Why do ghosts have to be scary if they exist?

Post Reply New Topic

You'd just go right through it!

Reminds me of a ghost I reD about in the newspaper when I was about 10. A woman was typing on one of those old fashioned ribbon typewriters in her home in a nearby small town when an invisible ghost voice asked "What are you doing!" Scaring her so much she left the house and drive over 100 km to her mother.

Quite a reasonable question for a ghost who's never seen q typewriter to ask!

Or would I just get "slimed"? Maybe get pulled into a vortex that leads to the Neitherworld? Or maybe even get possessed by the ghost of my late father and end up on a drunken sex spree in Vegas?

I saw 3 ghosts before I found out they were ghosts that have been seen by others.

Ghosts don't have to be scary, but in my personal experiences, I know that the most startling thing about them is that you know there's nothing there, so why do you see a figure standing there, or why did you hear a girl talking to you??

In John Keel's book, The Mothman Prophecies, he has a theory that supernatural occurrences are caused and/or affected by electromagnetic fields, and that it might be these fields themselves that cause the paralyzing fear that we feel when witnessing these events.

That would be great, but most paranormal investigators are laughed off as crackpots and weirdos. If there wasn't that kind of stigma behind it, I think we could make some really interesting discoveries.


I agree with you. Just look at the Internet, there are plenty of people pretending to be kind souls, but who are actually predators in disguise. That only makes me all the more convinced that supernatural beings are not above the same kind of malevolent behavior.

Asking a Oujia board if you're talking to your dead grandfather is about as risky as an AOL chat room in 1999.

Stay safe. Spirits will follow you around if you let them.

There was a rapper in the Nineties who rapped about that. In an interview he said "no ghost ever pulled a knife on me, nor tried to lift my wallet" (common ghetto occurances in his life). He kinda had a point.

I am forever creating my own ghosts and other malign presences thanks to Sleep Paralysis and the entertainingly named Exploding Head Syndrome. Sleep Paralysis in particular can conjure up some very intense experiences for me and Exploding Head Syndrome can produce all sorts of weird bodily sensations. I used to find them scary, and they still can be whilst I am experiencing them, but once they are over I find them rather interesting now. I think my own ghosts are all in my head.

When I die I want to become a scary vengeful ghost like Kayako and her family from Ju-On.

WP doesn't yet have a license to serve spirits.

That's OK cause I don't drink.

If time travel becomes real at some point in the future, then we'd be seeing time travelers more often now coming back to "the past" (our present)...

Maybe "ghosts" are really living time travelers from the future. They can't come back in their physical bodies, but are somehow able to send an electo-holographic image of themselves back through time. Perhaps they're usually not even noticeable, but sometimes certain conditions expose these futuristic holograms to those of us living in the present (the past to them).

I can't prove this, just saying maybe ghosts aren't what we think they are...but they could be something we don't yet understand.

there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in most folks' philosophy.

I think most ghosts are pretty harmless but I wonder if evil ghosts can exists too? If evil people become ghosts how do they hurt people?

It's the run-of-the-mill friendly neighborhood "Ghostbusters" that makes research into ghosts a big, fat joke. I'm talking about real scientists doing real research on real ghosts (if there are any real ghosts), and not a bunch of nerds running around shouting "Did you see that?" just to scare each other.

Finally something we can agree on! I think all those ghost hunting shows like Ghost Adventures are fake as f**k.

Exploding Head Syndrome - I never heard that term before. I wonder if it is Aspie related.

According to the Internet: Exploding head syndrome (EHS) is a condition in which a person experiences unreal noises that are loud and of short duration when falling asleep or waking up. The noise may be frightening, typically occurs only occasionally, and is non serious in nature. A flash of light may also occur. Pain is typically absent. The cause is unknown. While the frequency of the condition is not well studied, some have estimated that it occurs in about 10% of people. Females are reportedly more commonly affected.

So if their estimates are correct that around 10 percent of the population has the condition. And the percentage of the population that are Aspies is much less than 10%, one might be inclined to believe that it is not Aspie related. Also since most Aspies are males and this condition seems to affect females to a greater degree, that might also imply the condition is not related to being an Aspie.

But I guess I have a very hard time believing a condition I never heard of before today Exploding Head Syndrome is present in 10% of the population.

But if you don't mind Sandpiper, I might like to learn a little more about the condition from first hand knowledges. These are the questions that come to mind:
In your case, does Exploding Head Syndrome happen often?
Do you also see a flash of light when you hear the sounds? What color is it? Do you see the blue color generated from an electrical arc?
Does it happen primarily when you go to bed or when you wake up?
What does it sound like? Can you describe the sound?
Is it related to stress levels?
Are there any triggers that you found that cause the syndrome?
Have you discovered ways of minimizing it or controlling the condition? Such as listening to music when you go to sleep or a background noise generator.

Sometimes I experience it multiple times per week, sometimes I go long periods without it happening at all. I have not been able to discern any particular patterns but I do work very erratic shifts and it may perhaps be related to that.

Usually when I experience a flash of light it is simply white. I often experience a sensation that feels like an electric shock which can be in my whole body or in different individual parts. Also there is usually a physical sensation in my head that I cannot really describe. I guess "explosion" is perhaps the best word. Both the aural and visual elements seem to emanate from a single point somewhere in my head and it feels as though they radiate outwards at high speed. There is a particularly odd sensation as the "explosion" seems to pass through my skull and out of my head.

The commonest sound I experience is like breaking glass. Before I read about Exploding Head Syndrome there were many times I crept downstairs with my ice axe in my hand expecting to find an intruder, but there was no one there, nor was there any broken glass when I checked in the morning. Sometimes the sound is more like a gunshot, as though someone has fired a shotgun right next to my head, or sometimes it sounds as though someone has crashed two cymbals together inside my head.

It usually, though not always, happens later in the night often around 3 o' clock in the morning (the witching hour!) but I have never been able to work out whether the sensation wakes me from deep sleep or if I am already in the process of waking up when it occurs. I do however quite often wake up around 3 o' clock so it may be the latter.

I haven't discovered any obvious triggers. I usually read a book in bed for about an hour before I go to sleep. I do generally have very vivid and surreal dreams but I do not know if that is in any way related.