Do you believe in ghosts? This one is great because there's this huge group of people that are sternly convinced that there's no such thing - they are complete non-believers. And then on the other side of the fence are people that have had "encounters". First-hand experiences will change you, let me tell you. I admit, I've really changed what I believe over the course of my life and I wanted to share with you my own personal transformation, and explain how what happened to me has also changed my view about things even beyond the supernatural.
Alright, so I didn't believe in ghosts or pretty much anything supernatural. Seriously, come on, that stuff is just in movies. Visions appear, things fly around the room - I'm too rational of a person to fall for it. Everything had an explanation in my mind, right? Footsteps on the stairs when no one else is home - must just be the house settling - something falls and breaks up stairs - must be the wind. Never saw anything weird, never had a reason to doubt myself. Until...
I remember I was still a teenager, must have been around 16. My grandmother - my father's mom had passed away less than a year ago. She lived with us since I was born - she was really close - like my mom - since she was always there in the house and went with us everywhere. Anyway, she had this green chair that sat in her bedroom that I moved to my bedroom afterward. Not really sure why I did, but that's kind of irrelevant. So anyway, one night I couldn't sleep really well - tossed and turned - not sure why just felt unsettled. I think I had her on my mind. I remember waking up - the sun was just up so it was obviously just morning. I opened my eyes and saw my grandmother sitting in her chair looking at me. Clear as day. I was obviously taken aback. I thought I was dreaming - rubbed my eyes - pinched myself but she was still there. Clear as day. Now, again, skeptics right now will say I'm full of sh*t - but when something like this happens to you, and you yourself ARE a skeptic, you want to prove it wrong. Like I said, I tried. But I know I was awake, and there she was. Sitting still, didn't say a word - just looked me right in the eyes and smiled at me. I talked to her..."Nana?" No response - just the sweet smile. I was sitting up in my bed at this point. I didn't know what else to do so I got up from the bed. The moment I moved to get out of the covers she instantly was gone. There's instant - and then there was this. I mean really instant. Faster than I could even blink. I again was taken aback. I sat back in my bed and thought I was certifiably insane. In one moment I literally questioned my entire life and existence and the afterlife and everything. It was surreal.
So time passed and I never told anyone about it. I was still trying to figure it out. That's what I do - I analyze stuff (as you've learned about me if you know me). So I was absolutely determined to put this puzzle together. I whittled it down to two options: 1) She came back from the afterlife - it was actually her, now, in the present, her spirit anyways, and she came to visit me for some reason or 2) I was hallucinating based on a memory I had of her from my past - my brain re-created the image of her now based on a moment from my life. I went with #2 (we'll get into my religious beliefs in another post). So I had figured it out, at least in my own mind, rationalized it so. She wasn't there in the room with me at the present - my brain somehow created a realllllly vivid image of her based on a moment from when she was with me - I recalled a moment when I was a little kid - kindergarten I believe - when I had pneumonia and had to stay in bed for a long time - I remember her sitting in a chair watching over me from time to time. That was it. No Nana back from the grave - just an amazing scene I had painted. I felt really lucky to get to see her in such reality once again and happy I had figured it all out. Still no ghosts.
Ok, incident #2 for me. This one really shook me up and to this day has shaped my beliefs about a lot of things. I was in Ireland with my wife around 2001. One night we planned to go on this Ghost Tour - we get in a bus really late at night with a bunch of other tourists and we go around to all the creepy and haunted places in Ireland. Sounded like fun - especially because I didn't believe in ghosts. So off we went - we walked thru graveyards in the pitch dark and our guide told us stories about how people were murdered - graves dug up - all sorts of fun, spooky stuff. We drove by haunted houses, hotels, etc. Then we stopped at this abbey. Before we got out the guide said something like "this is one of the most haunted places in all of Ireland. There are some people that can sense the supernatural - maybe some of you have seen ghosts or felt something before. Walk around, check things out and see if you can sense anything. If you feel something or want to talk about what you see or feel, come talk to me. I won't reveal anything until we leave." So me, super-skeptic, bounced out of the bus and my wife and I walked all around the abbey - up the large stone staircase outside. Everyone was mulling around. I so badly wanted to see something - a movement, a ghost, hear a noise, feel something. I thought maybe I could will myself into believing. Nothing. Then we walked to the bottom of the staircase. Now it gets weird. I will explain it - and you'll just have to hear me out and choose to take my word for it - but I'm telling you I'm not lying. I just stared at this door and the stone around it - and a felt something. It was like someone was telling me a story of what happened - I couldn't see any ghosts and couldn't see anything acting out - it was like someone was reading a play to my subconscious about what happened. I stood still for several minutes just letting it play out. I wasn't sure why I could feel something or how. Then it was over.
I told my wife that I felt something. I didn't know how or why and it was really weird and creepy and not like anything else I ever felt. She said I should go talk to the guide. So I did - I went over to him and explained what I had "felt". Something about a little girl banging on the door, calling for her mother - she was in pain - something about lepers - to be honest, I can't even remember the whole thing to this day. But then it was clear - and I described it to the guide. He looked me in the face and smiled. He told me that what I described is exactly what had happened there a long time ago - the whole thing - from the little girl who lost her mom and everything. I felt like someone shot me. It was so overwhelming and such a rush. It was like nothing I ever felt before - to have this script play out somehow and then realize it was true! He said the place was haunted and has been ever since and that many people can see the visions I saw. Only I didn't actually "see" anything this time - just "felt" it somehow.
So I know this was real - I couldn't have just luckily guessed what had happened. No way. Then I got to thinking again - were their spirits really trapped there? Did they die but get stuck there for some reason in limbo for deeds they had done. Again, scratched that off my list. And after much thought, I came to one giant conclusion - and this is still what I believe to this day: that when events happen, under certain circumstances, depending on the severity or magnitude of the event, something about that event actually "sticks" to a given place. It's there forever, in some sort of additional dimension or something - one that is not affected by time. So one place may have thousands or millions of events stuck there that have happened in that place - they have an essence - they play over and over again in that place but most people can't see or feel them. Some people - psychics - children - me in this case, even if just for a moment - have the ability to tap into them sometimes. Something in their brain can get into this other set of memories. Maybe some people can actually visualize the events - at least our brain makes it seem like it is actually there - like when people claim to see ghosts in their house - like me with my grandmother. I believe she actually sat next to my bed when I was a kid and that moment as a teenager, I somehow tapped into it and could "replay" that moment. When I was at the abbey, for whatever reason, I could "replay" that moment from a long time ago - I could see the events, the characters etc. It made sense to me, as strange as it did seem. It explained both of my incidents - and it made sense how some people - these special people - could go into a house they've never been in and say it's haunted. Maybe the memories from that house are always playing there in those other dimension. And these people can tap into it from time to time. It explains many ghost sitings - people who claim to see the ghost of a person that died in their house or something - the person didn't come back. It's just a memory that was somehow captured there and someone can see it somehow.
I know it sounds wacky. Again, until something happens to you, like it did me- first-hand, I can understand why it's so hard to believe such things. But my theory about my grandmother initially - that I was just "reimagining" her based on a memory - could not be applied to the abbey in Ireland. I was never there. I never had a memory of that little girl or that woman - I couldn't have recreated something that I never experienced. So it was something about that PLACE - something had to exist there. And maybe we all have the ability to see things in places sometimes - maybe we have to be completely open-minded and put ourselves into some weird state. They always say children see ghosts all the time. I wonder if when we're young, we haven't turned off that part of our brain that lets us into those other worlds - and as we get older, reason takes the best of us and we slowly lose the ability.
I think about this stuff - that's what I do. I still to this day love to talk to people about their supernatural experiences because I love believing in things that I can't always explain. I try all the time to get my mind back into that state and to this day, have failed. I'm hopeful that one day I'll have another experience - maybe even one that disproves my theory - because knowledge of the unknown is just as exciting as thinking you have figured it out.
******************UPDATE****************************
As an update to this post, for those of you that are still skeptics or interested more about my "vision" in Ireland, here is the place. with a slight description of the events that happened there that I was able to "tap" into. Just seeing the one photo gives me shivers still...
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The problem with your story is that it's far too likely that the guide himself was just randomly agreeing with you. That there is no story, he's just saying yes to whatever you "feel" or "see". I mean that would be a fairly effective "ghost ride". Imaginations run wild, it's fairly likely that they just tell you whatever you want to hear.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I've had my "ghost experiences" myself. When I was younger I saw a bee. Not a real bee, but a giant bee, about the same size as I am. It seemed so vivid at the time. But like your grandmother, when I blinked it disappeared. Later in life I had precognition. I suffer from sleep paralysis. One time in a paralyzed state, I heard my friend call out my name. When I awoke, I went to find him, sure enough as I turned the corner of my dorm, there he was calling my name.
This all being said, coincidence probably played a lot into that. It seemed so super natural, but I realize it's just fantasy.
That is a really good point that I left out that part of the story. As I said, I was still very much a skeptic so after the guide told me the story of what happened, when I got back to the hotel I searched on the internet to find the truth. I was able to find a ton of details that verified my take on what happened that the guide had validated
ReplyDeletehave had enough spectral experiences in my life to make me a non-skeptic about the supernatural. I am, however, extremely skeptical of people-- maybe to a fault, but that's a topic for a different post (hint, hint). Anyway, I was at the 40 Steps at the time of the incident mentioned by DarkRider9. When the guide told DR9 that his vision was correct, I was immediately skeptical and brushed it off. I thought-- he wants a good tip at the end of the tour, right? Well, we did do the research, and when we returned home, Darky's story became a minor obsession of mine for about two months. I read a lot of internet chatter about her and the Steps. And while I sometimes think this whole story was made up to draw people to the Ghost Bus, and is perpetuated by people who took the Ghost Bus Tour, there is a big part of me that just really thinks it all happened. DR9, along with other people did have had the vision of the child. Why? Why? Actually, it's more than a big part of me--I really do believe it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there are places (probably almost all places) that are charged with things that came before. I don't really think the events had to be tragic or profound. I believe that the memories are there, just living. I have had several experiences in which I felt presences-- not visions, just invisible spaces filled with... what? I can't always put my finger on it. I have had this feeling when I've entered certain houses, areas of the woods, places I've never been before.
But I have also had this feeling in places I have or had been many, many times, places that I had a deep emotional connection to. And this is where I get confused. For instance, at my grandmother's house, I always felt it. But was that because as I child I was looking for this feeling? I remember clearly being frightened of going to the second floor bathroom by myself. I always felt like I was being watched as I ascended the stairs. My grandfather had died before I was born, and I had heard my grandmother tell a few eerie stories about his return visits home. Did I feel him there because I thought I should? Did I really feel him? Was this manufactured by my brain, or was he really there? I don't know. But I felt it each and every time I went up there from the time I could go up the stairs by myself until about 3 years ago just before the house was sold and my grandmother gone from us.
This is a really friggn' long comment, but I just have to share one more event that I am confused about. This is the single most profound "supernatural" thing that has ever happened to me. But was it supernatural, or just a product of my emotional state? For years I had invested a good deal of time on the study of the women of the Oregon Trail. I was deeply connected to their stories, and wrote and read a ton about them. When I finally got the chance to visit a deeply preserved section of the trail in Sublette's County, Wyoming, I was really excited and overcome with emotion. As I was standing on the trail, my feet in the ruts, I felt a massive wind sweep down from the hills. At that moment, I felt extremely cold, and then I felt hands pushing me aside, off the trail. I freaked out and ran back to the car, shaking. What was this? Was I creating this myself? I don't know, but I felt like they were there, pushing me off their path like I was in their way. Was I just so emotionally charged by finally being in a place I had such a passion for? I don't know. I like to think they were there though.
Why so desperate to be a 'skeptic' and believe in the generally-accepted world ? Do you really believe we know this world directly, or can truly verify that our beliefs are true ?
ReplyDeleteFor me, modern-day physics shows us how thin and shabby our veneer of 'truth' really is compared to the fantastic, chaotic, and amazing universe we actually inhabit, a world with more than enough room for ghostly imprints on walls that 'stick' around forever.
We know the world only indirectly- via experiments - but the hypotheses change over time based on imagination and abstract association. If you look closely, you'll find that what you 'know' isn't nearly as solid as you had hoped... it is more of a crutch.
Here's my perspective... In a world where the 'Standard Model' of physics requires us to believe in 12 additional sub-atomic level dimensions- and 'dark matter' and worm holes as well- in order to keep consistent with Newton & Einstein's physics models, I'm pretty much sold that there is more to this universe than we can possibly see....
My favorite example here is the 'gravitron' particle- pure speculation that the seeming 'weakness' of gravity is because we don't track 'gravitrons' as they travel through these additional 12-dimensions.
Why do I care ? Easy... whatever beings may be present in those other 12 dimensions probably see their worlds as chaotic and uncontrolled BECAUSE THEY DON'T PERCEIVE US.
In other words, I am a hard-core relativist, and in this context ghosts aren't impossible at all.
Also, while I haven't had an 'encounter' like this, I do feel the presence of the spiritual world, and have always believed in it, even as I dither aboiut the existence of God or not....
Overall, I suggest you get NOVA on your Tivo, and starting drinking the Neil DeGrasse Tyson-flavored Kool Aid.
The world is a hell of a lot more complicated than you've been told.
I'm with Matt on this one. I know that the universe is FAR more complicated than humans understand. But I also think that if humans have a chance to remain in existence for long enough, they will figure out alot.
ReplyDeleteFor example, thousands of years ago, people thought that lightning, the sun, the moon, thunder, hurricanes, etc were all god or gods.
Over the years, humans have used the scientific method to figure out the details of lightning and the sun and the moon.
We may NEVER learn it all, but that's what makes living so exciting. I get exhilarated with every new scientific discovery. Learning how geckos cling to glass upside down must've been magic to people hundreds of years ago, but now we know the explanation.
Some people believe that the explanations are related to the dead and the past as DarkRiderNine seems to think. I, on the other hand, believe that the past is the past. I think it can affect us in incredible ways through the immense power of our brains over our perceptions of reality. But I do NOT think the past manifests itself in reality. I believe that everything "unexplainable" will eventually be explainable, given enough time.
New technology provides new methods to dive deeper and deeper into the world around us and its secrets.
I'm a scientist at heart and always will be. Even if I have an "incident" where I see or feel something "unexplainable", I will still be skeptical. I will still know in my heart that my mind was playing tricks on me. The question will be why did my mind play a trick on me? Especially if other people's minds played the same trick on them? What in this world that we don't understand causes that reaction in my brain?
I am even more skeptical of technology than I am of people.
ReplyDeleteNot for one single solitary second do I believe in ghosts, spirits, or anything supernatural. Not for a second. It's like asking me to believe in God. You know how many people SWEAR they've seen God? That they've felt his presence? To me, it's the same thing. It's an intense need for something, that creates the belief. People NEED to feel like their families are close by after they pass, so they make up these incidents were they feel them. I don't think they are making it up as in lying, but they actually create this event in their mind that's more like a dream, a wish.
ReplyDeleteAnd what the hell is up with the Ireland story? I was there, and I don't remember one bit of this?????? Did you not tell us that this happened? I remember going to that abbey, but I don't remember anything about that story!
Caba- true I didn't tell you during the trip that it happened. At the time, it really freaked me out - but as a skeptic myself, I didn't really know what to think of it and didn't really believe it until afterward when I checked the facts and realized that what I had "envisioned" actually happened. You and Zach are clearly non-believers - you're in group 1 as I described it - and as a former member, what I would say is this - what would it take for you to believe? For me, it took a first hand experience where I could not explain it - the vision of my Grandmother, while creepy, and vivid and still very personal, could be explained because I had plenty of memories of her and emotions, etc. But the experience in Ireland? What can you say to explain it?
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I think it's just completely absurd to think that the only things that exist are things we can see, feel, smell, touch and hear. It's naive to me. And there is a difference believing in God and believing that it's possible that memories get stuck in a place and certain people at certain instances can read or feel these things. The latter may one day, in fact, be scientifically explainable. I'll get into religion in another post.
One more thing I want to point out - I also think it's even more absurd to think that given time all that is unexplained could be explained. That's almost as crazy to me as saying that we could visit the billion billion planets that make up the universe and find all the life that's out there. Our civilization won't be around nearly long enough for that to happen.
What's interesting to me, is that my two experiences have shaped my opinion and theory about what I saw and what exists out there and why people would believe in the supernatural. However, there are others out there that have experiences that are much different from mine - they can describe experiences where someone who has died comes back and tells them something about the future - stuff like that - that blows my theory. I'd love to hear those stories - talk to those people - because like I said, I don't believe I have it all figured out. But what I'm absolutely certain of, is that what happened to me in Ireland goes beyond my brain tricking me into believing something or conjuring up something. There was something out there in that place and for a moment in time, I had the ability to feel it - when most people can't. And I hope it happens again some time...
I don't think anything could make me a believe, because no matter how crazy the event is, I will always think there is a scientific reason for it. Or a psychological one. I don't believe in psychics who claim they talk to the dead, or find missing people. I just don't. But I don't think that the God comparison is far off at all! If you are willing to believe that there is SO much about this universe that we don't understand, how can you rule out a God? To me, it's more plausible to believe that there is a big guy in the sky pulling our puppet strings than there is to believe that there are ghosts floating around all over the place.
ReplyDeleteEveryone would love one last moment with their loved one after they pass ... Why wouldn't everyone get that, if spirits had the ability to hang around and say goodbye? I would venture that in a state of mourning, most people would be mentally open to it, even if they are normally skeptics.
I guess I think that all the reasons you use to explain why ghosts and spirits can be real could be used to explain why others believe in God, yet you've written that off. So it's slightly confusing to me. Would you suddenly believe in God if he appeared to you and pleaded his case? I wouldn't, but I would probably check myself into an insane asylum because I'd be pretty sure that I'd gone mad! So I kinda feel the same way about the whole ghost thing, no matter what happens, I'll explain it away. It's just how I'm wired. I obviously don't have an answer for what happened to you in Ireland, but I would put money on there being a logical one, before I would put money on some ghost. That's just my take.
Yeah, I know what you're saying, and it's hard for me to believe that your story is true. And you know that I have a lot of respect for you, but that leaves me in an unfortunate position where I either have to think that you're either not telling the truth, or were duped, or lucky. I definitely don't think you're lying. You're not that kind of person.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that 'I believe you that you believe it' can be an offensive statement, but only because I've only heard that statement used in movies, so I hope you're not offended, but that's about all I believe.
I had an experience nowhere near as concrete as yours, and I've presumed that it really was just my own consciousness at play. We can talk about this in person if you like.
Coleridge has a wonderful line in his Anima Poetae: "instantly trains of forgotten thoughts rise from their living catacombs." I think it is safe to say that all of us have had moments when forgotten thoughts or memories have surfaced, and we think, "wow, behind what tree in the forest of my mind was that hiding?" I certainly have. I wonder if the question should not be "do you believe in ghosts?," but do you think it's possible to uncover other people's memories? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe in god, I don't think I ever have, but I do believe in history and memory, the elements and that my mind, like everybody else's, is an expansive fortress in which of memories dart like shadows. Maybe all these things, combined with my heightened emotional state, played a part in my experience on the Oregon Trail. And maybe I was feeling something that had happened before. I don't know.
It is the not knowing that thrills me though. In my opinion, not knowing the answers to these questions has produced some of the most beautiful things the world has known. It is what made Emily Dickinson want to write. It is what made Odilon Redon want to paint. To me that means a whole lot.
I totally believe in the supernatural. My Grandmother on my father's side was said to be clairvoyant but never spoke of it with her family. I have had many moments in my life where I have been totally overcome with a feeling and others where I casually acknowledge something but know its force is available. One time I visited my friend while she was in college and went to a party held in someone's house/apartment. I felt so strange when I entered. I settled in to a chair next to my friend and my eyes kept being drawn to the wall across from me. It was behind a person sitting in another chair. I told my friend and she said she felt the same thing. Later that night I was talking to a person I met at the gathering and was overcome by visions and feelings of sadness etc. I don't know why but I told him and he asked what I saw etc. I saw a dark street wet from the rain, a fast moving charter bus, a person on the side of the road, lights and more... He was as freaked as I but more he pulled out a newspaper clipping that detailed his family members death. He was hit by an oncoming car that swerved and skid on the wet road to avoid the bus going too fast going around a tight turn. I have never had such a clear vision like that since then, but have still had strange happenings. I don't talk about it much because I get tired of people making too much out of the subject. I do think there are quite a few people who tell tales for attention. You Df9 or Mairead definitely don't fall under that category.
ReplyDeleteI think the way you explained it makes it clear. Some happenings and people have such a force that a part of their energy stays in certain areas. Energy is life, therefore when introduced to your own body it changes you. I think that is what makes us do the things we do. I totally agree with you Mairead and sure am glad for forms of expression others have chosen to take.
Thanks for the blog. Sharon