Ghosts!

I've been watching a lot of Destination Truth lately and I find it mildly amusing. The host Josh puts on a good show and I realise a lot of the scares and jumps are played up for the entertainment factor. But I'm curious to know if any GB members have had any spooky or creepy encounters with ghost or spirits?

I have this friend and he's as normal as they come. He gets drunk, he occasionally plays video games and is womaniser...yeah know, normal. But I asked him one night after we'd been out drinking, just out of the blue, if he believed in ghosts. He completely sobered up and went on the huge rant about his family having the ability to see and contacts the spirits and he was completely serious. I was genuinely surprised...I can't actually remember a lot of what he said, although it seemed to make sense at the time, but I was drunk.

I personally don't believe in ghost, but sometimes when I'm about to go to sleep, I make sure my closet is firmly closed. I didn't close it one night and while I was waiting to drift off to sleep...it slowly swung open, I thought for sure the girl from the Ring was going to walk out. It's safe to say I waited until light before decided to go to sleep. Anyways yeah, my question still stands...

No, I don't believe they exist. I mean, I think it's possible, but whenever you watch anything on TV about the paranormal, none of that is true at all. Every single show is an act, and you can easily pin-point their tricks. So far, nothing about paranormal, for me at least, has been proven. Now if you ask me if there are aliens, that's a different story, I don't need proof for that. It's weird that way. It's just not that hard to imagine aliens out there somewhere, but when it comes to ghost, I need to see it for myself to have it proven. Anyone that says they have seen ghosts probably really didn't, it was most likely their minds playing tricks on them.

If there was any god damn evidence other than anecdotes I'd believe it, but there's not, and never will be. I closed this case a long time ago.

Ghosts!

Goblins!

I AM A GHOST!!!

Didn't @falserelic make an almost identical topic two weeks ago? 
On topic, I find shows about that stuff HI-LARIOUS. I remember an episode of one of those generic Ghost Huntin' Squad shows where they started talking seriously about the possibility of the Silent Hill movie coming true. THE SILENT HILL MOVIE! Oh, it was glorious. 

I'm skeptical about the existence of ghost. I usually scare myself because of my crazy imagination.

I like a good ghost story as much as the next guy but no I don't believe in ghosts. I've had several people tell me they've seen them (Most being family) and I think they're full of shit.

Jesus, that embed went fucking spooky after I pasted it in here.

Honestly, at this point, I see no evidence of it. It just goes against logic.

Unless that's what Titan is, but I sincerely doubt that Blizzard would consider it a this point.

I've seen some pretty crazy stuff while in sleep paralysis. I'm not going to nail it down as one thing or another, but it can be pretty dreadful . What intrigues me most about it, though, is that it's usually a fairly consistent experience from one person to the next. I, my brother, my cousin and some books I've read on it, all describe the same kind of monsters/things.

why do ghosts scare people so much? If they are real why to do dead people werid people out so much?

I don't believe in ghosts, but my mom and her parents/siblings used to live in a creepy house and they all have different stories about weird unexplained things. Also this is not paranormal, but some sort of cult used to go in the woods near their house and mutilate squirrels and shit which I've always thought sounded super creepy.

I kinda like the idea of the omega point presented in Through the Wormhole. We ignore a large part of the universe and existence threw the blinders we put on. We ignore things like conscious,and thought, which is largely what the essence of god is. God is conscious order of which we are proof exists. Thought can litteraly reshape the universe or create something that did not exist before. We ignore that as not really meaning anything or so integral to our reality that it doesn't merit even bothering taking seriously.

Anyway I enjoy how this clip handles "god", and the "afterlife". Its interesting when you consider that our perception that god exists, or there is life after death can make it reality. I also like the idea of "we all get off the boat at the same time" view of the afterlife, no ones waiting. So in this view there are no ghosts.

http://science.discovery.com/videos/through-the-wormhole-2-the-omega-point.html

I believe in life after love, I believe in miracles, I believe in a thing called love, and I believe I can fly, but no to ghosts. Still, though, good ghost fiction and imagery freaks me the hell out just the same, on a level that few other things do.

Some ancient cultures that studied consciousness and the after life like we study how to murder the shit out of people, felt like the body was the placenta to the soul. That this "plane" was merely a gestation period before moving into eternity. We believe, those that do anyway, that the spirit or soul is inside the body. The ancients did too. They also believed that your time on Earth was about learning to manifest the spirit outside the body, thus making oneself immortal. Cra cra I know. But they didn't have a drug war, and could get high like whenevs.

I don't really believe in ghosts or spirits manifest around us for the most part. I think not knowing for sure is part of the game.

Energy perturbation and things like that seem more the field of physics.

My dog barked at the wall once. Ghosts man. Believe.

@Remedy25 said:

"I asked him one night after we'd been out drinking"

There is my response

I need evidence, but the idea of ghosts both terrifies and intrigues me. I want to believe, and yet that belief opens up all kinds of scary doors that may be better left closed. WhoooooOOOOO!! I've known a number of folks who've claimed supernatural occurrences of one form or another. I once thought I saw (and heard) something in my parents' house years ago, and didn't know what to believe, if it was my imagination or an underdone fragment of potato or what.

@mandude said:

I've seen some pretty crazy stuff while in sleep paralysis. I'm not going to nail it down as one thing or another, but it can be pretty dreadful . What intrigues me most about it, though, is that it's usually a fairly consistent experience from one person to the next. I, my brother, my cousin and some books I've read on it, all describe the same kind of monsters/things.

Did you start a thread on this topic months ago? I've read about the phenomenon and I understand it can be quite terrifying. Hope it's under control for ya these days.

This exact thread is here:  http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/off-topic/31/anyone-on-giantbomb-had-a-paranormal-experience/554753/?page=3 
 
Also, there's no ghosts. 

This has already been beaten to death. I can help you out like this:

99% of the users here do not believe that ghosts exist. 98% of them feel it's okay to make fun or get angry at those that do.

1% believe in it. .09% of those people are too scared to share anything because of the above statistic.

There you go. Also, if I have to hear one more fucking thing about Sleep Paralysis I will shoot myself.

@ck1nd said:

This has already been beaten to death. I can help you out like this:

99% of the users here do not believe that ghosts exist. 98% of them feel it's okay to make fun or get angry at those that do.

1% believe in it. .09% of those people are too scared to share anything because of the above statistic.

There you go. Also, if I have to hear one more fucking thing about Sleep Paralysis I will shoot myself.

Why are you so upset about sleep paralysis?

@Remedy25 said:

I personally don't believe in ghost, but sometimes when I'm about to go to sleep, I make sure my closet is firmly closed. I didn't close it one night and while I was waiting to drift off to sleep...it slowly swung open

This is the single most desperate, heart-rending articulation of repressed homosexuality I've ever read (and that's saying something, I read Ryan's blog) and it's glaringly obvious to me and everyone else here that it isn't ghosts you fear but the specter of your own sexual orientation. Let the closet swing fully open, free yourself.

I just did you in again Davis. Stay alert motherfucker, you never know when I drop these bombs on your ass. All the time.

@GenocidalKitten: Throughout my life-time I have been bullied and such due to my beliefs in ghosts and Sleep Paralysis is one of the bullying techniques many used against me. I'm not saying I'm ignorant in thinking Sleep Paralysis doesn't exist or that many of the people who "experience" things had it - I'm just tired of the nonsense surrounding the idea that since it exists, everything else is just myth and legend.

TL;DR - It's an excuse people use (not all) against me to tell me I'm wrong and that they are right.

@ck1nd said:

@GenocidalKitten: Throughout my life-time I have been bullied and such due to my beliefs in ghosts

You're like a paranormal ginger.

@stryker1121 said:

@mandude said:

I've seen some pretty crazy stuff while in sleep paralysis. I'm not going to nail it down as one thing or another, but it can be pretty dreadful . What intrigues me most about it, though, is that it's usually a fairly consistent experience from one person to the next. I, my brother, my cousin and some books I've read on it, all describe the same kind of monsters/things.

Did you start a thread on this topic months ago? I've read about the phenomenon and I understand it can be quite terrifying. Hope it's under control for ya these days.

Nah, there was a similar thread to this a few months ago, though, and there were a load of us posting about SP in it. Thanks. Strangely enough, all the stuff I see while under happens to other people.

@GenocidalKitten said:

@ck1nd said:

@GenocidalKitten: Throughout my life-time I have been bullied and such due to my beliefs in ghosts and Sleep Paralysis is one of the bullying techniques many used against me. I'm not saying I'm ignorant in thinking Sleep Paralysis doesn't exist or that many of the people who "experience" things had it - I'm just tired of the nonsense surrounding the idea that since it exists, everything else is just myth and legend.

TL;DR - It's an excuse people use (not all) against me to tell me I'm wrong and that they are right.

What type of stuff have you seen? Has it always been when you are waking up or going to sleep?

I have sleep paralysis and I've seen some truly terrifying stuff.

Go here for two of my experiences I've had. I used special adjectives and my personal need for story-telling to move it along, but the substance of both stories is what I experienced.

Honestly, I've never had an "experience" that I can readily remember when sleeping/waking. Heck, no where near that sort of activity. As I have said before, somewhere in that post, trying to explain this sort of thing to someone is like trying to tell a couple without a child what it's like to have one. You will never understand this until it happens to you, and you will come up with whatever reason you can to justify the opposite or bring yourself to their relative level. There is a reason I no longer share my true experiences with anyone (mostly in the real world) because it is an extremely judgemental situation where those who have had similar experiences tend to placate the idea or profit from it, or they try to disprove your feelings with some scientific thing because that is what they believe.

I am not going to say that the Sleep Paralysis is impossible in my predicament, however, I will say that it offends me every time someone forcefully tells me that there are no such things as "the paranormal" or that I'm an idiot for believing so. And no, I'm not referring to you. I do not mind be questioned in a professional matter.

@ck1nd: I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. How exactly are sleep paralysis and the paranormal opposed? If anything, I would say that sleep paralysis is the most convincing thing for the paranormal.

I'm not afraid of any ghosts!

@mandude: I'm not sure what you're asking with that, but I'll try my best. Sleep Paralysis is a scientific explanation, (the opposite of the paranormal) and solid fact for many, but not for all. I'm no opposed to the explanation of Sleep Paralysis, but the idea of it being the only real explanation to this sort of thing that gets to me. I know that you were not the one to berate with this fact, so I'm not targeting you in any way with my approach here. Several times in my life (many actually) my experiences have been "dis-credited" by more "intelligent" individuals and it generally always focuses on Sleep Paralysis being my reason for what I've experienced. Being humiliated and called a liar is something I am not a fan of, and I guess I have a little bit of bias towards that explanation - which can confuse some, I'm sure.

@GenocidalKitten: I experienced the second one with my Father, and the story never changed. If you knew my history with him (take no doubt in my love for him), he was one of the "bullies" that sometimes made me feel awful for expressing the experiences I had. He could never wrap his head around something that cannot be recreated, seen, or any other paranormal cliché. However, after that day and to my relief, it nearly ceased.

If you want to hear what I mean about my Father's references, that is more of a private matter and I'd rather talk in PM's rather than in an open-discussion environment. I only open this door for you because you actually seem interested (regardless of your overall belief in my experiences) and not someone who will turn on a dime to make a person feel stupid. I hope you understand.

@ck1nd said:

@mandude: I'm not sure what you're asking with that, but I'll try my best. Sleep Paralysis is a scientific explanation, (the opposite of the paranormal) and solid fact for many, but not for all. I'm no opposed to the explanation of Sleep Paralysis, but the idea of it being the only real explanation to this sort of thing that gets to me. I know that you were not the one to berate with this fact, so I'm not targeting you in any way with my approach here. Several times in my life (many actually) my experiences have been "dis-credited" by more "intelligent" individuals and it generally always focuses on Sleep Paralysis being my reason for what I've experienced. Being humiliated and called a liar is something I am not a fan of, and I guess I have a little bit of bias towards that explanation - which can confuse some, I'm sure.

As I understand it, sleep paralysis is when you find yourself awake in the middle of the night and are can't move. That's a pretty descriptive term of the experience, but not exactly scientific. If that is technically the term they use in the scientific community and it has very specific implications, then I'm not really sure what other term you could use to refer to it. Not to discredit your own experiences, but I've never heard anyone (and I've discussed it with quite a lot of people) use it in a scientific matter, or use it to explain away the mystery or paranormal from the experience. Quite the opposite in fact. Keep in mind, that it's not always used in that manner.

@mandude: I know, which is why I put in there that I have biased towards the idea. I guess I've had a run-in with the wrong crowd, this site included, and it's left a bitter taste in my mouth. I appreciate your words, though.

@Levio said:

I'm not afraid of any ghosts!

I ain't* afraid of no* ghost

yes, i believe in ghost. i have a few stories about my friend's haunted house.

first time i went there his entire family told me that the house is haunted. i'm like ok, i believe you. first time i was on the floor and my friend was on his bed half asleep. i felt a finger go into my back. i looked friend was on the bed, asked his brother if the cats were in, he said no.

a few times going into his mother's room to pet the cats you could smell cigarette smoke. the neighbors didn't smoke and friend didn't smoke in the house or outside.

my brother bought a ouija board at a place. he left it at home. i took it to my friend's house on holloween. we asked the spirits what's it's name, age and such. we asked his mother the next day about george and she said that it was the ex-owners grandpa. none of us knew about him.

I used to be a paranormal investigator (even helped form a group). I went to plenty of places where there was supposed to be 'ghosts' although I personally encountered very little, at least nothing that would sway me one way or the other in regards to the existence of ghosts.

When I was in my early teens I was obsessed with ghosts. Bought like 20+ ghost VHS tapes from a local store, only like £5 each. Became so obsessed that I started having nightmares about them. Looking back it was pretty stupid.

Maybe there was a time when I would have said yes, they might exist. But its all crap, its like all those UFO stories they dribble out on TV and the internet.

Can't explain something? Must be ghosts.