Seeing Dead People

Factual Questions
21

A leetle story if I may.

An ex-girlfriend (Masters in Biochemistry, science teacher, believer in psychics, go figure) insisted on taking me to a session where she was going to have her fortune told by some new psychic who she’d heard was amazing etc. This was going to be the big chance to prove to me once and for all how psychics really do work.

So along I go.

And what I experienced was a good old heart to heart in which my ex-GF poured out her concerns and told the psychic about her family and the psychic showed empathy and agreed with everything the ex-GF said and parrotted stuff back to her. To me there wasn’t a single element of even slight seeing into the future or inexplicable knowledge demonstrated. I sat there thinking “this is so lame, we are going to have such a laugh about how crap this alleged ‘fortune teller’ is afterwards”.

The idea that the ex-GF might have a different view didn’t cross my mind.

So we leave the psychic’s house and the ex-GF turns to me laughing and says “That was amazing!” and I laughed with her and agreed (thinking she was thinking along the same lines I was), and it was only after a few seconds of conversation that we realised that she thought the session had been amazing because the psychic had been so psychic, and I thought it had been amazing that anyone had the nerve to charge $50 for such unremarkable crap.

And the ex-GF then proceeded to argue that the psychic had “known” this and that about her and that the psychic couldn’t possibly have guessed those facts , and therefore the psychic must truly have been psychic.

Because we had this conversation literally as we walked away, and because the whole “reading” was so fresh in our minds, I was able to go over the whole thing almost line by line and point out that the ex-GF had told the psychic this and that early in the “reading” and that the psychic had just parrotted stuff back.

And my ex-GF had to agree this was right.

What was her conclusion? Not, I assure you, that psychics were crap. Oh, nosirree. No, her conclusion was that this particular psychic wasn’t the real deal.

And think about it for a second. If I hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t pointed out what actually happened, what would my ex-GF’s conclusion have been: that the psychic was “amazing”. Not amazingly dumbass and lame. Amazingly accurate.

You will almost certainly never change your girlfriend’s mind in any way on this topic at all, Washoe. You need to decide if that is something you can live with.

22

Princhester, I had a similar situation to this with an ex-gf, too. I ended up concluding that some people just need to have somebody to talk to and to help them make decisions. And it is exponentially more fun than going to a therapist (I suppose) since you might even find out your future! If not, you feel like you did and then you can go ahead and make the decisions you helped the psychic predict. Not always harmless fun, but usually just another approach to figuring out the best way to run your life.

Now, Washoe, your girlfriend sounds like she is trying to get somebody’s attention in a bad way. Maybe it’s your relationship with her and she’s trying to keep you interested or something else is going wrong in her world and she needs some attention. If I were you, I’d start looking past the dead people issue and trying to find the reason for the need for attention. Or maybe she just read a book recently and decided it was cool to see dead people and is kind of floating the idea to be “interesting”.

So either it’s serious or not serious. Great help I am… :rolleyes:

Cheers,
Powers

23

On one hand, as a Christian, I do believe that while its possible for the dead to communicate with us, we should stay far away from trying to communicate with them. So on that front, I think she’s treading in dangerous areas.

(Then again I am hidebound in medieval superstition G)

But on the other hand, she has a boyfriend who is a philosophical materialist and who holds that her most treasured beliefs & practices are delusional & may be signs of even deeper psychological problems for which she should perhaps seek treatment.

Maybe it’s her we should be advising on how to deal with you. :smiley:

24

This is what I thought, too. I can tell when I’m about to fall asleep sometimes, because I’ll “see” things. First noticed it when I was a kid, in the form of little monkeys or something similar. I knew even then the furniture was not rife with climbing monkeys, but it did seem very detailed and realistic at the time. I’ll also hear noises on occasion. Most recent was a loud dinging as at a railroad crossing. I realized I was no longer awake, when I sat up in bed wondering where the heck the train was (actually waking myself up).

I haven’t been bothered enough by any of the above, to go to a doctor. I just chalk it up to, “I am the weirdest sleeper, so I guess that’s something I got going for me.” I did look it up, and once I waded through the psychic super power sites, found mention of Hypnogogic and Hypnopompic Hallucinations. From there:

Seemed to fit the bill. Standard discaimers apply, YMMV, etc.

25

Atheist skeptic, here. I’ve had several visions/revelations in my life and I believe that it’s just part of how the human mind works. I speculate that it’s an effect of non-verbal parts of the brain trying to communicate.

If seeing dead people as she’s going to sleep is not disturbing to her, and if she’s not on a progression of becoming more and more mystical, and if she’s not using her beliefs to manipulate you, then it’s just a matter of how much you want to put up with hearing about it.

I can always tell when my counselling or personal work is being productive: I hear myself doing standup comedy as I’m falling asleep. Sometimes I can even remember the jokes when I wake up.

How does she react to the fact that you don’t believe in the things she believes in?

26

Damn. I accidentally pressed some key or another and lost the post (Can’t undo it either).

Short version of lost masterpiece.

Why do you think she needs psychiatric help? It’s only a mental illness if it hurts her or others and/or if it interferes with her ability to function. This is what seperates normal folks with habits and routines from obssessive compulsives who will wash their hands until they bleed, or lose their jobs because they run home every twenty minutes to be sure that their lights are off.

I don’t agree with your girlfriend’s beliefs. This does not mean they are crazy. In some places it’s considering strange not to carry a protective taliman, and to believe in Mucumbe/Santaria/Voudoun. Jews around the world wrap red ribbons around a baby’s crib and place talismans in the windows to guard against Lilith and her children. This doesn’t make any of them crazy.

Other than the cost, how are her beliefs harmful or dysfunctional? EG Believing crystals will help cure your cancer is not harmful or dysfunctional. Believing that crystals will cure your cancer, so you don’t need chemotherapy, surgery etc is harmful and dysfunctional.

You girlfriend is likely experiencing hypnogogic hallucinations. They are not usually a sign or symptom of anything. They are just something that sometimes happens as the brains goes from consciousness to sleep. There is no reason to assume that she will begin to hallucinate when awake, or that she will become delusional.

27

Please explain more fully what your GF means by “seeing dead people”.

If you don’t know, have a HTH with her, then come back & discuss it with us.
As it stands, we need more data. We cannot make bricks without clay!

28

There is no good evidence to support the contention that anyone has experienced a ‘psychic’ communication, of any kind, ever. By ‘good evidence’ in this context, I mean that which is supported by successful, replicated, published and peer-reviewed experimentation. If you think otherwise, please provide cites so that the rest of us may be enlightened. Best of luck hunting.

It would also help if you could provide any plausible mechanism by which a so-called ‘psychic’ communication could take place between sentient entities. No such mechanism has ever been posited, let alone had its existence demonstrated by successful, replicated and peer-reviewed experimental evidence.

I understand what people in this thread mean when they talk about accepting the beliefs of someone you love, and respecting that person’s right to believe whatever they want, subject to accepted social norms such as causing no harm to themselves or others. This is fine up to a point (and I, as an atheist, have had enjoyable and successful relationships with women who have subscribed to several different spiritual creeds and beliefs). However, there are other ways of looking at it, and other factors to consider. There is not one shred of a shadow of a trace of a reason to suppose that this person really IS seeing dead people. There is therefore every good reason to suppose that she is failing to maintain a healthy distinction between fiction and reality. As such, it doesn’t seem to me to be either unloving or disrespectful to at least consider the possibility that this person’s claims are symptoms of an underlying source of stress, unhappiness or damaged self-esteem. This could be worth looking at, for her health and the health of your relationship.

On an alternative and lighter note, if she not only IS seeing dead people but can come up with repeated evidence to support this claim, then she can win Randi’s million dollars AND a share of a Nobel prize.

29

So? You don’t have to believe it. She, and evidently a lot of other people do. It’s an alternative explanation for someone in General Questions, not a heated issue in Great Debates.

Many different mechanisms have been posited, including brains being receivers and transmitters of electrical energy. You just ignore them (or don’t read them cause you’re not interested or just zombie-like skeptical). As far as I know, and I believe, none have had their existence demonstrated.

Anyway, it’s not my field of science to provide explanations for this phenomenon. I’m a social scientist, and we deal with cultural manifestations, the belief in psychic phenomenon being one.

Do you assume the same for people who believe there is a God? If so, why. If not, why not? Who are you to decide what people should believe? A social dictator? A psychiatrist? By what authority can you make this potentially damaging assumption?

30

Now that is tragedy!

I agree with your assessment, Doc, no reason yet to decide that this is any more or less than a convenient belief system being used to explain unfamiliar experiences. If there’s any reason to pursue further analysis, it will become evident.

31

Well, after reading some of your responses I talked with her about it in greater depth. She clarified a few things for me. She told me that only on very rare occasions has she actually seen a dead person—it’s happened maybe 6 or 7 times. She said that it is really more like a “sensing of their presence”. For example, she will sometimes smell her deceased grandmother’s perfume. She also told me that these instances occur more often during periods of deep meditation rather than when she is lying in bed.

I do love her, which is why I am concerned for her well being. She is a remarkable person in all respects. She is profoundly deaf, and has been since the age of three. Despite this, she is a college graduate and until recently commanded a high salary as a respiratory therapist at a major metropolitan hospital here in Los Angeles. She also has a deeply empathetic nature—a somewhat uncommon personality characteristic these days.

She was hesitant when I pressed her for additional details, since she fully realized that skepticism would be most people’s reaction to being told that dead people make their presence known to her. She told me that when people died while under her attendance in the ER, she would sense their souls in the immediate vicinity. But she never communicated with them, nor did she ever actually see them à la Haley Joel Osment.

The long and short of it is that based on what I’ve read here and on what my girlfriend (actually fiancé—we’ve set a wedding date of October 1) told me last night, I see no need for undue alarm at this time. She appears sincere in her beliefs, and she has an extended circle of friends who share the same beliefs and who regularly engage in New Age rituals and practices. For now I’m going to chalk it up to hypnogogic hallucinations and continue to accept her belief systems uncritically.

32

This is your mistake. Even if **everyone **thinks they can see dead people - that doesn’t mean they in fact can.

33

If she’s practicing some form of New Age spirituality, then the feeling of the presence of the souls of lost patients is no more bizarre and troubling than a Jew, Christian, or Muslem feeling the presence of God in a Synagogue/Church/or Mosque.

Waking dreams happen during some meditative states. This is no cause for alarm, and can be rather enjoyable.

34

She’s not seeing dead people, she’s seeing demons. And she’s opening herself up to a world of trouble with that Tarot garbage.

She needs to stay the hell away from it. Bad news.

35

Abbie Carmichael Assuming for the sake of argument that demons exist and can interact and be perceived by humans, wouldn’t that be exceedingly strong evidence for the existence of Hell, Heaven, and the human soul? If demons exist and can be seen, why can’t somebody see human souls?

36

You are aware that GQ is for factual answers only, are you not?

If you’re serious about your “demons” then you need to offer some more substantial support than a wild ass assertion.

You can start by defining what a “demon” is.

37

My last post souned too harsh. My apologies to Abbie

But I think her answer to the OP sounds more like witnessing than giving any facts.

38

Demons. Uh huh. Amazing that a pack of tarot cards manufactured in Taiwan can confer on one this preternatural power of seeing spirits. (Does it only work on malevolent apparitions, or should she start seeing angels, too? How can one tell the difference, or is that whole halo stereotype actually true?)

The only “trouble” she’s opening herself up to is having people think she’s a fruitcake.

39

I didn’t notice we were in GQ. My mistake.

40

Congratulations on all fronts, and best of luck.