Paranormal.

When I was a kiddo none of my cousins wanted to sleep in my room because they got scared from hearing footsteps from the upper floor. The point is that we had no upper floor. Bro also saw a girl sitting on the sink in the middle of the night. So, yeah, I'm a believer.

I've had quite a lot of experience. I lived in a house where an elderly couple died inside and weird stuff kept going on. Footsteps on empty staircases, lights turning on and off, tv on and off, electrical equipment going crazy basically. People would see the couch cushions pressing down as if somebody had just sat down. Our lights would dim and brighten. It was weird.

I'm a qualified medium by SNU standards and I'm also in a paranormal investigation group and we've had some pretty interesting stuff happen. We've had stones thrown at us. We've been locked in an attic and had someone growl at us from a dark corner.

One experience I remember clearly is we were in an old castle, the place was steeped in layers of energy from different time periods. Some of it residual( it can't interact because it's an imprint of their lives there)
There was a painting on the wall which was blocked off. Apparantly, if anyone moved this picture, the man who protected the castle would attack you. So, me being me, linked into his energy and found out quite a bit about him. He had killed his mistress for having an affair with one of the servants, and the baby she had with the servant was thrown down a dry well to die. The remains were only recently recovered after our visit.
I moved the picture. Shit literally hit the fan. The whole atmosphere changed from a usual run of the mill investigation to a threatening and violent atmosphere. So I goaded the spirit. I kept telling him if he was man enough, he could do something. Nothing happened so I took a different route. I told him if he thought he was a man by killing his wife and a baby he would have no problems harming one of us.
The goading continued. We had a camera at the top of the stairs and as I stood at the top, I was pushed down the stairs. The whole thing was caught on camera.

After that experience, I went back to the top of the stairs and demanded he did something else. Constantly pushing at this spirit to do something else.

I think pretty much any supposed paranormal activity can be explained sufficiently by normal means.

Alex; oxytocin.:

I think pretty much any supposed paranormal activity can be explained sufficiently by normal means.

I think that depends.
My mum saw her mum when she was hanging up clothes a few months after she died, and gran said not to worry because she'd be back. Two days later my sister called and announced her pregnancy.

The only explanations except for my mum telling the truth are that she's either insane and hallucinating or lying. Neither of those two options are likely.

Insanity isn't the prime cause of hallucinations; in fact they can very easily occur in any mentally healthy person. They can happen as a result of simple things like tiredness or stress, and they're also quite likely after trauma or bereavement. Psychologically, thinking you've seen a recently-lost family member or friend isn't massively unorthodox.

Alex; oxytocin.:

Insanity isn't the prime cause of hallucinations; in fact they can very easily occur in any mentally healthy person. They can happen as a result of simple things like tiredness or stress, and they're also quite likely after trauma or bereavement. Psychologically, thinking you've seen a recently-lost family member or friend isn't massively unorthodox.

But it would still assume that something out of the ordinary happened to my mothers mind, that it somehow was stressed out and made her see things that weren't there or whatever. Which is, to me, a very unnecessary thing to assume. And, if the paranormal is simply discarded without a second thought, the other possibilities for such a thing are very few.

Of course my mother is just an example, there are naturally hundreds of thousands of other supposed sightings. I wonder how likely it is that all of them are either 'off' (for the lack of a better word) mentally (temporarily or permanently) or liars.

The things I mentioned that are catalysts for hallucination are perfectly capable of happening to a mentally healthy person. Stress is a natural thing, and while I'm not saying hallucinations are totally normal, it wouldn't be completely out of the ordinary. To me, assuming the paranormal is fairly unnecessary.

Alex; oxytocin.:

Insanity isn't the prime cause of hallucinations; in fact they can very easily occur in any mentally healthy person. They can happen as a result of simple things like tiredness or stress, and they're also quite likely after trauma or bereavement. Psychologically, thinking you've seen a recently-lost family member or friend isn't massively unorthodox.

Hallucinations can't 'very easily' occur in any mentally healthy person, your brain has to be put under a lot of stress (for example, from serious sensory deprivation) to start confusing real stimuli with internal images/information. The only kind of hallucinations that a healthy person is likely to experience are hypnagogic hallucinations which occur in the state between wakefulness and sleep, but those don't usually have any kind of narrative, but are random scraps of information left from the day that your brain's processing to allow you to go to sleep and very few people think they're real experiences as opposed to just their brain going to sleep.

It's far more likely that healthy people suffer from delusional perceptions - which means that they invest a real perception with a delusional meaning (e.g. you see a shadow on your wall and think it's from somebody hiding behind you, etc).

Alex; oxytocin.:

The things I mentioned that are catalysts for hallucination are perfectly capable of happening to a mentally healthy person. Stress is a natural thing, and while I'm not saying hallucinations are totally normal, it wouldn't be completely out of the ordinary. To me, assuming the paranormal is fairly unnecessary.

I've suffered from hallucinations, they aren't something that happen to anyone just out of nowhere or because of some stress. Hallucinations are a lot rarer than that. I can agree with Kafka that it would be more likely someone 'seeing a shadow and picturing something else'. That's an explanation I could buy (I naturally don't though, since I know my mother is nothing like that and since she's worked professionally with the paranormal and she's been making her living for 30 years telling people's futures in tarot cards and whatnot, I'm rather sure if she says she saw gran then she saw gran), but that someone who has never displayed any mental problems during her 60 years on earth would've had her first hallucination for no reason whatsoever suddenly out of the blue makes no sense.

I think it's fine when people don't believe in the paranormal, but when they want to write things down to being hallucinations or other things that would indicate some mental problems - severe and common or not - is just awkward.

kafka.:

Actually, you're right, but let's not forget the issue of bereavement that's involved. There must be thousands of cases of people claiming to have seen the ghost or spirit (etc.) of their recently deceased partner/sibling/parent/child, and it would be quite understandable bearing in mind the loss that people feel.

Bella;:

That's an explanation I could buy (I naturally don't though, since I know my mother is nothing like that)

Your mother is nothing like what? I'd wager that we've all seen something perfectly normal and automatically assumed it was something else; I don't think it's a question of whether someone is "like that" or not. When it comes down to mistaking something we see in our periphery for something else, it's often just the way our brains work.

For example, say I hang my jacket up on the front of my wardrobe, and then when the lights are off and I'm in bed I think I see a person standing there. It's not because I'm wired any differently to anyone else, or because I have a mental issue, or anything. It's because I've seen the outline of a jacket, a shape we commonly associate with the frame of a person, and my brain has made a snap assumption that it's a person.

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I think it's fine when people don't believe in the paranormal, but when they want to write things down to being hallucinations or other things that would indicate some mental problems - severe and common or not - is just awkward

Why awkward?

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Alex; oxytocin.:

Your mother is nothing like what? I'd wager that we've all seen something perfectly normal and automatically assumed it was something else; I don't think it's a question of whether someone is "like that" or not. When it comes down to mistaking something we see in our periphery for something else, it's often just the way our brains work.

For example, say I hang my jacket up on the front of my wardrobe, and then when the lights are off and I'm in bed I think I see a person standing there. It's not because I'm wired any differently to anyone else, or because I have a mental issue, or anything. It's because I've seen the outline of a jacket, a shape we commonly associate with the frame of a person, and my brain has made a snap assumption that it's a person.

There's a difference between turning on the lights and realizing it was a lump of laundry that scared you and seeing a person standing flat in front of you.

Alex; oxytocin.:

Why awkward?

I used awkward for the lack of a better word.

Bella;:

There's a difference between turning on the lights and realizing it was a lump of laundry that scared you and seeing a person standing flat in front of you.

Quite possibly, but no one can really know the circumstances except for the one person who saw it, and even they might have misinterpreted. I'm not saying at all that you or your mother are liars; I'm just saying that going on recount alone doesn't give much in the way of evidence.

Bella;:

I used awkward for the lack of a better word.

Okay, it's just that I'm trying to understand what you meant by it. :)

I don't believe in the paranormal (aside from aliens, if they are included) since I don't believe in the soul or demons or whatever.

I know that I have "seen" demons and angels and such when I was going through a very, very difficult time in my life (alongside other symptoms common in a psychotic episode). I don't think that seeing all this stuff is a sign of mental illness per se but seeing something like that doesn't mean they exist. The human mind is a very fertile place and there will be some other explanation for it.

Alex; oxytocin.:

Actually, you're right, but let's not forget the issue of bereavement that's involved. There must be thousands of cases of people claiming to have seen the ghost or spirit (etc.) of their recently deceased partner/sibling/parent/child, and it would be quite understandable bearing in mind the loss that people feel.

I don't personally believe in ghosts so I'm not saying that what her mother experienced was of some kind of paranormal nature, I'm just not comfortable with spreading the idea that hallucinations can happen very easily and are really nothing to worry about.

My grandfather died almost 20 years ago and my grandmother still talks to him when she's doing housework alone and she's convinced that he can hear her and is watching over us. I can completely understand why somebody would want to cling to the idea that their loved ones stay with us after they die.

^ Me too, but I don't think that that means paranormal activity can be drawn from it.

And I suppose when it comes down to it, it's about what is classed as a hallucination and what isn't. If you see something that's not there, is it not a hallucination if it's a trick of the light, but is if it's more complex than a trick of the light?

Dammit, I wish I didn't find this thread. Now I'm gonna be paranoid all night. ._.

Last summer, I went up to Michigan's U.P. for vacation with my friend and her family. The night before we left, I stayed at her house. She had told me numerous times that she's had weird stuff happen in her house. So, me being the fearless person I am, I decided to provoke it, just to see if my friend was bullshitting me or not. I shouted out "come out and play" and "show yourself". For some reason, I was staring at the bathroom door that was directly in front of me. Literally 3 seconds after I called out whatever energy was in that house, the bathroom door slammed shut. There was so draft or anything, and me, her, and her little brother were the only ones home. To this day, we can't explain how it happened. The even weirder part is the fact that once we got to our cottage up north for our vacation, her house phone called me... when no one was at her house, and no one but my friend had my number.

I'm getting chills just thinking about this.

I love anything paranormal related. Ask my friends, I pretty much force them to spill any thing 'weird' that's happened to them. I've had a few odd occurrences and I believe in ghosts and just flat out weird things that happen in everyday life. Like how a few months after my grandfather died everywhere I went I kept seeing people who looked like him. Not paranormal really but I find it interesting how your mind can work and make random strangers look like a family member.

Anyway, I used to live upstairs in my sister's bedroom when we first moved to the house we're in now. I wasn't really used to sleeping in my own room after sharing so I didn't go to sleep very well. Every night, well nearly every night, I would hear in the early hours of the morning what sounded like people walking back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, which is just one big room pretty much. It sounded like someone was serving a meal and going back for...I don't know, salt or something. You get the idea. Well me being a horror movie character, decided to check it out. Nothing was there and everyone was sleeping. Then we got a new dog and she stands in the kitchen doorway leading into the living room and just stares at the middle of the room like someone is standing there. And when she has to come through she nearly pushes herself against the cabinets so she doesn't have to go through the middle of the room.

Also my basement is haunted and my brother and I both used to have rooms down there. My brother came home once and threw his hat on a shelf in his room and went to sleep. When he woke up his hat was sitting on his chest. He had no idea how it got there from all the way across the room. I also had a very....well odd room. We couldn't afford to buy drywall to build walls so we just made walls out of tarps. At night I would hear what sounded like someone running their hand along the tarps outside my room and one night I heard someone open the door flap to my room and when I looked no one was there. After my brother moved out I got to upgrade to an actual room and in there I would hear things in the storage room next door all the time. Like someone was moving around and bumping into things...at three in the morning, which is the time I would wake up and hear something nearly EVERY night.

I have then since moved back upstairs into the extra bedroom where I don't really have that many weird things happen.

@ TwistedByTheStars
I love talking about the paranormal too; but nobody seems to be interested or just thinks I'm being a freak xD
Three in the morning is the demonic witching hour. When I was 13, I saw the Exorsism of Emily Rose, and that's where I first heard of it. I come from a religious family, so things like Satan and Lucifer you just don't fuck around with. A few weeks after seeing the movie I would have dreams about that scene where the priest is in his jail cell and sees Lucifer, and prays to send him away, except it was me in the cell. I would wake up at exactly 3:00 AM (throughout the movie, the characters wake up at that exact time as well) and feel a presence, like something dangerous and terrible was hovering around me. My lower back goes stiff when I feel threatened, and that's exactly what was happening. It happened for maybe three to four nights in a row. And then once when I was 11, I was left alone in the living room while everyone was in bed, and I heard a noise outside. I went to go see what it was and I saw two red dots, like eyes, for a split second. Somehow it's always 'evil' spirits that I seem to be encountering. It could have been foreshadowing to something, because I ended up being fascinated with practicing satanism and witchcraft when I was 15.