Do You Believe In Ghosts?

This reminds me of something I was reading about recently - the idea of the "shared subconscious." The concept is that there is only one subconscious and when you tap into your subconscious you are tapping into the same exact part of the mind that is shared by every human being. Call it God if you will... the God within us all... the unifying spirit... the universal soul.

I think we can all "feel" there is something that lies just above, below or beyond our conscious mind. We can feel it influencing us with things that we've imprinted upon it without intending to or knowing we were doing it. But we usually think of this "sub" conscious mind as individual and personal to us as our conscious mind. To consider that there is only one subconscious and when it unconsciously influences us we are being influenced by the same exact thing that influences everyone else and that it is the universal soul that interfaces with every human mind like a radio signal being picked up by a million receivers, it's boggling.

I can't necessarily go along with that logic, Rules. Just as we are not able to travel to different dimensions (most of us anyway) due to the limitations of our physical bodies and the laws of physics in our reality does not mean that those dimensions can't exist.

String theorists say that, more likely than not, many other dimensions exist - perhaps an infinite number of them.

Therefore, perhaps people "over there" cannot travel back here, but they're still over there and someday we may be over there when we are finally loosed from the material form that anchors us to this dimension.

It's very hard to accept that the Human body is just a chrysalis for the soul to escape from, regardless of age, or mental condition, at the time of death. That the soul is a completely separate, unspoiled, indestructible representation of who we really are. Most of all, that a spirit appears in Human form to an outsider. Why? How? Does the ghost determine and present that, for the benefit of its living witness? Does the Human mind recognize a disembodied life force and impose a form onto its presence, like an abstraction of some kind? The most interesting question, to me, in light of all of this is that with such a universal belief in ghosts, or at the very least a soul, is Human thought capable of altering reality itself, so that out of a vacuum, Life After Death is somehow created? If Human History were represented as 24 hours, I'm pretty sure that at least 20 of those hours were spent in the Stone Age. As we've only just "recently" gotten out of that, it could be that those million years, or whatever, spent that way are so ingrained in our species that it continues to deeply affect our perception of reality, as a whole ... despite our "newfound" scientific understanding.

This has actually been talked about quite a bit. It's called the "Stone Tape" theory. Where the phenomena isn't an actual "ghost" but residual energy from the past replaying an event that happened a long time ago.

It looks like I'm pretty much alone in being a believer. I do have some pointers I'd like to talk about but it'd be a pretty lengthy post. Would anyone be interested? I wouldn't want to do it if no one's interested.

That is interesting! I've never heard that before but I like it.

I'm not a believer, but on the other hand I won't dismiss someone's belief in ghost. That's why I pointed out that if millions of people believe in heaven and believe we have souls, then it follows some of those souls could be caught in a type of limbo here on Earth, thus being perceived as ghost.

I'd like to hear what you have to say False Writer

I'd be interested!

As a skeptic I have some lengthy arguments against the traditional concept of "ghosts."
For instance, we have all these rules for ghosts - why they became ghosts, what they can do, what they're common behaviors are, etc. Where do we get these rules? Mostly from psychics who claim to be able to contact the dead. Yet most psychics come from a long history of charlatanism.

Also, if ghosts can create all these kinetic effects - the hallmarks of hauntings - why can't they make a simple phone call? Call a family up on the phone and tell them you want them to vacate the house - or write an eviction notice and tape it to the front door the way a Sheriff would.

Ghosts can supposedly throw furniture, make the walls bleed, speak, howl, stomp, rattle chains, make objects defy gravity, control insects, stop & start the flow of electricity to a home, interfere with electrical devices, bring toys to life, molest people, kill people... and yet, there's not one occurrence where they send an e-mail. Okay, I can see long dead ghosts who lived before the Internet not sending e-mails, but what about ghosts from the last couple decades - they can't send an e-mail? If they can do all this other stuff they could certainly turn on a computer and hit some keys on a keyboard.

Dateline: Mid December 1991, 10am, West Lancs, an early Victorian terrace

I'd just finished my first term at Uni and was tidying the house I shared with a mate before packing for the plane home. I was in the kitchen washing a few dishes with the frosted glass door to the living room closed, a few feet to my right and in my line of sight.

I saw a figure move more than once through the glass and automatically assumed it was my house mate, so called out to him, knowing Id probably not be seeing him again until after Christmas. No answer. No movement either.

Finished washing up and went into the empty living room, thinking that Mike had gone upstairs, although as the staircase would have been directly above my head when I was in the kitchen realise now how unlikely this was.

I remember the feeling of dread beginning when I was climbing the stairs. Mike's bedroom was empty (and obviously hadn't been slept in), as was mine and the spare. I then checked downstairs, descending rather more quickly than I'd ascended.

Nothing. No one.

Had he left without saying goodbye? I'd have heard the two locked doors, 30 feet from the kitchen, that he'd have had to use to leave the house.

I was now beginning, inexplicably, to panic.

I was stone cold sober, by the way, and shaking. I'd seen someone, a few feet to my right through the door and they'd flitted through my line of vision more than once. I ran upstairs and threw some clothes into my rucksack (it was no more than 10.15am) then phoned for a taxi to the airport, a journey which would take 20 minutes.

My plane wasn't scheduled to take off until 3pm.

I like to think I'm a rational, pragmatic person but couldn't stop thinking about what I'd seen all over Christmas. When I got back to the house in early January I asked Mike if he'd been around that morning but he said he'd left for home the night before. Chilly blood time again.

A few weeks later I mentioned the whole thing to my landlady, who simply smiled weakly and went to make herself a cup of equally weak tea.

I stayed in that house for another 2 years and didn't see or hear anything untoward. Couldn't explain it then, can't explain it now, almost 25 years later.

__________________
"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

No.

__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

You either saw an optical illusion or you imagined something or both. Note that you don't say you were certain what the figure looked like, or if it was male or female. You just assumed it was your house mate.

You experienced a normal reaction to the thought that someone had entered your house -- fear, dread, anxiety, all of that. Just like how if you talk about scary stuff, it can make you feel afraid, even though you haven't actually experienced anything.

You are -- or were -- a very nervous creature.

She politely smiled to say, "Isn't that nice?" then she retired to the kitchen to avoid hearing more.

Explained.

... As would I.

Just like every other ghostly story. When the mind can't rationalise something it can fly off in all sorts of weird directions.

For instance, last night my dishwasher got haunted. Or rather, someone turned it off (by releasing a rather heavy button, it didn't just die) half way through its cycle who wasn't me...

My first action was to try the back door, next to the dishwasher, to see if it was locked. Instances of energy-saving vigilantism are on the rise in my county, after all.

Could it have been that I'd not originally depressed the button enough and it only locked 90% in place, the vibration from the washing cycle eventually releasing it?

Where's the fun in that?

I have one story I still can't figure out - I don't consider it "ghostly" because I'm a man of science, but I can't explain it (maybe Sexy Celebrity has some ideas...)

In my bathroom, the tile goes up to the ceiling. In the shower stall there is a window. A few years ago I found an "eerie" brown liquid on the tile above the window - as if it had run down from the ceiling. It was only in one spot above the window, the rest of the stall and all the tiled bathroom walls were perfectly clean. I cleaned it up.

My first inclination was that it must be the result of some sort of leak, but when I checked the join between the top of the tile and the ceiling, the caulk was perfectly intact. No cracks, so seams, nothing. There was no stain on the ceiling (which I'd expect if there was a leak in the roof that was dripping down.) After wiping it away there was absolutely no evidence of how any liquid could collect there - especially yucky brown stuff.

That's it - weird dark brownish liquid in my bathroom shower above the window in the stall. Now, there'd been no hard rain, no leaks before & it's never appeared again (you'd think a leak would keep reappearing whenever it rained). I hadn't just used the shower so it wasn't some strange form of isolated condensation. The ceiling above is pristine white, the caulk is pristine white and the tiles are pristine white, yet the liquid was dark brown (dare I say, almost "blood" colored).

Any ideas?

P.S. A neighbor told me that a previous tenant in this house killed himself by slitting his wrists and thrashing about - the neighbor said the guy laid in here for weeks before anyone found him and his blood was splattered all over the walls so badly that they simply sheet-rocked over the stained walls - so the blood is still there under a layer of sheet rock. I have no idea if there is any truth to any of that - and this neighbor was a bit on the nutty side. She also told me my landlords were saving this house for their kids and would kick me out as soon as their kids were out of school - that was about 7 years ago, their kids were young adults then, and it still hasn't occurred.

Ghosts aren't real.

It's ectoplasm from an African American female who died a few years ago while taking a bath there. Her name is Whitney. Tell her to go down the drain -- it'll take her to the nearest light.

I've been here more than a few years and I know everyone who's used the tub, unfortunately only one was female and that was my friend's wife (she's Caucosoid American and her name's Trish).

If it was ectoplasm - why only once, why years ago, and why has absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened again?

Still, thank you, Mistress Cleo, I'll say some blessings for Whitney Houston.

Without more specifics, like the actual amount of liquid in question, the source was very probably an insect, perhaps a millipede. Other insects secrete fluids, though, I can't recall which ones, right now. But bugs love the humidity and moisture availability of bathrooms, to begin with.

That's an interesting suggestion, Rhett. But the amount was about a square foot above the window running (dripping) from the base of the ceiling to the top of the window,
I've never seen a millipede in the house - some spiders in the basement and in the early summer I get invaded by little brown ants.

That's what I was thinking it was -- something related to a bug or an animal. Or maybe something seeped through those tiles.

I'd buy that except the tiles are grouted and the wall to ceiling joint is caulked - it's all clean smooth and uncracked.

There's a ceiling fan in the bathroom, but I only use it just after a shower (I was thinking what if something was flung by the fan, through the vent grill and splattered on the wall - BUT, it wasn't a splatter pattern, it was a drip and there was no solid matter, just thick liquid.)
So it's doubtful it was some giant bug that got flung by a fan that wasn't on, that got shot out through 1/8 inch wide vents on the fan cover, and which left no drops or splatter on the fan cover or the ceiling, but only on one wall five feet away.

But see, I'm still looking for any explanation other than "ecto-plasm".

If it wasn't an insect, then it was likely bacteria/algae. The chlorine in tap water does not entirely kill microbes in it. They may just be weakened, or they are killed, but their spores survive. Why a colony chose that specific area might've had to do with the conditions of condensation in that area. Or, it might've had to do with the hot water heater, having had an algae bloom, or whatnot, in its rusty innards. Until False Writer returns with his "Stone Tape" theory, you can be confident that it wasn't a ghost's "ecto-plasm," Captain.