My ghost friend was a CIA analyst that used to be a history teacher but got sucked into a web of intrigue during the Cold War and turned out to be a crack pistol shot even though most of his Marine training was with the M16 and his best friends (while alive) were a fighter pilot and a sub driver.
But no one would write a book like that, right? 
Yes, definitely possible explanations for some people I’ve seen.
One example in my case: When I was small, my mother loved to visit old houses that had been restored to historic accuracy, and you walked through to ooh and aah at the loverly antiques (we were running an antique shop at the time, which may explain part of it). I was a quiet child, and used to amusing myself during these trips by talking to innocent bystanders or reading a book somewhere. We were visiting another house when we strolled with the guide into a barn-like structure. Now, at this age I had my own horses and we usually had half-a-dozen steers for butchering, so a barn was a very familiar and pleasant thing to me. However, on entering this place, I was immediately attacked by a smothering sense of terror, fear, rage and inside my head was exploding these absolutely terrifying screams. If I let myself, I can still hear those in my head. I don’t remember what happened next, but my mom said that I dropped to the ground in a fetal position, hands over my ears. They had to drag me out, and I remember seeing the guide’s face, white as a sheet and shaking. That was very scary to a small child, seeing how scared she was.
I learned years later that the house was a former slave house, and the barn was where they were forcibly “bred”, and gave birth, a lot of times the babies being taken from them.
I don’t think a six year old would have fantasized that (I was pretty naive about stuff like that). I had no idea what was happening to me until years later.
That is, unless you read and reread something, as a ghost was waiting for you to finish proofreading and edited your Word file to mess with you. Happens to me all the time.
What do you mean by “sensitive?” Woo woos often use terminology like this and it’s totally meaningless. In order to be sensitive, you need a sensory organ in the first place. Not only that, but in order to be “senses,” a stimulus has to have some kind of material existence. “Sense” is a physical event. You can’t see something unless light hits it first. If it has no material existence, light can’t hit it and you can’t see it. If it can’t interact with air molecules, you can’t hear it. If it does have material existence, then everybody can see it and hear it. What special, magic organ are you proposing exists for some people but not others which gives them the exact sensation that they are “seeing” and “hearing” things with no material existence.
I always ask this question too – what are “ghosts” made of?
Well, since our normal organic creatures are made of carbon, maybe paranormal creatures are made without carbon, thus no carbon required. Maybe they are made up of that old fax paper that was such a pia.
Dunno about big ghosts, but little ghosts might be made of sugar & spice, everything nice. Or snips & snails and puppy-dog tails.
Then perhaps we are making some progress, but…
So your anecdote is evidence for what? A scary experience? Something from your childhood that your mind later connected to something else that seemed related? And no other scary things happened as a child? You were never in weird places where you didn’t have an odd reaction? Are you aware of how many millions of connections that could be made that seem remarkable (Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, Lincoln had a dog named Kennedy), and these are all creations of the mind? Of all the places you have been and all the experiences you’ve had, and this is sufficient to convince you of the existance of ghosts? Do you consider that strong evidence?
And your childhood memory has been retained for years without alteration? Do you know what confabulation is?
Six year olds fantasize constantly. They see ghosts and other imaginary beings around every corner, behind every shadow and under every bed. They usually grow out of it as they become wiser adults. Let’s hope you become one of those in time.
Organized coherent thought particles and/or disruptions in mind waveforms (particularly where several 2nd level thoughts might coincide while one or more is phase-shifted in relation to another). The first would explain the classic ghost while the 2nd is more likely to result in other unexplained phenomena.
At least, that’s how Drounli, Kreedigan, Nedallinor and Brolenteen explained it to me when I got my Lens.
Assuming your memory is accurate (personally, I don’t retain too many memories from that age, and the ones I do have are probably distorted after decades of embellished recollection, no matter how vivid they may seem) it sounds like you’re describing a seizure, or just a young kid’s temper tantrum.
Eh…in the third stage, you find out that’s all a bunch of crap. The Arisians show you this video explaining how it’s really all about this dude named Xenu…
There is a movie which is in fact called “What the <bleep> Do We Know?” that attempts to delve into these very issues of perception. I think. It was a sometimes hard-to-follow movie which got progressively more difficult.
It was hard to follow because it was moronic. Finding it difficult is a sign of intelligence.
I’ve never seen the movie though I saw bits and pieces of it on YOUTUBE (since removed, though may be back up now in their continual reincarnation cycle of copyrighted materials). I remember my jaw dropping (at least in spirit) when some “expert” mentioned how the American Indians never saw Columbus’s ships- just the waves they created- because they had no concept for a ship. The bad part was that this wasn’t an actor playing a nutty character but, IIRC, a professor of some sort (the movie has interviews with scholars interspliced with the storyline).
Anyway, I thought that was officially the stupidest theory I had ever heard about anything having to do with history, and I’ve read books by Holocaust deniers and articles by Ward Churchill. (It also reminded me of the scene from Erik the Viking when the Vikings go to ValHalla but the Christian priest who’s with them can’t see anything.)
By Klono’s carballoy claws! I’ll pick them, curl them into a circle, shove their feet down their throats and roll them across the field like a hula hoop… But wait, jet back. Could it be? Of course! It all leads back to that hellish planet Ploor!
As others have said, that’s because it’s full of shit. Someone here on the dope posted an excellent site that debunks bad movie physics, and they have a long and comprehensive review/debunking of “What the Bleep.” Not that it dissuaded my mother from her personal brand of new-age insanity. :rolleyes:
Anyway, on the issue of ghosts, I don’t believe in them, but I enjoy ghost stories and I think it’s possible that something we don’t yet understand is going on. I also think that the human brain is capable of generating religious experiences and other weirdness to a much greater degree than most people realize.
Ha! Well, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who couldn’t figure out what the shit they were talking about, for good reason!
I thought the bit about the ships was rather jaw-dropping, too – but I suppose they had me all built up to not trust a single perception that I might have.
good idea - maybe a field trip to a cemetary is in order
The same principle that goes into EVP interpretation, created this video.
If the thread were about vampires (which I don’t think anyone here at least seriously believes in) a cemetery would be the right place, but I wouldn’t think it would be for ghosts. A cemetery would seem to be the least likely of places to be haunted as, with a few exceptions*, nobody dies or has a traumatic experience at a cemetery. Usually it’s just where the remains are disposed of from someone who’s already died (and whose loved ones have already been traumatized) elsewhere.
*There are some cemeteries where- at least according to local legend- bereaved spouses lovers later went to kill themselves on a loved one’s grave, and perhaps the odd live burial due to inability to distinguish death from coma. (Have any such cases ever been documented, I wonder? The “deceased wakes up during a funeral” tale seems to be one of the oldest local legends- the closest I’ve found to it being true is the mother of Robert E. Lee who was said to have “died” years before he was born and then “recovered” during her funeral, but the truth seems to be she was briefly believed dead during a very long illness after he was born but found to be alive long before actually being prepared for burial.)
One cemetery with tales of suicides and murders occurring on its ground is Memory Hill in my former home of Milledgeville, Georgia and in fact in the cemetery where Flannery O’Connor is interred (very close to the man who inspired the tale Paris Trout and the lawyer he killed). There’s also a ghost story involving that cemetery, one of the most iconic pictures from the Civil War (and possibly a relative of Danny Aiello, though that I can’t prove) that you can read about hyeah.
IIRC National Lampoon had a bit in their “True Facts” section about a funeral in some Eastern Bloc country where, during the church ceremony, the supposedly dead guy or woman arose. Not really dead…but bewildered etc., (s)he ran into the street and was killed by a car.