What it would be like to be a ghost

[XenoFish]

1 hour ago, preacherman76 said:

I don’t know which theory is more scary. That I’ve heard, well, for lack of a better term, ghosts.

Or that I was suffering a delusion. 

A little imagination can go a long way. 

[preacherman76]

1 minute ago, XenoFish said:

A little imagination can go a long way. 

I’ve always considered imagination a voluntary intentional thing. Not something that tricks you. 
 

Though I suppose it’s possible. 
 

I haven’t spoken much about it here, but my UFO story also came with what seemed like a haunting that got really intense the last week before it stopped. I’ve never had anything like it before or after. Personally I don’t believe it was imagined, or hallucinated. Then again, I have no idea what it really was. 
 

I have had conformations. One from a guy who visited this site a while back who lives close to me. Guy basically told me my own story that he himself experienced. 

[XenoFish]

3 hours ago, preacherman76 said:

Not something that tricks you. 

Why not? If you've spend enough time with an interest and/or belief in something like the paranormal. Then you've got a memory archive of what a haunting is supposed to be like. An idea of what a ghost might look like. Given the right conditions, you get a 'haunting'. Just the part of the brain that make sense of the senseless. 

[openozy]

8 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/4-5-accuracy-and-inaccuracy-in-perception/#:~:text=Although our perception is very,exist or that is incorrect.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4679162/

"Despite what many people believe, memory is not a repository of past experiences but a dynamic mechanism that ensures the stability and coherence of the self across situations. In recent decades, researchers have documented the striking limitations and plasticity of memories. Today, scholars recognize that memories are reconstructive rather than reproductive. Rarely, if ever, are memories exact replicas of the past.1,2 Instead, memories are often stitched together into plausible—but not necessarily accurate—narratives based on beliefs, feelings, intuitions, guesses, and memory fragments."

So the truth of an event changes, but not by much and not that much as to dismiss it.

[Hankenhunter]

Everyone's a skeptic until they aren't. Many skeptics are now changing their minds due to their own experiences. Is it so hard to believe these "ghosts" may be from a different dimension? According to physicists it's very possible.

[+Liquid Gardens]

2 hours ago, openozy said:

So the truth of an event changes, but not by much and not that much as to dismiss it.

If that was the case then why don't we have a lot of neurologists and psychologists and relevant scientific experts clamoring for more investigation into the paranormal?  Aren't they in a way, by virtue of not arguing to any significant degree that the paranormal requires much more investigation because what people are attesting to is unexplained given the supposed reliability of perception, interpretation, and memory, kinda dismissing it?  I don't know, probably not easy to find, do these experts believe more or less than the general population in the paranormal?

[+Liquid Gardens]

8 minutes ago, Hankenhunter said:

Is it so hard to believe these "ghosts" may be from a different dimension? According to physicists it's very possible.

For that matter is it so hard to believe that ghosts are merely a mix of misinterpreted natural occurrences or perception or memory errors?  Haven't heard a sizeable number of relevant scientific experts say it's even highly improbable.

[openozy]

50 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I don't know, probably not easy to find, do these experts believe more or less than the general population in the paranormal?

I think because this is beyond their knowledge and they can't study it and get answers or acclamation. Nothing in it for them.

[Hankenhunter]

1 hour ago, Liquid Gardens said:

For that matter is it so hard to believe that ghosts are merely a mix of misinterpreted natural occurrences or perception or memory errors?  Haven't heard a sizeable number of relevant scientific experts say it's even highly improbable.

Yes

[+Liquid Gardens]

8 hours ago, Hankenhunter said:

Yes

Have you studied psychology or any of the relevant fields?  I know this is a pointless question with papa, but what is the very best instance or evidence for ghosts?  Papa's excuse that a full review of thousands of claims is necessary makes no sense, no other field that is actually true requires that.

[+Liquid Gardens]

9 hours ago, openozy said:

I think because this is beyond their knowledge and they can't study it and get answers or acclamation. Nothing in it for them.

If they could make the case you seem to be suggesting, that it makes no scientific sense that people are misinterpreting their ghost sightings, then there'd be tons in it for them, fame and money.  Ghosts existing would probably be the most important discovery in the history of mankind, so there's lots in it for them.  

[XenoFish]

 

[Piney]

4 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Have you studied psychology or any of the relevant fields?  I know this is a pointless question with papa, but what is the very best instance or evidence for ghosts?  Papa's excuse that a full review of thousands of claims is necessary makes no sense, no other field that is actually true requires that.

"Quanity and quality" can also be applied to a fertilizer pile. 

[Hankenhunter]

10 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Have you studied psychology or any of the relevant fields?  I know this is a pointless question with papa, but what is the very best instance or evidence for ghosts?  Papa's excuse that a full review of thousands of claims is necessary makes no sense, no other field that is actually true requires that.

I've dabbled in that field a little. But like many others who've changed their minds, a profound personal experience cemented it for me. Please don't ask me to recount it. I don't want the memory of it, or the departed involved sullied with amateur psychological opinions. I've already exhausted all the possible explanations and none come even close to explaining it.

Edited July 23 by Hankenhunter
Spelling

[Hankenhunter]

6 hours ago, Piney said:

"Quanity and quality" can also be applied to a fertilizer pile. 

Quality, and quantity can be can be attributed to a great many things. For someone as experienced as you to use it here in a pejorative way is frankly disappointing. 

[openozy]

10 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

If they could make the case you seem to be suggesting, that it makes no scientific sense that people are misinterpreting their ghost sightings, then there'd be tons in it for them, fame and money.  Ghosts existing would probably be the most important discovery in the history of mankind, so there's lots in it for them.  

Yes but I don't think they will ever prove anything of this.

[XenoFish]

Strange. I guess it'll take some Hollywood horror show type of experience to convince me. Guess my standards are too damn high. A strange noise, hypnagogic/hypnopompic event, pareidolia, not good enough. 

[Piney]

Just now, Hankenhunter said:

Quality, and quantity can be can be attributed to a great many things. For someone as experienced as you to use it here in a pejorative way is frankly disappointing. 

Armchair "researchers" don't impress me considering the time and expense I put in Bigfoot hunting, Ghost chasing with my first wife and chasing the YDI.

Claiming a Eastern religion you haven't put time into to someone who put his whole heart into Zen Buddhism and hybrid Buddhism-Shamanism impresses me even less. Believing things counter to that Eastern religion makes me even less impressed than that.

That's what experience taught me. 

 

[Hankenhunter]

17 minutes ago, Piney said:

Believing things counter to that Eastern religion makes me even less impressed than that.

Are you trying to say that your beliefs are more realistic than mine? That Eastern beliefs are somehow more believable? I take umbrage with that. 

[XenoFish]

The problem with absorbing all these quality, quantity and consistency of (ghost) stories. Is that you basically program your own confirmation bias. With low expectations for a haunting, etc. In others words that pattern recognition software in the brain looks for ghost and ghostly activity were there is none. Making connection to thing that don't exist. All of this of course just adds to the whole ghost story library. People want to believe in ghost and make up stories to validate a misunderstood experience. 

Not much of a difference than a person who believes themselves cursed. Where the initial thought takes hold and anything negative that happens just builds up and fuels their misguided belief. 

[the13bats]

12 hours ago, XenoFish said:

 

What fun, I forgot that pic, my DJ gear and lap top.

[the13bats]

1 hour ago, XenoFish said:

Strange. I guess it'll take some Hollywood horror show type of experience to convince me. Guess my standards are too damn high. A strange noise, hypnagogic/hypnopompic event, pareidolia, not good enough. 

Pretty much, wanna prove Bigfoot or and alien easyo, show me one, ghosts, special powers etc again show me.

 

[the13bats]

1 hour ago, Hankenhunter said:

Are you trying to say that your beliefs are more realistic than mine? That Eastern beliefs are somehow more believable? I take umbrage with that. 

Beliefs are just that beliefs,
Joc words all this better than I do but for example Fred who has never been in the woods past a family campout says he knows BF exists is one side, a cat who spent a heck of a lot of time and money specifically hunting BF comes to the conclusion BF doesn't exist is another side. (. Times those examples by countless )
My beliefs based on evidence and lack there of is BF doesn't exist.
And we can sub out BF for other belief type stuff.

 

[Piney]

1 hour ago, Hankenhunter said:

Are you trying to say that your beliefs are more realistic than mine? That Eastern beliefs are somehow more believable? I take umbrage with that. 

No, I'm trying to say if you proclaim a belief, follow it.

[+Liquid Gardens]

3 hours ago, Hankenhunter said:

I've dabbled in that field a little. But like many others who've changed their minds, a profound personal experience cemented it for me. Please don't ask me to recount it. I don't want the memory of it, or the departed involved sullied with amateur psychological opinions. I've already exhausted all the possible explanations and none come even close to explaining it.

That's totally fine, I don't want you to recount anything, but you of course are not alone in these experiences.  I've had them too, mine are equally as precious to me, but I didn't conclude there's something supernatural going on partly because I don't think I'm immune to misperceptions and embellished memory.  Emotion of course is often cited as influencing the reliability of what we remember, perceive, and experience; that's not an opinion, it's Psychology 101.