Do you believe in ghosts? (POLL)

[clamum]

And for the record I have predicted the future 8-10 times in my life approximately 4-5 minutes before something happened, exactly in detail, when i get this odd chill feeling in the back of my spine. If you want to add more mystery to me. (Though when i get these feelings are unpredictable)

Crazy shit mayne. What kinda stuff, if you don't mind me askin?

 

[Geosurface]

Since I have voted I have seen a ghost, It is only right to share my stories.

1) (not exactly a ghost, more like orbs) While on a family trip to the Dakotas to visit Mount Rushmore we were staying in this really nice hotel. Well once night as My 2 brothers shared a bed and I laying on the floor I was looking up on the ceiling when all teh sudden through a wall, was about a 2in diameter sphereical ball of light. It floated there for a moment and then moved about the room in an odd fasion. Much like a Bee flying around, where its no straight path and zig zagging a bit. I even saw it drop altitude a bit and then finall yraise back up and leave out through the ceiling.

Thank you for sharing your stories, I appreciate it.

With regard to the thing about the orb, this reminds me of the only remotely ghost like experience I ever had...

When I was about 12 or 13, I was sleeping in my bed upstairs. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a rolled up newspaper float across the room from a dresser near the window toward me and land on my desk.

The thing is, there was no rolled up newspaper in my room. So I dismissed this event (rightly, I believe) as just a half-awake dreamish hallucination.

 

[Jeff7]

Something I've always wondered in regards to the ghost-hunter shows:

If they are in these remote, foreign locations looking for these supposed spirits, why in the hell would they try speaking to these them in English? You're in Spain...even if the spirit were there, it would not understand you.

Another question for ghost hunting: They like to use IR cameras on those shows. So if they'd show up in infrared, ghosts therefore would need to have some mechanism through which they are able to continually produce a raised internal temperature, and also emit EM radiation in that region of the spectrum. What are they using for energy replenishment? What is it about them that makes them emit in the infrared range, but not up through visible - or worse yet, emissions that are of higher energies, such as x-rays or even gamma rays?

 

[diesbudt]

Crazy shit mayne. What kinda stuff, if you don't mind me askin?

Around age 12? 13? My younger brother and I used our weekly allowance on 8 packs of Pokemon cards. (the originals, the first set).

When we got hom we opened our packs. When I picked up the 3rd pack, I just had this feeling I was going to pull a Charizard card. I opened the pack and tada! There was the charizard card. [Now yes, I know coincidence right?]

What if I told you when I picked up the 7th pack I got the same exact feeling, knew it would be another charizard? Opened it and... Guess what it was!

When I picked up the 8th pack I got the same feeling I laughed histerically how the odds were impossible to get a 3rd one out of only 8 packs.... Yes I opened the pack to a 3rd charizard card.


I also was one time at the dentist sitting in the chair being worked on when I got the same odd feeling that my right leg was going to get hurt. 2 minutes later, as the (nurse?) dentist lady stood up, she accidently nudged a large light-machine connected to those death traps of a chair and it... fell on my right leg.

I was in college, and was taking a nap in my car at 6am before first class as i commuted that year. During the nap I dreamed of a few friends and myself being chased in a school by a scary looking man in white, with a large barbed wire fence around it. There was a lot of running away, and even one of my friends getting shot and killed. We finally jumped off the school roof and floated over the fence (Love physics in dreams fyi). Well... Woke up to that eerie feeling again, but shrugged it off and went about my day. 45min later I got texts from a few friends asking if I heard the news. That same day just 15 minutes after I woke from the nap, some Milkman did a school shooting in an Amish school in PA.

(So on and so forth)

 

[crashtestdummy]

No, but I can totally understand why so many do. We're wired to associate coincidental events and to create rational structures behind idiosyncratic events (it helps us evade predators). We're also incredibly awful witnesses, meaning that we don't tend to remember many details, and fill in the rest with our imagination.

The result is that personal stories and accounts of any kind are often filled with sketchy causal links and confirmation bias. We see things we don't quite understand, and create a rational explanation for all of it, even if we have no other evidence. It's why scientific studies don't allow for anecdotal evidence and demand reproducibility. This is not to claim that those who say they've seen ghosts are liars. Many genuinely believe in what they claim. They're just likely wrong.

 

[Arcadio]

I saw the ghost of a chicken when I was little. Active imagination, I guess.

 

[Saint Nick]

I used to, but nope. My girlfriend claimed to see some sort of angel when she was a kid. But who knows, really...

 

[Mixolydian]

I used to, but nope. My girlfriend claimed to see some sort of angel when she was a kid. But who knows, really...

Pretty sure that's called psychosis.

 

[darkxshade]

I've heard/read plenty of stories of people seeing things but not ones if any where the physical environment was altered in any way, e.g door slam, thrown objects, etc.

 

[highland145]

I have seen a ton of dead people. Does that count?

 

[slayer202]

Since I have voted I have seen a ghost, It is only right to share my stories.

1) (not exactly a ghost, more like orbs) While on a family trip to the Dakotas to visit Mount Rushmore we were staying in this really nice hotel. Well once night as My 2 brothers shared a bed and I laying on the floor I was looking up on the ceiling when all teh sudden through a wall, was about a 2in diameter sphereical ball of light. It floated there for a moment and then moved about the room in an odd fasion. Much like a Bee flying around, where its no straight path and zig zagging a bit. I even saw it drop altitude a bit and then finall yraise back up and leave out through the ceiling.

2) [Ghost 1] I was 13 years old, in my bed at night. As I laid there I had to quickly go restroom. (parents were still not in bed) Went restroom, came back to bed and laid down. After a few moments I looked up at my open closest door and there was a white-shadowy overset women (similar size of my mother) looking in my closet as if searching for something. I thought it was my mom so I called out "hey" "hey. mom." "Mom what are you doing" getting louder and louder. Finally I grabbed my Pillow and tossed it at her, in which as it went through her she dissappeared. A minute later my mom came running up asking "what's wrong?" --- A week later I did some research and turned out a years before we purchased it a heavyset women about 40yrs old passed away in that condo we lived in.

3) [Ghost 2] I worked at an amusement park (and it shall not be named), on the train that passengers rode. One night as I was on the back of the train riding at night ensuring passangers behaved themselves, I turned around and on the track about 50yards away, something was chasing teh train. It looked like a little 5-6yr old girl wearing a poka dot dress. She seemed smokey like. After chasing teh train for about 15-20s, she darted off and through a wooden door into a pumphouse that supplies pumped water for the water ride nearby.


I was also told as a baby, my parents would hear me try to talk in my crib standing off just starring off in a general direction for minutes, and it was hard to break my concentration. Even sometimes reaching my hand out trying to point or reach towards something not there.

(Fyi I do believe in ghosts, but not ghosts being that of dead people. I believe "information" of events can be stored in an area if the emotions are there much like electrons can hold onto information while in a molecule. I also can say it would be somewhat likely if it was a small weakening between another really close dimension (obviously very similar to reality is closer than a dimension in which many things are different) in which we have the chance to "see it slightly".

And for the record I have predicted the future 8-10 times in my life approximately 4-5 minutes before something happened, exactly in detail, when i get this odd chill feeling in the back of my spine. If you want to add more mystery to me. (Though when i get these feelings are unpredictable)

You should go to an eye doctor

 

[rumpleforeskin]

Either 25% of people are trolling the vote or I massively misjudged our generations thoughts about spiritual/supernatural beliefs.

 

[Geosurface]

Either 25% of people are trolling the vote or I massively misjudged our generations thoughts about spiritual/supernatural beliefs.

I find the results to be even more overwhelmingly in favor of "no" than I expected, you thought they'd be even stronger in that direction?

 

[rumpleforeskin]

I find the results to be even more overwhelmingly in favor of "no" than I expected, you thought they'd be even stronger in that direction?

I was expecting 100% no

 

[SlitheryDee]

Nope. I love a good ghost story though.

 

[Geosurface]

I was expecting 100% no

your faith in humanity is misplaced.

 

[TheNinja]

I don't believe in ghosts in the sense that dead people are still around as shadowy figures and they haunt people they used to know in their living life like in "The 6th Sense". However I do believe in spirits that may or may not have been alive people at some point. And these spirits may not make themselves visible in the traditional sense, but they can make odd things happen and influences people's imaginations and perceptions.

 

[Triumph]

Do I believe in unexplained events happening to many, many more people than would be reasonable to blame on lying, charades, or psychosis? Yes. Do I think what people visually see as ghosts as being real? Not entirely, the eye and the brain fill in so many voids and gaps in our vision that it isn't reasonable to expect it to be perfect all the time. When people see a ghost "out of the corner of their eye" and claim it was a civil war soldier, well no I don't believe that is what you saw, I believe your mind interpreted it that way, but I also find it interesting that something caused your eyes and your mind to even present such an image to your consciousness in the first place.

One thing I can't easily discredit is the sound of footsteps, particularly because they're very distinctive, can be heard by multiple witnesses over a longer duration, and can be audibly recorded. I like to wonder about those.

Do I think they are the sentient spirits of dead people, aware of themselves but maybe not aware of us? No.

 

[Kadarin]

If there comes to light some scientifically testable evidence that ghosts exist, then I'll accept their existence with good grace. Until there is such, however, I will not believe in them.

 

[Jeff7]

No, but I can totally understand why so many do. We're wired to associate coincidental events and to create rational structures behind idiosyncratic events (it helps us evade predators). We're also incredibly awful witnesses, meaning that we don't tend to remember many details, and fill in the rest with our imagination.

The result is that personal stories and accounts of any kind are often filled with sketchy causal links and confirmation bias. We see things we don't quite understand, and create a rational explanation for all of it, even if we have no other evidence. It's why scientific studies don't allow for anecdotal evidence and demand reproducibility. This is not to claim that those who say they've seen ghosts are liars. Many genuinely believe in what they claim. They're just likely wrong.

I'd love to petition for lossless data compression to be used in our brains, but as yet, I'm still unable to find an appropriate office for something as simple as a warranty claim on faulty biological hardware.

I saw the ghost of a chicken when I was little. Active imagination, I guess.

Slaughterhouses must get incredibly crowded with the gooey, pureed ghosts of their animal "visitors."

Just the afterlife in general would be, as ≫99% of all life that ever existed is now dead.



The closest I'd come was my first, and hopefully only, instance of sleep paralysis: Seeing some shadowy figure standing in a doorway several feet from me as I was still partially in a sleepy daze. Creepy as hell, and I couldn't move. Then I finally woke up fully and everything was normal.
Our brains can be idiots sometimes.

 

[DesiPower]

Yes :$

 

[crashtestdummy]

I'd love to petition for lossless data compression to be used in our brains, but as yet, I'm still unable to find an appropriate office for something as simple as a warranty claim on faulty biological hardware.

I'm not suggesting that it's a problem that needs to be corrected, just observing that anecdotal evidence is an exceptionally low grade of support for a claim.

 

[Saint Nick]

Yeah...sleep paralysis is a B. A buddy of mine has had a few pretty scary episodes.

 

[MaxPayne63]

I was expecting 100% no

Why would you expect that? Just look at how many people get degrees in social sciences. Belief in untestable hypotheses is alive and well even in 2013.

 

[lxskllr]

Yeah...sleep paralysis is a B. A buddy of mine has had a few pretty scary episodes.

I had that once; very strange sensation. I had recently moved into a very old apt(1820), and I was hoping the experience was the result of a ghost. No such luck. It never happened again, and I saw no other indications of anything that couldn't be explained. I did have voices come through my speaker phone, but that was just truckers, and bad shielding, or something like that. I clipped the wires, and stopped that nonsense :^D