[LaLaLand]

I was reminded today of a spooky experience that I'd forgot about concerning my old dog.

I had a Springer Spaniel called Sam all my life until he died when I was about 12-ish, he was 15. Very sad! Anyway, at night he used to sleep on a huge dog bed/cushion by the back door and the bed would snuggle nicely into the alcove of the door and stop just before the bin in the kitchen.

Now everytime he would move in his slip, turn around etc the bed would make this very distinct tapping/rattling noise on the bin which was metal. If I heard it now I'd recognise it as that sound instantly.

Anyway long story short, one evening a few weeks after he died I was home alone watching wrestling videos on my own, parents had gone to the supermarket. I was well into watching it when I heard THE NOISE. Not thinking I didn't react until later on when I thought about it. My Mum was like "aww he came back to tell you he's okay!" or that he'd come to say goodbye, bless.

[Jessica.]

Why would anybody want to believe in ghosts though? I just don't understand. Sometimes I see something out of the corner of my eye and then I think; "hmm I could have thought that shadow was something spooky if I didn't know it was a car passing the window of the other room". If you actually think about the things you are experiencing instead of allowing your imagination to go wild then you wouldn't have a reason to believe in this thing.

I believed in ghosts and was terrified of them for all of my youth, I thought my father or some other dead relative would appear to me and traumatise me. Eventually I started thinking about why I believed those things, which was obviously stories and influence from other people. I decided to make my own mind up and realised that my fear had been very juvenile and unnecessary.

What I'm trying to say is, I understand the belief in ghosts possibly existing if you want to believe in them, but claiming that what you saw or heard was a ghost without any evidence other than your perception is very confusing to me. I don't think I'll ever understand completely.

[Amy Jade]

Originally Posted by Jonnii

I was reminded today of a spooky experience that I'd forgot about concerning my old dog.

I had a Springer Spaniel called Sam all my life until he died when I was about 12-ish, he was 15. Very sad! Anyway, at night he used to sleep on a huge dog bed/cushion by the back door and the bed would snuggle nicely into the alcove of the door and stop just before the bin in the kitchen.

Now everytime he would move in his slip, turn around etc the bed would make this very distinct tapping/rattling noise on the bin which was metal. If I heard it now I'd recognise it as that sound instantly.

Anyway long story short, one evening a few weeks after he died I was home alone watching wrestling videos on my own, parents had gone to the supermarket. I was well into watching it when I heard THE NOISE. Not thinking I didn't react until later on when I thought about it. My Mum was like "aww he came back to tell you he's okay!" or that he'd come to say goodbye, bless.

Thats so cute, I believe dogs can sense the paranormal.

My mum used to have a dog called Scooby who slept on the landing, because there are pipes under the floor and every now and then the dog I have now slants her head, wags her tail and walks from in my room to the landing and my Nan says its Scooby watching over us

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by rusticgal

My brother claimed to have seen and described a vision of an elderly lady in an old house he bought in Devon. His description matched the former resident who passed away in the house before he bought it. His description of her was exactly as her son described and even down to the clothing she wore. Previously sounds of a ball bouncing on floorboards were heard on several occasions despite the house being fully carpeted.
Years later I stayed at my girlfriends house and slept downstairs with two other girlfriends after a girls night in. Two of us were awoken by a similar sound of a bouncing ball on hard flooring. The next day I asked her if her house was haunted and she told me they believed it was with several occurrences of weird activity in her young sons room. A few years later she put the house on the market...a photo taken of the house by the estate agent showed a young child face clearly visible at her bedroom window...

So yes...I believe in them.

ooo how spooky Rusticgal because I have a brother/Devon/old lady/balls involved story...it's quite extensive in quite a lot of things happening so I won't say it all but we had rented an old house in Devon with my brother and he and his partner were in the older part of the house...anyway there was a snooker table...(enter the balls bit..)...and one night he woke up and heard the snooker balls clicking together as if someone was playing...so he went to have a look...(he's very much a non believer in ghosts and all things spooky..)...and while he was in the snooker room...(there was a shower room right next to that room..)...the shower was running and none of us had used that shower...anyway a few other things and his partner claimed to have actually seen an old lady as well..../an old lady and a snooker playing ghost who showered in the middle of the night...

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Jessica.

Why would anybody want to believe in ghosts though? I just don't understand. Sometimes I see something out of the corner of my eye and then I think; "hmm I could have thought that shadow was something spooky if I didn't know it was a car passing the window of the other room". If you actually think about the things you are experiencing instead of allowing your imagination to go wild then you wouldn't have a reason to believe in this thing.

I believed in ghosts and was terrified of them for all of my youth, I thought my father or some other dead relative would appear to me and traumatise me. Eventually I started thinking about why I believed those things, which was obviously stories and influence from other people. I decided to make my own mind up and realised that my fear had been very juvenile and unnecessary.

What I'm trying to say is, I understand the belief in ghosts possibly existing if you want to believe in them, but claiming that what you saw or heard was a ghost without any evidence other than your perception is very confusing to me. I don't think I'll ever understand completely.

One very strong emotion in humans is the need to be liked and the need to feel important/worth. Saying you saw a "ghost" feeds those needs in some people and amoungst their friends - think back to a time before tv, radio and the like - a good story was a very popular commodity so I can fully see how such things occurred - look at Tam o Shanter by Burns etc

Because in certain sections of society seeing a "ghost" would be seen as rare and special and no one would perhaps question the validity of the claim so it is given status.

[kirklancaster]

Josy is absolutely correct about 'Residual Energy'.

And you are seeing 'Ghosts' every time you look up at the night sky - millions of stars that no longer exist.

Ghosts exist.

Because the explanation for their existence falls outside those very narrow parameters of current 'scientific' knowledge does not preclude them from existing.

Scientific knowledge is in a permanent state of flux (Oxymoron or paradox? ) and 'Yesterday's' universally accepted scientific 'absolute' is today's 'revised error'.

Just as with UFO's - the sheer weight of evidence for ghosts is just far too much to be ignored.

[Crimson Dynamo]

The "residul energy" aspect has been dealt with countless times, even on tibb as I rdecall. This gives a brief but succint answer to it from the link I posted earlier.

```````````````

Many people believe that support for the existence of ghosts can be found in no less a hard science than modern physics. It is widely claimed that Albert Einstein suggested a scientific basis for the reality of ghosts; if energy cannot be created or destroyed but only change form, what happens to our body's energy when we die? Could that somehow be manifested as a ghost?


It seems like a reasonable assumption — unless you understand basic physics. The answer is very simple, and not at all mysterious. After a person dies, the energy in his or her body goes where all organisms' energy goes after death: into the environment. The energy is released in the form of heat, and transferred into the animals that eat us (i.e., wild animals if we are left unburied, or worms and bacteria if we are interred), and the plants that absorb us. There is no bodily "energy" that survives death to be detected with popular ghost-hunting devices.

[Crimson Dynamo]

and kirk, to try and use the peer reviewed aspect of science as some sort of negative is ridiculous. If there were any actual evidence then it would be presented, tested and analysed like all scientific endeavour. The fact that at best its presented on minority channel ghost hunting shows surely is evidence enough that its entertainment pure and simple.


Still waiting on someone to define what a ghost actually is

[Jessica.]

I don't think some believers do it for validation, but I hadn't thought of that as a reason before. When I think about it, I can guarantee one or two people in my real life have definitely done it for that reason.

Actually I have a memory of being about six years old and having a dream about a random old woman giving me ice cream, I told my mother that it was her mother in the dream, mainly because I wanted to make her happy. She got me to point her mother out in a photo of a few people and obviously I was able to since she looked just like my own mother. The amount of praise I got was brilliant. I feel a bit guilty now.

[bots]

i'm still interested in how something without physical form can somehow materialise into something that not only walks and talks but can shape and colour itself to be an exact match of a particular set of clothes, having done all that, still can't be solid. Big question, why would they bother when they don't have eyes to see it, or any method of feeling it

[Jamie89]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

One very strong emotion in humans is the need to be liked and the need to feel important/worth. Saying you saw a "ghost" feeds those needs in some people and amoungst their friends - think back to a time before tv, radio and the like - a good story was a very popular commodity so I can fully see how such things occurred - look at Tam o Shanter by Burns etc

Because in certain sections of society seeing a "ghost" would be seen as rare and special and no one would perhaps question the validity of the claim so it is given status.

People also have a need to rationalise the things around them in terms that they're able to understand, which is what you're doing here (and the fact you've been able to give an explanation that sounds rational, doesn't act as proof that what you've said is correct), but you're not accounting for the possibility that there might be things you're not able to understand. If we're intelligent enough to know that our intelligence is limited, then could it not be possible that some things exist, and some people have experiences that can't be explained, simply because we don't have the terms to be able rationalise them? People have answered your 'what are ghosts?' question by sharing the experiences they've had as they understand them.

And science isn't meant to be a definitive. It's purpose is to help us understand things as well as we're able to, and it progresses as we progress, but it will always be limited because we are. The concept of ghosts requires you to consider that there are things that go past our limit of understanding, so science can only help so much.

Ghosts can be disbelieved, but the only way it can be considered 'fact' that they don't exist, is if you think that as humans, we are the pinnacle of existence and have limitless intelligence (but that would be kind of a dumb thing to think, so...)

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Jamie89

People also have a need to rationalise the things around them in terms that they're able to understand, which is what you're doing here (and the fact you've been able to give an explanation that sounds rational, doesn't act as proof that what you've said is correct), but you're not accounting for the possibility that there might be things you're not able to understand. If we're intelligent enough to know that our intelligence is limited, then could it not be possible that some things exist, and some people have experiences that can't be explained, simply because we don't have the terms to be able rationalise them? People have answered your 'what are ghosts?' question by sharing the experiences they've had as they understand them.

And science isn't meant to be a definitive. It's purpose is to help us understand things as well as we're able to, and it progresses as we progress, but it will always be limited because we are. The concept of ghosts requires you to consider that there are things that go past our limit of understanding, so science can only help so much.

Ghosts can be disbelieved, but the only way it can be considered 'fact' that they don't exist, is if you think that as humans, we are the pinnacle of existence and have limitless intelligence (but that would be kind of a dumb thing to think, so...)

and of course that type of argument can be said for goblins, devils and huge galaxy sized sea turtles

the reason science exists in its present form is to create a method to test, analyse and understand.

if someone has good evidence then present it and lets have a look at it and test its validity etc etc


But if you wish to keep an open mind about this noone is stopping anyone but at least look at the current evidence and make an educated judgement. This is what the thread is about its not about being agnostic to everything you come across