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Do you believe in ghosts?
a month ago
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Well, do you?
Have you ever encountered one? Or something that you are not certain if it was ghosts or something else?
I find it fascinating.
I generally do not believe, but I am open to the possibility.
Have you ever encountered one? Or something that you are not certain if it was ghosts or something else?
I find it fascinating.
I generally do not believe, but I am open to the possibility.
don't really believe in ghosts any more than I believe in Sasquatch, I did as a kid but I'm pretty sure everyone did as a kid.
... but I definitely believe places and things can have weird energy around them
jk, obviously
There's a lot of stuff our brains are processing without us being aware of it, so it seems reasonable it picks up on subtle things that give stuff that "not right" vibe
It would only ever happen if I slept on my back. The first time was about 9 years ago when I was still living in the house where my bed was in my closet, so it was pitch black darkness. I had opened my eyes in the middle of the night to see a blue glowing skeleton in a shredded coat with no legs floating above me. The light had fully illuminated the entire room and in an instant I sprang up and immediately started swinging at it thinking in my head, "Oh shit! Ghosts are real! I saw a ghost! There is a ghost in my room right now!" But the second I was up it was already gone. When reason and logic returned, I figured it was just a bad dream. But one of things that still bugs me to this day is how the hell was the small space fully illuminated by a bright blue light in my closet while it was there?
Second time it happened was about 4 years ago. Sleeping on my back, yet again. Big mistake, because I had awakened to a black silhouette of a woman with long hair laying on top of me. I couldn't move, which is how sleep paralysis usually goes, all I could do was lift up her arms as they would fall back down as I released them. This confirmed in my mind that there was in fact a woman laying on top of me. As I laid there in a panic all I could think was, "Did I hook up with someone and then just forget!?" When I was finally able to fully move, I shoved her to the other side of the bed, got up and turned on the lights. So you'd think that as soon as the lights were on, she'd be gone. But no! She was there for like one more second before fizzling away! I was genuinely terrified, and didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
And that's the last and FINAL time I will ever EVER slept on my back.... Happy Halloween, D.
I had one episode of it where I had visual and auditory hallucinations; sounded like I was in the middle of a factory floor with machines banging away, and this guy from the famous incubus painting sitting in my desk chair watching me struggle to move my limbs.
I've swung at the shadows too, nearly threw myself out of bed!
Also had an "alien abduction" one too... at least for me I catch on pretty quick that it's sleep paralysis, but I can totally see how people really think they are being haunted by demons or something from that experience.
that last one sounds scary as all hell!
But do I believe in literal ghosts? No.
For much of my childhood, I was terrified of seeing ghosts. And yet, despite spending some of my childhood in a half-abandoned 18th century manor, I never saw a ghost. At most, I once saw what may have been a shadow person, but even that had a potential explanation, and I did not stick around to find out.
In my adult life, I've often experienced nightmares, and woke up in the middle of the night with utter terror and a sense that *something* was in the room. And yet, those feelings went away when I started sleeping with a sleeping mask and earplugs, suggesting it was something more sensory.
My only experience with sleep paralysis was on a night when sleeping tablets went wrong.
I've done occult practices, and I've done the spiritual equivalent of laying myself as bait and saying "come at me bro". Nothing happened.
A small tangent, but it will make sense: When I was little, I played a game on gameboy about a haunted house. One of the bosses always terrified me, both because of the appearance, and because of the music that played, and the fact that I couldn't beat it. Over the years, I had a very clear memory of what it looked like. 20 years later, I checked the game and that boss again and...it was nowhere as scary as I remembered. It was actually kind of...eh. Made me truly realise our brains build these things up.
That's part of the reason why I feel comfortable playing "make believe" with my demons and stuff. Because I genuinely believe that there is a part of our brain that is geared towards believing in that sort of stuff. Myth-making. The power of the ritual. Maybe it is a survival mechanism, believing in ghosts and demons and stuff could keep us away from places at night where we could slip and fall or be hunted by predators. Or believing in something greater, something beyond served as a way to motivate us or something. But in my life, I've often found the "real" answers to be a lot more boring and mundane.
Yes, I agree, people are definitely experiencing something! I have no problem believing most people are being 100% honest about what they experienced and felt, and yeah, human memory is very faulty.
I've already relayed some stories in the above comments about sleep paralysis...
It really makes sense that there is some survival advantage to being a little superstitious. Heck, even positive ways, if you believe your little good luck charm will help you ace a test or get through some difficult situation you are more likely to be calm and able to respond effectively- it may not ACTUALLY have magical powers, but if it helps it helps.
I believe there are things we don't quite grasp yet about memory, psychology, neurology, thanatology etc. I do believe in something like a soul while also knowing I don't have any empirical evidence to back that up.
I guess I'm a very skeptical believer in /something/? Too compicated for a FA comment.
There is so much we do not know, so there is that opening that maybe something could explain or line up with things we've described as ghosts or souls.
and hey, being skeptical is always good, it helps weed out the obvious stuff like camera glitches (no joke, I got kicked out of a ghost hunting group because I explained how the image presented was the result of particular camera settings and people were mad a me. I would think people wouldn't want to believe something based on faulty evidence, but apparently I was very wrong)
There is something extra slimy about that lot, especially the ones that like to insert themselves into active investigations and such like Sylvia Browne (rot in piss) or folks like the Warrens.
1. I used to work in a courthouse. One day I was filing case files in the archives on the 9th floor. This was a room that only had two entrances. One an elevator that opened into the room, and the other a door that led to the roof, but had a locked gate behind it as well. While I was filing I saw a figure in the corner of my eye. Human shaped, but dark, and I couldn't make out any features since I wasn't looking directly at it trying to find the correct spot for the case file. It waved at me. Without looking at it I waved back thinking it was Joe, another employee that frequently went there to get case files to take them to the courtrooms that need them. After I filed the cases file that were in my hand I had a realization. The elevator hadn't opened, and the other door hadn't either. I was alone in the room and had been for at least 30 minutes. I looked around, but didn't see anyone else. So I went back to filing and did it at a quicker pace so I could leave. I never felt as if I were in any danger, but the experience was unsettling.
2. The last cruise I went on my cabin was haunted. It was a little boy based on the noises he made. I would hear soft laughing and thuds as if a child was jumping around the room when I would settle in for the night. None of the cabins around me had children, and the sounds weren't coming from above or below me. Guest services of course denied that anyone had died on board that ship, and claimed they had never heard anyone report what I was reporting. Again as with the previous event I never felt any malice, or feeling of being in danger, so I ignored it as best I could. I didn't spend a lot of time in the cabin anyway. (Honestly if you're on a cruise and you spend a lot of time in your cabin you're doing it wrong.) It just felt like the kid was watching me, and seemed to get bored when I would go to sleep and would start entertaining himself instead. (Best guess is that the kid died via an accident on board and his spirit never left the ship unaware that he's dead) On the last night of the cruise when I was taking a shower I noted the shower curtain pressing in toward me slightly, and when I looked, in the condensation on the curtain was the hand print of a small child. It was eerie, and a little unsettling.
So yeah those are my experiences.