That one made me kind of sad, Bloak. What an awful way to go through the afterlife, crying over your dead child.
All I know is that if a ghost asks me if I'm a god, I say YES! Two of my favorite movies of all time. Vigo scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. I don't really believe in ghosts however I've seen things happen that first made me think it was a ghost. Working in theatre, ghosts and other superstitions are kind of respected. The small theatre at school was supposedly haunted by a kid who died in a car wreck on the way there. Some people view theatres as semi-supernatural based on the history of theatre itself. For instance we usually don't walk under ladders unless you have to (also because something falling off the ladder would hurt) and we also don't whistle in the theatre or on stage. Thats because when theatres were still lit with gas lights they would whistle when the flame was blown out. If someone heard that and assumed it was just somebody whistling the theatre would fill with gas. Don't say good luck, don't give someone flowers before a show, have a ghost light on overnight to keep the ghost happy, real mirrors on stage are bad luck too.
As a general rule, I don't believe in ghosts per se. I do believe there are many things we don't understand about the world, such as the possibility of parallel dimensions. Whether this allows for or explains the small percentage of overall sightings that may have some validity, not only of "ghosts" but of all sorts of phenomena such as UFOs, I don't know. So, while I know of no direct evidence of ghosts, I hold open the possibility that such things could exist. However, I have had some personal experience with the sleep paralysis phenomena, and I know it can be very spooky even to someone more prone to believe in non-paranormal explanations (me). Specifically, a couple of years ago, I was sound asleep in bed when something suddenly woke me, like I thought I had heard a noise in the otherwise unoccupied house, but was unsure if I really had. I looked at the glowing numbers on the alarm clock (I keep my room really dark) and it said 2:34 am. I lay there and listened in the near-pitch dark for several minutes and heard nothing more. I thought about getting up and going downstairs to look around, but after a few minutes I think I started to drift back off to sleep. Just then the closet door in my room clicked shut, like it had been almost shut but not quite, and had moved the rest of the way closed on its own. That time there was no mistake about the noise, I had really heard it. At first I wrote it off to the furnace coming on and maybe changing the air pressure in the house (the closet is a big walk-in type with a furnace outlet inside), but then I wondered why it hadn't done that all the other times the furnace must have cycled on earlier in the night. I also remembered that, due to a chute in the closet that goes down to the first floor laundry room, any time an outside door opens downstairs, it can change the air pressure in the closet enough to move the door slightly if it's not completely closed (I had seen and/or heard this happen a few times before). I decided the odds of that being the case that particular time were pretty small, but there was no way I could lay there and go back to sleep if there was even a slight chance that someone had come in downstairs (I live alone). So, reluctantly, I got out of bed and quietly went downstairs, using my dark-adjusted eyes and the street light coming through the windows to creep through the downstairs. I checked all the doors and windows and found them undisturbed. Somewhat satisfied, I went upstairs and back to bed. Thanks to all the adrenalin coursing through my veins, it took me a while to get back to sleep, but I had finally started to drift off when suddenly I heard another noise downstairs. I awoke with a start again, but this time I was immediately filled with the gut-level certainty that someone - or something - was in the house (similar to that strange feeling you get that someone is watching you). At first I felt like I couldn't move, like I was frozen with fear, but I overcame it and quietly got up in the dark. I slowly opened my bedroom door once again, and crept downstairs. Like before, I used the little bit of light coming through the windows from streetlights and my night vision to creep through the downstairs, but this time I was fighting a primal fear that there was something there, that I was going to run into that "something" around the next corner. Nevertheless, I worked my way slowly into the dark kitchen, and stood in the middle of the room. I looked around in the darkness, and was almost satisfied once again that nothing was amiss when I noticed to my horror the basement door was standing open about a foot. It had been closed the last time I came downstairs and looked around, I was certain of it. At the same moment, I felt something brush past my bare legs in the dark. I instantly recognized that sensation as a cat brushing against me, the only problem being I didn't own a cat since mine had died from cancer a few months before. I literally jumped and almost yelled out loud, and then realized I was no longer in the kitchen. For a few seconds I was confused and could not move my body, only my eyes, as I looked around in the dark and tried to make sense of where I was. I was back upstairs in bed. As my heart rate started to come down, I began to realize that I must have dreamed the last noise and trip downstairs, and never really got out of bed the second time at all. I think in my mind, the second trip was mostly a replay of my first (and only) real creep through the dark downstairs, with the added surprise ending of the open basement door and a dead cat brushing by my legs. It took me a while to get back to sleep after that - mostly because I was never one-hundred percent sure what parts I had dreamed and what was real, and even today it kind of creeps me out thinking about it (especially as I sit here at 2:30 am, in the same house, a few feet away from the basement door, and recount the tale). I almost never have nightmares, or even dreams that I remember, but that one was a doozey because the half-awake aspect of it made it seem so real. Since then, I can better understand how someone could be convinced that what they experienced in such a situation was real, particularly those who are prone to believe in the paranormal to begin with.
Nice story Nuts. something similar to taht has happened to me. I felt something settling on the foot of my bed ( i was living alone), and I don't know if it was a dream or what, but I remember pinching myself and not feeling a thing. I don't know if it was a dream or waht.
As a Latter-day Saint (aka Mormon) I believe that the spirit world (where we enter after death) coexists in the same location as our mortal world. These experiences are very believable. We even have a hymn "Heaven is a place on Earth" that hints at a thin veil between the physical and spiritual worlds.
"how either my mother or my wife's grandmother knew what the **** was going on, i don't know, but i think there is something out there that speaks to us in a very emotional/spiritual way during times of great stress. i think some of us know how to hear it (i do not hear it, apparently - i've never received a signal of distress in my mind like that) and others might not be on that frequency. in any case, it has creeped me out sufficiently. " I believe that to be of the Holy Ghost, if I can be so candid.
There is one experience in my family history of a similar nature. My step-father Jerry joined the Marines right out of high school, and they trained him for a few weeks and shipped him over to Korea right after the Korean War started. Only a couple of weeks later, his mother in Galveston thought she heard him calling her over and over, inside her home near Seawall Boulevard, "momma, ...momma. ...momma," she kept hearing Jerry's voice. A few days later she got a notice, that Jerry was coming home. His unit had entered the infamous battle of Chosin Reservoir, where the Chinese army surprise attacked, and Jerry had been hit by schrappnel early on, and the injury provided both his evacuation from the battle and his ticket home. Many members of his unit were not so fortunate. The day of the injury was the day his mother heard him calling. She told this story many times over the years.
The Marine story made me think of something. Just after HS 4 girls got killed pulling out of the Drive-In theater. A drunk driver crushed their car. I went to school with all 4 and was going to start dating one of them. It hit hard to say the least. Her mother said that at X time she heard her daughter come home and check in like she always did to show she was in before curfew. The phone rang and she was already awake but told her daughter to answer it and remind her friends it was too late to call. The phone kept ringing so she went ahead and answered it. It was the mother of one of the other girls in absolute tears informing her of the news. Moments later there was a knock on the door. It was the Police. Her sister was awaken by the mom tellling D to get the phone and tell her friends not to call. Her mother said that D told her, "I am okay, I love you". She remembers it plain as day. That is why she did not believe the mother of the other girl at first. Not until she checked the whole house to find her daughter who she spoke to moments earlier. Drink drivers have taken away a total of 5 people that I knew very well. A handful of others I did not know as well. I was in love with one.
A haunting is a scary arse show. I'm sure there is alot of embellishment, but not all of them can be nut jobs/psychos, right?
loop, I'm a little confused? Did D's mom see D or just heard her come in? D's ghost said "I love you?" Interesting story to say the least. This stuff is fascinating. You said you've seen one as well.
bobo, I missed that response, lol. I don't know why I mentioned that thing about her id. Not exactly proof that a ghost exists, maybe proof that we're blind.
Yes, I do believe in something going around. We never saw ghosts, but definitely things happened. Five years ago Easter we moved into the new house we built in the country. A year later strange things started happening. At night lights would turn on (always in a different room from where we were) but we just figured it was our imagination and that we just forgot we left them on. Then one night our garage door opened. Humm......I went out and put it back down. About thirty minutes later it went back up and when I went out to put it down it went back down before I could push the button. Ok, I was a little freaked out, but we justified it as some sort of electrical short or something in the air. I couldn't find anything wrong in the wiring, etc so just left it alone. The next day it went up and down one more time. So at this point it had been about a week or so with lights coming on and the garage door opening and shutting for no reason at all. Still we were thinking this was just nothing real. Then a couple days later while watching TV our master bathtub water turned on. To say the least it all came together instantly and I was a little more than freaked out. Immediately my wife gets on the phone with friends trying to figure out what to do. While on the phone with one of her friends about thirty minutes later the kitchen sink water turned on. DAMN!! Since lights were never turned out we slept that night with every light in the house on. The next day my wife goes to our church and talks with the pastor. Apparently he took it really well and gave her a small prayer and a bible verse to read in every room which basically said that this spirit or whatever it is was not welcome. From that day on nothing else has happened. Since then we have found arrowheads and rock tools about a hundred feet or so from the house in our round pen where we work our horses. I spent time researching them and never found anything like them on the internet. I found an arrowhead expert online so I took pictures and sent them to him. He said they came from tribes in the area from about 10,000 years ago. I don't know if the two are related, but that was some hair raising stuff.
Ramathorn, the mom did not see her but she heard her in her room just like she always did when she checked in. She heard her voice. She was awake when the phone rang because her daughter woke her up a couple of minutes before. The phone rang so she assumed it was a friend calling to see if she got in, forgot to tell her something, you know, 18 y.o. stuff. That is why she told her to answer the phone since she just got in. That is why she did not believe the other mom. We were going to start officially dating after I finished some trips I had that summer. One was to Cali to visit family. Per her request I had some sand from the bach as a personal gift. Since I was to be away more of the summer than home we sort of "put off" the formal beginning of our crushes coming together. Had we not postponed that (we were going to a movie the Monday after this happened since I got back Friday night and they went to the movie Saturday night). we would have maybe been together elsewhere. Or, I would have been with them and I die too. Or....it can go in many directions and none of them reality as it is now. They are dead. A drunk driver killed them. Yes, I have seen one very up close and personal as well as others more fleeting and sensory than anything else. I respect people's opinion who say there are not ghosts for their own reasons. But I know for **** sure positive fact they exist. Nothing could prove otherwise from this fact wrought by personal experience. I was sober, I was not fatigued, I was not dreaming. I was wide awake, middle of the day. Ghosts don't frighten me one little bit either.
Moved into a house in which the previous owner had blown his head off. There was blood all over the carpet and up against a wall. Tried and tried to get the blood out of the carpet but the water in the bucket kept turning brown. Finally just cut the piece of carpet out and put a couch over it. Never saw a ghost or felt the presence of one, though.
