Do you believe in ghosts?

I'm bored and curious. Answer if you are in the mood, or just ignore this thread, that's fine too.

Ok, if you choose option #1, please post your story below, I would love to hear it. Everyone else please refrain from ridiculing any story posted.

Logical critique = ok, ridicule = please don't.

Personally I don't believe in ghosts at all, but I am still open minded enough to acknowledge that it's possible I could be wrong. So I am interested to hear any stories you guys might have, although I am sure I won't believe any of them.

When I was a kid, I was lying on my mum's bed with her, reading, when I felt her freeze beside me. She was looking over the top of her newspaper at something, so I followed her line of sight .. right over to a woman who walked through the fireplace, diagonally across the room -- including through the foot of the bed -- and out of the window frame.

I don't want to say that I believe in ghosts because of what it would mean, but I can't deny that we both saw the exact same thing.

How old where you when this happened? The reason I ask is that if you were very young do you think it's possible that you dreamed it and being very young thought it was real?

Obviously I wasn't there so can't say whether you did or not, but very young children do have trouble sometimes distinguishing reality from fantasy.

Interesting story anyway, thanks for sharing.

I have not actually seen a ghost, but I think I may have had a ghost kitty. I had a cat die under mysterious circumstances, after that, I would sometimes feel a cat jump on the bed, look up and not see any cat...

I thought that, but my mother was there and we actually spoke about it for years afterwards. So, unless I was dreaming those conversations too, it definitely happened. Heh. : )

I had a friend die when I was 19. I was away at college and got a phone call from a friend that he'd had a motorcycle accident. No details were given.

A few nights later, I had a dream where I saw someone that looked like him. I said, "You look just like my friend Sean." And he said he was. And we hugged, and then I knew it was him.

We walked for a while in my dream and he told me the details of the accident. On a motorcycle, going around a bend in the road, struck by an oncoming tractor-trailer. We walked to a desk, and he took out a pen and paper, and wrote, "You have been my friend and I will live through you." Woke up sobbing but also feeling very good that I'd had a chance to say goodbye.

A month or so later, I met two guys from his hometown who knew him, and we were talking about him. They knew about the accident. It was just as was told to me in the dream.

Now, I don't know if you'd call that a ghost, and I'm willing to agree that it wasn't a big leap of imagination to come up with those same details. All the same, that's stuck with me all these years. I guess what really matters is that dream gave me a chance to tell him how I felt, even if he wasn't there at all.

For about three months after my daughter's cat died (she was 12) she would wake in the middle of the night upset and saying the cat was walking on her bed. She had that cat since she was a baby and he was a kitten so his death tore her up for a long time. She's 14 now and she still refuses to get another pet. At the time I explained to her that it was a leftover sensation, something she was so accustomed to happening that she was still imagining it in her sleep. But who knows really.

So my vote was "other", as in I'm not sure but my mind is open. *shrugs*

I like how you admit that it might have just been coincidence, instead of just instantly assuming it was communication from beyond the grave, but that it doesn't really matter since you used it as a way to make your peace with what happened. I am really glad you posted this one. It's a really great story, thanks for sharing it.

I think it's very unlikely that ghosts exist, but I'm not going to throw out the possibility.

I believe there are multiple dimensions beyond a fourth dimension, but I haven't studied the theories behind it enough to know one thing or another about it. I also believe that nothing happens at random, that random is simply a word we use to describe something we don't understand. I believe there are occurrences that happen all the time that people do not understand and there currently are no explanations for, scientific or otherwise.

I think the potential of UFO's and aliens is much more likely than the potential of ghosts.

Ghost are for storys and movies... in diff versions..

BUT I am sure that a kind of supernatural or natural being exists - but we humans always want to know and want to name things and then over hundreads of years we used the name ghost...

/Tina - EXAKT NO GHOST..

PS: The we have witches.. wizards, sorcerer.. name it

too many stories to tell. i dunno what i've seen, but i've sure seen a lot of somethings, some of which were also seen by my brother.

Yes I believe in ghosts and have seen, felt, heard and spoken to spirit. When I was living at my old house I had a spirit cat that would walk from the kitchen to the living room, I have a few other encounters also but this one is my favorite ^_^. I have also seen furniture move, and spoken to spirit. Most people dont believe me nor do I expect them to. I am a spiritualist and think this makes me more aware of things that happen to everyone, maybe there is another explination (like insanity) but I am happy to believe that spirit exists and watch over us.

Are ghosts governed by evolution?

A very young second-cousin describes an uncle she never met (bald, blind, and wearing a brown suit - his burial clothes). A chinese fortune teller says that he was warning of a fire and to look behind the wooden basketball goal accross from the house ... and behind the goal which was right beside the woodworking factory was a power line that was worn bare.

A niece who spotted my grandmother moving around the old house.

Not sure myself because I haven't seen one.

I had the other furry critter, my house is haunted by my dead dog. I'll hear him walking around the house and strange things happen that he used to do when he was alive.

My gran used to have a small cottage in an old village, her cottage was over 800 years old and Moulton is well know for its kooks and spooks. She swears she's seen a lady in grey walk across her bedroom, she immediately rang my mother from the phone in her bedroom and told her to get over there ASAP, my mum arrived and my gran was still rooted to the spot, her washing basket on the floor, she was too freaked out to move lol.

Also my mum had an incident when she was staying at my grans once during her childhood, she was in the small bedroom, sleeping and was woken up by the bed shaking violently, there was no earthquake before you say or anything, my gran and her husband rushed in and that was the ONLY thing in hte room that was shaking, it stopped once she got out but she vowed never to sleep in that room again, and she didn't - neither did I lol.

One of her friends when she was younger didn't beleive these stories and my mum took her over, nothing of course happened and they were ready to leave, but as they were leaving and the friend was joking about ghosts not being real, a vase of flowers fell to the floor and the flowers scattered into circle shape.

I personally hadn't seen anything when my gran sold the cottage, but the village is full of stories and there was ALWAYS a presence in that house that made me feel uncomfy, I would never and still never would to this day stay alone in that cottage, and I most definately would not go upstairs on my own, she had this spiral staircase that you couldn't see round, it was farking creepy. She named the "ghost" Cruella and whenever her name was mention a small witch doll hanging from one of the beams would either drop to the floor is swing violently. Her dog also used to hide under the sideboards at times, with his hackles up and growling, following something with his eyes that noone else could see. Pretty neat stuffs!

So yeah, never seen one, but strongly believe they exist, and I am SUPER sensitive to "feelings" I often get the feeling I am being watched or stuff like that, which doesn't help when I now sleep in the bedroom where my Grandad died, super paranoid or ghosts among us?

Yes I do.

Story 1:
When I was in highschool my best friend had a party at his house and I was tasked to bring a Ouija board. Only a brave few found the guts to join me, and me being the overall entertainer decided to 'move' the pointer and pretended to be a ghost of a little girl and even answered all the questions. The next day when I got back from school, the guard in the condominium we were living in asked me where is my little sister. The guard was fairly new and he had not known that I was only child. I asked him "what little sister?" His reply: "The little girl who came home with you last night. Wasn't that your little sister?"

Needless to say I never used the Ouija board and it's similar counterparts ever again.

Story 2:
We went to visit my friend who showed us this really huge and old mansion that has been around since his grandmother's time. We go there occassionally to play tabletop games and the like. One time when I got out of the washroom which was two corridors and several rooms away where my friends were gaming I saw this regal old woman standing there. Out of politeness, I greeted her, smiled made polite chitchat (who I noticed mixed a little bit of spanish in her tagalog) and went back. It was during dinner when I asked who the old woman was, and if she was the caretaker of the house (since no one else lives there). He points to a different old woman serving us dinner and says that she's the one who takes care of the house. But what about the old woman? He looks puzzled and asked me to describe, when I did he paled and said that I just described his grandmother who passed away years ago.

I have a few more some benign, some are downright malignant and scary. Others I've heard from friends and family It's not unusual to know someone who has at least some experience with the supernatural.

I've never seen one myself, but I know people who have told me of experiences they have had, and I know these people well enough to know when they are kidding, and when they are being serious. So I believe that they did experience what they say they experieced.

Of course, what has yet to be determined is what the phenomenon that we call "ghosts" actually is. And unfortunately, as scientists are generally an extremely blinkered and closed minded lot (and having spent the last 20 years or so being one, I know this only too well!) this determination is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Sorry..what was the question again?

I'm a skeptic when it comes to anything supernatural - which doesn't mean I'm also a cynic. Those events in my life that I can't explain are simply unexplainable - I don't consider the first option to be a supernatural one.

I believe it may have been Michael Shermer, in "Why People Believe Weird Things" (don't quote me on that source, but it was an excellent book) who pointed out the following line of logic:

1. Scientific measurements have NEVER identified any change in body weight, nor any release of energy at the time of death. This includes the 30-some years of study by paranormal researcher Susan Blackmore who admitted she desperately wanted to find something. She used equipment that would have detected even the smallest fraction of a joule, but didn't.

2. In order to affect physical reality, one must expend energy to do "work" -- you can't move a vase or stop a clock without appropriate application of real, physical energy.

3. Since ghosts would have no energy source that we know of (mainly because their physical bodies have ceased to function), paranormal events of this nature either have to have another explanation or are figments of our imagination.

We would be foolish to claim that we know everything about everything, so all this must be stated provisionally. However, too often I hear stories from people (including paranormal professionals) who claim that their stories are absolutely, positively true and any skepticim is just cynicism in fancy clothes. It can't just go one way. If we don't know, that's what we should say. If there are other practical explanations we should find them. It's far better than claiming that Granny came back from the grave to give us next week's lotto winner

My Ex died last year - on my birthday. Ha Ha his last laugh.

Despite the fact that he'd hospitalized me, sued me for alimony and was just an extreme asshole, we'd somehow managed (or at least I had) to forgive one another and we had stayed in touch and when I'd found out he'd had cancer, I even gave up portions of the retirement he'd owed me. (stupid me).

We lived on two opposite coasts. I got as far away as I could.

No one notified me when he died and I was moving and also purging. My husband and I were getting rid of 75% of everything we owned and starting new. Just as we were moving out the big table and hutch that my ex and I had made I found out he died literally via a letter from the county.

My husband & I moved into a new house and the night we moved in, 2 months after my ex had died at exactly 2:30 AM I hear a bunch of pictures in the spare bedroom fall onto the floor. Both cats are on the bed so I get up to look. Can't figure it out so I pick them up and go back to bed. 3:00 AM I hear so much glass breaking that I think someone has broken into the house so I wake hubby. (he is deaf).

Hubby gets up - what has happened is that a shelf in the hutch has broken (very odd, never broke for 15 years), and much of the crystal that I had from my previous marriage was broken. Hmmmm....

The only thing I have left in the house from my previous marriage is the bedroom set. We have agreed to get rid of it and are looking for another. Part of the reason for this is that we keep smelling smoke. Either of us smoke, but we keep smelling it in the bedroom. We never did before, but we do now. Maybe it's the neighbor? I don't know, but I don't want the bedroom set for what it reminds me of anyway. (My ex was a chain smoker).

The WORST was the other night we were watching an Amazing Race re-run and we saw this couple where the guy was just such a complete jerk to his wife and I said to my husband, I really HATE that guy, he treats her just like my ex used to treat me.

And I could swear I felt a tingling on the top of my thigh down my leg. I jumped up off the sofa and yelled.

It could be in my mind - I grant that. The time I spent with my ex was really traumatic and difficult and I'm lucky to be alive frankly.

OTOH - my husband smelled the smoke too and the crystal is broken.

he sounds charming I'm sorry but hitting a female is the lowest form of cowardice in my book.

No doubt - and I am married to the sweetest Florida Cracker you'd ever want to meet now.

I just wonder if there is such a thing as evil that can come back, it would be him. And he would do it to me, because he felt like he owned me and like I was a possession that got away. Even though HE got the divorice, when I left and he could no longer toy with me at will he was VERY ANGRY.

Could that anger carry over? Energy somewhere?

Just curious.

congratulations!

Given the lack of any hard, fast, peer-reviewed evidence on the matter, non-belief is my default state.

The poll was very well phrased, allowing me to state my non-belief, as oppsed to a disbelief, which would require evidence. Proving a negative is a right bitch, and non-belief is the only option consistent with my world view.

Agreed.