What Would You Do If You Saw A Ghost?

[The Night Angel]

I think short term, I would be freaked out, though not scared unless it showed signs of aggression or the ability to harm me anyway. Long term, it would completely change my life, as i am an atheist and don't believe in anything even remotely supernatural... I'd have to question whether or not there is such a thing as soul mates or god or fate or anything like that.

 

[nacthenud]

The only correct answer to this question is to yell, "Get her!"

 

[Someone Depressing]

There are two possible conclusions:

I have a zashiki warashi, that will bring me good fortune,
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130581-Hackers-Ramp-Up-Attacks-Against-Xbox-One-PS4
or I should throw things and play J-POP at top volume on every possible device in my house until someone burns down my house after punching me in the gut and throwing me in an ambulance.

 

[II2]

Ok, speaking from real experience, I had a couple of events that perhaps a less skeptical person might deem "supernatural encounters". Two short stories that happened to me, for you...

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DREAM MACHINE SCRYING
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The first one was arguably my own fault, if such a thing can be blamed on actions of volition. I was experimenting with a Brion Gysin Dream Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine) some friends and I built while on a low mixed dose of psilocybin, dextroamphetamine and zopiclone while listening to a binaural audio generator I wrote to sync with the Dream Machine's strobe. We mediated on it for a few hours, marking time with a stopwatch. My friends checked out around 1:25, but I kept going. Around 2:15, they came back to check on me and I was talking in sentence fragments to dead relatives trying to learn about things that had happened in the past, while they lived. My friends were alarmed by 'how deep in' I was and interrupted, breaking my trance. I came out irritated at the interruption and a bit drained, but no harm done. Anyway, I chalked it all up to sensory hallucination and dismissed the information gleaned as amusing, but useless delusion. However, a few months later out of passing curiosity I asked in conversation with family about some of the information they had imparted in the vision I experienced; to my suprise, the family members confirmed the truth of the inquiries and were disturbed that I was asking about things I had no business knowing - things I could not have known. I felt oddly embarrassed, especially because I was unable to produce any satisfactory answer as to how I came to those lines of inquiry and it had never been my intent to make anyone uncomfortable. I told them I just dreamed it, but even that made them uneasy.

I tried, some time later to recreate the effects, to see if there was anything to the process; to divine hidden (if pedestrian) insights. It never worked again. It probably never 'worked' in the first place, for all the spooky and psychedelic trappings and was just the product of lateral thinking and synaptic cross talk. But, it was kinda an interesting experience.

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ANGRY BATHROOM SPIRIT
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The other, more 'direct', "GHOST" encounter I had was at a friend's cottage. We were all sober, just playing some poker in the early evening to warm up for a monied game we were going to play later that night with some other mates, when the bathroom door suddenly slammed shut and we heard a loud human shriek from behind it. We thought someone had broken in a a window or sneaked in or something. We put down our hands and grabbed a few makeshift weapons and went to investigate. When we opened the door, the row of 5 incandescent lights in the bathroom, above the sink and mirror exploded, darkening the room save a little corner nightlight. We were kinda freaked, but nothing else happened past that. There was no exit from the bathroom, so no intruder was in there. We cleaned up the broken glass and checked the fuse box, but the circuit the bathroom lights were on was fine. No blown fuse, no abnormalities. Kinda an anti-climax, but we were all releaved things were basically normal, excepting that unexplained sequence of events. We spent awhile kicking around ideas what it might have been, both rational and supernatural (mostly jokingly). We ended up going and buying some of those coiled neon lights to replace the bathroom ones and had no further issue. Poker went ahead and was fun. I lost $30, but in a good game.

All's well that ends well?

 

[martyrdrebel27]

Have sex with it.

I think the fascination came about from an unfortunate timing. When I was just getting all pubertied, I swear I saw a sexy lady ghost in my room one night, and ever since I occasionally have fantasies where I'm sleeping and wake up to see some sexy lady-ghost on top of me.

 

[000Ronald]

A simple hypothetical question. Whether you're a skeptic or not, you witness with your own eyes a full-form apparition of a ghost. Suppose you're home alone at night and turn the corner to clearly see someone standing at the end of the hallway looking at you for a few moments before it turns to walk into your bedroom. And when/if you go to look, there's no one there. What would your reaction be?

I don't think I'd even want to look, I think I'd grab the spare key to my care and get the hell out of there, refusing to go back except in the middle of the day with someone with me to help get as much stuff as I can and then get the hell out again.

In that specific scenario? If I saw something, went to confirm that I saw something, and saw nothing? I'd assume it was either a trick of the light or a hallucination. I just saw something for a second, there's no reason to believe anything else.

And really, that's what makes it a terrible question. I don't know if something is REAL unless I can CONFIRM that it's real. Just seeing something for a second doesn't make it REAL. It just means you might or might not have seen something. I'd need to do more than just see something for a second to have any interest in it.

Which makes me wonder; why did you phrase that in such a way? Because it seems to me that the question makes itself a moot point. If you see a ghost for a second, but STOP seeing it, you may as well have not have seen it at all. Do...do you understand?

 

[FrozenCones]

I'd shout "Get her!' and lunge at it.

Seriously though, I think I would be locked in a state of awe and wonder.

Dammit Ninja'd!

"Get her!" That was your whole plan, huh, "get her." Very scientific.

 

[Snotnarok]

Look for the equipment of a prankster, or wake up, or make sure the drink I have isn't spiked with something.
If you can't tell I have an immense belief of super natural.

 

[Therumancer]

This is one of those cases where my basic attitude is one of neutrality where I can't say I either strongly believe or disbelieve in the supernatural despite being a Christian. I do believe a lot of weird stuff happens, but I've never seen any I have been convinced beyond all doubt had a supernatural explanation. To be honest if I saw something weird like being described, I'd probably just assume it was a trick of the light, fatigue, the medication I take, or numerous other things. It would take more than one manifestation to get me to seriously concerned.

I'll also say that at the end of the day I'm not sure how much it really matters one way or another. If supernatural forces exist, they don't seem to present much danger, it's not like we wind up seeing people dropping like flies due to ghosts and hauntings and stuff. Wild animals don't kill people all that often in the US anymore either, but we do not deny that they exist and represent a potential threat. I figure if ghosts and stuff did exist and present a problem it would be pretty rare, but there wouldn't be the level of skepticism we see nowadays.

To be honest I tend to be most open minded to things like mild poltergeist activity and the like, which at worst tends to be "mildly annoying" more than anything rather than someone who has a strong belief in full fledged manifestations or whatever. I mean once in a while I've seen things go missing only to show up someplace where they couldn't possibly have wound up (and where I known I've checked) and years ago there was one noteworthy incident where I put down a remote control for the TV and then couldn't find it a few seconds later, and with the entire family looking we still could not find the bloody thing (and years later, it has yet to make an appearance). Stuff like that is minor and more likely has a reasonable explanation, but it's remotely possible, and if it is well... you aren't going to sell many horror novels over bizzare disappearance of the TV remote.

When it comes to conspiracy theories and the like, I just don't see how it could be covered up. Sort of like the rather interesting "found footage" theory that these movies came into popularity largely because of how people nowadays, especially young people, drag around recording equipment with them in their phones and such. The idea being that found footage movies and kids being inspired to "make their own horror movies" could be used to discredit any real found footage that got left behind by real victims. I believe this is also how the V/H/S series got inspired (especially in the second one where a point is made about a subculture of people trying to track down real footage, and people perhaps not even knowing what they have). The problem with such a central premise though, like most conspiricies, is that it would be a logistical nightmare and ultimately cause more problems than it would purport to solve. This applies to pretty much all "supernatural cover ups" as well, beyond a point the difficulty and expense outweighs the value of the information and probably does more damage than the information such a conspiracy allegedly protects the public from would if it was released. THAT said there do remain some odd things out there like how much trouble it's owners have gone through to keep Dudleyville Ct. off limits, which strikes me as being fairly odd since it occurs to me that it would be less of a headache to just let paranormalists go through there for a while and shut everyone up. That's likely just stubborn people being stubborn though.

In short I'm not skeptical enough where I'll go to extreme lengths to avoid acknowledging something like this, but I'm not an active believer either. At the end of the day it strikes me as being an academic question, since even if something is out there it's likely not that big a deal or else it wouldn't be primarily the domain of weird internet discussions.

-

Oh and one final point, even though this is long. I half expect that down the road we might actually wind up with a greater acceptance of the *paranormal* which is to be differed from the *supernatural*. Paranormal generally meaning something that is normal elsewhere occurring here where it's not normal and seeming out of place. I say this because theoretical physics have gotten into concepts like space folding, jump drives, and similar things as a method of achieving space travel without needing to actually transcend the speed of light (which calls Einstein's theories into question). It's all deeply theoretical stuff, and I am not smart enough to pretend to understand it, but I do very much believe space travel is possible and one day we'll achieve it. As what your dealing with gets into the concepts of subspace, parallel dimensions, and levels of physics we can't even prove for sure exist yet, it's possible that some weird phenomena is just the result of reactions happening somewhere else that can occasionally be seen here, or the kind of leaks you'd expect in general if those theories were possible.... or I guess on a lot of levels what I'm saying is that a lot of weird stuff that happens is probably stuff we can't quantify yet, but probably will, and can be sort of explained under existing theories. If some light shines through a micro fissure in subspace or whatever to us it would seem magical or explainable until some particle physicist manages to duplicate it. Right now though the paranormal and supernatural occupy much the same area of people's minds and imagination though, where the unexplained is just the unexplained.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

Ahhhh yes, I was wondering when you'd show up. The token "Your hypothetical question is stupid!!!" response. There's always at least one whenever someone tries this sort of thing, and they always overlook the fact that it's a frickin' hypothetical question that really doesn't require nearly as much thought as they're trying to stuff into it.

Hmmm, lets see now...well over 60 people had responded to the question before you, and while there certainly were some that didn't take it as seriously as I hoped, you're apparently the only person who had a problem with the actual wording of the question. That leads me to believe that the problem doesn't lie with my wording, but with your comprehension. Lets take another look at the scenario, shall we?

Suppose you're home alone at night and turn the corner to clearly see someone standing at the end of the hallway looking at you for a few moments before it turns to walk into your bedroom.

You make it sound as though the wording meant that you only caught a fleeting glimpse, yet the wording states that you "clearly see someone standing at the end of the hallway looking at you for a few moments", as in it stands there, staring at you as you stare back at it before it finally moves on.

Now if you're a skeptic and wouldn't even believe that and play it off as "Oh I'm just seeing things, I'm just hallucinating for some reason" then fair enough, but that has nothing to do with the wording of the question/scenario presented. So again, I'd argue that it wasn't my failure in wording the question, it was your failure in comprehending it.

Do...do you understand?

To answer your question, though, the reason I went with the scenario presented is for two reasons:
1: For superstitious people or out-right believers, I'd imagine such a scenario would creep them right the hell out.
2: For the skeptics, it would indeed allow them to play it off as having simply been seeing something while with some others, perhaps, it might challenge their skepticism.

 

[cdemares]

That's easy. Not know what I was looking at. I would be confused. I would search the room and house incessantly. I would think I was seeing things or going crazy. Honestly, ghost would not even really occur to me.

 

[The Funslinger]

Trap it there by putting a line of salt in front of the door and then try to figure out who it is so I can burn their corpse.

Why yes, I do watch Supernatural.

 

[likalaruku]

1)Get appointment with eye specialist.
2)Go out of way to prove it didn't exist.
3)Never sleep again, except some times.

 

[000Ronald]

Snip.

Ahhhh yes, I was wondering when you'd show up. The token "Your hypothetical question is stupid!!!" response. There's always at least one whenever someone tries this sort of thing, and they always overlook the fact that it's a frickin' hypothetical question that really doesn't require nearly as much thought as they're trying to stuff into it.

Hmmm, lets see now...well over 60 people had responded to the question before you, and while there certainly were some that didn't take it as seriously as I hoped, you're apparently the only person who had a problem with the actual wording of the question. That leads me to believe that the problem doesn't lie with my wording, but with your comprehension. Lets take another look at the scenario, shall we?

Suppose you're home alone at night and turn the corner to clearly see someone standing at the end of the hallway looking at you for a few moments before it turns to walk into your bedroom.

You make it sound as though the wording meant that you only caught a fleeting glimpse, yet the wording states that you "clearly see someone standing at the end of the hallway looking at you for a few moments", as in it stands there, staring at you as you stare back at it before it finally moves on.

Now if you're a skeptic and wouldn't even believe that and play it off as "Oh I'm just seeing things, I'm just hallucinating for some reason" then fair enough, but that has nothing to do with the wording of the question/scenario presented. So again, I'd argue that it wasn't my failure in wording the question, it was your failure in comprehending it.

Do...do you understand?

To answer your question, though, the reason I went with the scenario presented is for two reasons:
1: For superstitious people or out-right believers, I'd imagine such a scenario would creep them right the hell out.
2: For the skeptics, it would indeed allow them to play it off as having simply been seeing something while with some others, perhaps, it might challenge their skepticism.

...except you misunderstand my question. The problem isn't skepticality, it's a problem of interactivity. If I just see a ghost, even for a few seconds, but I stop seeing it, then what CAN I do?

Here, let me make a comparison for you. Let's say you're sitting in your house, alone, at night, when all the sudden, you catch the scent of bacon coming from the kitchen. You don't hear it frying, and you KNOW you're alone in the house, but you also know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you smell bacon, and you smell it coming from the kitchen. So you walk over to the kitchen, perhaps expecting to see bacon frying in a pan, and...nothing. No pan, no bacon, even the smell is gone. You even double check the stove to see if it may have been on recently and it is stone cold.

So...what do you do? You can't eat the bacon, because there is no bacon. You can't LOOK for the bacon, because you've already done that to the best of your limited ability. Even if you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you smelled bacon, even for several minutes, there is no reason to give it any notice.

And why are you so defensive? I thought I was asking a very fair question. I'm NOT skeptical of the idea of ghosts (although I AM skeptical of malevolent ghosts) and I was just trying to tell you that your entire thought experiment seems very poorly thought out, maybe offer some constructive criticism. If you could TALK to the ghost, interact with it in some way beyond just chasing it, that would be a worthwhile question. If that were the case, if I could speak with the ghost and it could speak back, I would ask it who it was, where it came from, when it was born, what it was doing here, if it had ever seen any other ghosts, if it remembered dying, how long it had been a ghost, if it had any idea why it became a ghost, ect. Then I would try to make it's existence less miserable. See if it had any relatives and if I could get in contact with them (or if it was very, very old, descendants. For closure). Maybe hang out and play games. Just because it's a ghost doesn't mean it isn't still human.

Do you understand my point of view better now?

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

My friend, you're still missing what my point was, and the point of this topic. As I mentioned: there always tends to be someone who wants to put way too much thought into a very simple question or concept. You're overthinking the question by quite a large margin, as such further commenting on the nature of the question is superfluous.

It's simple: you see someone standing at the end of the hall looking back at you when you already know that you're home alone. After a few moments of looking at you, it turns and walks into your bedroom.

That's all that's needed for you to come up with a response to the question:

"Well I wouldn't believe it was a ghost, I'd think it was a burglar at first and probably think my mind was playing tricks on me when I find that I really am the only person in the house."

"I'd shit my pants and run screaming from the house cause that's the kind of thing that would really terrify me."

"LoL I'd call the Ghostbusters then try to have sex with it!"

As I said previously: you seem to be the only person not getting the spirit (no pun intended) of this topic. As for why I seem like I'm getting defensive, it's because I'm defending myself against your accusations of a poorly written hypothetical.

if I could speak with the ghost and it could speak back, I would ask it who it was, where it came from, when it was born, what it was doing here, if it had ever seen any other ghosts, if it remembered dying, how long it had been a ghost, if it had any idea why it became a ghost, ect. Then I would try to make it's existence less miserable. See if it had any relatives and if I could get in contact with them (or if it was very, very old, descendants. For closure). Maybe hang out and play games. Just because it's a ghost doesn't mean it isn't still human.

Right here you give a perfectly fine response to the topic and scenario: "Try to make contact." That response has already popped up a couple of times in this thread. So yeah, it seems to me that you're trying to put too much thought into what was intentionally written to be a simple question about a simple scenario.

 

[000Ronald]

Snip.

My friend, you're still missing what my point was, and the point of this topic. As I mentioned: there always tends to be someone who wants to put way too much thought into a very simple question or concept. You're overthinking the question by quite a large margin, as such further commenting on the nature of the question is superfluous.

It's simple: you see someone standing at the end of the hall looking back at you when you already know that you're home alone. After a few moments of looking at you, it turns and walks into your bedroom.

That's all that's needed for you to come up with a response to the question:

"Well I wouldn't believe it was a ghost, I'd think it was a burglar at first and probably think my mind was playing tricks on me when I find that I really am the only person in the house."

"I'd shit my pants and run screaming from the house cause that's the kind of thing that would really terrify me."

"LoL I'd call the Ghostbusters then try to have sex with it!"

As I said previously: you seem to be the only person not getting the spirit (no pun intended) of this topic. As for why I seem like I'm getting defensive, it's because I'm defending myself against your accusations of a poorly written hypothetical.

if I could speak with the ghost and it could speak back, I would ask it who it was, where it came from, when it was born, what it was doing here, if it had ever seen any other ghosts, if it remembered dying, how long it had been a ghost, if it had any idea why it became a ghost, ect. Then I would try to make it's existence less miserable. See if it had any relatives and if I could get in contact with them (or if it was very, very old, descendants. For closure). Maybe hang out and play games. Just because it's a ghost doesn't mean it isn't still human.

Right here you give a perfectly fine response to the topic and scenario: "Try to make contact." That response has already popped up a couple of times in this thread. So yeah, it seems to me that you're trying to put too much thought into what was intentionally written to be a simple question about a simple scenario.

Hmm. I will concede your point.

But it seems odd to me that you wouldn't want people to think about this. the existence of ghosts, or even just A ghost, has much further-reaching implications than you seem to realize.

 

[Queen Michael]

I'd scream like a schoolgirl on a One Direction concert and vamoose.

 

[RJ 17]

Hmm. I will concede your point.

But it seems odd to me that you wouldn't want people to think about this. the existence of ghosts, or even just A ghost, has much further-reaching implications than you seem to realize.

Another topic for another time. All I was wanting here was quite simply what people's reactions would be. That's why my OP was so short and the scenario so simple.

 

[FPLOON]

*ahem* Was the ghost "single" when they died, per chance?

*awkward pause*

...I'll see myself out, thank you... (There's no law against dating the paranormal, by the way...)

 

[waj9876]

Set up cameras in my house, everywhere, and study it. See if it's hostile, or a demon or something.

If it's not hostile, I'd try to communicate with it.

I'd also not be like that Micah guy from Paranormal Activity. I cheered when the ghost/demon thing killed him. How would you feel if some guy kept pestering you, shouting at you, trying to get you to react, and when you finally do he just gets angrier and redoubles his efforts.

It wants space? I give it space. It wants to talk? Cool, I'd talk. Find a way for it to communicate. Try to befriend the ghost, unless it just wants to be left alone.

I'd also try to see if it's actually conscious, or if it's stuck in whatever time period it died in and can't even notice me.

And then I'd scour libraries about the occult and magic. Because the supernatural has been proven, to me at least, to exist. I would so try to learn that stuff.