What do you think about ghosts?

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^ I had an 'experience' when they were prepping me for my operation too.
I felt a presence had entered the room with me and my mind and body became completely at peace.
This was before any drugs, btw.

^^^you are blessed. with friends in high places. you might wanna google "the pam Reynolds story."

I believe in some sort of ghosts. Not necessarily the type of ghost that is the soul of a dead human wandering about, although it does seem like the most reasonable explanation for some experiences that myself and friends and family members have had.
I can't confirm the stuff that's been told to me by the friends and family members, as I wasn't there, but at least I know they weren't lying to me.

We have a very friendly "ghost" where I live right now. It has happened a few times that I get the feeling of someone putting their hand on my shoulder. Weirdly, it hasn't been scary at all (even though I would hate it if a real human did that). It has actually felt really peaceful and comforting.
I thought I was imagining it until my boyfriend had the exact same experience.
His theory is that it's our old cat who's stopping by to say hello sometimes, but I'm not so sure.

I've never heard of a scary ghost. All the people who's told me they've seen one, they never experienced it as scary. Just a bit surprising. Like my friend who saw one in her house, and all she thought was "wonder what that lady is doing in the hallway?". As if it was completely natural.
Or my grandma, when she saw the supposed long lost hiker in the woods. "He looks strangely gray, that man."

one dark night, in the hallway, my late mother [told me she] saw her late mother's disembodied head floating in the darkness, it glowed dimly silvery-white, and had a sad expression. unbeknownst to mom, her mother just died at that moment, back in japan.

when I worked in a hospital, one of the docs told me she was driving home late one night, when at a stoplight she saw somebody pull up behind her, the lights shone in her rear view mirror. she looked in the rear view mirror and saw her brother waving to her in the car behind her, she turned around and there was no car.

As I said in my previous comment there's no such thing as ghosts. It's mostly our overactive imagination playing tricks on us i various ways.

I've seen/experienced plenty of scary and creepy stuff both as a child and as a grown up. And when that happened I have either been delusional in some way (like the sleep paralysis) or I've been very scared at night after seeing some kind of scary movie or walking through the woods etc. When we are scared it's easier for the brain to imagine things. An interesting phenomenon causing lots of ghost stories is pareidolia. Look it up. Also taking someones word for something is not very reliable, it's called an anecdote and is not trustworthy as evidence.

Sorry to burst the bubble guys

Once again if you really want to know what's going on I suggest this podcast. They do a good job explaining all the stuff and busting all the myths as well as being very funny and educational. I highly recommend it!
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu

Just press "CTRL F" on that page and type ghost and you'll get most of their episodes about ghosts


Also the universe is plenty interesting and mysterious without all the ghosts, UFOs, big foots etc. Here's some heroes of mine explain why
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

And lastly I have a Book recommendation if you're in to the supernatural. It's by the guy singing in the video.

The demon haunted world by Carl Sagan
http://www.metaphysicspirit.com/books/T ... 0World.pdf

It seems in fiction a lot of ghosts just plain hate people who are still living. Maybe they're jealous because there are some things living people can do and enjoy that they can't anymore.

Most of the ghosts in the Harry Potter books seemed harmless enough and didn't seem to mind that they were dead except for Moaning Myrtle. If you reminded her that she couldn't do things like breathe or eat she'd *really* start moaning and freaking out. She wasn't very happy when she was alive, either. I feel bad for her, even though it's pretty weird that she haunts a toilet in a girl's bathroom. I remember when I was reading The Chamber of Secrets, and someone who was planning to red the book themselves told me how weird it was, and I started to say "Well, it's probably because that's where she die---OOPS!" And then I said I really hoped I didn't just give a major spoiler away.

i had to put a dearly loved red girl kitty to sleep 2 years ago. Was nearly suicidal for months afterwards because she was a special needs cat and I'd always been able to find a way to keep her going and, importantly, happy.

My 2 cats now are black and tortie. I adopted the black one three months after losing the red one. She has so many similar mannerisms that it's oddly comforting, while being entirely herself. Gradually the grief lessened.

About 3 months ago, I was sitting, reading, and I felt a paw touch my leg, then I felt a cat step into my lap and settle to sleep. Except that there wasn't anyone there. But there was weight, and there was warmth, and when the cat-who-wasn't-there jumped down a while later, there were red cat hairs on the lenses of my spectacles, without a trace of black mixed in.

I was wide awake, and I've never hallucinated in my life. And I wasn't afraid for a nanosecond.

If there were ghosts, think how many there should be thousands of years worth of all the people who'd ever lived. There should be many, many hundreds of thousands of the things just in my area. Well, I've never seen one... Don't believe in them. Or they're shy.

dr. George Ritchie, MD, wrote a book called "return from tomorrow" about his experience as a ghost.

AutnBlabby, great stories there.
As for why there aren't hundreds and thousands of ghosts I think they fade, or have no need or desire to hang around.

I think most of what's out there about this sort of thing is senationalized crap, and it makes it really difficult for people to evaluate without a knee-jerk opinion which is often built on guilt by association to either cheap/crass entertainment, religion, or some strange hybrid of both. It really takes washing all of that out as best you can and attempting to revisit the issues without Hollywood or religious fundamentalism poisoning the well.

Through a combination of personal experiences, checking up on what we actually do or don't know about the nature of matter, let alone how badly and tautologically we're handling the nature of consciousness, I see there's a lot of room for the likelihood that consciousness could be a lot less 'special' than we think and that there's a good possibility that plenty of dynamic systems in nature may partake in it to some degree. I'm partly pulling on Hillary Putnam's variety of functionalism here and also considering something similar to panpsychism as in there could be an entire intrinsic side to matter that we simply don't have a conventional handle on because rock's and the like can't exactly speak or demonstrate such a thing (and my guess - no nerves, no pain, even with the most vague coma-like sense of being what would something like that have to express?).

The topic of ghosts is something that I tend to find a bit boring and to tell the truth I think it's a botched category - ie. you could have sort of a holographic place memory of a thing that's no longer there, you could theoretically have a haunting by a person whose quite alive living in another state or country, or if a person dies with an urgent enough sense of duty it's not impossible that some piece of them sticks around. A bunch of guys running around in the dark with gadgets and jumping at every spooky noise is only interesting if you're obsessed over the starting point of whether these things exist or not. The question of do they or don't they exist though is really unwinnable because this is one of those topics where everyone gets to both bring their own evidence and disqualify evidence they don't like so I won't try to make a case for anyone to believe anything, I'd just say do your own research or don't according to what you're willing to try (also yeah - I wouldn't recommend building your opinions on this topic around ghost hunter or evangelical paranormal shows).

I never say "this doesn't exist". I don't have all the answers and don't like to pretend that I have. Also, I don't like people who behave like they know everything and dismiss others "just because". With that in mind, I always avoid saying things like "I don't believe that".

I've never seen enough evidences to support the claims with regards to the existence of ghosts. Now, to say there aren't enough evidences and facts isn't to say that these things aren't there. Anyway, since there's no proof and so many debunked fakes out there, ghosts strike me as possibly all a fantasy from people who want to believe at all costs that there's an afterlife, can reconnect with beloved ones who passed away or finally, want to feel special and superior by believing that they have supernatural abilities that no one else has.

Nevertheless I am totally pro ghosts in fiction. I love supernatural stories in books, TV shows, movies et al. Most of all I love to see shows who try to (or somehow pretend that) they take the theme seriously while the audience can see the flaws scattered everywhere. For instance, the "ghost hunters" shows I've come across, even if tonally serious, all failed to prove that they weren't faking it. Their presented evidences are always all gimmicks that could be forged at any time off-screen, then filmed. Nevertheless I like them for what they appear to me: as comedies.

There's this though. We never know what the human mind can unleash. Maybe one day we'll see the human brain under a different light and with that we also discover things concerning spirits, spiritual worlds and all these age-old concepts from back when we were just learning to walk straight. Maybe one day someone will prove that there are ghosts. Until then, I stand by to what I've seen to date: there's no real evidence, it's all been fabricated and we shouldn't be gullible as to take too seriously someone else's words in that regard. That's me. I don't enforce my policies on anyone else.

I believe the essence of a dead person- that is, a ghost- can partially remain on earth. However, what we term a "soul" floats around a world similar to a dream sequence (the closest analogue would be the bardo in Tibetan Buddhism) until or unless it chooses to reincarnate.

I love goats , especially the once that bounce around and climb trees.

I know that's probably not very funny but I find it hilarious and it all stems from the following joke.

^^^^