Do you believe in ghosts?

[SpaceCowgirl]

I dont, because i dont believe in any kind of spirituality. That being said i want to, but there are to many rational explanations to peoples spiritual experiences. The brain is such an immensely complicated organ that i FEEL like i have a spirit, but really im just an oddly wired computer. kinda cool when you think about how far we could go creating artificial intelligence when we have a better understanding of our brain

 

[Stu]

.... I figure there is validity to people who time and time again share personal accounts and experiences with ghosts. ... isn't easy for me to discount. It seems kind of close-minded to do so, ........ I just have heard so much from people I trust that it feels close-minded for me to say "You're mistaken or making it up",

I truly respect this point of view. I also have had many close family members and family friends report feelings and dreams that they are positive are ghostly communications with departed loved ones. These experiences are valid and important, otherwise they would not have them. But the question I ask myself is not are they mistaken or making it up, I know that they are not making a mistake by trusting their feelings. I know they are not making it up. But I do not accept that their belief in an unproven ( and many would say an unprovable) natural phenomenon is enough for me to accept the reality of ghostly visitations, call me unfeeling and closed minded but I demand proof and I do find it little disturbing that most of the people I know in the world think my position is irrational.

 

[muir]

It's definitely not a place you travel to. Just a shift in focus.

Thinking about it more, I guess I have heard of other things people use instead of drugs to get into these states. And I know you can get there also naturally.

Yeah for sure

I saw some whirling dervishes recently who spin on one foot because it has an effect on their mental state which they believe puts them closer to god. They wear tall grey hats which represent their tombstones, in recognition of their own mortality and as they begin to spin they run their hands up their bodies and up their heads and then cast them outwards representing a casting off of all worldy concerns and material desires.

It's a beautiful thing. I have no doubt that afterward they feel cleansed and refreshed and able to better deal with life. I think there are many ways to get this feeling and it is akin to the christian concept of 'grace' (a sort of divine reward). Buddhists meditate, shamens imbibe, christians sing, mountaineers climb mountains, gardeners see something special in flowers, music, poetry, art etc.........all are trying to transcend.

The human mind is a powerful thing and I think it communicates to us in ways that aren't always instantly understandable. DMT is naturally occuring in the human brain and is what gives us dreams and near death experiences. I bet most people have had a waking dream at some point and the people I have talked to about their experiences found them pretty intense.

There are all these amazing things going on so I respect peoples different experiences, but i think they should try and interprete what is going on in their mind before looking for some explanation external to reality. Thats not to say that i think these experiences don't have some deep significance or speak to us of some fundamental truth, i think they do.

The imagination has been forewarning us of possible dangers since we were living in caves, but whatever you are exposed to culturally, that is the material the imagination has to work with. Fill it with maths and it will make mathmatical leaps, fill it with superstition and it will create possible threats from it.

How can we see things that aren't there? We are all doing it all the time. Everyone has a blind spot in their field of vision due to the lack of photo receptive cells in the point in the retina where the optic nerve enters it. The brain fills in this blind spot with surrounding details so that you can't see it. The brain is an immensly creative thing.

 

[Soulful]

I truly respect this point of view. I also have had many close family members and family friends report feelings and dreams that they are positive are ghostly communications with departed loved ones. These experiences are valid and important, otherwise they would not have them. But the question I ask myself is not are they mistaken or making it up, I know that they are not making a mistake by trusting their feelings. I know they are not making it up. But I do not accept that their belief in an unproven ( and many would say an unprovable) natural phenomenon is enough for me to accept the reality of ghostly visitations, call me unfeeling and closed minded but I demand proof and I do find it little disturbing that most of the people I know in the world think my position is irrational.

I think wanting proof is understandable. Sometimes believing is seeing, but it's not always easy to accept something like that without personal experience, and even then it may be difficult. I don't necessarily think that makes you or anyone else close-minded. What I find close-minded is when people refuse to consider the possibility that there may, in fact, be more than what they have witnessed thus far. In any case, what I was trying to express was that I feel close-minded discounting those stories, because of what I've heard and even experienced in other respects. I still have doubts sometimes, but when I hear personal accounts that I trust, I tend to disbelieve my doubts rather than the accuracy and validity of the story. Given my own, non-ghost, experiences, it is nearly impossible for me not to.

 

[Top cat]

[...] The human mind is a powerful thing and I think it communicates to us in ways that aren't always instantly understandable....

There are all these amazing things going on so I respect peoples different experiences, but i think they should try and interprete what is going on in their mind before looking for some explanation external to reality. Thats not to say that i think these experiences don't have some deep significance or speak to us of some fundamental truth, i think they do.

Really great post there

I like that you added mountain climbing and gardening. I feel the same way. I also want to add this arrival of brain wave audio, where the beats are made to alter your brain wave patterns. For meditation etc. I have used them myself but I don't like them, my brain feels like it's vibrating. I've returned to simpler things like drawing and so on...

Hit something I have been thinking about. My experiences are such that I can't define and in the beginning I had looked all over the web but couldn't find anything similar nor anyone who has had the same experiences. So it just pushes me to focus on if there is a meaning behind it... I can't speak for everyone here, but I know all of mine have directed me to go in certain directions.

We get so caught up in the external, what we think of as reality that when we experience things like this we apply those ideas to it --but it is a spiritual nature (and so are we).. I guess it boils down to : It does not matter if it is real or can be proven or not. That is besides the point. The aim is, what can I learn from this? What does it have to offer?

The same goes for dreams and dream interpretation books. Your mind speaks in your language. You're the only one who can translate. In a sense it is nicer not to have things defined, put in boxes, because if it wasn't that way you would just then listen to that system someone(s) had created, instead of doing the thinking and work yourself... which will only keep you from growing more (spiritually). You are more flexible and have more opportunity when you are free from constraints

This is a very personal subject, I have voted and already said my experiences. I, however, cannot fathom not seeing them. Whats it like?

What I notice is all of my experiences have come without the use of my eyes
It's usually in the form of touch or hearing.
I never just 'sense' a presence. Mine come through the 5 senses. For example, once in the evening I felt cool air/wind swirling above me and then all around. I could feel my hair swaying back and forth. Afterwards something very warm touched exactly half of my face. What's interesting is that I was under a blanket, so I would have been completely warm, but the cool air made its way through there also.



It's interesting because if the mind/brain sends you messages, it is like your mind is in a way separate from you. Or, it is ours but it is also part of a whole, something bigger. I don't get a presence of another 'person'. I still feel it is either myself (depending on the experience) or really just something, familiar.

 

[Lucifer]

I believe in ghosts, I've seen them.

Have you ever been alone in a room and gotten scared for no reason, aparantly that is your sixth sense telling you there is a ghost in the room.

 

[crystaluni]

Are you saying those orbs brought gifts for you?

Not for me but for my sister and my friend. The flaming orbs were seen by others over the heads of my ESTP sister (when she was 1) and my ESTP friend (once when he was 12 and then when he was 18). It seems that the appearance of the orbs coincided with the manifestation of intellectual gifts - for my sister, the gift of realistic drawing; for my friend, the gift of being able to play the piano and hitting level 8 in just two weeks, plus a gift for lightning speed numerical computation which became apparent at 18. They are both auto-didacts.

 

[Top cat]

That's so interesting. Perhaps they have a calling. They have something to do in the future.

I wonder if it's similar for me, in one of my experiences, though not prodigious. I don't 'see' things though. So maybe it's possible to have it mailed another way, not via orb.

 

[crystaluni]

That's so interesting. Perhaps they have a calling. They have something to do in the future.

Yes, they both believe that they have a special calling!

So maybe it's possible to have it mailed another way, not via orb.

I like that idea.

I'd like to think that if other-worldly beings do make themselves intelligible to us, then there must be some specific purpose for it, some mission that the seeing person has to fulfill.

 

[TinyBubbles]

It is a simple yes or no question. Of course it is interesting to read reasons posted. Stories and arguments are welcome. Boo

i can't remember if I answered this question before or not, so sorry if i'm repeating myself. i don't believe in ghosts, no. but i do think it is a big world out there and there is plenty we don't understand yet, so i'm not entirely opposed to the idea.

 

[DefectiveCreative]

My ESTP sister added that the opaque black box that we had both seen the silhouette bending over might have been a toolbox that the carpenters used.

I'd be very wary about retcon-ing your experiences like that. You start off with "Well, I suppose it could have been a toolbox." and before you know it you end up at "I distinctly remember he took out a 1/4" socket wrench and a Phillips-head screwdriver and fixed up that wonky drawer on my bedside cabinet." =/

 

[crystaluni]

I'd be very wary about retcon-ing your experiences like that. You start off with "Well, I suppose it could have been a toolbox." and before you know it you end up at "I distinctly remember he took out a 1/4" socket wrench and a Phillips-head screwdriver and fixed up that wonky drawer on my bedside cabinet." =/

Defect, (and that's a term of endearment, BTW, not an insult) sometimes I don't know whether to wrestle with you or just tickle-torture you until you scream, "Yes, I surrender to a Higher Power." I'm old enough to know the difference between an actual memory and a creative-re-constructive retrieval of the event. T h a n k y o u.

 

[muir]

We get so caught up in the external, what we think of as reality that when we experience things like this we apply those ideas to it --but it is a spiritual nature (and so are we).. I guess it boils down to : It does not matter if it is real or can be proven or not. That is besides the point. The aim is, what can I learn from this? What does it have to offer?

The same goes for dreams and dream interpretation books. Your mind speaks in your language. You're the only one who can translate. In a sense it is nicer not to have things defined, put in boxes, because if it wasn't that way you would just then listen to that system someone(s) had created, instead of doing the thinking and work yourself... which will only keep you from growing more (spiritually). You are more flexible and have more opportunity when you are free from constraints

I agree 100%

I think these points you have made are key points

We don't always have the answers, thats kinda the beauty of the whole thing. The strength of the human spirit is such that we can look into the face of uncertainty and still smile.

If we seek out those feelings and explore them it will reveal truths about ourselves, each other and the world around us. I don't think we should assert any feeling as an absolute truth but we should let it speak to us nonetheless

 

[DefectiveCreative]

Defect, (and that's a term of endearment, BTW, not an insult) sometimes I don't know whether to wrestle with you or just tickle-torture you until you scream, "Yes, I surrender to a Higher Power." I'm old enough to know the difference between an actual memory and a creative-re-constructive retrieval of the event. T h a n k y o u.

Alright, alright. Jus' sayin'. :tongue1:

 

[Quest]

No. They're not real. Like some have said, what people perceive to be ghosts are actually demons, which I believe are real.

 

[IndigoSensor]

No. They're not real. Like some have said, what people perceive to be ghosts are actually demons, which I believe are real.

I'm curious. Why do you only believe in demons? Also, are you of the opinion that all demons are bad/negative/evil?

 

[Gloaming]

I don't believe in "ghosts" per se, but I definitely think there are weird aspects of reality that can occur and be witnessed for which people have no words or established mental constructs. When somebody's mind gets tickled in a place it's never been tickled before, they will reach for previously learned material to try and fill that hole in their conceptual experience of reality with a definition. People are inundated with stories of ghosts and the supernatural ever since they're children, so if you heard lots ghosts ghosts stories at a young age, you see a ghost. If you're a Catholic, you see an angel or the holy spirit. If you're someone on a cow farm in the mid west from 1996, you see a UFO landing. Etc.

 

[Saru Inc]

No. They're not real. Like some have said, what people perceive to be ghosts are actually demons, which I believe are real.

And this is what I wanted someone to post. No offence.

I think ghosts are the atheistic word for demons.


Also, I find it *fascinating* how people can believe in Ghosts and the paranormal, but not in God. And everyone I've ever debated on that never could give me a straight answer. "They're in totally different categories!" "how" "JUST. THEY ARE !"


o. i waz wrong :[

 

[Majesty]

I don't believe in any kind of god, ghost, psychic powers, angels, magic, ect.
When you die, the chemical reactions in your body stop. Your soul doesn't evade to a better world and blah blah blah.
I'm not trying to start a religion flame war here.

 

[88chaz88]

Also, I find it *fascinating* how people can believe in Ghosts and the paranormal, but not in God.

The same way you can believe in elves but not fairys I guess.