ghost AND Snakspirit gave rather large threads which I’d prefer not to trawl through all of, and I’d hope you know me well enough now that you trust that I am engaging in earnest debate rather than vulgar point-scoring. Could you repeat your testimony and summarise your reasons for discounting dreams or mistakes on your part?
As far as trusting you, or anyone, I’ve been very disappointed on this board by dopers who say “trust me,” and I’ve had so many stones thrown at me by so many that, frankly, I’ve lost track.
Let’s see if you are a man of your word.
My reasons for discounting other explanations:
I was awake.
It was not an illusion.
If it was a trick, then someone has developed a way to project thoughts into the minds of others, and at a moment’s notice; Occam disagrees.
I have no history of hallucination, and no reason to have been hallucinating.
It was a repeating phenomenon, and only observable while in the Alpha brain wave state.
I have demonstrated, under laboratory conditions, my ability to control my brain wave frequencies in the Beta, Alpha and Theta ranges with full awareness.
I was unaware of any history beforehand.
The history was independently confirmed afterward.
My actions had an effect upon the outcome.
Now, I’ve provided you what you asked.
I’m not going to debate this here, it’s not appropriate for this thread. You may choose to accept or reject my experience; it’s all the same to me (unless you have some scientific proof that it was attributable to other phenomenon, I’ll listen).
This is NOT scientific proof of “ghosts.”
I’m only referencing this here because you asked, out of courtesy.
I do not know what caused the phenomenon, but the description is consistant with what the world has learned to call “ghosts” or “spirits.”
I don’t claim the phenomenon was “physical,” there may be another explanation.
I hope this is adequate for your interest.
SnakeS
Bo: I have seen many ghosts
Joe: I have touched a ghost
Mo: I have had sex with one
Bo and Joe: What? You mean you have actually made love to a ghost?
Mo: Oh. You mean ghosts? I thought you were talking about goats.
Mmmmmmm! cabrito!
Me gusta tomar los cabras! Muy delicioso! Multo bene!
Orb-humping is illegal in 50 states.
I hope you don’t mind me responding in a manner appropriate to Great Debates.
I have had many dreams in which I was absolutely as certain as I could be that I was awake in the very place I went to sleep. Of course this “proves” nothing about your state of wakefulness or otherwise - I am merely asking you to entertain the possibility that this was a dream.
Memory is a tricky thing, especially when it comes to rather less “certain” memories such as those accrued in dreams or childhood. False memories (PDF) can easily be created a posteriori - it is quite possible that you projected what you were told onto your dream after being told about it, and that this has subsequently been reinforced every time you recall the sequence of events, as here.
Now, just as your experience is not “scientific proof of ghosts”, neither is this possible explanation “scientific proof” that you didn’t hear external entities talking about windows. We must each ask what is the most reasonable explanation, taking into account that you might have a great deal of difficulty accepting mine even as a possibility.
Personally, the simple fact that so many of these stories occur “in the bedroom” or immediately prior to or after sleep makes me wonder why these entities don’t seem to appear at other verifiable times or places. This is not me dismissing the possibility that they deliberately target bedrooms and groggy people. It is me trying to weigh up all the rationales, evidence and testimonies as reasonably and open-mindedly as possible. And thank you for your testimony, Snake.
Even setting aside false memories, looking over SnakeSpirit’s story there’s not a lot of “independent confirmation”. What we have is his girlfriend saying this:
Had nobody really been able to sleep there? Did every person who ever slept in the room have nightmares? Every single one? Even if 100% of the people who attempted to sleep in that room had nightmares, how big was the sample size? Could any increased frequency of nightmares, or the perception of increased frequency, be attributed to the fact that the family had been warned that such a thing was likely to occur? (Nocebo effect.)
As for the previous tenant jumping out the window, was there any actual evidence that this had occured or was it merely something that your girlfriend’s family “was told”? Note the use of the agentless passive form. Who told them that? What proof did that person have? Even if someone had jumped from the window of that apartment, it’s a big logical leap to conclude that there was any sort of causal relationship between this and the (alleged) frequency of bad dreams that occured in the room.
Again, this is assuming causality. And even if your actions truly caused your girlfriend to stop having bad dreams, this could have been merely because she believed that your actions would produce this result. (Placebo effect.) It’s possible that the only reason she started having nightmares in the first place was because she had been frightened by hearing about your experience and remembering the spooky stories about that room she’d heard before.
SnakeSpirit, this is the sort of story that I’m sure is very convincing for people who actually experience it, but I hope you can understand that from the outside it doesn’t sound like anything more than a couple of people who attributed undue significance to a couple of bad dreams. I’m not saying this is some personal shortcoming on your part. It’s an easy mistake to make. One might even say that human beings are designed to make such mistakes. The ability to recognize patterns and draw conclusions from incomplete evidence has proved pretty darn useful to our species, but this same ability makes us prone to mistake coincidences for patterns and jump to faulty conclusions. Still, overall it’s done us more good than harm. That may be why it’s so difficult to reject those instances when our cognitive abilities lead us astray.
I said from the outset that the subject was not appropriate for GD, but notwithstanding you’ve been very reasonable in your reply. You didn’t even mention ‘The Amazing Randi,’ as some are wont to do.
Certainly, I considered, and have re-considered all of the things you mention. If everything that was involved with this story were to be written, it would be a volume.
Just a few points, for illustration.
My first reaction to the ‘voices’ if I can call them such, for I have no evidence they were produced by sound waves (in fact I’m certain they were not), was that I had slipped into a dream. I did awaken after the fact, and checked to ensure that. When I went back into meditation (the Alpha state, where while sleeping dreams do occur) and the voices returned, I checked again to determine conscious awareness before continuing. I, too, wanted to be sure it was not a dream.
At this time in my life I had already had years of experience with the Alpha state through both biofeedback, meditation specifically designed to slow the brainwaves to Alpha while maintaining conscious awareness and testing at the University of Connecticut Psychology lab. Take my word for it: the experience was only detectable while I was in the Alpha frequency, and I was fully awake and aware when I detected it the second time, which was a confirmation of the first encounter.
Memory is a tricky thing, but this was not a case of false memories, as I write down all my dreams and similar experiences immediately afterward. I was in my mid 20’s when this happened.
“Reasonability” is a loaded term, like “common sense” because it evokes the existential framework of the individual or group doing the reasoning. In scientific investigation it is a biased, and therefore useless, term. Additionlly, I am making no attempt to explain the phenomenon, just to report an experience.
As has already been mentioned, these phenomenon were perceptible to me (and to others) only from the Alpha state. In my case through deliberately-generated Alpha and in the case of other, independent experiencers, through the dream state, which takes place while in the Alpha brainwave frequency. This would explain why so many of these occurrances are associated with bedrooms, dreams, sleep, meditation, etc. If we have a, say, ‘disembodied consciousness,’ and it can only communicate with living humans through Brainwaves particular to a certain portion of the brain where Alpha is generated then the most reasonable assumption would be to expect thse occurrances to happen in just those circumstances you pointed out.
Thank you for your viewpoints and your civility, Meat.
The cause is obvious: It was Maxwell’s Demon 100% pure evil!
Well, now that the furor has died down, perhaps we can get back to rational discussion again.
Thinking about what it would take to scientifically prove that ghosts exist:
We would need a repeatable experiment that gave predictable results.
The results would necessarily have to eliminate all chances of production by other means. That is, the results themselves would need to eliminate the possibility of fraud or experimental error.
However, we still know so little about the phenomenon that it’s difficult to even frame the desired results?
Photographs? Often enough photos create the appearance of something that is really not there. We’d need to contact a ghost, have the ghost predict what would appear on the film, monitor the camera to eliminate fraud and have the film provided by an inependent agency.
Personal experience? “I’m talking to this ghost now and he says bla, bla, bla” go check out the results. Are you kidding? No go.
Voice recordings? I’ve heard of recordings that have turned up legible voices where there are no reasons therefore, but could they be stray radio waves? Old recordings not completely erased? We’d have to record a spontaneous three-way conversation between an independent experimenter, a ghost and a contactee, so spontaneous questions could be answered.
One of the problems is getting ghosts to cooperate. For the most part they seem relatively unconcerned with proving they exist, and may have as difficult a time communicatig with us as we do with them.
(Gee, I wonder if they are trying to provewe exist?)
Most ‘appearances’ or ‘manifestations’ seem to be unpredictable as random human behaviour, and what efforts are we making to prove our existance to them? (In fact, in many reported cases of ghost sightings, the ghosts act as if we are not even there. Humans are either ignored or not perceived.)
It is likely that when we do find out what is going on here (and we will, eventually), we will discover that what we call “ghosts” are probably numerous different phenomenon that simply fit the Great Fish’s definition under duress: that is, it mimics some type of human behaviour.
Some ghosts repeat behaviour they had while alive - wandering through mansions. This may be found to be an impression upon an energy field of a place caused by repeated behaviour.
Some ghosts try to scare the living. These may be spiritual entities with limited contact with our dimension (recent string theory states that it needs nine dimensions, five over the four we are already aware of, to work) who are bored, mischevious, or (by our definition) evil. They may not be formerly human.
Some may be spirits of the dead, trying to contact loved ones to let them know: there is an afterlife, or “I’m OK.”
Some may be things we are still unable to concieve of.
There’s a lot of occurrances out there, and these phenomenon beg explanation. We have things happening that we can’t explain, and it’s hard to even get these ‘things’ to hold still long enough to examine them. It’s not enough to put on the blinders, toss the data in the trash and say, “It hasn’t been proven, therefore it doesn’t exist.”
We’re better than that. We are seekers, explorers. We don’t give up when the going gets rough – well, collectively, anyway – although there is a component of this discussion that not only gives up easily, it demands you give up as well, or risk being ridiculed.
On he other hand, there are those who too easily accept every theory that comes along, and rejects investigation as unnecessary: two extremes on the scale.
Two extremes: one who will believe anything, and the other who will believe nothing. In between, are the scientists, the investigators, the explorers. We who don’t give up easily, who won’t throw in the towel just cause the going gets rough.
As of yet we have been unable to scientifically prove ghosts exist. Don’t bank on that for the future. Our technology is constantly getting better, our detection systems more sensitive. Our understanding of the Universe is growing, expanding, and we will be looking in places we formerly didn’t even know existed.
We will be peeling back the layers o the onion, and explanations for these phenomenon will come.
Whether they are spirits, souls, entities, consciousnesses, inter-dimensional beings, the formerly living, spiritual beings, directed energy, residual energy or random unexpected phenomenon, we will find out. But only if we look.
All of which proves what?
'Last weekend, while the family was remodeling, they discovered the bones of a child under the floor of the trailer covered with insulation and duct tape, the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer reported Tuesday."
For what it’s worth:
Houdini, Randi and others have exposed many fradulent mediums and psychics by scientific observation. They and others have never, to date, found a genuine ghost or other apparition.
All of which proves what?
Oh, that they’re good at finding frauds! Of course. Takes one to know one, I guess. Valuable service; get all the frauds out of the way. Then leave the real mysteries for real scientists to investigate.
Still too new a story to qualify as evidence(if fraud is involved, it usually comes out eventually), but it certainly looks interesting. More information can be found in this writeup from the local paper.
Seeing as how, so far, no “real scientists” have come up with the “real thing”, I’d say Mr. Randi and his compatriots are doing a pretty good job.
Unless, of course, you can provide a link to some “real scientists” that have come up with some actual evidence.
From your link to the news article, above:
It’s relatively easier to investigate frauds, especially if you have a long, distinguished history of fooling people.
And I’d say “The Amazing Randi” is doing a splendid job investigating frauds. Like I said, it’s real valuable work… and, well someone has to do it!
Still waiting for that link to a “real scientist” with real evidence.
Don’t plan on holding my breath, though.
Smart idea. It’s only a figment of your imagination. I never claimed any such link.
No, but you certainly implied it when you said, “Valuable service; get all the frauds out of the way. Then leave the real mysteries for real scientists to investigate.”
Who would these real scientists be, what have they investigated, and what have they found?
Oh good. I love assumptions.
Czarcasm, It seems now you may be reading too much into posts, whereas before it seemed you weren’t reading carefully enough. Can you find a middle ground?
There are thousands of scientists all over the world, reserching all kinds of things. Real scientists, more than just paranormal debunkers. I don’t have a clue who most of them are, what they are researching, or what results they are getting. But I know they are there. I even hear about them from time to time, but I don’t pay attention unless they come up with something really good and really solid. If they do, I’ll know it. And I’ll be sure that you are one of the first people I’ll tell.
I hardly think I implied that I knew the scientists that were doing the work.