Other Do you believe in ghosts?

Without context, and the full story no one could say. But it's akin to 'How did the coin fly across the room and embed itself in the wall?'. No one noticed the crazy scientist moving in next door and turn on a powerful electromagnet.

Extremely common actually. Many people don't fully wake up and see characters at the end of their bed. In extreme cases the character will appear to sit on their chest and they have severe difficulty breathing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis. In the case of there being a 'little girl' in both cases, that can be either coincidence or suggestion. Coincidences happen all the time, and are often put down as paranormal. For example 'I was thinking of X, then the phone rang and it was X'. During the course of a typical day you probably think about a large number of people, especially those you are in regular contact. You just forget that you've been thinking about them. Basically the chances of you thinking of someone and them phoning you within a reasonable time of that thought are pretty high. The suggestion idea is along similar lines, someone may have mentioned in casual conversation about it. The idea was forgot - however the subconscious tends to hold on to these kinds of thoughts for a great deal of time - and given a chance, will act on them. Derren Brown in particular leverage's this functionality of your brain.

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Part of the human condition is that if something 'can't be explained' right that very second, then it must be 'unexplainable' and that then leads on to the paranormal or religion. It's a big part of why religion started, and why it continues to have a great deal of strength. Not aiming this at anyone in particular, but it's something worth baring in mind.

 

When I was very little my parents would put me to bed and then go downstairs to watch TV or whatever. They'd often say they heard me talking (and someone talking back) and would run upstairs and find me not only wide awake but able to fully recount the conversations that I'd had.

Two things make me think this may have been more than your typical imaginary friend:

Firstly, there's my parents hearing a woman talking back to me. They would (after this had been happening for a while) listen for quite some time from the living room to the conversation before coming in to find an empty room.

Secondly, when asked to elaborate on whom I was talking to, I drew a woman named Frances. Turns out she bares a striking resemblance to my maternal great-grandmother, who was called Frances. Obviously I'd never met her, and all we have is one photo which my parents maintain I'd not seen before I drew the picture.

Do I believe that the souls of dead people are sapient and roam the Earth? Not at all! I'm a scientist and I need some evidence dammit. But there are always things that cannot be explained. It wouldn't at all surprise me if 'ghosts' one day became common knowledge as much as magnetism, electricity or gravity are now. I mean, how freaky are those concepts even when you really understand them? Perhaps something along the 'psychic imprint' type stuff could eventually be proven.

It's also known that EM fields, low-frequency sounds, apophenia and other common phenomena can cause hallucinations and other sensory misfires which IMO probably account for a lot of the 'shivers, corner of my eye' stuff.

 

Hmmmm. Whilst I can understand your reason for being sceptical, and you're right, the only way of corroborating my "apocryphal tale" would be to get in touch with the person concerned, there is no way of proving anything. If anyone is able to come up with any way of explaining my experience I am happy to agree that it was a perfectly normal and everyday phenomenon. Until then, I will assume that I am correct and that it was something "paranormal, alternate reality, break in the space time continuum, ghosts" or something that can't be explained. As neither of us were drinking, or overly tired, or having just woken up I can't find a reason for it. It was not something we saw out of the corner of our eyes.
Ghosts? maybe not. Something else? Definitely.

 

It's my personal view that such beliefs are the equivelant to that of a greater being i.e God.

If it exists, bring it to me, not excuses. Like the cliched philosophical pondering, If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

 

Another story from my father:

In school I usually fall asleep on the desk, my father was always pissed off about that...Thing is, I calmy fell asleep those days but after my father met god, once I fall asleep in school I always get that feeling that I'm being hit that wakes me up, I mean I get the reaction of being a bit scared, you know like jumping a little and everyone else sees me with a face of "Wtf man...".

Amusingly that was answered in...wait for it...A GAME!

 

OK canon, agreed, I do like to think that there is "more to life than this"
However I do not consider myself religious, in anyway. God creating the Earth in 7 days? I doubt it somehow (apologies to anyone religious) I am one of those people that will not believe anything until I have seen it for myself. Now I have.
And yes a tree will make a noise if it falls and no-one is there to hear it, stream the forest on t'interweb, that will prove it.

 

Unfortunately though, as Humans we are imperfect, our bodies are subject to the illusions of our surroundings, our brains are not fact processing machines, like I say, it's unfortunate. I myself believe in facts, research with the goal of achieving those facts and most of all logic (which itself is imperfect). The way we interperet our surroundings varies massively and it's not unsusual for the physical world around us to decieve us into thinking one thing or another that is not nessecarily possible, yet, because we are Human we are decieved.

I honestly believe the meaning of life, what's beyond our universe and all those big questions are simply unanswerable. Just as we would not expect a woodlouse to write a biochemistry paper, I feel that those questions are just beyond us and we will all be long gone and there will be nobody around to remember us long before we make a significant attempt at an answer.

Which reminds me, when our planet innevitably dies, where do all these 'ghosts' go?

 

if they are not ghosts, but glimpses of history, somewhere else. they will stay where they currently are I guess, wherever that is.

 

Ask the scientologists?

 

That debunks that story, then. No black cat was ever spotted while Bush was in office.

In my mental health days I have had apparently rational people tell me all sorts of things.

There's always a rational explanation:

Especially if the guests have been told the story. Perhaps there has also been some embellishment: guest 1 thought they felt a presence; guest 2 had a vague dream; the story teller tweaks the details to come up with the classic "creepy little girl"; a stalwart horror apparition since The Bad Seed (1956). Twin girls in particular are very The Shining. People can never resist a good story. We're wired that way. It is because of that wiring for story that we have religion:

And:

Exactly. Cthippo wakes up just before a fire alarm? Like all of us he probably wakes up about six-seven times every night, to a subliminal level of consciousness, before falling into deep sleep again. As such he does not remember doing so --he loses consciousness again before his brain can lay down the memory of waking up. If the alarm sounds however, he is really woken up and the memory is laid down as he jumps out of bed to answer the call. As such he remembers waking up just before the alarm. And he has forgotten all the other times that he woke in the middle of the night.

 

But can anyone explain what happened to me...

 

Waking up six-seven times a night...Well that explains my bloodshot eyes.

 

Deception

 

But who was deceiving me?

 

Your brain.

 

I have a brain, when did that transformation happen

 

When I stand up too quickly sometimes I see little circles of colour and get light headed. That doesn't mean the aliens are coming down in tiny circular ships to invade my brain.


..or does it?

 

What a fantastic topic! really enjoyed it <3

 

But... I am real...

 

But are you though, are you really, or is this all part of my imagination?