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Old 02-09-2011, 08:07 AM
 
Location: Tujunga
421 posts, read 446,823 times
Reputation: 143

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bideshi View Post
If you personaly experience supernatural phenomena you have witnessed the evidence and believe it. But you can't convince others because they haven't experienced it.
But the problem is that personal experience just isn't really a very good guide to actual fact. People's brains are designed to find patterns even when their not there (its why people think that there are faces on the moon),people believe what they want to (TV physics are the best example of this, cold reading, a trick any magician could do, but people want to believe) and memory changes as time goes by, to fit a ideology or world view (national identities and share fictional histories are a good example here).
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Old 02-09-2011, 01:13 PM
 
Location: Not where you ever lived
11,535 posts, read 30,132,872 times
Reputation: 6423
I would argue that a snapshot in time is a historical fact. I did see the ghost of my grandmother. The fact I do not have a picure of it does not mean it did not happen. Magicians are entertainers and they are a lot of fun to watch, but I don't perceive it as anything except family entertainment. Yes memory changes with age, but some memories do not change - especially if it has a big impact.

I remember well the first time I saw a ghost. It was the summer before Iw I turned five years of age. It was real enough that dad got dressed and went outside to look for evidnce of a ladder outside the second story window in my bedroom.

Obviously ghosts do not need ladders. But a four-year old would think there was a ladder, and I did. The next day mother had shades installed on all the bedroom windows. I never saw another ghost until I saw my grandmother thirty-seven years later. She walked past the bathroom, turned right, wallked through the dining room and continued to walk through the living room and through the wall.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Mattos_12 View Post
But the problem is that personal experience just isn't really a very good guide to actual fact. People's brains are designed to find patterns even when their not there (its why people think that there are faces on the moon),people believe what they want to (TV physics are the best example of this, cold reading, a trick any magician could do, but people want to believe) and memory changes as time goes by, to fit a ideology or world view (national identities and share fictional histories are a good example here).
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Old 02-09-2011, 01:26 PM
 
588 posts, read 1,012,041 times
Reputation: 874
Quote:
Originally Posted by linicx View Post
I don't "get" your pop culture today nor was I influenced by it 30 years ago. That argument doesn't hold water.
Everyone is influenced, some more or less than others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by linicx View Post
Now I have a question for you. If I don't know what my grandmother looked like, how could I possibly know the ghost I saw walk through a wall was my greandmother?
I don't understand... you mean you had not seen a picture of your grandmother, then saw the ghost, and knew it was your grandmother? How did you confirm, did you then see a picture of grams after the ghost sighting? Well, first it seems unlikely to me that you had never seen a picture of grams. Second, I don't know you or your history, maybe you just didn't have your glasses on and it was dark... who knows, but I'd rank the likelihood that you really saw a ghost way down the list behind many more likely scenarios.

Now tell me why, again, does a ghost look like a person? Why does that make any sense? Only in the theater of our minds does it make any sense.

To me, it's a lot like horoscopes. Our minds can read just about anything into anything. We create the reality, in our minds. If I get a psychic reading, and give the same reading to 100 people that believe in psychics, and they all find a way to apply it in their lives, does that mean the psychic is really psychic? Or is it more likely that the people made it fit in their life because they wanted that outcome? They want to believe.
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Old 02-09-2011, 01:30 PM
 
588 posts, read 1,012,041 times
Reputation: 874
Quote:
Originally Posted by linicx View Post
I remember well the first time I saw a ghost. It was the summer before Iw I turned five years of age.
You don't think it's more likely that a 4 year old's imagination ran wild??? Of course dad went outside, that was for your benefit, not his.
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Old 02-10-2011, 12:20 AM
 
Location: Tujunga
421 posts, read 446,823 times
Reputation: 143
Quote:
Originally Posted by linicx View Post
I would argue that a snapshot in time is a historical fact. I did see the ghost of my grandmother. The fact I do not have a picure of it does not mean it did not happen. Magicians are entertainers and they are a lot of fun to watch, but I don't perceive it as anything except family entertainment. Yes memory changes with age, but some memories do not change - especially if it has a big impact.

I remember well the first time I saw a ghost. It was the summer before Iw I turned five years of age. It was real enough that dad got dressed and went outside to look for evidnce of a ladder outside the second story window in my bedroom.

Obviously ghosts do not need ladders. But a four-year old would think there was a ladder, and I did. The next day mother had shades installed on all the bedroom windows. I never saw another ghost until I saw my grandmother thirty-seven years later. She walked past the bathroom, turned right, wallked through the dining room and continued to walk through the living room and through the wall.

Look, I think its really important to say that I'm not saying that your being dishonest.

But, your brain is quite capable of making you see things. I'm afraid people's brains create patterns, images, and memories that make them believe that they have seen things.

With so much CCTV footage, and measurements, I'd just expect some decent evidence of Ghosts to have emerged. That said, its less clear cut that say, talking to the dead (mediums) or physics. Where the tests are so easy to do that it is clear that no such powers exist.
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Old 02-10-2011, 01:42 AM
 
Location: Hawaii/Alabama
2,265 posts, read 4,100,432 times
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I came home the night of my Father's death. I slept in his hospital bed in the same room with my Mother. I awoke to a noise around 0330. I saw my Father sitting on the corner of my Mother's bed. He was looking at her and when I gasped he turned his head and looked at me.

His eyes were so sad. He put his finger to his lips as to shush me, turned back to my Mother and disappeared.

I was not sleeping, I was not under any influence and if my mind produced my Father to appease me then surely I would have had him interact with me, not saying goodbye to my Mother.

I also have had an experience with having what I thought was an aide in the hospital; I was speaking with this woman who spoke in a warm, caring voice. I felt her hand 'pat' me on my shoulder and face. I am now blind so I did not see this woman. However, a Nurse walked into my room and asked where my visitor had gone, she didn't see her leave me room. There was no one there. I was not on any mind altering drugs and another person heard us talking. I do not know who this caring woman was but she certainly did not frighten me.

Until something happens to you it is far too easy to fall back upon the "humans look for faces, patterns and the familiar" argument.
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Old 02-10-2011, 02:07 PM
 
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
8,854 posts, read 10,413,216 times
Reputation: 6670
When the so-called "scientific" folks speak of Empiricism, they seem to forget that means direct observation and trusting your senses, not just trusting some "instrument".

And by that standard there's arguably at least as much "Empirical" evidence to support even "unquantifiable" stuff like astrology, UFO's, and the paranormal, as there is such "scientific" phenomenon like "Dark Matter" (which BTW, no one has detected yet)!

What's more, it seems to me that the dogmatic "show me" types always have much more of an emotional investment with running around "evangelizing" their skepticism, than the folks who know they've experienced something strange, and yet don't need to "convince the world" of their belief.... as the skeptics apparently feel compelled to do.
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Old 02-10-2011, 03:11 PM
 
Location: Not where you ever lived
11,535 posts, read 30,132,872 times
Reputation: 6423
Please tell me how i had the instrumentation you speak of in 1946 and 1980?

I am quite sure my father went outside for my benefit as much as it was to our safety. What husband and father welcomes an invader in his home in the middle of the night? I woke up and saw a stranger outside my window. And screamed bloody murder. The moonlight was behind the male figure. How do I knwo it was a male? He had a thick waist, broad shoulders and masculine arms.

As for grandmother I have pictures of her from the age of 3 to 97-years old. My brain did not conjur up a ghost of my grandmother.

The problem as I see it is this. I cannot prove what I saw, but. on the other hand, no one can prove that I did not. As for my veracity, I really don't care who does or does not believe me. Negative comments often give sway to a personal attack - which is a TOS violation.

Last edited by linicx; 02-10-2011 at 03:45 PM..
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Old 02-10-2011, 04:59 PM
 
Location: The D-M-V area
13,691 posts, read 18,368,723 times
Reputation: 9595
I believe in all of it.

I have had enough experiences in my life to know that they exist.

My last premonition was about the death of the President of Poland in a plane crash. I had a dream about it. Woke up next morning and told my husband about my dream. He told me he thought it was random. I turned on the t.v. news and there it was. Random? Coincidence? No, that's a premonition.

I was driving home from work and I had an odd nagging feeling I should give my Mother a call. I don't ordinarily make phone calls while I'm driving, and I tried to talk myself out of it at least 3 times for about 30 seconds before I called her. When I finally called she was experiencing a heart attack. I called 911 and told them where to go, I raced to her place and paramedics met me there. Saved her life.

I toured Mauthausen concentration camp a few years ago. It was almost closing time and I and my husband were the last few people on the entire grounds. I had a brand new camera with a fully charged battery. We were in a building where nobody else was exploring because it was so late in the day after 4:30pm. While I was snapping pictures in the freezer room, suddenly my camera battery power reduced by 80% from fully charged I was left with a flashing red light on my battery indicator. That was accompanied by an odd feeling like a room full of people staring at the back of my neck while pushing me out of the room from inside of my body, like a sonic pressure. It was the strangest feeling I cannot accurately describe how it felt - similar to the feeling you get from the sound of nails scratching a chalkboard. I knew whatever presence was in that room wanted me out of there.

I have moments of clear sensitivity. On average I have a few good premonitions per year. I am intuitive about people as well.

Last edited by LuckyGem; 02-10-2011 at 05:19 PM.. Reason: Added the camp story.
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Old 02-10-2011, 07:45 PM
 
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
8,854 posts, read 10,413,216 times
Reputation: 6670
My own "experience" was having a vivid but curious dream the night before the Challenger shuttle exploded in 1986.The dream was of a rocket being launched, arcing over in the sky shortly afterwards, and crashing in a fiery explosion. In the dream I also recalled a feeling of a great many people wailing in shock and pain at the disaster, along with a strange sense that for all its terribleness and tragedy, that somehow things would go on and would recover from it.

Though none of this made any sense to me, I soon forgot about it, until naturally, it was pretty shocking to be at work the following day, and around noon, hear someone suddenly announce that the space shuttle had just blown up! BTW, while I normally don't have any "pre-cog" experiences, I was very interested in the whole space program leading up to that incident, and so I suspect that I was just "attuned" to that particular event, along with all the public's feelings surrounding it. Which might also explain why other "psi" phenomenon and experiences vary so much, perhaps depending on the individual's "connection" as much as their respective "ability".
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