The Paranormal

[Dom Cruise]

@Certified_Autist

If we're swapping stories now, one reason I have an interest in the paranormal is that my grandparent's old house had a ghost in it that they and their children saw for years, until the ghost suddenly stopped appearing. Always the same man dressed in a brown suit with a hat. It was to the point that nobody wanted to go to the bathroom alone at night, as the ghost would always appear in the room across from the bathroom, sitting in the same chair.

See, if I encountered paranormal phenomena that replicable I'd find that cool, I'd try to communicate with him, say "hey, buddy, what's up? What's your deal?"

Quantum physics is the closest we're getting towards looping right back around into the territory of the spiritual. I personally find it hilarious to see these experiments take place, get repeated and verified ad infinitum, and watch your typical SCIENCE!™ followers try to square that circle with their semi/totally-atheistic world view. Very popcorn worthy.

I think that's already proof that the paranormal/spiritual is real, it doesn't make sense to say otherwise when we can already observe phenomena that doesn't follow typical Newtonian physics.

The fact that science and people in general are still just kind of dismissive says it all.

 

[PaleTay]

I've also worked overnight in healthcare settings, some like care homes have a lot of death, most of my co-workers at multiple locations have called haunted. There was this one detached essentially activity center which just seemed wrong, not all the time but sometimes I would get an overwhelming feeling that I shouldn't be in there. I've had the cleaning staff come get me because they were supposed to be in there alone and heard crashing or a toilet flushing and we could never find anything. The building was armed so no one should have been able to get in or out without a key card.

Another time I was in a recently deceased resident's room getting some of their stuff, there was this strong pelting of cold air and knocking which seemed to permeate the room coming from the hallway and blew my papers off the counter. No real logical explanation for it.

I've had elderly residents say they see dead people somewhat often.

I have ridiculous peripheral vision, sometimes I see movement out of the corner of my eyes but nothing is there which is unusual for me. There's a few I can rationalize by saying someone might have briefly shone their headlights at the right angle from outside for me to notice something but mostly no logical explanation.

 

[Foghorns at a Funeral]

I mostly see it as entertainment. Ghosts as we know them are based on story's. I have never seen one and most videos are potato cam so much that it is more likely to be a video glitch and some part of that mental effect where we see faces as long as there is 3 points of reference, that and some obvious hoax's. I enjoy the concept of ghost story's. A place unknowable to us such as after death is quite a subject to think about. But the reality comes crashing in to ruin it. If we were to accept that ghost exist, where are they all? There are country's that had people on it since the Celts. If the requirement to become a ghost is unfinished business, and tragic deaths. There should be millions of ghosts walking around the UK for instance. All the battles, all the death the land has seen. The UK of course is not alone. Half of the north of France should be ghosts reenacting WW1 or 2. Considering the amount of unwilling death those wars caused. Most of the folklore behind ghosts is tragic story's of betrayal, murder and grief. Nothing more tragic than mass death in war.
But i am not the sort of person to go reddit fedora on people about it, the world is great when people have different things to believe in. I am also a sucker for a good ghost story.
What i want to ask is why ghosts, especially of the Victorian era. Seem to spend their days, standing in the corners of the room shaking their heads back and forth rapidly as seen on ghost shows.

 

[Osmosis Jones]

I've never been sure about ghosts or spirits. I do believe in the "echo of a memory" theory, and that spirits aren't necessarily cognitive beings with their own free will like the living, but projections of something that once was and nothing more. I haven't personally experienced ghosts or spirits, only heard a few credible stories from people I knew.

I think precognition is a real phenomenon. I've also experienced a lost time event. I like to think that there are other dimensions layered on top of ours and that we get a glimpse of that sometimes and part of that is the projection of spirits and "glitches in the matrix".

 

[Dysnomia]

How come no one ever asks ghosts the hard questions? It's always something boring. Give me some secrets of the universe.

 

[Osmosis Jones]

How come no one ever asks ghosts the hard questions? It's always something boring. Give me some secrets of the universe.

Oh man, you'd love this. I'll edit this post when I get home if someone doesn't post it first but some of the very first ever EVP recordings were full blown conversations with spirits; conversing, interviewing, and even joking with spirits of the dead in situ, instead of modern EVP where you have to speak and listen back later on.

Eta:
I'm on the right track but I cannot for the life of me find what I'm talking about. It was a tangential point in a podcast that has over 150 episodes and they inserted part of the recording. Now I can't find fuck all about it. I believe the experiment I'm referring to is that of Friedrich Jurgenson, who used traditional record-playback style EVP until a spirit told him to use the radio. Apparently 1485KHz is the best frequency to communicate with the dead.

Here's a rare recording from an incredibly difficult to obtain record on his work:

Spoiler: EXTREME EAR RAPE WARNING

Spoiler: FOR REAL. TURN YOUR VOLUME TO 1.

Enjoy that for now, I'll keep looking for the specific
clip.

Reference material

---

Having real trouble finding it. The issue with these people is they made thousands upon thousands of recordings and very few have been sporadically archived for the purpose of discussion. Most of the time these names are brought up to try and disprove EVP instead of discussing their work. Thomas Edison, Konstantin Raudive, and Friedrich Jurgenson are the big names in the development and furthering of EVP recording and communication with the deceased. Notably, Edison believed life was like energy in that it cannot be created or destroyed.

Edison believed that life was indestructible, and that the “quantity could never be increased or decreased.” He theorized that like our bodies, our personalities have a physical form, made of tiny “entities” similar to our current view of atoms. He thought these entities might exist after humans passed away—a personality-based residue of loose memories and thoughts, containing part of who a person was during life.

Source

 

[SCSI]

Edison believed that life was indestructible, and that the “quantity could never be increased or decreased.” He theorized that like our bodies, our personalities have a physical form, made of tiny “entities” similar to our current view of atoms. He thought these entities might exist after humans passed away—a personality-based residue of loose memories and thoughts, containing part of who a person was during life.

Sounds reminiscent of the Buddhist concept of the alaya-vijnana.

The store-house consciousness receives impressions from all functions of the other consciousnesses, and retains them as potential energy, bīja or "seeds", for their further manifestations and activities. Since it serves as the container for all experiential impressions it is also called the "seed consciousness" (種子識) or container consciousness.

 

[Quiet Guy]

I've also experienced a lost time event. I like to think that there are other dimensions layered on top of ours and that we get a glimpse of that sometimes and part of that is the projection of spirits and "glitches in the matrix".

Would you be willing to share your experience? I am interested in the possibility of travel between universes, and I have some scientific theories regarding "spiritual things."

 

[Osmosis Jones]

Would you be willing to share your experience? I am interested in the possibility of travel between universes, and I have some scientific theories regarding "spiritual things."

Sure, it's not really a powerlevel so I don't see the harm.

At about 8:05PM on a summer night, I was driving with a girl I liked. We used to go for drives every weekend, and nothing ever happened other than finding creepy streets before this event. We were travelling Eastbound on a road on the south side of an industrial complex that I'm familiar with. The complex is about 1KM x 1KM in perimeter. After you pass the industrial complex, it's a quiet barely lit 4 lane road. While driving, we were shooting the shit and singing songs, and I noticed that we didn't seem to be heading where we were before. I glance at the clock on the dashboard and it says 8:39PM. Funny, we're having such a good time I didn't notice the time. But then I thought about how I just checked the time and it didn't feel anything like 30 minutes had passed.

I slowed my driving a bit and tried to get my bearings. I could see the glow of commercial lights up ahead and as we pass them, I realise it's the same industrial complex we had just passed around 8:05PM. I was now on the north side of the park travelling westbound. I hadn't turned, didn't fall asleep, approximately 35 minutes had passed, and we were 1KM north of where we just were and facing the opposite direction. My friend corroborated my confusion. We mostly laughed it off, half-jokingly checking for weird scars or marks (there were none).

To this day, I have no rational explanation for it. It's relatively tame given what others experience with days of lost time and ET being involved, but I know it happened and I can't figure out why. Maybe a tear in reality, maybe a glitch in the system, maybe my memory had intentionally been meddled with, maybe my brain made the whole thing up for me.

 

[The Repeated Meme]

BOO I'M A GHOST

No. Interesting in theory I guess but it's all a bunch of nonsense in the real world.

 

[Flan Handler]

I haven’t had anything paranormal happen to me, but I will share my dad’s story. He’s only told it to me one time.

It happened when he was in his mid twenties, married with 3 kids. Very ordinary for the time, just working and raising his family.

He had my little brother (age 2 or 3) and they were just doing errands like going to the dump and hardware store. We lived an hour outside of the city so when the radio played we just ignored traffic updates since they were never relevant.

On this day, the radio station had a traffic update about an accident on a main bridge that was stopping traffic. Very ordinary. Except his brain started focusing on it, and it started kind of echoing in his mind, even after the announcer moved on to other things. Dad explained it as he could hear the message kind of repeating itself louder and louder in his mind. This meant nothing to him so he just tried to shake it off and drove home.

At the house he was feeling off, so he just sat on the couch with my brother when his best friend suddenly appeared in front of him. Dad says his friend Jim just blinked into view, and he could hear that traffic report in his head again.

Unbeknownst to my dad, Jim had had a heart attack while driving in the city and had caused the accident in the traffic update, and had died.

My dad just looked at him and said “Was that you?”. Jim said to him, “I don’t have much time. I need you to go be with Dee (his wife) and the kids right now. She can’t be alone when she hears about this.”

Dad asked him “What is this all about?” Referring to the meaning of life. Jim gave him an answer, thanked my dad, and disappeared.

Dad was feeling dazed but he got in his truck and drove the 5 miles to Dee’s house with my brother. Dee opened the door and just looked at my dad. She invited him in for coffee, and started toward the kitchen, but she must have sensed something was off. She turned and stared into his eyes for 10 seconds but didn’t say anything. My brother ran to play with Jim and Dee’s kids.

Dad and Dee sat at the kitchen table silently, staring at one another and not drinking their coffee. The doorbell rang. Dee just said, “Flan Sr, what is happening?” But my dad didn’t know what to say so he gestured to the door.

Two police officers were at the door to tell her her husband had died. Dee spun around and looked at my dad and hissed “Did you know about this?!”. Dad nodded. She broke down and ran to her bedroom.

The two cops had seen this. An old cop and a young cop. The young cop obviously had questions about how Dad could know, since there were no cell phones at that time and Jim’s name had not been on the news.

He started asking cop questions and being suspicious but the old cop stopped him and just asked Dad to explain. Dad was very confused but told them what happened. The young cop was kind of a dick but the old cop said he had seen stuff like this happen over the years.

This had a profound effect on my dad and he was not the same after. I have no idea what it means but he doesn’t have any other stories like this and he’s normally a very grounded person.

 

[b0o0pinsn0o0tz]

I've seen some shit, but

View attachment 3329777

and honestly the amount of sperging (calling me a liar, mentally ill, drug addict, delusional etc) I've seen over the years if I ever try to discuss it makes me not want to bring up anything personal.

There's a lot of fake stuff out there, but some of it is real. I think a lot of the fake stuff is so when something real comes out, it's harder to know if it's real and you dismiss it as just some bullshit.

I'm right there with you. An incident happened with some friends a little after high school that I still can't logically explain but people will think I'm crazy or something if I go into it.. There are fuck ton of hoaxes that understandably make it impossible for a lot of people to take this stuff seriously.

Edit - A second reason I don't want to get into it is because it involves a regional area infamous for people stumbling into the supernatural and that would be over sharing.

 

[Fek]

Dad asked him “What is this all about?” Referring to the meaning of life. Jim gave him an answer, thanked my dad, and disappeared.

Did your dad tell you his answer? Inquiring minds wish to know.

 

[Flan Handler]

Did your dad tell you his answer? Inquiring minds wish to know.

He did tell me. I don’t know what to think about it so I will tell you a bit about Jim to put it in context.

Jim was a career military man. He and my dad met by accident and became very good friends, dad could never figure out why but they just got along great. We lived in their house for a couple of years while Jim was posted overseas, and my siblings and I played with their kids all the time.

He was a real hardass, not a particularly spiritual person, and it turns out he wasn’t very good to his family, but we didn’t know that at the time. No one really understood how he and my dad (a 20-something farm boy with an ordinary family) had anything in common, but they really liked and understood each other. I loved his kids but was a bit scared of him.

Dad says that when he appeared he was illuminated from inside somehow, and got brighter as the encounter went on. In life he was very serious, but at that moment he was so happy, almost jovial.

Jim basically said: I just didn’t know. This life is all about love. It was supposed to be like this, I can’t see the whole plan, but we are all here to learn. Flan Sr, you are going to be okay.

Dads not sure how much of this was verbal, and he says there was more communicated that he doesn’t know how to put into words. It sounds like a positive experience but it actually unmoored him a bit, and changed him as a person. Do we make any meaningful choices? Whose plan is it? Why him, and not Jim’s wife directly?

Finding out later that Jim was probably not a good person made it even more ambiguous.

If dad had a history of this kind of thing I might not put much weight in it, but happened one time, was validated by Dee and the cops, and really didn’t lead to some further insights. Just a weird thing.

 

[Mothra1988]

I haven’t had anything paranormal happen to me, but I will share my dad’s story. He’s only told it to me one time.

It happened when he was in his mid twenties, married with 3 kids. Very ordinary for the time, just working and raising his family.

He had my little brother (age 2 or 3) and they were just doing errands like going to the dump and hardware store. We lived an hour outside of the city so when the radio played we just ignored traffic updates since they were never relevant.

On this day, the radio station had a traffic update about an accident on a main bridge that was stopping traffic. Very ordinary. Except his brain started focusing on it, and it started kind of echoing in his mind, even after the announcer moved on to other things. Dad explained it as he could hear the message kind of repeating itself louder and louder in his mind. This meant nothing to him so he just tried to shake it off and drove home.

At the house he was feeling off, so he just sat on the couch with my brother when his best friend suddenly appeared in front of him. Dad says his friend Jim just blinked into view, and he could hear that traffic report in his head again.

Unbeknownst to my dad, Jim had had a heart attack while driving in the city and had caused the accident in the traffic update, and had died.

My dad just looked at him and said “Was that you?”. Jim said to him, “I don’t have much time. I need you to go be with Dee (his wife) and the kids right now. She can’t be alone when she hears about this.”

Dad asked him “What is this all about?” Referring to the meaning of life. Jim gave him an answer, thanked my dad, and disappeared.

Dad was feeling dazed but he got in his truck and drove the 5 miles to Dee’s house with my brother. Dee opened the door and just looked at my dad. She invited him in for coffee, and started toward the kitchen, but she must have sensed something was off. She turned and stared into his eyes for 10 seconds but didn’t say anything. My brother ran to play with Jim and Dee’s kids.

Dad and Dee sat at the kitchen table silently, staring at one another and not drinking their coffee. The doorbell rang. Dee just said, “Flan Sr, what is happening?” But my dad didn’t know what to say so he gestured to the door.

Two police officers were at the door to tell her her husband had died. Dee spun around and looked at my dad and hissed “Did you know about this?!”. Dad nodded. She broke down and ran to her bedroom.

The two cops had seen this. An old cop and a young cop. The young cop obviously had questions about how Dad could know, since there were no cell phones at that time and Jim’s name had not been on the news.

He started asking cop questions and being suspicious but the old cop stopped him and just asked Dad to explain. Dad was very confused but told them what happened. The young cop was kind of a dick but the old cop said he had seen stuff like this happen over the years.

This had a profound effect on my dad and he was not the same after. I have no idea what it means but he doesn’t have any other stories like this and he’s normally a very grounded person.

This is a normal interaction between spirit and loved one. However, in most cases, it will happen in your sleep after the death. It's much easier to communicate that way. It takes a lot more energy to do it during waking hours, which was probably done because his concern about his family was imminent.

 

[FatalTater]

Finding out later that Jim was probably not a good person made it even more ambiguous.

Not good to his family, but he wanted his buddy to be there for the wife and kids when the news of his death was given.

Maybe he did learn something after all.

 

[Fek]

First of all: thank you very, very much for sharing. This further confirms what I have researched at great lengths elsewhere.

Secondly, I'm going to breeze over some very esoteric-yet-true-as-far-as-I've-been-able-to-surmise material in spots. If you have questions after the fact, I'll try to answer them as best I can.

He and my dad met by accident and became very good friends, dad could never figure out why but they just got along great.

More than likely, the answer is that they simply knew each other in another life. I know how that sounds. Probably not the place to go on a rant about it, though.

Jim basically said: I just didn’t know. This life is all about love. It was supposed to be like this, I can’t see the whole plan, but we are all here to learn. Flan Sr, you are going to be okay.

Yes, this is effectively what anyone who is beyond our existence will say. It is all about love. It's about loving and learning. We're in a playpen of sorts figuring out who we really are so we can be trusted to move beyond this point. Gives life a whole new meaning, if you think about it.

Dads not sure how much of this was verbal, and he says there was more communicated that he doesn’t know how to put into words. It sounds like a positive experience but it actually unmoored him a bit, and changed him as a person. Do we make any meaningful choices?

Probably psychic/telepathic communication.

And we do make meaningful choices, yes. The short, short version: we all have free will within the ruleset of this existence (you can't go jump off a building and fly just because you think you're one with the universe, for example).

Whose plan is it? Why him, and not Jim’s wife directly?

Plan for..what? Your own life? It's yours, and you planned out the major highlights in between lives, so to speak. Did you have a defining moment in your life that you'll never forget? You probably planned it out "ahead of time", believe it or not. A great deal of our lives ride on probability, but there are always some major moments that we chose to experience for the sake of personal growth.

As far as why he came to your father instead of his wife? To help explain the concept quickly, let's try this: Imagine for a moment that your soul is, in fact, eternal. Imagine that you live multiple lives. If you had a friend who you knew throughout two of those lives (now into your third), yet only met your wife in your current life..which person would probably hold more meaning to you? Might sound kind of fucked up, but it's actually a thing according to what I've researched.

Perhaps this won't be quite so hard to humor for those of you who have had a brush with the paranormal.

 

[Flan Handler]

More than likely, the answer is that they simply knew each other in another life. I know how that sounds. Probably not the place to go on a rant about it, though.

The idea that Dad and Jim knew each other from somewhere else is a reasonable explanation for why they were immediately best friends. Their meeting seems like a weird synchronicity, they had a twenty year age gap, and complete lack of common experience. And yet they understood each other completely.

Thanks for listening, it’s not really something I talk about usually.

 

[TinCan Wizard]

Dad says that when he appeared he was illuminated from inside somehow, and got brighter as the encounter went on. In life he was very serious, but at that moment he was so happy, almost jovial.

I won't get into details but this happened with me too. It happened in my sleep but it felt very real, unlike any dream I had including sleep paralysis. And so many others experience it. idk what to believe but that shook my worldview to say the least.

 

[Fek]

I won't get into details but this happened with me too. It happened in my sleep but it felt very real, unlike any dream I had including sleep paralysis. And so many others experience it. idk what to believe but that shook my worldview to say the least.

How "real" would you say it felt? Like a waking experience? Perhaps "more real than real," even?

Edit: If that's not considered "getting into details," I suppose. Don't mind my eagerness completely ignoring your first statement.