BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal

Subject: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Justa Picker
Date: 20 Jun 01 - 11:19 PM

Taking a cue from the thread On Stage Weirdness I ended up describing a personal experience I had 20 years ago here.

It got me thinking and I'm wondering if others have had personal experiences? Only share whatever you're comfortable with.

I'm absolutely fascinated with this subject, as well as temporary clinical death situations and out of body experiences, and have done a lot of reading on the subject by such authors as Raymond Moody, Ian Curry and others. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 20 Jun 01 - 11:35 PM

My take on this is that some people are psychically receptive and some are not. My level of psychic awareness is about as low as it is possible to get, yet my SO is extremely sensitive. She has sensed atmospheres in houses immediately, where I felt nothing, and sure enough, she was right every time, something nasty had happened there. But it all just sort of passes me by.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Pelrad
Date: 20 Jun 01 - 11:57 PM

Yep. I ignored it for nearly thirty years, and then it all crashed in on me when the ghost in our basement returned and fixated on me. He started following me around the house, which really creeped me out. Finally after about three weeks he came to stand outside my bedroom one night and I gave him a very stern talking-to. The next morning he was gone and I hope he stays gone. Turned out the entire family (mother, father, and at least one brother) had seen him before.

A few weeks ago I was up at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Maine and saw a man in one building, felt a young woman in another. The young woman's presence communicated itself pretty well, and as for the man, it was the first time I ever confused one with a real physical person. I actually turned to talk to him and didn't realize what I'd seen until he disappeared.

I used to see things all the time, but talked myself out of having seen them. They sometimes travel pretty far to talk to my mother, though.

My husband cannot sense them at all. I think my son can, though. He keeps asking me who the man in our kitchen was, the one who looked like Daddy but had black hair.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Pelrad
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 12:01 AM

P.S. Your story creeped me out. No way would I have stayed the night. I'm a real wuss about this stuff, which is why the basement man got on my nerves so easily. Apparently I went to school with his son, so you would think I'd be LESS scared of him...Nope.

We do have a poltergeist who leaves broken window glass around the house, but it's pretty quiet so that's okay.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Justa Picker
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 12:05 AM

It creeped me out experiencing it, believe me.
Can you describe your ghost more vividly?..skin color?..luminescence?...and how it was obvious to you it was a ghost?

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: wdyat12
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 12:22 AM

Paranormal? Humbug! Well I was a sceptic too, until one stormy night on the coast of Maine I had a violent argument with my father and left our new house in anger and disgust. As I ran down the road past the the old family lodge on the Kennebec Point Pennisula that my great grandfather built, the wires overhead began to glow with a green gaseous plasma. St. Elmos Fire was playing in the wires like it did in the rigging in the novel, Moby Dick. I had never seen this phenomenon before, yet I was familiar with it from what I had imagined while reading Moby Dick in my senior year of high school. I stood there in amazement and then ran back to the new house confused and scared. I passed my drunken father in the door and went to bed. I dreamed a very strange and disconcerting dream that night.

I was at the First Baptist Church in Georgetown, Maine. I was one of six pollbearers in a procession up the steps of the church. The air was still that day and it was hot and humid and everyone felt uncompfortable, but when we carried Dad inside the white curtains flowed like ghosts from the open windows. Many poeple I didn't know spoke of my father's life. I did not speak of or for my father then.

One year to the day I reexperienced this dream in reality and I was equally confused and scared as I was in that dream.

wdyat12

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Pelrad
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 12:26 AM

Let's see... The guy in the basement I couldn't see with my eyes, only with my "mind's eye." Hard to explain. If I averted my eyes from the spot I could see him plain as day in my mind. He was about six foot three or four, burly, with black hair and a black beard, a red flannel plaid shirt, khaki-colored pants, and workboots. He had dark eyes, too. Sometimes he had a grin on his face. There was a heaviness in the air wherever he stood. I talked to him a few times but it made my hair stand on end when he responded (not out loud, just like words standing in my mind) so I didn't do that too often. Besides, I didn't want to encourage contact because he seemed to like me a little too much.

The first time I saw him I told myself there was no way a big man like that could fit through a little teeny basement window, so he couldn't be there. They seem real like that sometimes. The first time we tried to smudge him away, he seemed really puzzled and just stood there looking at us like he couldn't figure out what we wanted. He got really quiet for a few days, then started showing up in other parts of the house.

No luminescense. It was more like a snapshot, like there was really somebody there.

As for the guy in the museum, he was standing on a landing inside a historic house when my husband and I came into the room. He was just standing there looking at his hat that he had in his hands. Then he put it on his head and followed us halfway down the stairway. He was just minding his own business, though, didn't seem to notice us. He was so vivid I thought he was a fellow visitor to the exhibit. Seemed real.

Usually it's more like seeing something out of the corner of your eye. If you look straight on you can't see anyone. Also, there's sort of a projected presence that emanates from them that isn't there with a living person. The air around them is slightly charged. I'm not describing it well, but I've never articulated it before.

Thank goodness they never look like the ghouls in Sixth Sense or I'd be cowering under the covers every night.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 12:39 AM

I never had a personal experience, but my father "walked" to visit two of my sisters: once very soon after he died, he came and sat on the couch in my eldest's living room; the couch pressed in where he sat, but she could see through him, he wasn't quite solid. She remembers thinking This will be OK, if he comes and visits once in a while. It felt companionate, she said. He never did come back, though. Then years later, the next oldest had a son she named after our dad. One night when she was just finishing nursing the baby, he came and looked into the crib at his namesake. She, on the other hand, was very freaked out by this. I would have loved it, I think. I wish he'd visit me.

And aren't poltergeists statistically linked to having a troubled and peripubescent girl in the house?

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 12:48 AM

Sometimes I am too sensitive, but it's never made me feel in any danger or anything. Somewhere I wrote about our hanuted house in Mystic. I am still trying to find the thread I posted it in. I also have some others to relate, later, when I have more time.

Great idea for a thread, JP!

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Rev
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 01:27 AM

This might not be as dramatic as these other stories, but it is musical. Back around 1995, I was in Crested Butte, Colorado, in a late-19th century tavern called the Forest Queen. There was a hot bluegrass band playing (including Michael Kang of String Cheese Incident), and I noticed that there was a swinging door to the right of the stage that was swinging, and I mean really swinging. Back and forth, back and forth, quite vigorously, and seemingly in time with the music. No one else in the room was paying much attention to it, but I went over to investigate. There was no draft coming through the door, just a staircase going up. I actually stopped the door from swinging, and went up the stairs, but there was nothing up there, no open windows or anything. The door actually started swinging again, and I just decided that some of the local ghosts were just showing their admiration for the music. I've also heard footsteps and other sounds at my Mom's house in Stonington, CT. usually when no one else is home, and I am playing music by myself. I've even had to stop playing and go upstairs to see if someone was there. Do ghosts like music or what?

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 02:01 AM

my take on this is:

the mudcat never reined in the men from wyoming or the tittering cats

thank the good Lord....the MC is finally following its "natural paths."

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 04:26 AM

It was 1968, I was with my girlfriend, Christine, in her parent's house. We were sitting there talking, as 17 year olds tend to do when left alone, when she suddenly stopped and stared at a corner of the room. I felt a distinct RISE in temperature and looking at the chair that was in the corner of the room I saw a purpley coloured mist taking human-ish form sitting there. I couldn't make out any facial features or hear any sounds coming from it but Christine was answering it "Yes", "No", "Maybe" and giggling once or twice. I just sat there transfixed.
After what seemed about 10 minutes "It" disappeared and Christine turned to me. I asked her if everything was okay and she she said "You saw her didn't you? She told me you could" Christine explained that "It" was her Paternal Grandmother who had died 5 years earlier and she visited her a couple of times a year. Christine also said that this time they were talking about me! I felt honoured.
Christine and myself spent 5 years together before we went our separate ways.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 05:17 AM

A few years ago, I was visiting a good friend in a little town just west of Augusta. He lives in an old house that was a stop on the underground railway before the Civil War. He was in the process of turning a small room into a bathroom, and he was showing me what he was doing. The door was closed, there was no one else in that room. As he talked, I heard an odd sound behind me, I looked around and a penny came rolling across the floor out of a blank wall! I was dumbstruck! When I mentioned it to him, he shrugged and said "It happens all the time, I have a jar half full of them". I found out afterwards that there was a killing in the cellar, and, although the spirit was not a bad one, it had a puckish sense of humor, and delighted in scaring the hell out of people. Being Catholic, he does not believe in spirits, but, still, there were so many such incidents that he finally had the place blessed. There have been no incidents since. There were many incidents before that, but, I didi not witness those.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Wolfgang
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 07:53 AM

old thread with basically the same theme: Favorite ghost stories

In case you feel like reading something from the skeptical side, read Joe Nickell's 'Entities', Prometheus Books, 1995. Nickell is known for his follow-up studies of well known haunted sites and for his wealth of different and often very creative explanations.

In case you want to read good ghost stories without any scientific intrusion, there is this website.

Usually a single explanation will not fit all the recollected facts and I shall not attempt to find an explanation for any of the cases described, not even for any single aspect. I'll give you only a short and not exhaustive list of a couple of explanations that have been found each to be able to explain a subgroup of the phenomena. Whether someone believes that after all these explanations have been tested there remains a residuum of unexplained or not is more personal taste than anything else. Here's the list:

- pranks (usually by youngsters). For instance in the Observer of December 31, 2000, one could read of the late confession of a prankster in one of the most famous cases in Britain, namely the Borley rectory which once has been named (in a booktitle) 'the most haunted house in England' (there was a movie as well, of course). The prankster has described in detail how he did, e.g., ghosts without heads. Great idea.

- hypnopompic or lucid dreams (can seems very real)

- a standing infra-sound wave in a house (e.g. from a big, slowly rotating fan) can lead to many of the physiological side effects (hair standing up, fear, etc) that have been described. This is from a recent issue of a parapsychological journal, the J. of the society for Psychical research.

- EMF effects from near senders on electric or quasielectric equipment (the man who could listen to the radio in his tooth; I once had the local AFN in my radiator)

- nightly encounters with animals under bad viewing conditions (in one case, a barn owl sitting at face level has led to a very frightening percept)

- wind and temperature gradient action on house structures

and many, many more

And never forget that if you do not find a mundane explication it does not follow with necessity that there is none. There may be one you don't know or have not thought of.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: RichM
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 08:56 AM

Explanations of the scientific kind are theoretically useful. But those who defend them strongest are those who have never had a personal experience of the paranormal.

Ghost stories are entertaining. I have had some personal encounters, mostly benign and interesting. But one of them taught me not to get involved further, without having a very good reason.

Some encounters are simply dangerous. And no, I won't talk about that one. I will state some indicators that a paranormal encounter is happening:

Seeing something, of course, and: Feeling a sudden wind or cool temperature; A feeling of unease or dread; And the best one: the hair on your back, or the back of your neck, feels like it's standing up.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 09:42 AM

Something is screwing with me today - unplugging electrical appliances. At first I thought it was the kitten but there is no way she could have disconnected the stereo. And when I got to work, my fan was unplugged. Strange.
I have told my ghost story on another thread and won't repeat it here. None of encounters have felt dangerous. I do have the unfortunate talent of knowing (bolt of lightening striking) that someone is about to die. Has happened too often and in too many unusual circumstances to be ignored. I have made it my policy never to share the information with the person involved and wish it would just go away.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: GUEST,Patrish
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 11:02 AM

Do you know I have typed my experience here three times and each time I have posted it it has very annoyingly disappeared (gremlins in the mudcat)So I can only suppose its not meant to be here. But between you and me I am Bl**dy cross.
Patrish

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 11:06 AM

I'm a natural born skeptic, but, I know what I know. I was there.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 11:08 AM

About the "EMF effects" - my erstwhile bro-in-law was an old Navy man, and knew Morse Code like some people know their native language. One day he's lying on his heating pad (back injury) and starts "hearing voices" without hearing anything. That is, he could somehow sense? Feel? Knew about? A conversation happening, fairly slowly. One-sided, as if he were listening to half of a telephone conversation, he would get the questions but not the answers. He closed his eyes to listen harder and it went away. When he opened his eyes again, it was there again, somehow in his ken without him knowing which sensory modality it had entered through. He was just about to get really weirded out, when he noticed that the little light that tells you your heating pad is on was flickering. He was receiving Morse Code from somewhere! He was "reading" the message at a sumliminal level, the way we read languages we can read without paying attention (As in, look at this array of lines, but don't read the word WALL), and was obviously tied in electrically with someone's actual electrical signals. But for a while there he thought he was hearing something supernatural!

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Justa Picker
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 12:52 PM

There are also states of consciousness that make one very susceptible to experiencing these phenomena.

Various forms of meditation at peak moments can trigger out of body experiences and astral projection.

Also have you ever been physically exhausted and tried to sleep but your mind won't "shut off", until you eventually reach a "waking dream-like state" where you're not quite awake but you're not quite asleep? It's a very delicate and subtle level of consciousness, and you're immediately aware of how fragile this state is, so you can either fight it and become very fearful (and it disappears immediately) or you can embrace it, and then experience what follows.

I've been "visited" a few times by dead relatives when I've been in that state. The most powerful aspect of it for me was the sense of smell as it pertains to the body odour of the individual. As a kid I remember the security of snuggling with a grandparent and baked into that memory was his smell. To experience this in a vision or a semi-dream like state is truly amazing and a little freaky.

I remember the first time it happened, having a conversation with my grandparents, and it felt as real as if they were actually there in the flesh. I recollect the doorbell of our house ringing and going downstairs to answer the door and seeing my grandparents there. They looked vibrant and healthy and exactly the way I remembered them as a kid. As I invited them into the house, I whispered in my grandfather's ear "Have you come to get me?" and he smiled and said "No we're just here for a visit." I then introduced them to my wife and kids, and then said, "wait, you can't go yet. I want to call Mom and tell her you're both here." But by the time I could get to the phone, they were gone, and I suddenly sat up in bed, completely startled with all the hairs on my arms and legs standing on end. This happened about 3 or 4 years ago on Chistmas morning, having gotten up very early with the kids (and having gone to bed late the night before) so that they could open their presents, and then heading back up to bed when they were done. I couldn't get back to sleep but was very physically tired. I tossed and turned for a long time and eventually I fell into this space, and the rest I've described ensued.

Course as soon as it was over I immediately got up and went downstairs and described the whole thing to my wife. I said it didn't feel like a dream because it was too real and the sense of smell really got to me. She suggested I call my best friend who is a psychic and tell him about it. I phoned him, and before I got too far into describing the situation the first thing he asked me was whether I had any sensations of "smell". I said "yup". He said it was probably real, and not a dream. I happened to be talking to my brother a couple of days later, and before I could tell him about my experience, he asked me if anything strange had happened to me in the past few days...and I asked him "why"? He then began describing almost exactly what I'd experienced, and this really freaked us both out!

I think to those that have these types of experiences they are in fact very real, but to try and convince others who've never experienced anything like this, is probably a waste of time. But it only has to happen to you a couple of times, to refute those doubts about the possibility that these things can and do exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 01:29 PM

Great experiences, JP. May you have many more. What I like about these life experiences is that you can be sure you will.

What I don't understand is why in the world a person- I, specifically- can't just accept them with finality. Instead of doing that, I still find myself saying 'I think', instead of 'I know'. There are even times when I debate the possibility of total extinction of consciousness at death. And that cannot be- else from where do these beings come? Anecdotal evidence is real.

The latest phenomenon I'm experiencing is the physical feel of a warm hand covering mine when I reach to flip this one particular light switch! Go figure.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: mousethief
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 01:38 PM

I know the state you refer to, Justa Picker. I've gotten some great poetry in that state. But never, alas, any visits from anybody.

I envy y'all. My life is a sheer unmitigated monotony of explainable phenomena.

Even when my mom had a poltergeist, and I was living in the same house (next room even!) I couldn't hear or see or feel anything.

I think, Murray, you must be right, and I'm on the very low end of the spectrum.

Oh well. Such is my lot.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 01:40 PM

Mudcatter Little John Cameron LIVED for a while in a "Haunted House" here in Toronto, on Huntley St. (yes, next door to that OTHER "Huntley st. thing")

Perhaps if he sees this, he'll give an account.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Justa Picker
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 01:43 PM

Well Ebbie, I don't presume to be any kind of an expert on the subject. I can only speak from my own experiences, and from what I've read, watched on tv, and from others I've discussed it with, who themselves have experienced it in one form or another.

Naturally our perception of reality and everything we've been conditioned since birth to perceive as REAL provides the grounding on which to determine that which is not or may not be real, of course based on each persons own vision of what reality is to them.

The first couple of times this happens, you naturally think "what just happened didn't really happen did it?". I must have been dreaming or maybe it was a mild hallucination, and we try and find reality based reasons to rationalize and dismiss it.

But after a while, it gets beyond the realm of coincidence and then you have to start adjusting and altering some those pre-conceived perceptions and notions of reality to include the possibility that this just might be real. And of course talking to others who've had similar experiences, reinforces the idea that you're not alone nor are these experiences unique just to you.

There are many many well documented cases (over the history of mankind,) and of course more recently by people in all walks of life, including respected scientists, academics, politicians --people who are considered credible, rational, and not prone to perpetuate myths or stories on the gullible.

Based on your light switch experience, it sounds to me like you've got company. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Justa Picker
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 02:06 PM

You also have to keep in mind that as far as many (not all) in the scientific community are concerned, that which cannot be explained without concrete proof, is easy to dismiss or rationalize away. EXCEPT for the fact the these phenomenons are operating on dimensions which completely transcend the laws of physics, as well as linear space and time. Just because their existences can't be pigeon-holed, explained, and rationalized by scientists and physicists, does NOT mean they don't exist.

A case in point is that many doctors and scientists claim that out of body experiences as they occur in clinical deaths on operating tables, and the ensuing lights and tunnels, and being met by loved ones are merely hallucinations triggered by an oxygen deprived brain with a massive endorphine release, creating these "illusions" and the innate subconscious desires to be met by missed loved ones is manifested. Fine. There's a nice, easy to understand and rationalized explanation that pacifies the scientists and doctors. But, it's only one theory. It does not however explain how someone can leave there body during an operation, and later when resuscitated, tell the doctors and nurses word for word of their conversations during the operation.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a friend who is extremely psychic, as was his mother, and his grandmother. He's probably one of the most laid back, mellowist people I've ever met. He can look into your eyes and tell you what's been eating you lately, without you volunteering a word, and, he is always right. He can see and read auras. He can tell who is an "old soul" and who isn't. He has assured me, that everything you are, you get to take with you when you leave here. In conjunction with the experiences I've had, that's good enough for me. He can also heal people with "energy" by placing his hands on you, and you feel a tremedous sense of warmth and heat. (Think of an electric heating pad, only more intense.) Again I've experienced this first hand, and in no way was it psychosomatic.

Some are more open to receiving these things than others. It's almost like the ability to receive certain radio stations. Depends on how powerful the signal is, and how much you can naturally extend your "antenae" to pick up the signals...but once you've experienced things, your antenae will extend, and it will become a strange, yet familar and somewhat welcoming experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Matt_R
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 02:19 PM

I'm so low on the spectrum, I don't even register! I've never felt or experienced anything strange. Though, since I grew up in a non-traditional style, e.g. not listening to lot of different kinds of music, never having friends, never seeing movies, these sorts of things tend to leave "impressions" on me. I sort of carry around the feeling for weeks. Like the time some friends and I watched The Wizard of Oz to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon album. It was such a surreal experience that I still can feel the unsettlingness of it still. That's about as weird as my experiences go...

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: mousethief
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 02:23 PM

Matt, you and me should start a group. We appear to be at the same end of the spectrum. We could sit around and talk about how we've never had any paranormal experiences, then eat fried chicken and watch old movies. Couldn't be any duller than MENSA, could it?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: GUEST,djh
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 02:36 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: GUEST,SharonA
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 02:55 PM

Kendall, what a story! Talk about pennies from heaven...

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: GUEST,djh
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 03:24 PM

I am fascinated by the dream state, both the twilight state that JP spoke of and deep REM dreams. I have had 2 instances of psychic dreams forshadowing events. What do such instances say about the nature of reality?
My sister had an extreme series of incident along these lines.She started to have strange dreams and even waking notions about a friend who would soon die in a car accident. There are more details to this story than I have time to relate, but here is the short version.
My sister was working in Europe and her friend D came over from the states to visit. She started having the dreams of D bloody and at one point even imagined it while looking at her while awake. During the visit there was an incident where a woman had a seizure in a bank hit her head on the counter and bled profusely, D was the closest person and in her attempt to help the woman she became somewhat covered in the woman's blood. The woman died. My sister thought this was what the dreams were about.
D died in a car accident days after arriving home. D kept on coming to my sister in her dreams after passing and both my sister and D's father saw D in the same clothes when she would astral visit. My sister wasn't going to bring up D's visits to D's parents, but, a complete stranger's input led her to speak of it to them.
A woman who worked with another of D's friends saw a picture of D in a group on the friend's desk and asked if D had passed away. She proceeded to related to the friend that she is somewhat psychic and that the girl in that picture had been coming to her in her dreams telling her "they need to know I am alright".

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 03:48 PM

Oh, yeah, dreams, forgot about those. I occasionally have prescient dreams, but they are always about mundane things, like dreaming the Style section is torn in my Sunday newspaper, and Lo, that Sunday, indeed no usable Style section. Once I was out with several sisters traveling across the wilds of Ghana, and we were on our way back to Abidjan (civilization!) in a bush taxi, and I fell asleep and dreamt that Mom had changed the date of the big dinner party with ministers and other dignitaries, and indeed, we came back filthy and dishevilled and the house was surrounded by large black mercedes' - they (my sisters) were really glad I'd had that dream so we knew what to be prepared for! But that's the only one I can think of that actually mattered, in any way. Mom had forgotten we were due back that day, and had changed the dinner party the week before my dream, which happened on the day we were going home... (I also dreamt we came in dancing the Can Can, so when we got there, my oldest sister started doing the Can Can so that part could be true too!)

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Penny S.
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 07:01 PM

I have a suspicion about a way the sense of smell thing might work if not extra-sensory (which is not to make any implications about what has happened to others). It is based on observation of my own perceptions, involving a live person. He was someone I knew fairly well, and indeed was rather interested in at the time. I knew the way he looked at a mile distant, and close up, the sound of his voice and his piano playing, the mood I was in when he was around, my response to his sense of humour, and also the feel of him nest to me while rehearding the final chorus of an operatic society performance - so the scent of his clothes, too. On one occasion, I caught sight of his back disappearing round a corner in the town, and found that my mind instantly recalled everything, as if he was close up - the whole sense of his presence. I have noticed it with others since, and I think it's part of how we recognise people. If we do have a multisensory image which is triggered by small details, it would serve to provide the whole for comparison and identification in unusual circumstances.

Not a psychic explanation, but then, who's to say that it might not be triggered by a visitor, anyway.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Pelrad
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:28 PM

"Do ghosts like music or what?" I think they like the artistic temperament. I've found that among my acquaintances who experience strange phenomena, the majority are artists of some kind. Of course, that may just be the type with whom I choose to discuss these things, or the type who are willing to discuss them in general...It is a very subjective study.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 11:22 PM

I don't know if this counts or not; I rather doubt it, but all day today I have had one of those Panic Attacks deep in the stomach. The one where you know they are coming to take your children away or reposess your house...no real reason for it.

Went out to supper (I was too "sick" to cook, and not hungry, but the fellas were). Just as we were finishing, Bubba's girlfriend came crashing into the restaurant and said that Jeff had rolled his pickup, didn't know how bad or if he was hurt, didn't know if Blue Dog was in the bed.......immediately the Fear in the Stomach went away....IT had happened.

Jeff (one of my Other Kids) is OK, Blue Dog was at home and it's only the truck that is totaled.

Another: When we moved into this house (10 yrs ago), the attic was half unfinished attic and half "started bedroom". We finished the bedroom part for daughter Kate, and she moved in shortly after Valentine's Day, '91 and immediately started having sleep problems. Never had any before.

I stayed up very late one night, after she went to sleep, and spent some time in Her Room.......out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of an "aboriginal/Native American female......naked, very short (4'5" or so) with VERY long, black hair. Hair clear past her bum and not braided. No sense at all of menace, but a lot of anger.

Seems that "we/Kate" had invaded her space......I watched for several days and kept seeing the lady and she was very angry, so Kate and I did a Ceremony involving Light, Corn, Tobacco,Sweetgrass, Sage and Silver. Told her she was not threatened in any way, and we were sorry she was angry, etc. It must have worked because she has not been back since and Kate is now quite comfortable in her room.

Upshot is----who really knows???

I've had a couple other strange experiences especially at Historical Sites; mostly feeling like I was being watched and judged......don't know what the Verdict was, but I've never been frightened.

My dad used to visit as a "feeling", but hasn't since Mom died, guess he was worried about her.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 12:01 AM

well, once I was reading by a low light, when something flickered just on the edge of my vision...I slowly turned my head, and there was....a curtain blowing in fron of a window!!!...oh, never mind...I'm with Matt on this one...ghosts avoid me, spirits hide from me, and I'm just NOT wired for auras....

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 12:13 AM

3 weeks before my dad died I had a vision of him laid in a coffin,my cousin saw this as well.I somtimes get "deja vu" type things(2 or 3 times a year).Sometimes I get very clear dreams that come true, last year I dreamed of a horse called"Kings Magic" winning a big horse race, I watched the race with interest to see "Kings Best" win.john

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 01:41 AM

WARNING: SKEPTICS BEWARE!

I've got a couple of minor ghost stories, but don't feel like typing them out tonight.

One thing I will say, though...there is no such thing as the supernatural, because everything is natural. Some things (like ghosts) are not so generally accepted in this cultural framework, that's all, which is not to say that they are unnatural...they're just unexpected. When people see a natural event that they did not think was possible, they call it supernatural.

This is precisely the way some tribal people reacted to their first encounter with, say, gunpowder or electric lights, radio or television, and even 2 dimensional pictures (which some of them could not see at first, just as most dogs and cats cannot see what's on the TV and recognize it although they do recognize the sounds!). We are not very familiar with spirits in this culture, so we tend to call it a supernatural event when we encounter one in an obvious way.

People called Christ's healings miracles. That's simply because they didn't understand the perfectly natural healing mechanism he was using (a method of moving vital energy or life force where it's needed) when he healed people. Many people have that ability to some extent, all people have it potentially, and Jesus certainly appears to have had it fully developed, as have a few other individuals in the course of history.

So there are no miracles, and there is no supernatural, but that is what people call it if they are unfamiliar with it, and they are astounded as a consequence. If it happened a few times every day in front of their eyes, they would soon accept it as just another normal occurence, as long as it didn't cause them any great difficulties, and they would soon have a nice scientific explanation for it too, in all probability...or at least a theory or two.

And, of course, there are some hoaxes and some honest misunderstandings of phenomena out there too...(yawn) just so the skeptics don't get too disturbed by what I'm saying here.

But fortunately, there will always be genuine mysteries. Both scientists and mystics would be in a sad situation if there was nothing strange left out there to investigate. What a dull world it would be.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 02:30 AM

Penny, I live in an old house museum. Not too many people have lived here since it was built 100 years ago so the history is fairly clear and can be tracked quite readily.

The person who preserved the collection and history of the person we commemorate here died in September a few years ago. I had got acquainted with her that last year, and she was glad I was here; she said she thought I had the same feel for the house she had. About three weeks after she died, as I passed between the dining table and the radiator there was a clear, pleasing scent that I identified as violets or as a violet-scented toilet water. After that from time to time I would check out that same spot; sometimes it would be there and sometimes it wouldn't. (I don't remember any particular scent in connection with her, but she was 84 and always impeccably dressed and made up, so cologne or perfume is almost a given.)

On that December 19th I checked it again- and suddenly it seemed like the whole room was full of piney boughs. I decided it was time to decorate for Christmas!

There were/are lots of other odors in this house- sometimes an oven heating or cookies baking, or a tomato-y dish that seems to be ready to eat. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for their occurrence and I'm not the only one who smells them.

There are no other houses near by.

This, of course, is not the only phenomenon here- it's a great house, and I love it.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Hawker
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 02:50 AM

Hi,
I have had many'psychic experiences, some may be explained scientifically but the majority have NO logical explainaton. One of the weirdest phenomenon that both I and my husband experienced was about a year after we had removed the doorbell from our house, we were sitting watching TV it was late in the evening, too late for visitors, and the door bell rang. We both heard it, went to the door and there was no-one there. We decided it must have been on the TV. later we went to bed, shorthly after we had got into bed, the doorbell rang again, this time there was no TV to blame it on, and again there was no-one there, not even the doorbell! Weird?
I agree that some are more receptive to this kind of happening than others, but also believe that if someone or thing wants you to see/feel/sense their presence, then you will.
Sleep well!
Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 03:50 AM

Years ago I remember a really wierd experience when I and my brother were kids and had just had a massive arguement. I went into the bathroom and opened the bathroom cabinet. As I opened the door of the cupboard a glass came out horizontally and then went vertically downwards full force smashing the basin below. It left a perfect round hole in the basin and the glass unbroken rolled round on the floor. Scarey stuff!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: hesperis
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 04:48 AM

Yeah, glasses tend to jump away from me if I'm really angry. It's a weird feeling, because this ZING! of energy comes up my back, and then if I'm reaching for a glass, it jumps away. One time I angry, and just sitting at the table, and I felt the ZING! and my stepdad, over five feet away from me, dropped the plate he was holding. He just could not hold onto it.

But as for ghosts... I had a dream once, where I felt "frozen", I couldn't move my body at all, and was barely able to breathe. I heard someone come down the stairs, unlock the door, and start clinking around in the kitchen, and then washing up. I felt a male presence in my apartment, and was really disturbed. I knew it wasn't a "real" person, though, and that it meant no harm. I thought very strongly that I wasn't comfortable with it being there, and to please not return until I got accustomed to the idea of having a ghost around. The sensation immediately disappeared, and I was able to move again.

I never felt comfortable sleeping in the bedroom of that place, preferring the livingroom.

I later found out from a neighbor that she had felt a ghostly presence too, and she was convinced that it had scared off a burglar. The burgler had come through the top outside door, forced open the bottom outside door, and abandoned his work when the door to her apartment had been one screw away from being open.

It could have been noise from upstairs. It could easily have been noise from upstairs. But a friend of mine turned to me one day and asked if there was a ghost in that apartment, because she felt that something was there. Her boyfriend ws also there, and he was visibly nervous, before she even said anything. (He was normally fine with being in my place.)

And I noticed that people tended to be nervous in my apartment after dark, especially if they weren't true friends to me. And that people who wanted to use me in some way had a lot of trouble finding my apartment, even if I thought they were friends of mine at the time.

Has anyone else had things disappear? I am missing one of my CDs, and a book that someone lent me... which I have never read because it disappeared almost as soon as it came into the place. And the guy wants it back... I find no trace of them with any energy stuff, and they are not where I last put them. Or any reasonable place, either.

Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Matt_R
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 09:27 AM

I'm on the low end, yes, but I think my mom is somewhere in the middle. And so is our cat, I believe!

One day my Mom drove my youngest sister to school and dropped her off. When she got back, there was one thing strange going on...the door to the hutch where we keep the stereo was open, and the radio on the stereo was playing. It was CERTAINLY not on when she left, as my mom is not a big fan of music, and since it is in the living room, would have noticed if it was on before. The only one in the house? The cat.

Our cat sleeps on a wooden shelf in our laundry room, which is connected at one end to the kitchen, by a door, and connected to the garage by a door on the other end. We put her in there every night and close the door. One morning we came out to find a strange sight. The house was still completely locked up, the electric garage door opener was locked closed, the door between the garage and laundry room (which is steel plated) was locked and deadbolted, but the doorknob on the door between the kitchen & laundry room was hanging out, with the hole it fit in being cracked and splintered, like someone tried to jerk then knob off the door. And the knob doesn't even lock. The only one in there? The cat.

Also, we have an electric staple gun that we keep plugged in,in the kitchen, and use to staple school paper together. The stapler will often times go off by itself, when no one is in the room. When the computer was in the kitchen, it used to dial into the internet when no one was in the room. Even when the computer was "asleep". And I have an option on there that when an automatic dialup (for a task scheduler, e.g.) start, it requires someone to click "ok" for it to connect.

My mom has also heard a child's laugh in the house on a few occasions, in the middle of the night, when there are only 3 people in the house, my parents, and my 19-year-old sister. My mom also hears a phantom radio playing music in the middle of the night too. It's just low enough so as to not make out what the music is. Once though, it was so loud that it woke her up. She thought it was the clock/radio that had gone off, but it wasn't on...she woke up my dad, but he didn't hear anything. I CAN actually remember hearing something similar when we lived here back in 1983, and I was about 4 years old. I got so scared I got out of bed and ran to spend the rest of the night in the doorjam of my parents' bedroom.

Interestingly enough, there was an accident a few hundred feet from our house abour 3 years ago. 3 Marines coming back from lunch were killed, including a young woman Marine who was my age (22).

My mom used to have the weird dreams when we lived in the apartment in Okinawa, Japan. Weird waking dreams that seemed like reality. Dream where the bed would depress like someone was sitting on it, or a cat was jumping on it, even though there was no one there. Weird dreams of strange male voices whispering her name, or ones where one of us kids where calling to her. They continued until the 1st shipment of our belongings from America arrived, and we hung up the decorative crucifix that belonged to my Grandmother (my mom's mother), as well as the brass crucifixes that me and my sister have. I have the one from my grandfather's casket, she has the one from my grandmother's. Somehow I think when we hung them up, our grandparents were watching over us. My mom always used to call my grandmother a "watcher," who would wait at the window for hours until her children where all home....

--Matt

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 09:49 AM

I really love the way the mechanics of the world have preempted words like "normal" and "logical" to define only those things operating within Newtonian material bounds. The only reason a spiritual event of any sort would seem illogical is if one had a set of data in mind that didn't allow for such things to happen. Of course, then when they happen anyway it really looks "weird". Culturally this indicates to me that we suffer from very poor training in the disciplines of logic, and ontology and that we suffer from hali-gnosis (stinky methods of knowing).

A.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 09:50 AM

Matt, I think your cat is possessed

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Matt_R
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 09:58 AM

She's not possessed! She's just from outer space!

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Ringer
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 10:00 AM

If you define "natural" as susceptable to scientific enquiry, Little Hawk, do you still maintain there's no such "thing" as supernatural?

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: hesperis
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 11:12 AM

He probably does. Scientific enquiry depends on the tools we use... and on the perceptions we define it with.

Scientists often aim for objectivity, without realizing that because they are already a part of the world, they are subjectively affecting that world BY trying not to be subjective.

And then you have people bending over backwards to be "objective" and merely ending up being destructive instead. True objectivity is not actually possible. And yet the scientific method is based on being "objective"?

Bah humbug.

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Jenny S
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 11:31 AM

I have, several times, been awoken in the morning by my (dead) mother saying my name in my ear. Trouble is, I can't ever make out what she wants to tell me, or why she wants me to wake up!

Nancy, once (unknowingly) took a photo of a "spirit"(?) while we were walking in the woods. You can see the photo at: http://BardofAvalon.ifrance.com/BardofAvalon/Otherworld/SpiritofForest.html (There are some other "Otherworld Encounters there, too)

Another time, Pat & I saw an "Otherworld Castle"... During the winter months we would often visit and explore different market towns throughout West Devon and East Cornwall.

On one such excursion, as we were weaving our way through side-streets to leave the town and make our way home, we saw an old castle which we had never noticed before.

The castle was a small, ancient building atop a conical hill. Such castles are not unusual in the area. There are similar castles at Totnes, Barnstaple, and Saltash.

So we were not surprised to see such a castle, though we were surprised that we had never noticed it before - and we promised ourselves that we would return again to explore it.

However, some months later when we decided to return for another visit we found that we had forgotten where we had seen the castle. We thought initially that it had been near Torquay - at Babbacombe or St Marychurch perhaps. But when we returned there we could not find it.

So, over the next few weeks we re-visited all of the towns which we had visited just those few months before. Still we could not find the castle again.

We pored over detailed maps of the area, and visited every likely-looking feature (and discovered lots more interesting places in the meantime: but that's another story...). Still we could not find the castle which we had seen earlier.

Fifteen years have passed since then, and still we hope to find again the castle which has so tantalised us all these years.

J

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 08:53 PM

This all reminds me of the time William Butler Yeats asked an old Irishman whether he believed in "fairies," or not. The old man replied (not an exact quote), "Believe in 'em, aren't I plagued with 'em every day and night?" And, again, "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary, for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible." Franz Werfel, I believe. And as for me..yes...I've seen them, heard them, felt them as have my parents and others in my family. J

Subject: RE: BS: Experiences with Ghosts & The Paranormal
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 09:12 PM

Bald Eagle - Yes, I still maintain that ultimately there is no such thing as the supernatural, but that it's a matter of perspective or familiarity. If people cannot comprehend an event, then they tend to feel that maybe it is supernatural.

I regard spiritual matters, such as the existence of the soul, or spiritual healing of people, as perfectly natural, though non-material in origin (but not in effect).

Whether or not a natural thing is "susceptible to scientific enquiry" is entirely contingent on how far the science involved has advanced, and in what direction, and on what tools and methods it has at its disposal.

We can now scientifically explain many things which we couldn't in the past...such as radio waves, for example, or electricity or X-rays.

We will someday be able to explain psychic phenomena and a number of other non-material things as well, I expect.

At that point they will leave the realm of the supernatural and unknown, and will become common knowledge.

And so it goes...

- LH