Do people really want help?

[Duck33]

It's all about tact isn't it. "Tact: the ability to get your point across without making an enemy" I forget who said that but it is something sceptics and believers should keep in mind when engaging people in forums. As a sceptic (and a reasonably polite one mostly) I still get the occasional accusation of "being mean spirited and aggressive" when the reality couldn't be further from the truth. The problem boils down to two factors

1. Communication

2. Vested interest in a belief system

On communication, typing in a forum is probably THE worst way to debate emotive topics and be sure that if there is a possibility of ambiguity in a response, it will absolutely be taken in THE worst possible light...That seems to be human nature. So, when it comes to communicating your point from either side of the fence, word choice and taking a moment to 'put in context/remove ambiguity helps.

On the second point (and this is where my sceptical colours will show) it has been my experience that while there certainly can be instances of derision and poking fun, it is not as prevalent as believers think. There will always be challenges, that's the nature of scepticism but 'prove it' is a far cry from 'you are an idiot' and I suspect if people actually went and looked for sceptical responses that were insulting someone asking a paranormal question, they'd come up far shorter on responses than they suspect. I put that down to something similar to the first issue of taking what is said in the worst light. When someone invests emotionally in a belief system, any questioning or interrogation of the belief can and often is taken as a direct attack on said individual when that was not the case....add in some memory fatigue and you have "Sceptics? worse than Hitler".

How do we change it....

Tact.

[Ealdwita]

"Tact: the ability to get your point across without making an enemy" I forget who said that..................

Isaac Newton.

[skydivingstars]

I think you're spot on about them wanting the attention. That possibly isn't always the case, but since the media infiltrates through everything else in our lives, I believe movies, tv shows and spooky stories do the same thing to humans.

I feel as though people are so interested and curious about the afterlife because we seem to have this general idea that we're immortal, though in the back of our head, we know full well that our lives will end like those who have passed before us. Death is an imminent force. Some people focus on religion to keep them afloat in life and others begin to obsess about what comes in the afterlife...if there is one.

I truly feel as though it's people trying to, not necessarily conquer, but diminish their fear of death a bit. They want to know that their spirits will go on long after it's left their bodies.

I honestly can't blame them because I'm kind of doing the same thing. My curiousity comes from a geniune interest in what could possibly be an afterlife and what a ghost even looks like, or does. I try to differentiate between my imagination and reality, what movies and books tell me versus logic.

[Occult1]

I've seen quite a lot of forum posters, not only here but elsewhere, that seemed genuine in their intent of sharing unusual experiences. Of course, some are quite convinced that what they experienced must be paranormal and will look for members that can relate to this view. I believe it is called confirmation bias.

Still, there are ''debunkers'' that insist on that their opinions must be the right one, that a mundane phenomena is all that there can be. At the end of the day, that's only what it is: an opinion based on an account by a forum poster. Oftimes there is way to verify the informations, after all we weren't there. I can only offer a theory or conjecture that I think can possibly 'explain' the situation. Why trying to push it, or should I say shove it down one's throat?

I would agree that most of these accounts can be explained by misinterpretations of natural phenomana but once I laid down my view in a post and see that it is ignored or dismissed, I leave the thread and find something else to do.

Edited September 5, 2014 by sam_comm

[Duck33]

Getting a bit OT, but I've had aura migraines on a handful of occasions. They have never involved any sort of pain, just a weird shimmering effect in my vision that goes away when I lie down in a quiet room. After a while I noticed a pattern that they tend to be set off after prolonged sessions of staring up close at a CRT screen (playing video games for hours or working at a PC with a CRT screen for hours) (thank goodness for LCD screens, I haven't had an aura migraine since CRTs went away).

In my case, it's experiences like that and things like sleep paralysis, night time hallucinations, etc. that lead me away from believing in ghosts and the paranormal when I learned they were natural occurences with natural explanations. I thus try to offer rational explanations for others when they post something I think I have an opinion on.

However, it's very much a mixed bag. Some people on these forums are simply too rude and upfront with their opinions (I admit to being guilty of such myself) by simply scorning posters who ask for an opinion or accuse them of lying or faking or being mentally ill.

But on the other hand, as Brian alluded to in the opening post, some people clearly don't actually want advise or help. Like a lot of people with strange ideas or strange experiences, they put forward their ideas in veiled language. They're simply looking for advice, asklng questions, etc. when it becomes clear after a while they have clearly made up their mind and are convinced they've had a supernatural experience and sometimes their stories become more convoluted and amazing the more they're questions. I'm reminded of someone who posted an experience here that I clearly recognised as classic sleep paralysis. When a couple of us here suggested that's what it was and thus there's nothing to worry about, the story took on a more fantastical turn. Suddenly the event went from their experience to something that happened to multiple people simultaneously, that happened multiple times, etc. People sometimes embellish their stories in order to dismiss the more prosaic explanations.

To be honest, I'm not sure that these forums are useful at all for the vast majority of people who post here. Every so often someone posts an experience and is happy when someone sensibly explains to them that their experience probably has a natural explanation that is nothing to worry about. But those are the exceptions.

Most people who post their experiences here can't or won't be helped by the regulars. Sometimes they are scorned and belittled which doesn't help or are basically accused of being mentally ill. Or they simply aren't interested in calm rational explanations as explained above. Sometimes their threads get swamped by a cacophony of "advice" that simultaneously tells them it's a guardian angel, a demon, the spirit of a loved one, the holy spirit, etc. to perform a wiccan house cleansing ritual, to burn sage and chant some thing, to call a priest and have the house blessed, to call a priest and arrange a full-on exorcism, to sacrifice a goat to Poseidon, to loudly declare to the evil spirits to leave them alone, to ignore the evil spirits as acknowledging them empowers them, that it's not evil spirits at all but a guardian angel they should welcome into their lives, etc.

Interesting you should mention the Aura migraines, I had my first one a couple of weeks ago and like you said I think it was brought on after prolonged sitting infront of the monitor. Quite disturbing, with the monochrome flashing, shadows on the periphery and tunnel vision. Sleep paralysys and hypnagogic halucinations I've lived with forever.

[Ryinrea]

I am a believer that is open minded to facts and science. Not everything, has to have a paranormal agenda too the event. However, we should report rude behavior and be respectful of said poster asking for help. For my example, I had really bad insomnia as a child and would stay up verily late into the night. One of these nights, I saw a girl in my home, so thinking it was my sister because she was around the same height, I called her name out no one answered back. I called again and no one answered back agin after that I just shut the door of my room. I was just confused by, what I saw.