A few things have been happening to my house. Minor, though they've sparked curiousity.

Completely stable items will fall off their shelves, things are going missing and never turning up again, no matter how far and wide I look, and just yesterday my mother and I were in the house alone when a door upstairs slammed and footsteps were heard walking across the hallway.

Someone suggested to me it may be a poltergeist. She said they're sometimes connected with emotions, or something like that. Which would make sense with me. I mean, I'm teenaged, which is emotion enough, but I also haven't been having the most wonderful of times lately.

Not to mention, it all seems connected with the room that I hide away in for hours each day: while things only fall down in other parts of the house, items in this room will fall a few feet or so from where they were. Most of things gone missing were left in this room. (I'm clumsy sometimes, I admit, but it's so many things have gone missing that it's just getting ridiculous!). And the day that the door slammed, my mother and I went upstairs and found the door to this room wide open. (Which is unusual because I'm OCD about doors; I get extremely nervous if they're open, so doors in my house are typically closed at all times.)

So I was wondering; what are your veiws on what a poltergeist is? What do they do that seperates them from, say, a ghost? How is it caused? How do you get rid of it? Just talk about poltergeists.

Poltergeist is a German word meaning “noisy/rattling spirit”. Poltergeist manifestations are one of the most common paranormal events in modern homes. Some researchers believe that poltergeists are not ghosts but phenomena caused by mental disturbances. Poltergeists often appear when a certain member of the family is present. Children, adolescents and the elderly seem to be more susceptible to such phenomena. Manifestations include: moving/levitating objects (furniture being rearranged, glasses being smashed, etc.), creaks, knocks, temperature changes, pools of water appearing, etc. Poltergeists can cause a great deal of damage within the home, but there are no recorded cases of severe physical injury occurring because of them. Exorcism has little effect; the spirit merely laughs at the ceremony. Many experts believe that once an adolescent child has “grown up”, the problem disappears.

[quote name='Playback' date='Feb 5 2006, 08:45 AM' post='1049140']
A few things have been happening to my house. Minor, though they've sparked curiousity.

"Completely stable items will fall off their shelves, things are going missing and never turning up again, no matter how far and wide I look, ................"

LONECAT here,--------

I find this interesting as I have had three experiences of objects disappearing and reappearing. If this is part the Poltergeist effect and is due to the mental state of people present in the house concerned (adolescents, elderly etc.,) then it is even more urgent to research this phenomenon's causes and the implications for science, for this would be clear evidence of mind over matter! Below is a letter I have posted on other sites in the past which describes the disappearing objects I have experienced where I live :
.........................................
I live in a small attic flat far removed from the hubbub of the streets below but I have experienced quite a number of "strange phenomena" while living there.
I used to wear my Father's gold wrist-watch which he had left to me when he died in 1975. My Mother gave it to me and told me that Dad had said he wanted me to wear it. I wore it for years but always took it off at night and placed it on the bed-side table beside the alarm clock. One morning I awoke to find that the watch was not there. My first thought was that my cat Ramba might be responsable (always blame the cat first!) but I thought this hardly likely. Search as I might, I could not find the watch anywhere in the small, snug dwelling. I was sorry the watch had gone and was puzzled, to say the least, but nevertheless dismissed it from my mind. About two years after its disappearance my Mother came from England to visit me. On the morning she was due to arrive I awoke and there was the watch, lying as if nothing had ever happened to it, on my bedside table. Of course I was much surprised indeed. Shortly after my Mother's arrival she told me about how excited she was and how she had enjoyed the flight from England via JAL (or a well-known Japanese airline if you prefer) and how the flight attendant had presented her with a beautiful pair of Japanese paper slippers for her in-flight comfort. Of course, my Mother kept the slippers and showed them to me and wore them for the rest of that evening in my place. The next morning I got up before her to prepare the breakfast and heard Mum call from the bedroom, "Terry, have you got my slippers?" Well, to keep the story short, I said of course not and poor Ramba was again suspect number one. Mum said she had taken the slippers off and placed them beside the bed the night before as one might expect. That was in 1986 or thereabouts and since then the slippers have not re-appeared. However, Mum died in 1997 and about two years afterwards I was in the kitchen and had taken off my Father's watch (the same one as before) and laid it on the work-top just beside me in order to wash my hands. I dried my hands and turned to take up the watch again only to discover that it had again vanished. This time there was no cat to blame as Ramba had died the year before. To this day, neither my Mother's Japanese slippers nor my Father's watch has re-appeared though I still live in hopes as a watch that can vanish twice could just as easily reappear twice. There have been other strange occurrences in the place where I still live but all that, is, as they, say, another story... I wish you well. Lonecat

Well it looks as if nativechick1989 summed up what a poltergeist was in a nice and easy to understand package (kudos). So I will refrain from quoting anything from one of my many Encyclopedias on the subject of the paranormal.

What I will do is recommend the movie "poltergeist". The first one is pretty good and has some frightening scenes in it but it might help understanding. One thing you will have to take into account is that it is a hollywood movie so it shouldn't be taken completely literal. Stay away from the sequels, the second one is good for the comedy of it and the creepy preacher guy but rather lackluster and really doesn't expand on what a poltergeist is. The third and last movie (thank god) in the series was just absolute pure drivel and not worth the change you had to hunt in the cushions on the couch to go rent it.

I would also suggest going to a local library, bookstore or even google searching for more information.

When my ex-husband and I moved in together and things would go missing or get moved around (without either of us doing it), he always blamed his poltergeist. I thought he was joking until one day his mother told me that his 'poltergeist' would 'throw' things off of shelves in their house when he was still living there. As to how or where a poltergeist comes from, I don't know. My ex's family claims that that particular kind of activity happened while he was a young teenager. However, it did seem to stop after he moved out of the house. It seemed to move around with him wherever we moved, usually knocking things off of shelves or moving things around. It was more irritating than scary. I don't know that he's ever tried to get rid of it; he usually ignores it. He says that what usually happens is that it will seem to be dormant for a period of time and then suddenly it will start acting up again.
While most people think of ghosts as being deceased human souls, a poltergeist is more a form of energy that usually attaches to a particular person. Just my opinion.