Hi, has anyone ever had a ghostly experience or paranormal experience that they later found out (through evidence or whatever) wasn't real. Like you made a mistake (i.e. someone was in the house with you at the time when you though no one was there, or it was a strange animal making strange noises in the surrounding area that you didn't know was there), or real a scientific article that explained what was really happening, etc.
My experience. Lots of times, I've felt like something was in the room with me when there was no one else in the room. Then I read up on Michael Persinger and his concept of Sensed Presence.
"A great deal of our understanding of the sense of self is derived from the understanding of an experience called the sensed presence. In its simplest form, it appears as a feeling that there is someone or some conscious ‘ thing', an energy or a presence in the room with you even though you know you're by yourself. It can also manifest as a feeling that you are ‘not alone' or just ‘being watched.'"
"Our interpretation of this experience relies on the fact that humans have two senses of self. Left hemispheric and right hemispheric. It also relies on the idea that the dominant sense of self in normal individuals is the left hemispheric (linguistic) sense of self. We experience its dominance in our lives every second as we experience our minds generating a constant stream of inner dialog. The subordinate sense of self, on the right in normal individuals, is active during almost all cognitive processes, but it acts to subserve the linguistic, dominant sense of self. The right hemispheric self and phenomenology are only outside our awareness whenever we are thinking in words, They do not stop. The sensed presence happens when the right hemispheric sense of self falls out of phase with the left hemispheric self. The right ‘self' is experienced as an external presence. Although there are reports of partial OBEs in which a person experiences themselves as being in two places at once, it is much more common for a person to feel that the sensed presence is not themselves at all, but an outside, ego-alien, being. The two hemispheres can act independently, as shown in ‘split brain' studies, giving the person a partitioned awareness. The sensed presence might be likened to a temporary split brain, but limited to its senses of self (Persinger, 1993)."
Both these quotes were from http://www.shaktitechnology.com/sp.htm
Other sites with interesting information http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Persinger
Also, look up Sensed Presence or Michael Persinger on google.
Note, this thread isn't about debunking peoples experiences that they've written about on UM. I know people who have had very real experiences. I'm just curious about the occasional mix-ups that have occured from time to time. I just started this thread becuase I've never had a paranormal experience so sometimes it (sadly) feels like I don't have much to contribute here. I'm just interested in people's thoughts.
Full Version: ghostly & paranormal experiences that weren't
It happens. My mom and her friend were going to prank us by knocking on the walls and stuff when just my friend and I were here. If they had, I likely wouldn't have thought to look outside. >.>
Onetime I was in the woods alone and I saw gleaming eyes and I ran and freaked out, and later like the outdoorsman I am I figured out it was a coyote.
I once woke up in the night to see a huge black shape standing a few feet from my bed. The shock promptly jolted me into full consciousness and I quickly realised that what I had blurrily seen was not a huge black shape a few feet from my bed, but a feather poking out of my pillow very close to my eye. Don't feel that you have nothing to contribute just because you've no supernatural experiences. I've had a few odd experiences, but nothing that couldn't have a non-supernatural explanation. But like you, I'm fascinated by the topics on these boards!
My family used to hear someone tapping on the window in the living room at night. They would send me out trying to find out who it was.
Then late one night, I was sitting in the living room watching the fish in the fish tank. These were goldfish that my son had won at a fair 7 years before. They were as big as my hand. Anyway, I watched the fish go to the bottom of the tank and pick up a rock in it's mouth and spit it at the side of the tank, effectively making the tapping on glass sound.
This is an awesome thread!!!!
Then late one night, I was sitting in the living room watching the fish in the fish tank. These were goldfish that my son had won at a fair 7 years before. They were as big as my hand. Anyway, I watched the fish go to the bottom of the tank and pick up a rock in it's mouth and spit it at the side of the tank, effectively making the tapping on glass sound.
This is an awesome thread!!!!
QUOTE (Jennie 1 @ May 6 2008, 04:44 PM) 
My family used to hear someone tapping on the window in the living room at night. They would send me out trying to find out who it was.
Then late one night, I was sitting in the living room watching the fish in the fish tank. These were goldfish that my son had won at a fair 7 years before. They were as big as my hand. Anyway, I watched the fish go to the bottom of the tank and pick up a rock in it's mouth and spit it at the side of the tank, effectively making the tapping on glass sound.
This is an awesome thread!!!!
Then late one night, I was sitting in the living room watching the fish in the fish tank. These were goldfish that my son had won at a fair 7 years before. They were as big as my hand. Anyway, I watched the fish go to the bottom of the tank and pick up a rock in it's mouth and spit it at the side of the tank, effectively making the tapping on glass sound.
This is an awesome thread!!!!
Thanks, Jennie. I worried this might become a controversial thread, as it might be seen as a skeptics thread or a 'paranormal is not real' thread--which this thread is most definitely not. I stand by everyone's experiences on UM, I'm just curious about the occasional mistakes that get made, especially when your home alone, late at night, watching a scary movie, and you just heard a tapping on your window...
And Atana, my sympathies for you not having many paranormal experiences either. I guess I'm not destined to have them either. Bummer. I vicariously get my paranormal fix though others on this board. So, thanks everyone here.
I went to a cemetery and checked out a grave/monument that supposedly had a "heartbeat" if you held your hand against it for a few minutes. It was rainy, and I noticed the top portion of the monument rocked slightly because of the water moving along the seams. If it had been dry or dark, you would have never noticed the imperceptible movement of the stone. This was something my Aunt had read about in a paranormal ghost-story book about haunted places. She was pretty bummed, but I was pretty self satisfied I guess.
This is a cool thread 
We've got these dome shaped security cameras at work [in which we have a pretty cool poltergeist] and one day i was looking at the monitor, and this swirling mist appeared on one of them and them went, and then it did it again, so i got my boss [who is a paranormal investigator] and he was like WTF! so we ran to the camera and it turned out that the rook was leaking and the water droplets had run over the dome/lens so it looked like swirling mist. FUN!
Also, this other time, i woke up in the middle of the night to these two shadow figures moving around my wall, like waving long sticks and moving back and forth, it was so freaky, and i was so scared i closed my eyes and hid under my bed sheets till morning. When i got up, i looked over the security footage from the cameras i have outside my house, and my porch light had lit up, and it had cast the shadows of two people who were stealing my car onto my bedroom wall - the long stick things being crowbars. Not so funny when my realised my car was gone, haha
We've got these dome shaped security cameras at work [in which we have a pretty cool poltergeist] and one day i was looking at the monitor, and this swirling mist appeared on one of them and them went, and then it did it again, so i got my boss [who is a paranormal investigator] and he was like WTF! so we ran to the camera and it turned out that the rook was leaking and the water droplets had run over the dome/lens so it looked like swirling mist. FUN!
Also, this other time, i woke up in the middle of the night to these two shadow figures moving around my wall, like waving long sticks and moving back and forth, it was so freaky, and i was so scared i closed my eyes and hid under my bed sheets till morning. When i got up, i looked over the security footage from the cameras i have outside my house, and my porch light had lit up, and it had cast the shadows of two people who were stealing my car onto my bedroom wall - the long stick things being crowbars. Not so funny when my realised my car was gone, haha
QUOTE (Atana @ May 5 2008, 01:49 PM)
I once woke up in the night to see a huge black shape standing a few feet from my bed. The shock promptly jolted me into full consciousness and I quickly realised that what I had blurrily seen was not a huge black shape a few feet from my bed, but a feather poking out of my pillow very close to my eye. Don't feel that you have nothing to contribute just because you've no supernatural experiences. I've had a few odd experiences, but nothing that couldn't have a non-supernatural explanation. But like you, I'm fascinated by the topics on these boards!
About a month ago I was laying on my bed and it wasn't all the way dark but I opened my eyes just for a second and I saw a black thing crawling towards my face on my white pillow which looked gray from it being kind of dark. and then I jumped out of bed and turned on the light and saw nothing. but then when i turned my pillow over a huge spider crawled out from under it!!!!
I almost cried when I had to kill it and couldn't get back to sleep for about an hour from the traumatic experience.
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