[OT] Do you believe in ghosts?

[LostSoul]

Re: On the topic of sleep paralysis

In fact, take a look at your very own Monster Manual, under Night Hag. Here we have an old crone that "rides the victim's back" until morning.

I think that was where the term "nightmare" came from. (Look at the Nightmare in the monster manual.) It was said that a horse (a mare) would ride your back or sit on you. That's how they explained the heavy feeling you get when you can't move in your sleep.

I don't believe in ghosts (that doesn't stop me from freaking myself out, though). I've seen strange things here and there, but it's always just a trick of perception. Like when you're looking at a picture, or TV, or whatever, and you just have no idea what the hell you're looking at; until suddenly, it all snaps into place and you understand it all.

All that being said, I think that belief is important; whether or not the ghost actually exists, if you act as though it did, what's the difference?

 

[Terraism]

There was another instance with this ghost which I did witness. Like in some of the movies, you could feel when he was around even if you couldn't see him. Between the cold and the hairs standing up on my arms, we all knew when he was around. Once when just me and my friend were in the house, a small christmas teddy bear activated by itself. It was one of those that played music if you pressed one of the paws. John (my friend) and I were in another room noticing that we both felt the presence of his ghost when the bear in another room started playing all by itself!

Like Sodalis, I've also had this happen to me. Now, there's a little bit more of a background story, though, so... I'd stayed up until about one in the morning reading the Dean Koontz book Phantoms, though after reading for about three hours I was only a bit more than halfway through. For those of you who haven't read it, there's something nasty killing lots of people, and at one point it speaks from a drain, in a little kid's voice, "come play with me!" Shortly thereafter, likely enough, someone else is killed, rather violently. Well, anyway, I woke up sometime after two, though definitely before four in the morning, certain that I'd just heard something. Now, at first I told myself I was hearing things, since I had been reading a pretty freaky book, but soon after, I heard it again. A little kid's voice, I was sure - though it was too faint to hear what it was saying. That about petrified me - literally. It seemed like forever that I sat in panic, with repetitions of the voice every so often, before my door creaked open, and I let out a shriek that woke up my sister in the next room. Actually, it was my mom, coming to check and see if I heard something too. Obviously, I had. Anyway, with the door open, I could hear what it was saying - yup, you guessed it. "Come play with me!" Took mom ten minutes and three bright lights to convince me to get out of bed. Anyway, it turned out to be a talking Rugrat's doll my sister had - a bit innocious, I've always thought. Stupid thing. Anticlimatic. Now, I don't believe in ghosts, so I'm of the opinion that the batteries were dying or that something had struck it, and was pressing the button down, but, for those who are interested...

 

[Tetsubo]

Iku Rex do you also deny the existence of religious experiences because there is no verifiable evidence?

If so you have my sympathies.

 

[kenjib]

Iku Rex do you also deny the existence of religious experiences because there is no verifiable evidence?

If so you have my sympathies.

There's no need to get personal Tetsubo. There is more than one atheist/agnostic (other than Iku Rex) here that you are insulting by implication. This thread is about ghosts, not religious belief. If you want to discuss matters of faith I think you should do so via email correspondance. In fact, Wicht and I took our conversation about Intelligent Design versus Evolution offline and had a very insightful and friendly debate on the topic. While neither of us would ever budge on our position I think that we both learned a bit about what we each think.

Hi Wicht!

Do you have any more ghost stories to share Tetsubo? I find them to be very interesting despite the fact that I believe that they are caused by mundane processes. Some of these stores have been really creepy for me. I even got a bit spooked the first night after I read this thread.

As a side question, what things frighten people most? This is one that even the devout disbelievers like myself can answer...

The things that scare me most are walking by beds because of what I can't see underneath, and looking into mirrors for fear of what I might see in the reflection. Kind of funny contrast, eh?

I think the worst thing to think about is seeing something dreadful in the mirror standing behind/beside me when there's nothing really there. Maybe it's because of the "Bloody Mary" game from my childhood. Man, that was a creepy game!

 

[Dr Midnight]

I have a lot of catching up to do in this thread, but I wanted to drop a similar story on you before I forgot. Not so much a ghost story, but one that gets shivers from most people I tell it to... pardon the overly dramatic storytelling here:

I went to art school with a guy who used to be a hardcore stoner. One day, he's tripping out of his mind on acid walking down the street with a friend.

He spots something coming up the street toward them, on the other side of the street. It's a clown, riding a bicycle. The clown is riding hard and fast, and jumps off the bike right outside of a cemetary, directly across the street. The clown runs through the cemetary until he disappears amidst the gravestones and trees.

They both saw it.
Neither ever touched acid, pot, alcohol, etc. ever again.

 

[Tonguez]

Before you turn to a supernatural explanation, you should first consider if the event in question cannot be explained in a more conventional way.

And once you have exhausted conventional plausibility then would you accept the supernatural or simply sate that current science is not equipped to explain.

I don't have much faith in science for the simple reason that it is not equipped to explain enough of the universe - Science may tell us How things happen buit never Why and so we must accept that there is an entire universe of knowledge and phenomena that science is unable to define.

 

[Darklone]

The clown is riding hard and fast, and jumps off the bike right outside of a cemetary, directly across the street. The clown runs through the cemetary until he disappears amidst the gravestones and trees.

They both saw it.
Neither ever touched acid, pot, alcohol, etc. ever again.

Hey, I know that clown.

 

[Iku Rex]

Iku Rex do you also deny the existence of religious experiences because there is no verifiable evidence?

I certainly don't deny the existence of religious experiences. I do deny the existence of a supernatural being as the source of these experiences. (I am a "strong" atheist.)

 

[Tetsubo]

Well that does explain a great about your view on this topic Iku Rex. I can understand you position though, I was an atheist myself at one time. Drifted into agnostic and eventually became a Pagan. Having been on both sides of the fence has given me a very broad view of things bith religious and occult. I hesitate to use the term "supernatural". Because I don't see ghosts or most other occult experiences to be "supernatural". Just aspects of nature we don't fully understand yet.

 

[Iku Rex]

And once you have exhausted conventional plausibility then would you accept the supernatural or simply sate that current science is not equipped to explain.

Both. Why do you think it has to be one or the other?

But the big question is: How do you "exhaust conventional plausibility"?

By saying "the event cannot be explained without the existence of the supernatural" ("I have seen a ghost") you are also saying that "I have considered every possible conventional explanation and none of these are even remotely possible". That's pretty impressive...

I don't have much faith in science for the simple reason that it is not equipped to explain enough of the universe - Science may tell us How things happen buit never Why and so we must accept that there is an entire universe of knowledge and phenomena that science is unable to define.

Science is a process. It's not the sum of the theories developed using that process. ( This page explains it nicely.) Why don't you have "faith" in this process?

Can you give an exapmple of a "Why" science cannot help explain?