was while I was the only person living there.

So yes, I do believe in ghosts. I'm just not sure what they are. There's tons of theories on that.


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## OurJud (Sep 22, 2013)

You were right about this being a controversial subject!

I'll just say this; one of you, just ONE, send me some concrete evidence that backs up your beliefs that ghosts / spirits / etc exist.

It's nonsense - complete and utter nonsense! The things we _know_ to be true in this life are known because they are FACTS - things that have been PROVEN beyond any doubt. Where are those proven facts for paranormal activity??


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 22, 2013)

I think it's nonsense as well, but the fact there's no proper evidence doesn't mean it isn't true, it merely suggests it probably isn't. No scientist would ever say that it's definitively untrue, because that's not how science works. To say it's absolutely not true is equal to saying it absolutely is -- they're both empty statements. You have to be closer to the middle with subjects like this, and I feel most people in this thread are somewhere there. If you're 100% sure in either camp, I think that's arrogant, short-sighted, and kind of unintelligent.

For me it's not the stories I disbelieve, but the explanations. If you have no reason to believe something is caused by ghosts other than because of popular myth and ancient misconceptions, then you're going about it all wrong, or you just don't care if it's true or not. Some people place their personal beliefs _above_ the truth, and that's that! The worst ones nonchalantly say, "They're outside our capability to understand, so don't even try, just accept it." That is so backwards. 

When I hear a paranormal story that isn't open to interpretation, by that I mean where there _cannot_ be _normal_ solutions, then I'll reconsider my opinion slightly. That isn't proof, far from it. For me it would have to be a group of open-minded scientists visiting various locations around the world with reports of unexplained phenomena, with all the best possible equipment (no board games and mediums) available, doing the most fair tests possible, with heaps of data. If any of their findings repeatedly and consistently appears to defy the laws of the universe, then I'll be much more inclined to give credence to some of this.

And that _still_ wouldn't be proof for the existence of ghosts. I don't think there ever can be, so on that issue, I will forever be skeptical.


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## shadowwalker (Sep 22, 2013)

I don't think it's nonsense, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. Many facts can never be proven. For example, I was driving on a certain highway Thursday night at 10:15pm. Can I prove it? No. Doesn't change the fact that I was.

I do think we can express our opinions without challenging or ridiculing, and that's what makes for really interesting discussions.


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## Pluralized (Sep 22, 2013)

As a child, I was terrified of the notion of invisible spirits floating around me just waiting to pounce and dismember me. Watching all those ghosty movies didn't help either, like Poltergeist and Beetlejuice and The House on Haunted Hill. As a grownup though, I have grown to be more skeptical. I'd welcome the chance to talk to a ghost though, as I've many questions for him/her. 

Also, OP - cool avatar.


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## Terry D (Sep 22, 2013)

The OP is a question about personal experiences with such phenomena, not an offer to debate the subject. No diversion of the topic into such a debate will be tolerated.


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## Charlaux (Sep 22, 2013)

... The OP did ask for peoples' stance on the subject, and I don't see why if the topic moves in that direction, a friendly debate isn't allowed?


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## Terry D (Sep 22, 2013)

After many painful experiences with debates, the decision was made to not allow them on these forums. "Friendly" debates never stay friendly very long.


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## The Tourist (Sep 22, 2013)

I believe in an afterlife, in fact, my book is about what happens after a mortal walks through the vortex.  I believe that I have seen angels, and I call my guardian angel "Harold."  Kind of a joke between us.  When I need him I say, "Hark, the Harold angel."


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## Robert_S (Sep 22, 2013)

I have never witnessed anything I would consider paranormal. I wish I had. It would give great comfort as I age and eventually die, but alas, nothing to tell me there is an afterlife. 

Such is my experience. I am still very much skeptical and cynical.


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## shadowwalker (Sep 22, 2013)

I may have mentioned this in another thread ages ago, but I grew up in a house with ghosts. Shortly after my parents bought our house, the neighbors wanted to meet the "grandmother". There was no grandmother, but they had seen this old woman looking out of the upstairs window on many occasions. We would hear footsteps running up and down the stairs when everyone was downstairs, doors would close and refuse to open until we addressed "Charlie" and told him to open up. There are other stories about the house (where I still live) which have me convinced. They also make me skeptical of such claims when people just automatically conclude it means a ghost, before looking for more "down to earth" explanations. (Even in my own house, what I thought were footsteps on the upstairs porch turned out to be nothing more than squirrels with a rather strangely rhythmic jumping pattern.)


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## SarahStrange (Sep 22, 2013)

I haven't had any experiences, but I wish I had. I am not religious (if I HAD to identify with anything, I guess it'd be buddhism) and I don't believe in the paranormal. I think that the world is way too, for the lack of a better word, logical and perhaps too dull to allow for the paranormal. It's sort of sad, because some people are so desperate to believe. I've known some people who wanted to so badly to find something paranormal in their lives so they could escape their realities, only to come up empty handed. I wish it was real for them, for myself too if only to spice things up a bit.

Since I can't in good conscious believe in the paranormal I put my fantastical thinking into physics. People may say, "Well, those are two entirely different things." Not so much. It is just as (probably even more) fascinating than the paranormal, because it's REAL. The paranormal raises questions. Physics gives you answers. Theoretical physics is even better! It's not as real, but it is as amazing. Faster than light travel, parallel realities, light waves, and black holes! Wonderful.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 22, 2013)

The idea of an afterlife is nice, if it isn't eternal. I wouldn't want to spend the rest of time with my loved ones. Goodness, I couldn't think of anything worse.

I hope ghosts aren't real. I think it's highly likely they aren't, but why would you want to believe it? Trapped between worlds, sometimes with no hope of salvation? Oh, wonderful!


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## SarahStrange (Sep 22, 2013)

> I think it's highly likely they aren't, but why would you want to believe it?



I know for me, the paranormal isn't the awful reality of ghosts you described. I guess my version of what I think the paranormal would be if it existed, isn't "real" paranormal. To me, it wouldn't be violent or angry, but peaceful, otherworldly and rooted in nature. That's what I want to believe in, but can't since I don't think it's real. If there were spirits/ghosts, they wouldn't be lonely or ominous, just wandering.


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## The Tourist (Sep 22, 2013)

SarahStrange said:


> I haven't had any experiences, but I wish I had.


 
Perhaps I can give you some hope.  While  I waited in a church parking in my car lot for vespers with about a dozen other parked members, a broken down car right out of The Grapes of Wrath rolled into the lot with a flat tire.  It was getting colder, and the snow was coming down in blizzard levels.  Along with gaunt father, two young, poorly dressed children got out of the beater, clearly this was a family in distress.  

But about that time an elder with the door key drove up, and while we had ample pot luck food left over, no one approached the poor family.  During the 15 seconds it took for us to walk to the door, a custom duallie hooker truck appeared out of nowhere (this was before cell phones) and without a jack or lug wrench, the driver "pulled off" the flat, and grabbed the exact mounted tire and rim from in back of the duallie placed it on the beater without lug nuts.  As I walked into the church, both the cars disappeared.  As I've told others, tools aside, no Indianapolis pit crew can change a tire that fast.  We had been tested.  God had sent angels, and when we showed no charity there was no reason for the charade to continue.  Now while we might have failed, I noticed the drama and its importance.  None of the others thought a thing about it, even when I mentioned the miraculous tire change.  But knowing the angels had thought enough about me to show me some light, I now have hope.


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## J Anfinson (Sep 22, 2013)

I  hope that science will give us a definitive answer someday.


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## SarahStrange (Sep 22, 2013)

> Perhaps I can give you some hope.



No hope needed, because I know it isn't going to happen. I don't believe in god, angels, demons, ghosts or the paranormal. But, ya know, thanks anyways.


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## Robert_S (Sep 22, 2013)

SarahStrange said:


> No hope needed, because I know it isn't going to happen. I don't believe in god, angels, demons, ghosts or the paranormal. But, ya know, thanks anyways.



Yeah, I'm not a believer also. Hope, IMO, is the religious equivalent of atheist's luck.


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## BobtailCon (Sep 23, 2013)

Well, I'm a Celtic Shaman, as some of you might know. In my opinion, these were simply spirits visiting our realm. They aren't stuck here, they just get curious and have a peak. As for a "light".. I've never heard of a spirit seeing a light when they pass...


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## Ichthyosaur (Sep 23, 2013)

*Bobtailcon*, I've often thought that it may have been the light of the top of the chimney, rather than "the light" of somewhere like heaven. 

One thing I've never experienced myself but my mum has is strange, prophetic dreams. I know that sounds a bit cliché but I find the topic of dreams very interesting. One dream she told me about, she had when she was in her 20's. She described it somewhere along the lines of this:
She was in a large garden, in the centre of this garden was a low table which food could be cooked on, and floating above the table was a giant Buddha head which slowly turned. Looking around the garden, she saw everyone she had ever met and was ever going to meet. I don't know if she meant _literally _everyone, or just people she established relationships with. She saw the faces of people she had never met before, then years later would meet them and be reminded of the dream. 
She's described lots of strange dreams to me, but this is my personal favourite of hers. 

I have had one strange dream of my own. Though it didn't "tell the future" or anything like that. It was the normal sort of dream that I would have. Slightly crazy and not linked. However this one did actually make some sense and took place chronologically, for once. I was in some sort of theme park with my other half and we went into shops, did normal things. Then I wandered off and he was gone, I was shoved into a restaurant and a man ran up to me (in a full Mexican outfit) and threw a similar uniform at me. To put a long story short, I was dressed as a Mexican waitress, sombrero and all. I managed to run from the restaurant and found my other half in the dream and then it continued until I woke up. I know it sounds normal, but a few days later I went to visit him and I started talking about the dream I'd had, because it was stuck in my head. I was describing one bit about some strange sci-fi shop and he looked at me strange, then cut me off and finished my sentence, describing exactly what I had seen in my dream that night. We then started talking about it, and all of our details matched. We had the exact same dream, on the exact same night. Not only that, but when I lost him in my dream I went missing in his, and when I reappeared I was wearing a Mexican outfit with a sombrero. 
Honestly, I don't know what this stupid dream meant. But it wasn't half weird. ​


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## Apple Ice (Sep 23, 2013)

Ichthoysaur, I'm no paranormal expert but I think what you've done there is mistake a dream for a paranormal experience. Easily done, though.


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## BobtailCon (Sep 23, 2013)

Ichthyosaur said:


> One thing I've never experienced myself but my mum has is strange, prophetic dreams.



     Of course, everyone has those dreams where they kind of "tell the future". Even some Shamans can do that, those can also be called Sages. 

     One example is when I was younger, I had a dream that I was with a couple of my cousins, Michael and... I don't remember the girl's name (oops). We were driving in a car, and all around us were cell towers. We got to a grey building and walked in. We sat there for a minute or so, and then Michael got up and said, "I'm off to work." and left. He was wearing a suspension suit (that's what I call vests that hold you on cables. 

     A couple of minutes later, a phone rings and my female cousin picks up the phone, her face turns grave and she just keeps repeating; "what do you mean he fell?" Then I woke up.

     Later that year, my cousin Michael died from falling off of a cell tower while repairing it...

     Some people can have those kind of "prophetic" dreams.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 23, 2013)

I'm of the opinion that no future events can manifest, in any way, before they happen. No one has described a theory to me that make's it seem plausible, based on my understanding of time, anyway.

What about the thousands of dreams that aren't prophetic? If you tot it up, the odd dream that seems to predict a future event isn't that crazy. Has to happen to some people at some point. I think winning the lottery is more impressive, odds wise, but that's me.


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## philistine (Sep 23, 2013)

I once saw not one, but several Dan Brown novels listed on a 'greatest novels of all time' compilation.

Gives me the willies just thinkin' about it.


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## Alabastrine (Sep 24, 2013)

Everyone that I have ever had a death dream about has died...in the exact way I dreamed it. I don't know what that means, but if saddens me.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 24, 2013)

Everyone I haven't had a death dream about hasn't died. Should I class these as accurate predictions? :tongue:

*_Shooting Stars_ style* Ooooh, he's a nineties cockney prankster!


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## Alabastrine (Sep 24, 2013)

Bruno Spatola said:


> Everyone I haven't had a death dream about hasn't died. Should I class these as accurate predictions? :tongue:
> 
> *_Shooting Stars_ style* Ooooh, he's a nineties cockney prankster!






Oohh sarcasm! My day is now complete.


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## Ichthyosaur (Sep 24, 2013)

The dreams may not be paranormal but I thought perhaps the contents of them were? I may be wrong. I just thought it strange that she could have seen future events, or that I could have had the same dream at the same time as a completely different human being. I didn't know how to classify the dreams, I thought someone might be able to help me understand them more. Sadly I noticed no one made a comment on the shared dream I myself had, I was really hoping to figure that one out.​


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## WechtleinUns (Sep 24, 2013)

I have had three major paranormal experiences in my life:

*The Piano*

It was a school night, and I couldn't sleep. The top bunk was hot and uncomfortable. The cieling fan didn't work, and the small light in the closet flickered on and off with power-surges outside. A constant downpour clacked against our windows, but aside from that the only noise was the distant call of the 11:00 train, roaring down the tracks.

I didn't notice it. Not at first. But I suddenly became aware of sounds. Soft, and slow. They played off in a kind of rythym. Like a piano, as if someone was playing a piano in the living room. Slowly creeping down off the top bunk, I nudged my brother awake. "Hey. Do you hear that?" I whispered.

He shrugged me off, turning on his side. I didn't want to wake him. Not completely. I needed to get back to sleep, so I reluctantly crawled back into bed. But the the tune did not let my attention go. It was as if someone had started playing a soft and somber tune, which quickly transformed into a fast-paced, angry striking of the keys.

But, the thing was, we had no piano. Gathering the rest of my courage, I creeped to the bedroom door and opened it just a crack. The sound was unmistakable. Someone was playing a piano in the living room. On my toes, I made my way to the edge of the turn in the hall. I could see a shadow. It was tall, sitting at a bench, with arms that moved up and down forcefully.

I may have wet my pants. I don't recall. But I couldn't force myself to round the corner and take a look. A ran back to my room and slammed the door. After I hid under the covers, the music stopped playing immediately. A few minutes later, my dad came into the room. "Hey! You slam the door?"

It was not one month later that my mom brought home a mid-range antique piano she had gotten from a friend. I now have the very same one in my living room, and sometimes I'll play on it late at night, when the light of the moon streams in through the glass.

*The Monk*

My two sisters were in the San Antonio Youth Wind Ensemble Orchestra, and so I and my family went down to their concerts during the season. My sister, Sirena, is a wonderful flute player. She was the second chair at the ensemble. My other sister, Marie, played the french horn and was first chair during the season.

On one of the show nights, my mother took a picture of the orchestra as it was playing. After sending it to get developed, we recieved the prints and found something peculiar. There was a franciscan monk sitting at the edge of the stage, prayer beads in hand, peaceful and relaxed. I could see the stubble on his beard.

San Antonio is home to the old Spanish Missions from the days of the conquistadors. In particular, the franciscan order was very active here. The city's name itself is named after a Franciscan Monk: St. Anthoy.

It was an unusual picture. It's laying around somewhere in the old photo albums. I hope I can find it again. It was really interesting.

*The Book*

This one happened a little bit after I graduated from high school. Around vacation time, I was going fishing with an old lady named Ruth Mata, and her husband, Mr. Mata, who are good friends of the family. We went to rockport, near the Gulf, and it was there that something very strange happened.

I had kept a journal with me at that time, and filled with various details of the trip. Records and such. But around the time that the vacation was coming to an end, I started to get worried about the book. For some reason, I really don't know why, I got this nagging feeling that I was going to lose the book.

It was the strangest feeling I had ever come across. I began to panic, and started taking lengths to ensure that I wouldn't lose it. But for some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that when I left rockport, that book wouldn't be with me. It kind of drove me mad the last day there, until I decided that I would just keep my eye on the book until I was outside of the city limits.

The van was all packed up, and I had firmly grasped in my hand(I was so tense that I remember grasping it extremely hard). And so, I slammed the backdoor of the van shut...

and the book was gone.

I mean, it was gone. Literally. At one moment, I could see and feel the blue notebook clutched between my fingers and thumb, and at another moment, it was just my thumb and fingers, presseing against each other really hard. I completely freaked out, and started frantically searching the ground for the book.

But it was a concrete parking lot with nothing to obscure a bright blue book. There had been no thud. No rustling of pages. Nothing to indicate that the book had move anywhere from my hand. It also wasn't like in the movies, where the camera just blinks to another scene. When you're watching a movie, you can tell the precise moment when the last frame of one scene switches to the first frame of the next scene.

But this wasn't like that. The switch was kind of like, it was overlapped. So that I couldn't really peg the exact moment when the book dissappeared. This wasn't limited to just sight, either. It was the same with my sense of touch. I couldn't really peg the moment when my fingers went from holding the book to touching each other. I knew they had moved, but I couldn't really get a grasp on how they moved or at what rate.

I could almost describe it like a glitch in the matrix, perhaps.

These three stories have been my primary brushes with the paranormal.


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## Lyra Laurant (Sep 24, 2013)

I had a precognitive (?) dream when I was a kid. It wasn't about an accident or anything scarry... Just something that happened at school, with the people involved doing the exact gestures and saying exactaly what I dreamed they would say.

Also, some spirits. Most of them were not scarry either. One of them was a bird.


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## WechtleinUns (Sep 24, 2013)

Oh! I have those all the time, Laura. How far into the future do yours go? I have some that can go for years.


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## squidtender (Sep 25, 2013)

I consider myself a man of science, logic and am not particularly religious. But, here's what I've seen:

My wife (at the time) and I were sitting on separate couches with a coffee table between us. A pop can sat on the table and there was a cat sitting next to me. As we were watching TV, the cat woke up, looked to the coffee table and yowled (something he doesn't do). I told him to shut up and then glanced over at the coffee table. The wife and I watched as the pop can slid from one end of the table to the other (a distance of about two feet), which took a good ten to fifteen seconds. 

We've had doors open and close, have seen shadows and white blobs of mist move through the house and even a bout of quiet chamber music that played for a month (could never find where it was coming from). If this is a ghost, spirit, energy or faded memories of the past, I can't say. I only know what I've seen. 

Oh! Last summer when my son came to visit (he was 12) we got up one morning and noticed a towel had been stuffed in the hole where the door handle was (I was in the process of changing it out). When he woke up, we asked why he did that. His response? "I kept seeing people walking out in the living room and I got scared". The wife and I had gone to bed long before him, so there was no one out there . . . or so we thought. That'll make you keep a light on


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## Morkonan (Sep 26, 2013)

squidtender said:


> I consider myself a man of science, logic and am not particularly religious. But, here's what I've seen:...



I consider myself much the same, but likely a bit more of a religious person, just not the sort of "religious" that would casually accept ghosts, goblins and household spooks. However...

So, I'm living at the same house as described in my previous post in this thread. I've just laid down in bed and am preparing to relax and go to sleep. I am not drowsy, asleep or anything of the sort, as I was actively thinking about something. I rolled over after less than a couple of minutes in bed, and then I felt it... A "weight" settled on the bed, next to me, and a coldness I could not explain crept into the flesh of my back... This wasn't some random frontal lobe firing, lucid dreaming or sleep-paralysis sort of incident. I felt the weight in the bed shift towards the side that was behind me after I had rolled over onto my side. I fell a coldness I could not explain, even deep under the covers, and during a pleasant spring night when my windows and door to my room was closed.

I sat there for another minute or so, debating on what to do. This wasn't the first occurrence of something "unexplained" in the house, so I wasn't particularly surprised, but I definitely had some bias in considering the possible causes.

So, I got up, determined to confront whatever "it" was, even if it turned out not to be an "it" at all. I walked to the foot of my bed as I declared, out loud, that this was "my house" and I wasn't going to stand for this sort of thing, anymore. I also declared that I had no problem if whatever it was decided to hang around, just so long as it didn't bother me anymore. At that moment, the very moment when I declared I was willing to strike some sort of "deal" with it, a misty form in the outline of a human torso appeared to my right and moved across my room, vanishing through the left wall. The moonlight coming through the window seemed to show on this figure, though I could detect no distinct physical form, no tangible "mist" or physical substance. Yet, I "know" what I saw.

In the years since, I've decided that there is the possibility that there could have been some interraction present between myself, my perception and an electrical transformer located not far outside of my window. However, I was unable to confirm or deny that this transformer had a strong enough electromagnetic field to cause me to experience some sort of hallucination. I can, however, discount any sort of problem associated with pre-sleep or semi-lucid cognition issues - I was fully awake the entire time.

Yes, after this episode, I had a drink of water and then right back to bed without any issues. I wasn't "scared", just annoyed at all the problems that "it", for whatever reason, had been causing in the house. Was it a "ghost?" I don't know and because I don't know, I can not declare it to have been anything of the sort. For all I know, I could have been hallucinating due to some unknown cause. But, I do know what I "experienced" and experience is 9/10'th's of the law.


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## Myers (Sep 26, 2013)

I'm not sure which is more boring; listening to people tell you about their dreams or their "paranormal" experiences.


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## BobtailCon (Sep 26, 2013)

Myers said:


> I'm not sure which is more boring; listening to people tell you about their dreams or their "paranormal" experiences.



You aren't forced to read our posts.


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## egpenny (Sep 27, 2013)

A day after my husband died, I was in my sewing room when I heard a noise specific to him from the living room.  The cat that was in the sewing room with me heard it too.  My husband was a pipe smoker and would often tap his pipe against the rim of a heavy glass ash tray that sat next to his chair, and he always tapped it three times.  That's the sound I heard; tap, tap, tap.  I was home alone, and nothing else could have made that very particular sound.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 27, 2013)

I can hear sounds in my head, as vivid as they are in reality, sometimes without initiating them. They are real, in that sense. Not a trick or lie, but a true memory. I believe you heard it, without a doubt. I don't necessarily think it was your late husband, but he was there in you, and therefore real (in my opinion). Not a ghost, but a true interpretation, through yourself. Two close people can do that, I believe it. It's like phantom pain. 

I could be wrong. I'm not belittling or explaining away your experience, just trying to understand it my own way.


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## egpenny (Sep 27, 2013)

Bruno:  My cat was in the sewing room with me and when the sound came, he whipped his head around and then went to see what was going on.  Sorry, but I heard what I heard.  I don't think he was a manifestation or ghost either, but I think his spirit was saying good bye.


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## Callie-J (Sep 27, 2013)

I've had a few 'was it or wasn't it' moments over the years, including now. I'm convinced that there's a ghost in my house for reasons like finding my keys in the freezer and the TV turning itself off and on whenever it feels like it. Even if that has an explanation, I'm positive I had one true spirit experience. When I was 10, my dog, Shep, got really sick. I sat with him for hours trying to get him to drink something but he wouldn't move. I finally had to move and went upstairs for a few minutes and when I came back he'd gone. It turned out that he was dying from some sort of cancer and my dad had taken him to the vet to...you know. I cried and cried and when my dad got home he had his collar with him. Well I took it to bed with me and cried some more. I couldn't sleep and a few hours later I went downstairs to get a glass of water. I swear that when I walked in the kitchen my Shep was lying on the kitchen floor near his bed. He looked at me and then disappeared. To this day I still think he came back because I didn't get the chance to say goodbye.


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## SarahStrange (Sep 27, 2013)

> I'm not sure which is more boring; listening to people tell you about their dreams or their "paranormal" experiences.



I'm not sure which is more boring; listening to people complain about their sensitivities or about their inability to read threads that actually interest them instead of insulting ones that don't.


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## popsprocket (Sep 27, 2013)

Myers said:


> I'm not sure which is more boring; listening to people tell you about their dreams or their "paranormal" experiences.





BobtailCon said:


> You aren't forced to read our posts.





SarahStrange said:


> I'm not sure which is more boring; listening to people complain about their sensitivities or about their inability to read threads that actually interest them instead of insulting ones that don't.



And that's enough of that for this entire thread. It has been very civil and I will keep it that way.


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## BobtailCon (Sep 27, 2013)

popsprocket said:


> And that's enough of that for this entire thread. It has been very civil and I will keep it that way.



My post came out more hostile than it was meant to...


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