Nine years ago, one of my grandfathers died. I remember waking up at 6:21 am EST, thinking that someone had said my name. It was kinda strange.
Later that morning, my dad called to tell me that my grandfather (his father) had died. Then he proceeded to tell me that this weird thing had happened–he’d woken up early that morning, thinking that someone had said his name, and as it turned out, he’d woken up at precisely the time that his father had died–2:21 am California time, where my grandfather lived–6:21 am here in Michigan, where we live. And to top it all off, the very same thing happened to my brother. Woke up at 6:21, hearing his name.
What it was, I don’t know. I like to think it was my Grandpa, saying goodbye. But I didn’t see anything, or really hear anything (I thought I heard my name, but even to this day, I’m not real sure). There was nothing out of place, no temperature changes in the room, nothing that made me think at the time that anything out of the ordinary was going on. But the stories from my dad and my brother do leave me wondering about precisely what happened.
I see it as a good thing. I’m an open-minded pagan, so I certainly can accept that perhaps I was visited by some sort of ghost or spirit. It’d be neat to know what really happened, though.
A couple years ago I was lying in bed not thinking of anything in particular, when I felt something grab my shoulder. The windows weren’s open, there was no draft, just something grabbing my shoulder. I didn’t sleep right for about 2 weeks.
My friend visited a graveyard of his ancestors in Georgia and they video taped much of it. While watching the tape when they arrived home they noticed something very odd - as the camera panned across the graveyard a leaning grave in the bottom middle of the image fell very quickly about a foot. I saw this, and it was definitely out of the ordinary - it wasn’t a slow fall like you’d expect a couple hundred pound grave burried in dirt to make, but almost as quick as you could swing your arm. No one noticed it at the time of the taping.
My Dad told me this one. He was at the house of a friend of his and him and another friend were sitting in the basement at the bar when an elderly lady came downstairs and sat on the bar stool which wasn’t exactly beside them, but across the room. They looked over later and she was gone. They told the owner of the house that they saw his wife but he told them that she was away. They kept on insisting that they did see her, and when they described her, it was the exact match for the friend’s mother in law who used to live there, but had died not too long ago.:eek:
discalimer: I am not a religious person, nor do I necessarily believe in the afterlife, but never will go so far as to say that powers I cannot see/feel do not exist…
I lived in with my hubby (then just boyfriend) at his uncle’s house in Indiana. We were staying with him after having just moved there and we were saving up for an apartment. His uncle had just recently purchased the house, and got a kitten for his daughter.
If there were more than one person in the house, all was fine. If the house was empty, strange happenings would occasionaly occur.
I was home by myself, and the cat was in my lap. Tha cat started looking up at ceiling, so my gaze followed. I thought maybe he was tracking a bug or something. There was nothing visibly there, but suddenly it sounded as though there was furniture being pushed around on the 2nd floor. It sounded like heavy furniture being pulled across hardwood floors (this house was wall to wall carpet in every room). My hubby also experienced the same thing when he was home with an injury and the cat was with him as well.
There were also the occasional cold spots in the house even when the temperature was quite pleasant, in addition to a very strong flower scent when entering the garden level bedroom and living room - no flowers were set out and neither of us females wore perfume matching the scent. The cat also had the habit of following what was seemingly thin air as if watching a person walk across the room.
We only lived there for a couple months, and I always had the most disturbing feeling of being observed the entire time we lived there. A few months after we moved out, hubby’s cousin said she discovered that a young girl had died in the house - I never bothered to follow up on it though so I don’t know if this is fact or not. All I really know is that house gave me the willies, and I was raised on horror stories and was not prone to being easily freaked out.
I have not experienced anything similar before or since, so I’m not sure if it was something from beyond or not, but I was not the sole person to have had strange feelings/happenings while in that house.
I’m sure I’ve told this story before but I’ll tell it again. Even though the house we live in is a new home (well…it wasn’t built before we bought it two years ago…so it was NEW NEW then…), we live in a haunted house. CG swears he’s never seen ‘her’ but every now and then I’ll see a flash of light in the kitchen. The lights are on and working properly, so it’s not that and usually it’s also when the blinds on the sliding door are closed and there are no kitties around to disturb them and possibly cause flashes of light that way. I feel she is a gentle spirit and she’s never caused any problems. I think she just likes to hang out in the kitchen.
I’ve never felt or seen her in any other part of the house. Just the kitchen.
What are you trying to argue here? It sounds like you justified the existence of the supernatural because the suspected makeup of the cosmos is of nearly infinite scope. It is the infinite monkeys with infinite time will reproduce every known work at random, eventually.
What is this tour? I have lived in Newport Beach, CA, my whole life and I have never heard of it. Are we talking about the same Newport Beach? Or are you talking about Newport, RI?
Uh, unless you live in a VERY weird part of Michigan, isn’t 2:21 AM California time 4:21 AM Michigan time?
As for my belief in the supernatural, I used to read piles and piles of books on ghosts, UFOs, and the like as I was growing up to try and find the “truth” out there. As I grew, and the more I’ve read, studied, heard and learned, the less and less I believe such things are even possible. All of the evidence, and I mean every single snippet, points in the opposite direction, to disprove supernatural phenomenon. Otherwise, James Randi would have given away that huge check a long, long time ago.
Just my belief, don’t mean to trod on anyone else’s toes.
Sorry, I prefer to keep an open mind. I have had some unusual waking dreams when I’m not completely alert but I doubt this was one of them. It was as if I was a kid again and one of my parents had sat on my bed. On the subject of hypnopomic hallucinations:
[quote] http://www.hendrickhealth.org/healthy/000617.htm
Common causes of hallucinations include:[list=#][li]Drugs. Hallucinogenics such as ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA), LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide, or acid), mescaline (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine, or peyote), and psilocybin (4-phosphoryloxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine, or mushrooms) trigger hallucinations. Other drugs such as marijuana and PCP have hallucinatory effects. Certain prescription medications may also cause hallucinations. In addition, drug withdrawal may induce tactile and visual hallucinations; as in an alcoholic suffering from delirium tremens (DTs). []Stress. Prolonged or extreme stress can impede thought processes and trigger hallucinations.[]Sleep deprivation and/or exhaustion. Physical and emotional exhaustion can induce hallucinations by blurring the line between sleep and wakefulness. []Meditation and/or sensory deprivation. When the brain lacks external stimulation to form perceptions, it may compensate by referencing the memory and form hallucinatory perceptions. This condition is commonly found in blind and deaf individuals. []Electrical or neurochemical activity in the brain. A hallucinatory sensation–usually involving touch–called an aura, often appears before, and gives warning of, a migraine. Also, auras involving smell and touch (tactile) are known to warn of the onset of an epileptic attack. []Mental illness. Up to 75% of schizophrenic patients admitted for treatment report hallucinations. []Brain damage or disease. Lesions or injuries to the brain may alter brain function and produce hallucinations.[/list][/li][/quote]
[list=#][li]Nope, no drugs here.[]No stress here, either.[]Or sleep deprivation/exhastion.[]Never meditated.[]Not eplieptic.[]Not schizophrenic, although I have been diagnosed with a form of depression. A relatively mild one in my case.[]Nope, no brain damage.[/list][/li] Vanilla Toast: I think the problem with taking up James Randi’s offer is that he and his contributors expect people to be able to perform on demand. Scoff if you want but I have had precognitive dreams, the last one I’m aware of when I was 18. You’re probably thinking that I misremembered those dreams but that’s not the case.
I had just enlisted in the Navy and was waiting until it was time to go to Great Lakes. The closest I’ve ever been to the training facility at Great Lakes was the amusment park near Des Plaines yet my subconsious had somehow managed to create a copy of the inside of its barracks. I dreamed I was writing my name on some clothing, using a device I had never seen before. That was a pneumatic permanent marker and the clear plastic top to it rolled under my bunk. I looked under there but all I could find was dust. Sure enough, when I got to Great Lakes, the top to the marker rolled under my bunk and I couldn’t find it. Call it my actions being influenced by my subconscious but the fact remains that I dreamed two things - the inside of the barracks and the pneumatic markers - without ever having seen them beforehand.
If I could have dreams like that on demand, I’d take Mr. Randi up on his offer.
I’m in no way attempting to justify the existence of the superanatural. I deny that anything supernatural can exist. I’m arguing that nothing has a cause outside of nature; everything that happens has a natural cause. There is simply no evidence in the many, many cosmological theories that there are forces beyond our comprehension causing supernatural events. If these forces existed, science would have found evidence of them, or at least reasonable indications of something unknown at work. These many theories of the cosmos, while allowing an astounding array of events to take place, do not require forces outside of nature.
I wondered about that. It sounds to me that you are in essence saying that “there is nothing new under the sun.” So everything has natural causes, just because we don’t understand a phenomena now doesn’t mean that said phenomena doesn’t exist, just that it has a rational explanation. Is this right?
So, if for example, what people commonly refer to as ghosts or really any other commonly refered to supernatural things managed to have a scientific premesis suddenly develop similar to how computer networks and the telephone work now (wouldn’t more primitive cultures think of those as supernatural?) then suddenly the former supernatural phenomenon is now a natural phenomenon clearly making it a nice and legitimate science. So suddenly, the essence of the argument is semantical, ie, if it is proven it is natural, but if it is unproven and a typical person can’t understand how it works then it is supernatural. Changing the definition to supernatural as currently unexplained or unexplainable would remove that dichotomoy.
