As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Do you believe in ghosts and other related phenomena?
Joeslop
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This was prompted by a dream I had this morning. The details are trivial (especially given the random nature of some dreams) but the gist of it is that someone I know had just died in a horrible fashion but I can't find their body. As I'm looking around, two clock radios in the room both start making that buzzing/static noise that occurs sometimes with incoming phone calls/text messages, and also similar to how the ghosts communicated in the movie White Noise. I realize that I don't have my cell phone on me and there isn't one in the immediate vicinity so I immediately assume that it's the person's ghost trying to contact me.
I wake up right after with a very distinct feeling of fear. I don't know if I woke up because of the fear or other reasons, but it got me thinking.
I've never personally seen a ghost, despite living in a city with a semi-famous ghost, however I have interacted with a few people that claim to have seen or even talked to ghosts. One such person was an older lady who used to drive my sister and I home from school; she was never one to lie or make up stories yet she claimed there was a ghost living in her attic (the ghost lived there before her) that she would talk to occasionally.
Stories about encountering ghosts or things of that nature are also encouraged.
Semi-related; when the movie version of Silent Hill came out (heavy fog plays into at least the first game, I haven't played the rest), that night, a lot of my city was covered in a very heavy fog. The best idea, of course, is to take the opportunity to visit the cemetery that was across the street from where we were. Despite being on a major road next to a shopping mall this cemetery manages to remain very dark. Nothing actually happened but just the coincidence of the fog was very creepy.
I wake up right after with a very distinct feeling of fear. I don't know if I woke up because of the fear or other reasons, but it got me thinking.
I've never personally seen a ghost, despite living in a city with a semi-famous ghost, however I have interacted with a few people that claim to have seen or even talked to ghosts. One such person was an older lady who used to drive my sister and I home from school; she was never one to lie or make up stories yet she claimed there was a ghost living in her attic (the ghost lived there before her) that she would talk to occasionally.
Stories about encountering ghosts or things of that nature are also encouraged.
Semi-related; when the movie version of Silent Hill came out (heavy fog plays into at least the first game, I haven't played the rest), that night, a lot of my city was covered in a very heavy fog. The best idea, of course, is to take the opportunity to visit the cemetery that was across the street from where we were. Despite being on a major road next to a shopping mall this cemetery manages to remain very dark. Nothing actually happened but just the coincidence of the fog was very creepy.
Joeslop on
0
Posts
Paranormal phenomena are anything but - they're the effects of people misunderstanding various somewhat primal senses which are telling you the environment is somehow different. In our modern, safe world, these are pretty useless but they would've been great back in the day.
Of note is that we have a limited susceptiblity to the effects of magnetic fields for example - we can't actually sense them, but we can feel the minute changes in the environment they cause. Haunted caves usually have magnetic rock surrounding them, amongst other things like the stereotypical cold breeze.
We are very very good at detecting when an environment is not as we think it should be - i.e. a draft could imply something moving quietly out of sight. Of course today it means you need to buy some sealant.
EDIT: Of note is that there is scientific evidence of a human magnetic sense with a more interesting summary here.
What's the explanation for people that claim to have physically seen/talked to/interacted with ghosts? Normally sane people not prone to lies or exaggerations having conversations with said apparitions?
Ayliana Moonwhisper Ecksus Cerazal
I'd like for there to be a rational explanation, because I don't like the idea of ghosts. I don't like the paranormal. The paranormal is a silly load of bullshit for people who like reading tabloid newspapers about UFO's sighted over Kent.
But I saw it, and as I saw it I felt it in my head and in my guts, the same as the three friends who were looking the other way. Then it was gone. So, please. Give me any scientific explanation, because I dearly want one.
And the ones that aren't sleeping or have been sleeping? Like the lady who used to drive me home; she didn't sleep in the attic.
One of my friends told me she didn't believe in ghosts; her reasoning was that any sufficiently advanced higher being wouldn't allow someone's soul to languish in between life and death like that.
Ayliana Moonwhisper Ecksus Cerazal
Once upon a time there was a woman who was utterly convinced aliens had come to her and taken her unborn baby away. And then someone asked "were you actually pregnant at the time"? To which the answer, predictably, was "no".
As for myself, I am frequently utterly convinced that there's some kind of demon standing right behind me ready to devour me at a moment's notice. I know it's not there, but since I know it's there I get terrified anyway.
The point of all this, I guess, is to simply point out that brains are far from perfect and that "normally sane" doesn't mean you can't suffer from hallucinations or the like.
One of my friends told me she didn't believe in ghosts; her reasoning was that any sufficiently advanced higher being wouldn't allow someone's soul to languish in between life and death like that.[/QUOTE]
I will agree. It is heaven or hell for human souls. However there ARE angels and demons roaming the Earth right now. Demons do not equal human souls.
Aliens on the other hand. Sure, but I doubt we've been in contact with them in anyway.
For the purposes of this discussion, sure they do.
There's a flash based ouija board on that site. When I asked it if ghosts were real, it said no. I think I trust it.
Truthfully, I'm with the folks in here chalking this up to primal instincts. Many of us are really jumpy, and don't know how to interpret the things we feel.
What are you, an asshole? Demons and Angels have to stay in their respective spheres of influence. Tempters and Guardians may get a pass occasionally, but they can do their work from the office 99% of the time. It is true that every fifth auto-worker is a Golem, though.
And that one God had better be referring to Ahura-Mazda.
*Edit* Supposedly DMT, or some very similar chemical is released from the pineal gland in the brain, but I don't have a valid source for that, so my entire post could be wrong
Excessive DMT release, possibly caused by some type of trauma.
It's thought to be the cause of sleep paralysis and hallucinations after waking. Important thing worth mentioning is that young children with little religious influence have near-death experiences and don't talk to dead people or see heaven. Instead, they hallucinate having conversations with their living parents or friends. It's speculated that there may be a big release of DMT from the pineal gland which causes these near death experiences.
Since I don't believe in an afterlife it would take an awful lot of convincing. I'm sorry i just refuse to believe that we all just happen to stick around after we die and our free to haunt wherever we're murdered/killed/died. if that was honestly the case than why the hell isn't the entire area surrounding the world trade center ripe with poltergeists?
I do, however, believe that there are aliens out there but because i just think it's impossible that in an infinitely huge universe as ours that there's no other life in it but our own planet. maybe they've made contact in the past, i don't know but i doubt most of the people who claim they were abducted.
Now, if the spirit world obeys laws that can be replicated I'd be interested. But no one seems to want to fund my Murder Lab of Horror.
It was another 'you,' unstuck in time and appearing to yourself momentarily at an otherwise innocuous moment in your early history. The sensation of nausea was the violation of fourteen of the Ninety-Seven Principles Of Consciousness. In the coming months you should note your increasing stage-fright and paranoia as moments of your immediate future and past come unbidden to your mind, violating another three Principles and bending half a dozen more; observe also a burgeoning predilection for telekinesis, which is super useful for maintaining erections
I do, however, fancifully dream that such were true. Life would be far more exciting with ghosts, demons, and monstrosities out of the Cthulhu mythos. And I wouldn't mind stumbling across Silent Hill one of these days.
But alas, reality is dreadfully dull unless one makes an effort at adventure.
Hell, I know people who do believe in ghosts, and even they hate Ghost Hunters. :P
I am, however, unbelievably interested in the source of supernatural legends. Chances are, there's a good explanation for some of these myths that doesn't hinge on someone being crazy or making it up.
For example, harlequin ichthyosis (which is so entirely NSFW and humanity that I will not even link to the Wikipedia page. This is the internet so you've probably seen it before, but if you haven't, just know that it causes the skin of the sufferer to be red and scaly from birth). It's so horrible even by today's standards that I can't imagine what people would have thought when it happened centuries ago. Everyone who witnessed it must have thought they were witnessing the birth of an honest-to-god demon. Obviously the baby wasn't a demon, but you can't exactly call the people crazy, either. In a case such as that, it's easy to see how the beliefs and rumors could spiral out of control.
If they were real though? Umm nothankyounevernevernotatallohpleaseno. I can do without fighting rapedemons from the innermost depths of mine/someone elses' id, or, if you believe certain interpretations of 3 (like I do)
Especially when the only weapons I have are my shitty marksmanship skills and a lead pipe.
I don't know if I believe in ghosts or not, honestly. It seems so farfetched, but perfectly sane, rational people claim to have experienced supernatural things, even when they admit it clashes with their own more rational worldview. Some strange stuff does go on in the world.
Oh god, do not google image that. I am going to have nightmares for a month.
I dunno. That would at least be less boring than normal life. It usually seems that it wouldn't be hard to do better on improvisation than those games typically allow the player-character to, too.
That is kept in mind. I'm also a bit more agile than the average semi. And I always remember wandering through a room in one of those games and seeing dozens of things that would make great clubs on the walls that I'm not allowed to use because they're a texture instead of a weapon.
Can you turn and move at the same time?
Possibly turn and move on a less than 20 foot radius?
Not only that, but I can climb on top of stuff. And throw desks at children. Throwing desks at children is in fact one of my greatest and most fun life-skills.
Have a seat!
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
And I don't think I'll ever believe in UFOs/alien contact unless I directly experience it myself in a way I can't explain in any other way, including my own personal insanity. I mean, we can't even communicate all that well with chimps and for all intents and purposes they're identical to us on an evolutionary level. And yet somehow we're supposed to believe that aliens that evolved (somehow) on another planet/in another galaxy/whatever build ships and travel through the stars just like humans wish they could? I mean, hell, usually these "alien encounters" involve aliens that are functionally identical to humans - they communicate (in English, somehow), perform medical experiments, walk on two legs... I can't see how anybody with even a rudimentary grasp of biology or evolution could think of that as a plausible scenario.
Not to nitpick, but I don't think the phrase "evolutionarily identical" really makes sense. Yeah, they're our closest primate relative still around, but we've got a good 1,500,000 years of evolution on our side.
One of the things about bipedal anthro-aliens is that there aren't really too many other options that make sense. It wouldn't be practical for a large complex organism to have a lot of organs protected only by a cell membrane. There also aren't too many ways you can cause locomotion besides flapping appendages; I mean, how could you evolve a wheel ? Also, it's further proof that everything is made up by people who are experiencing problems wherein their brain plays tricks on them.