do you believe in "ghosts?"

[orleans]

i do.

and by "ghosts" i mean spirits, the dead/departed who return to communicate with the "living"

has anyone ever seen a ghost/spirit/departed person?

i have.

has anyone ever had a ghost/spirit/departed person speak to them?

i have.

has anyone ever seen/heard/encountered various forms of communication or signs from the departed?

again, i have.

just curious--i figure it's the most appropriate time of year to ask these questions.

i recently read about a boy whose twin sister died at birth. as he got a little older he had an invisible/"imaginary" playmate/person he would talk to. eventually he told his parents the name of his playmate--which (you guessed it) just happened to be the name of his twin who died at birth. the parents had not told the boy about the fact that he had a sister. i don't know when the boy was actually informed about having a twin sister. i do know that he's an adult now and knows that his sister died when they were born. anyway, i thought it was an interesting little story.

so what's your take on ghosty-paranormal things?

[Behind the Aegis]

1. I ain't afraid of no ghost!

I do believe in ghosts, and I have seen them...many times. Most of the time, they are nothing but apparitions. Only once did I have a conversation with one, not realizing she wasn't "real." I have had a few tell me something, but I didn't converse with them. I feel most are "residuals" left behind.

[RiffRandell]

31. Yikes!

You're brave! I had to shut off The Shining last week when my husband was out of town for one night when I was watching it by myself after putting the kids to bed.

That's one of my favorite movies, but man it still scares me to watch it.

[Behind the Aegis]

39. Not really all that brave...trust me.

The conversation was with a woman in civil war period clothes. I was in the green room of the college theatre, which I didn't know at the time, had been used as a morgue during the Civil War. I just assumed she was trying out for a new play. I was there for that reason, so I assumed it was her reason too. She commented on my clothes, which were period piece for a Shakespearean play. When I left the room, someone asked who I was talking to and I said "Susan. I think she is trying out for a new play." That's when I was told there was no new play, and they opened an old history book from the 3rd floor office and pointed at a picture, and there she was. It was the ONLY time I have seen a ghost that I assumed was a real person.


Now, the movie that still scares the shit out of me, The Exorcist!

[RiffRandell]

40. Me too!

That's another one I can't watch alone!

[mucifer]

2. As a hospice nurse I can tell you many people talk to their dead relatives

in their final days. It's fairly common. Many believe it's from side effects of medications or the brain slowing down. I believe the dead often help the living make the transition easier.

[Liberalynn]

32. A nurse who was attending my mother in her last few days before she died in 2008

said my mother kept saying, "I don't know Kate, and Bill, I just don't know," and acting like she was carrying on a conversation with someone even though her eyes were closed and she was unresponsive to the nurse.

The nurse said she had written the names down because sometimes the families want to know and it may mean something to them.

Kate was my Mom's eldest sister who had died in 1983 and Bill was her nephew who died of stomach cancer in 2003, in his late 40's.

Now my Mom was really close to her sister. almost closer to her than she was her mother, but Mom didn't spend a lot of time with my cousin. So it doesn't make sense that the medicine would make her think of Bill or that she would dream of him.

It made me wonder if they were really there with her preparing her for what was to come next? It gave me kind of a strange feeling when the nurse was telling us, and my sister said she felt the same. I do hope if such things are real and possible that they were there for her in a way that my sister and I could no longer be.

I have never seen or heard a ghost though myself.

[mucifer]

34. What your mother did I see on a fairly regular basis in hospice.

[yuiyoshida]

3. I knew this girl once...who told me, she claims a true story.

She was living in Santa Barbara at the time, and lived by the Old Mission. She had heard stories about how people had used tape recorders to record sounds or voices, so she went to the old cemetery up by the old mission with a tape recorder. Left it under a bush and let the tape record all though the night. The next day, she went back to go get it, and played the tape. She could hear the sounds of Crying babies on the tape, and so she checked with the historians at the Old Mission, and sure enough the place where she left the tape recorder, was indeed a burial spot, where the Chumash Indians had come to bury their departed babies.. who never made it though
the birth process.

That story gave me a chill down my back.. and she claims its the truth. I know her enough to know she would not BS me, although she no longer has that tape or tape recorder any longer.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. What kind of tape recorder would record all night?

At best, the old cassette tape recorders could only record for 2 hours, and only then if they had a function to automatically record both sides of a 120-minute tape.

あの女の子はあなたをからかっていたかな。。。

[Neoma]

9. Some people call digital recorders tape recorders still...

[yuiyoshida]

10. It did not record all night, art san

She had a long cassette and ran it, until it ran out.

[Tobin S.]

4. No

I have yet to see any solid evidence on the matter.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. ... lol ...

but, I do believe in Spooks!

[Tobin S.]

19. What are you talking about?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

21. "solid" evidence.

meh - don't mind me. I see a joke/pun in that.

[Tobin S.]

23. 10-4

I didn't do that intentionally, but I thought that might be it after looking at it again. I'm feeling a little off today so I thought I'd ask.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

24. no biggie ... hope you feel better soon.

[RiffRandell]

5. I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Yes. I've seen every episode of now A Haunting on Discovery Channel and now there's a new season on Sunday nights on Destination America.

The scariest ones have demons in them....I also have a hard time with these as I'm not religious, but I'm not messing around with a Ouija Board or doing anything that might invite them in.

A lot of the episodes take place in CT and I grew up there in a house that was built in 1733 that was spooky at times but nothing paranormal happened.

I found this book on Amazon and may order it. Read the reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/Devil-Connecticut-Gerald-Brittle/dp/0553237144/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381581574&sr=1-1&keywords=the+devil+in+connecticut

[PassingFair]

8. No. nt

[darkangel218]

11. I do. im 100% sure they exist.

[walkerbait41]

12. No

[RebelOne]

13. Not really, but I have some strange experiences. n/t

[jakeXT]

14. Better than Ke$ha, when she had sex with a ghost ?

Ke$ha Speaks Out on 'Having Sex With A Ghost': 'It Did Scare Me... But That's Part Of The Fun Of It'

She said: "I've got a song called 'Supernatural', that song was about having sex with a ghost. I lived in this flop house at Rural Canyon and there was this weird energy that lived there, and it used to keep me at night and wake me up. And it progressed into this dark, sexual spirit.

"It did scare me but that's part of the fun of it."

While it the situation scared her, the eccentric star said she very much believes in ghosts and loves to learn about anything in another world and is fascinating by the spirits out there.

http://www.celebuzz.com/2012-11-24/keha-speaks-out-on-having-sex-with-a-ghost-it-did-scare-me-but-thats-part-of-the-fun-of-it/

[Dash87]

15. I don't really "believe in" anything. I think it's a possibility.

I also think 99% of paranormal cases are bull crap -

- Sleep paralysis / still dreaming / half-asleep
- Pipes or structural noises
- Natural noises (critters, ambient, etc.)
- Altered states of reality (example - High EMF in your house induces paranoia).
- "Out of the corner of your eye" sightings
- Natural shadows - cars passing, ambient light bleeding in, etc.
- Pseudoscience - Ouiji boards, EVP (a.k.a Take barely audible ambient noises and give them significance), psychics
- Psyching yourself out - Example: You're "absolutely sure" there's a ghost in the house, and therefore everything you see and hear for a while will be because of that "ghost."
- Mental illness / brain disorders
- Wishful thinking

[warrior1]

16. I do not

I think living human beings are more scary.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. Yes

because of personal experiences.

[cristianmarie533]

18. No

Ghosts don't exist in the real world.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

20. Yes, I do

And the answer to all three of your questions is "yes". I've experienced all three types and so have various members of my family.

[840high]

48. Yes, I do - same

reasons.

[sakabatou]

22. I don't believe

[pipi_k]

25. Personally

have not seen nor heard any kind of ghosties, although I have had some strange experiences.

Like once when I was a teenager many years ago and I was with a group that visited a museum. On display was a Civil War uniform with an old American flag (in a glass case, of course).

There was a bullet hole in the uniform with a bit of dried blood around it. I got the weirdest sensation...like I once knew the person who wore it all those years ago. Myself? Someone else? I don't know. It was very disturbing.

Then there was another time when I was on a very old coal fired train. I could "feel" the presence of people around me dressed in the appropriate clothing for the period.

Oh, and something of interest...someone mentioned above about strange things happening in the state of CT...both of these things happened in CT. In fact, anyone who knows the area would be able to figure out which train trip I'm talking about (which also involves a riverboat trip up and down the CT river past a particular castle...)

Is CT haunted?

Who knows?

[RiffRandell]

30. That would be me.

I've taken that trip several times to Gilette's Castle.

Sounds as if you might be sensitive to the paranormal....no offense but I'm glad I don't have that "gift."

If I saw/heard anything that I sensed was evil (not saying you did) I couldn't get out of my house fast enough.

What I learned from A Haunting is a lot of the time demons will follow you so moving doesn't help.

Ok, now everybody thinks I'm a lot weirder than before so I'm done.

[pipi_k]

45. Yep...

It was Gillette Castle, and past the old Opera House too.

I toured the Castle a couple of times but never "felt" anything weird.

Another incident of weirdness...I lived in TN for a few months back in the early 70s...near Murfreesboro/Smyrna. One day while out riding around with a friend, we passed an area I had never seen before. Again, got an extremely strange deja vu type feeling like I had been there before.

Speaking of houses...Both Mr Pipi and I gave up smoking in 1996. But occasionally one of us will smell cigarette smoke in the house. People who visit don't smoke in the house, so it's not residual/second hand smoke. And our nearest neighbors are 1000 feet away, so it's not coming from them.

Lots of strange things in this world...


PS...if it's any consolation, I don't think you're weird, but then, I'm pretty weird myself, so maybe that's not such a good thing.

[Iggo]

26. LOL...no.

[femmocrat]

27. Yes.

Answer to the other questions: no, no, and no.

I still believe even though I have not had any encounters.

[HERVEPA]

28. No. and Oy Vey. Whatever happened to science?

[mnhtnbb]

29. I believe that our energy continues beyond our bodily death. I have no idea what form

it takes--perhaps as a ghost or spirit--but I do believe that
death is a transformation to another level.

I have never encountered a 'ghost' but I do know quite a few people
who have felt the presence of departed loved ones.

[frogmarch]

33. No, but I'm glad

some people do, because I like listening to them talk about their ghostly experiences and I occasionally join them on their ghost-finding adventures. One of my ghost hunter friends is a retired NASA engineer. His paranormal specialty is orbs.

I don't interpret things that go bump in the night in the same way they do, but I don't think that gives me the right to make fun of them. Most of them are way more learned and intelligent than I'll ever be.

[Tom_Foolery]

35. Intellectually, I don't believe...

But emotionally, I wish for it to be true; so that when I die, I will see my mother, maternal grandmother, and some of my relatives. I wish they would pay me a visit now.

[madamesilverspurs]

36. I believe

that I don't have the answers to all the questions in the universe. When it comes to ghosts, I'm open-minded. Haven't ever seen any, but...

Had an episode several years ago in my previous apartment, lasted a few days. Mostly involved pictures removing themselves from the wall. Not just slipping off the nail and sliding down the wall, but moving away from the wall and then dropping. The last event there involved a light fixture in the hallway: as I came in from outside, I saw the glass bowl-shaped cover drop slowly from the fixture in a slow, smoothe arc to the floor. That was the end of it.

In my present apartment, several months back, I came home and thought I'd left the TV on, there was a picture on the screen, but it was still like a photo; two little kids caught in the action of playing on a playground. The cable box showed no channel indicator, so I clicked the remote and the picture went away, clicked it again and the normal TV programming came on.
In the next few days, a flat wicker basket that hung on my kitchen cabinet popped away from that wall and landed across the hall, and a wooden fish art piece on the opposite wall let out a loud 'pop' and tossed itself off the wall, landing about three feet from the wall. That's it, nothing since.

Spooks? I dunno. But definitely interesting.

[fizzgig]

37. i've only encountered one ghost/spirit

and it's the one of a cat we had to put down 12 years ago. he was terribly abused when he was little and was an honest story on the healing power of love. he was one of the sweetest guys i have ever known.

he's still hanging around dad's place and i catch him out of the corner of my eye on most visits. neither my dad nor my sister have ever seen him, but they both believe me.

[texanwitch]

38. I have a ghost cat.

There was a cat that lived at my house before I bought it.

It was yard cat, don't know where it came from.

I feed him until he died.

I still see him sometimes.

He was a very odd looking cat, missing an ear.

He was a strange color.

Every once in awhile I see him by the tree he liked to hang out.

Maybe he likes it here.

[Taverner]

41. I do not. Sorry.

[Boxerfan]

42. I spoke to my Mom just after she passed

It was like a waking dream & she basically told me it was Ok....

I was on her old boat across from her apt. I had been her caretaker till hospice decided her time was imminent.

The phone rang just after the dream @ about 4 AM with the nursing facility telling me she had passed. Another strange thing is that phone almost never worked as it relied on the base unit at the apartment far away.

Rest in Peace Ma...

-------------


Also-long ago I lived in Timothy Leary's old house in Los Altos Hills ca. That place was definitely haunted. remnants of some bad trips was my impression. But I had a frozen in terror moment when a vaporous apparition came into an open window-with flowing curtains like a breeze. The other curtains were all motionless. My brother claimed his 1st night there after a day of moving he was spun on an antique table while he slept-awaking to see details of the roof edge molding he had not noticed during the day.

[orleans]

46. those type of dreams are visitation dreams

the first one i had was with a friend of mine.
years later i had two with my dad.
but i never had one where someone was basically telling me goodbye and that was how i found out they had passed.

[Vashta Nerada]

43. No.

I don't believe in things that aren't validated by science.

[a la izquierda]

44. Yes.

Don't want to elaborate. But yes.

[orleans]

47. kick for halloween topical n/t

[pam4water]

49. No