I've always believed in the paranormal; I've had experiences of my own and recently a pretty big experience. I am curious as to who else believes or doesn't, why, and/or what happened that made you believe, etc?
Do you believe in ghosts or the paranormal?
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Nope, not all. Although I am a firm believer in human perception of reality being necessarily flawed and there existing many things beyond our ability to reason. But, again, no, not in the traditional sense, I do not believe in that.
You try NOT believing in that sort of thing when your mother is a honest-to-god psychic witch (sorry, MEDICAL INTUITIVE) and has been making decent money on repeat clients for 20 years. I'm not even kidding, if there's good, reliable money in telehealing then there must be something to it.
Care to share what your experiences were?
Care to share what your experiences were?
Understandable opinion. Some of the experiences I have had I have tried to push off as a coincidence or wind or something natural, but it's hard when none of those are present. I saw a door unlatch and open by itself and a few minutes later slammed shut on its own. I like to think I don't let my imagination get away with things like this, but it's completely confusing.
I don't believe in ghosts. It just seems childish to me. Science tells me that the possibilities of ghosts being real are virtually non-existent. Sorry if that offends some people.
There is a science to it, dealing with energy and temperature changes, etc in the environment in relation to the manifestation of a spirit. There is some science behind it, it's not as crazy as some people make it out to be
I used to believe in that kid of thing, but as I got older I found myself not believing in it. However, I still find it interesting, and I love ghost stories.
What are your experiences, OP?
What are your experiences, OP?
sure I believe because
1. There is still many doubts whether souls exist in the science community
2. my cd player would turn on for no reason
3.once I was in the bathroom and as I went to leave the light turned off but the light didn't burnout the switch had actually moved.
4. I've seen weird things before like one time my dad came into the house I said hi he said hey then walked into the kitchen then a second later he walked in the front door again I said hi he said hey and walked towards the kitchen but then I asked him how he got from the kitchen to the front door so fast and he didn't know what I was talking about because he wasn't really there the first time I saw him. Also I saw the house from the nightmare on elm street movies in one of my dreams before I actually watched the movie.
1. There is still many doubts whether souls exist in the science community
2. my cd player would turn on for no reason
3.once I was in the bathroom and as I went to leave the light turned off but the light didn't burnout the switch had actually moved.
4. I've seen weird things before like one time my dad came into the house I said hi he said hey then walked into the kitchen then a second later he walked in the front door again I said hi he said hey and walked towards the kitchen but then I asked him how he got from the kitchen to the front door so fast and he didn't know what I was talking about because he wasn't really there the first time I saw him. Also I saw the house from the nightmare on elm street movies in one of my dreams before I actually watched the movie.
I've been to places which were supposedly haunted, you know what I first came into my mind every time? "Well this sure is an old dark room that smells funny", people have very active imaginations, sometimes this prejects onto what they think they see and or hear.
2. Your CD players power button is broken (my GPS does the same thing, dont tell me that my navigational device is haunted, please).
3. Somebody else turned the switch off, I did this to my sibling many times as a child.
4. That's Deja Vu, normally your brain is just playing tricks on your perception of memory. Or your dad just enjoys playing tricks on his children, like practically every father who's ever lived.
Gullibility comes to mind..Aqua Trenoble said:
1. Yeaaaah, the definition of a soul is somewhat up for debate for starters.Grell Sutcliff said:
2. Your CD players power button is broken (my GPS does the same thing, dont tell me that my navigational device is haunted, please).
3. Somebody else turned the switch off, I did this to my sibling many times as a child.
4. That's Deja Vu, normally your brain is just playing tricks on your perception of memory. Or your dad just enjoys playing tricks on his children, like practically every father who's ever lived.
No...more or less by definition, "paranormal" means "doesn't exist, but it'd be cool if it did". If it could hypothetically exist, it's not paranormal.
Soooo you don't care to share said experience with us? I mean it's not like having paranormal experiences is a regular thing.
I don't believe in it at all but that doesn't mean I at least tried to experience it. I've walked around in graveyards at night and pissed on indian burial monuments (not really) and nothing seems to happen other than the wind yelling at me.
I don't believe in it at all but that doesn't mean I at least tried to experience it. I've walked around in graveyards at night and pissed on indian burial monuments (not really) and nothing seems to happen other than the wind yelling at me.
No. I've personally had no experience with anything supernatural. Everything that I've seen in my life can be rationally explained with physics, chemistry and biology (to a degree). Of course, I cannot rule out the possibility that supernatural things exist - but if I have seen no evidence or logical reason, to believe in it, then I won't.
You can say that maybe I'll change my tune when I do see something supernatural - but so far, I haven't. That's the honest truth - I've never seen a ghost. I've never heard otherwordly whispers. Every fortune teller that I've interacted with has been incorrect and every single psychic that I've talked to has been unable to provide any information about my deceased relatives.
You might have seen a ghost. You might not have. I don't know. I am, and always will be, VERY sceptical of any anecdotal evidence. I've had Muslim friends swear to me that they've seen a vision of the Prophet Mohammed. I've had Christian friend swear to me that they've seen Jesus. They can't both be right.
When a scientist says that they've discovered something, they usually present concrete proof, or a logical argument. If they can't, their claims are dismissed. I take that approach with everything - if I have no evidence, then I won't believe it. I might not necessary say it doesn't exist, but I'm sure as heck not going to say it does.
This is one of the fundamental divides between religious and irreligious people. The religious person sees no evidence disproving his or her god/spirit/deity and decides to believe in it. The irreligious person sees no evidence that god exists and will not say that God does. If you have no concrete proof, why believe in something?
Now, in your case, you MIGHT have seen a ghost. Are you sure? Humans, even sane ones, can see things that aren't there. I once spent about 2 days awake due to a lab report I had to finish up (hint: do not do this. Staying up late to finish work might allow you to technically finish it, but it WON'T be of a high standard.) But by the end of the second day, I was hallucinating. I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye and I was reacting to sounds that weren't there. Every so often I would hear a VERY loud bang go off right behind me, and I would spin around and nothing would be there, and no one I talked to that was in the same room said they heard anything. If you read up on psychology, you'll realize that it's very easy to trick the mind into seeing things that aren't there. It's very easy for people to mistakenly identify dreams as reality or to let their imagination take hold.
There's this phenomenon you might have heard of: When people are sleeping, suddenly they'll wake up, paralysed and terrified of a demon or a witch or some sort of hideous thing standing in the same room with them, usually just above their head. A lot of people use this experience as proof that supernatural entities exist.
But.... what if there's another explanation? This phenomenon occurs around the world - but depending on what culture you are raised in, the apparition changes: Christians often see a witch or a demon standing over them. But people in East Asian societies say they see ghosts or chinese vampires (chinese vampires are folkore monsters - they are blue skinned, they hop around and they have absurdly long tongues. They're quite comical. My grandmother was terrified of them).
I myself have experienced this: about a couple of months ago, I was suddenly startled awake by a loud growling sound. I couldn't move, and I heard this outrageously loud sound of some animal or beast snarling menacingly next to my ear. After a while, I was able to move and the very minute I was able to, the sound stopped.
Want to know what causes these hallucinations? It's our old friend Sleep paralysis. It's a VERY well documented psychological phenomena: the brain partially awakens from a dream - not enough to give motor control back to the conscious individual, but enough so that the person thinks they are fully awake. Their eyes see a mixture of reality and dreams. They are, in short, tripping out.
They done studies in sleep labs - the condition is thought to be partially genetic. Sufferers who report repeated night terrors such as this have been studied in a lab when they've undergone these "attacks" - and it's purely psychological. They react to nothing in the room, their brainwaves show the classic signs of someone partially still asleep. It's a trick of the mind, nothing more.
This is why I'm very sceptical of anyone who says that they've "seen" ghosts or supernatural phenomena - usually these are people who want to believe, who have a predisposition to accept even the slightest visual disturbance as "signs of the paranormal".
Also - ghosts and paranormal stuff often don't make much sense. For example: If Ghosts exist, what are they made of? Why wouldn't they communicate with more people? If everyone on earth as the potential to become a ghost, why aren't we seeing far more of them? If something is stopping them from coming back, what exactly is it? If they are not allowed, then why do people report ghost sightings at all? And with so many ghosts around, why is it that people usually only see ghosts of those who are recently dead?
But the main thing is the lack of evidence - and again, personal accounts are not evidence. Sleep paralysis is a real phenomenon - you can read it up yourself and watch the videos of those who are undergoing sleep paralysis attacks (they are pretty disturbing to watch, as they show people often flipping out completely at a room full of empty). It has been verified time and time again by top researchers. You can read the papers and interview the scientist.
If some elderly woman swears that they saw their deceased grandson running down the hall - firstly, there's no way to know if they aren't lying for attention, delusional or mistaken. Second of all, it's a personal account which cannot be falsified or repeated under test conditions - it's just a story. And even if there's a hundred thousand stories, that doesn't constitute proof. Stories REMAIN stories.
I look at the millions of (pretty lame for the most part) ghost stories out there - and I don't think "wow, these millions of tales add up to solid proof" - I just think "wow - humans are really easy to fool".
A million bits of bad evidence adds up to bad evidence. Not good evidence. And that is why I don't believe - because the only proof that I've ever seen has just been someone on a website or chatroom claiming that they've seen a ghost. And I don't consider that good evidence. Of anything.
You can say that maybe I'll change my tune when I do see something supernatural - but so far, I haven't. That's the honest truth - I've never seen a ghost. I've never heard otherwordly whispers. Every fortune teller that I've interacted with has been incorrect and every single psychic that I've talked to has been unable to provide any information about my deceased relatives.
You might have seen a ghost. You might not have. I don't know. I am, and always will be, VERY sceptical of any anecdotal evidence. I've had Muslim friends swear to me that they've seen a vision of the Prophet Mohammed. I've had Christian friend swear to me that they've seen Jesus. They can't both be right.
When a scientist says that they've discovered something, they usually present concrete proof, or a logical argument. If they can't, their claims are dismissed. I take that approach with everything - if I have no evidence, then I won't believe it. I might not necessary say it doesn't exist, but I'm sure as heck not going to say it does.
This is one of the fundamental divides between religious and irreligious people. The religious person sees no evidence disproving his or her god/spirit/deity and decides to believe in it. The irreligious person sees no evidence that god exists and will not say that God does. If you have no concrete proof, why believe in something?
Now, in your case, you MIGHT have seen a ghost. Are you sure? Humans, even sane ones, can see things that aren't there. I once spent about 2 days awake due to a lab report I had to finish up (hint: do not do this. Staying up late to finish work might allow you to technically finish it, but it WON'T be of a high standard.) But by the end of the second day, I was hallucinating. I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye and I was reacting to sounds that weren't there. Every so often I would hear a VERY loud bang go off right behind me, and I would spin around and nothing would be there, and no one I talked to that was in the same room said they heard anything. If you read up on psychology, you'll realize that it's very easy to trick the mind into seeing things that aren't there. It's very easy for people to mistakenly identify dreams as reality or to let their imagination take hold.
There's this phenomenon you might have heard of: When people are sleeping, suddenly they'll wake up, paralysed and terrified of a demon or a witch or some sort of hideous thing standing in the same room with them, usually just above their head. A lot of people use this experience as proof that supernatural entities exist.
But.... what if there's another explanation? This phenomenon occurs around the world - but depending on what culture you are raised in, the apparition changes: Christians often see a witch or a demon standing over them. But people in East Asian societies say they see ghosts or chinese vampires (chinese vampires are folkore monsters - they are blue skinned, they hop around and they have absurdly long tongues. They're quite comical. My grandmother was terrified of them).
I myself have experienced this: about a couple of months ago, I was suddenly startled awake by a loud growling sound. I couldn't move, and I heard this outrageously loud sound of some animal or beast snarling menacingly next to my ear. After a while, I was able to move and the very minute I was able to, the sound stopped.
Want to know what causes these hallucinations? It's our old friend Sleep paralysis. It's a VERY well documented psychological phenomena: the brain partially awakens from a dream - not enough to give motor control back to the conscious individual, but enough so that the person thinks they are fully awake. Their eyes see a mixture of reality and dreams. They are, in short, tripping out.
They done studies in sleep labs - the condition is thought to be partially genetic. Sufferers who report repeated night terrors such as this have been studied in a lab when they've undergone these "attacks" - and it's purely psychological. They react to nothing in the room, their brainwaves show the classic signs of someone partially still asleep. It's a trick of the mind, nothing more.
This is why I'm very sceptical of anyone who says that they've "seen" ghosts or supernatural phenomena - usually these are people who want to believe, who have a predisposition to accept even the slightest visual disturbance as "signs of the paranormal".
Also - ghosts and paranormal stuff often don't make much sense. For example: If Ghosts exist, what are they made of? Why wouldn't they communicate with more people? If everyone on earth as the potential to become a ghost, why aren't we seeing far more of them? If something is stopping them from coming back, what exactly is it? If they are not allowed, then why do people report ghost sightings at all? And with so many ghosts around, why is it that people usually only see ghosts of those who are recently dead?
But the main thing is the lack of evidence - and again, personal accounts are not evidence. Sleep paralysis is a real phenomenon - you can read it up yourself and watch the videos of those who are undergoing sleep paralysis attacks (they are pretty disturbing to watch, as they show people often flipping out completely at a room full of empty). It has been verified time and time again by top researchers. You can read the papers and interview the scientist.
If some elderly woman swears that they saw their deceased grandson running down the hall - firstly, there's no way to know if they aren't lying for attention, delusional or mistaken. Second of all, it's a personal account which cannot be falsified or repeated under test conditions - it's just a story. And even if there's a hundred thousand stories, that doesn't constitute proof. Stories REMAIN stories.
I look at the millions of (pretty lame for the most part) ghost stories out there - and I don't think "wow, these millions of tales add up to solid proof" - I just think "wow - humans are really easy to fool".
A million bits of bad evidence adds up to bad evidence. Not good evidence. And that is why I don't believe - because the only proof that I've ever seen has just been someone on a website or chatroom claiming that they've seen a ghost. And I don't consider that good evidence. Of anything.
I did share an experience, i saw an apparition when I was little in an old theater rumored to be haunted and it scared me so bad I never forgot it. Last night, Iw ent into an old hospital, still very structurally sound, and a door unlatched itself and swung open, then a few minutes later slammed shut.
and paranormal does not mean "doesn't exist", the prefix para means :abnormal or beside, thus not normal.
Obviously you didn't read a word of the previous sentence. Repeat clients. FOR 20 FUCKING YEARS. Nobody, no matter how gullible, pays 200 dollars on a regular basis for absolutely no reason. She gets referrals all the damn time. It is a legitimate buisness, dude.flaming_squirrel said:
Yes, and non-believers often annoy me with their "look how much smarter I am by not believing in such childish nonsense" nonsense attitude.
I mean, God forbid that you accept the idea that there's more in the universe than directly meets the mere human eye. It's arrogant. And childish.
I mean, God forbid that you accept the idea that there's more in the universe than directly meets the mere human eye. It's arrogant. And childish.