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Are Ghosts Scared, Too?

GNC

GNC

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Most people would say they'd be scared of ghosts, whether they've seen them or not, but would ghosts be equally scared? If they're spirits of the dead or some other entity, showing up in someone's darkened bedroom and realising you're freaking them out must be a disturbing experience, sort of like staring into the abyss and finding it staring back. So do ghosts get spooked, is there any evidence for that?
 
Possibly they see us and think we're ghosts?
 
Mythopoeika said:
Possibly they see us and think we're ghosts?
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Yeah like those Man who Fell to Earth type stories where the people from the past look astonished and terrified as they see cars, people from the future.

Interesting watched one of the UFO docos and amid the usual crap with Giorgio they reckon that we will resemble Grey Aliens due to evolution, bigger foreheads, eyes, etc so they must have created us. But no one thought that maybe they are our future selves??

I've come over all George and must go and lie down...
 
Which George are you guys talking about?
 
one that needs a shower...well another shower
 
I have over 700 books on fortean phenomena -- and a few hundred more on folktales and legends that are close to forteana, especially ghost stories -- and I'm certain I've read about ghosts and/or time-slip people who have apparently been frightened by a modern witness. Couldn't give details, though. (I am presently and from now on taking thorough notes on everything I read, so I can point people to these things. Two ghost books down -- only a thousand to go!)

I do know that psychic researcher Andrew MacKenzie, who always struck me as thorough and careful, started out believing that time-slips and the like were examples of retrokinesis, i.e., "recordings" in the environment with no more existence than a strip of movie film. In his 1997 book Adventures in Time, however, after years of studying such cases, MacKenzie admits that it does seem that the people of the past are sometimes aware of modern witnesses. “This accords with Stephen Hawking’s statement, quoted in the Preface, that the laws of science did not distinguish between the forward and backward directions of time.” (p. 67)

Which seems to be a roundabout way of saying that time travel is possible! At least, visual information from the present is transmitted to persons in the past, which is essentially the same thing.
 
You do wonder about past people serving present people in Bold Street shops.
 
GNC said:
Most people would say they'd be scared of ghosts, whether they've seen them or not, but would ghosts be equally scared? If they're spirits of the dead or some other entity, showing up in someone's darkened bedroom and realising you're freaking them out must be a disturbing experience, sort of like staring into the abyss and finding it staring back. So do ghosts get spooked, is there any evidence for that?
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A good movie which at least partly addresses this question, but with a twist, is "The Others", 2001. Directed by Alejandro Amenábar. with Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston, Fionnula Flanagan, Alakina Mann.
 
I'd forgotten about The Others, the twist was a bit obvious when I first watched it, but it makes interesting viewing second time around. I wonder if most actual hauntings would go into that level of storytime detail, though?
 
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GNC said:
I'd forgotten about The Others, the twist was a bit obvious when I first watched it, but it makes interesting viewing second time around. I wonder if most actual hauntings would go .. QUOTE]

I doubt it. I hadn't seen it until my wife introduced me to it, and she knew the twist but didn't tell me about it.

I actually found it a bit boring until it dawned on me, and it made it more interesting.

I suppose the first realisation that you have gone from alive to a ghost could be frightening, but after that, knowing you still had awareness, consciousness, movement etc, you would then just explore the limits of your new condition. Patrick Swayze seemed to get off on the idea eventually (Ghost).

I
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Yeah, but that's still dealing with being a ghost within the knowledge of what you're supposed to be experiencing as far as pop culture has told you - if it does happen in real life, I suspect the experience would be a lot different. Still, it is interesting to speculate and fiction is good for that.
 
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GNC said:
Yeah, but that's still dealing with being a ghost within the knowledge of what you're supposed to be experiencing as far as pop culture has told you - if it does happen in real life, I suspect the experience would be a lot different. Still, it is interesting to speculate and fiction is good for that.
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Yes, I suppose we're not very well prepared for the reality of the eventuality. It would be a lot scarier to "wake up" on the other side and realise you were an otter, or a daffodil.
 
If ghosts are a product of the "Stone Tape" theory, then presumably they are not aware of us, anymore than Adele is aware of us yapping whilst recordings of her songs are playing.

If it's some form of time-travel then interaction could be feasible and possibly distressing for everyone involved. However, for all the people involved to become distressed would involve the 21st century accidental traveller (travelling backwards) desisting in looking at its smartphone for more than a second and actually observing the world around them, so maybe only distressing for the people who inadvertently travel from the past/encounter the traveller from the future...obviously I'm only thinking about travel between the present day and the past.

If I died tonight and woke up tomorrow with awareness that I was now a ghost I would be terrified. Truly, truly scared. Assuming that the ghost world doesn't provide support networks, it would take one heck of a lot of getting used to. Then, if you still have freedom of choice in the spirit world, it might become quite fun. But probably only if, like me, you relish being alone.

If I woke up unaware that I was a ghost I think I'd be baffled for a very long time.

I'm guessing that if you woke up as an otter or daffodil you probably won't know that you've just woken up as an otter or daffodil, as opposed to the human that you were before, and you'd simply accept the situation and get on with your otter/daffodil life. When I was born as a human baby, I had no distress or awareness that I was no longer a polar bear. I just got on with being a baby. A very chubby baby! (So far as I'm aware, I wasn't a polar bear in a previous life, but that's only based on my awareness. Who knows what, if anything, I was before...)
 
The one I saw, a long time ago - was in a darkened bedroom ad was within a metre or so of me - so close, too. I remember thinking my heart would probably stop if it looked up, or looked at me but something about it made me think it was utterly unaware of anyone else's presence in the room, and belonged to its own time. A bit like a snapshot. The whole time (maybe only seconds) I looked at it, it was intent on something it was doing. But I was still so scared it would look up and see me, that I turned to face the other way and hid under the bedclothes!

That said.... my husband says he saw a full body apparition, a year or so before I knew him, and although it had no face it "looked" right at him - he felt it was totally aware of his presence.

ETA: The one I saw was also seen by someone else but she didn't tell me about this for 15 years! Her account was precisely the same as mine. It was intent on doing something and she also felt terrified it might look up and see her - but it didn't. She was a house guest and we were sharing a room for a week. She was asleep when I saw it. I was asleep when she saw it. Neither of us told the other what we'd seen til many years later - out for a meal - she launched into this story and she was describing precisely what I'd also seen.
 
EyronRen said:
If ghosts are a product of the "Stone Tape" theory, then presumably they are not aware of us, anymore than Adele is aware of us yapping whilst recordings of her songs are playing.

If it's some form of time-travel then interaction could be feasible and possibly distressing for everyone involved. However, for all the people involved to become distressed would involve the 21st century accidental traveller (travelling backwards) desisting in looking at its smartphone for more than a second and actually observing the world around them, so maybe only distressing for the people who inadvertently travel from the past/encounter the traveller from the future...obviously I'm only thinking about travel between the present day and the past.

If I died tonight and woke up tomorrow with awareness that I was now a ghost I would be terrified. Truly, truly scared. Assuming that the ghost world doesn't provide support networks, it would take one heck of a lot of getting used to. Then, if you still have freedom of choice in the spirit world, it might become quite fun. But probably only if, like me, you relish being alone.

If I woke up unaware that I was a ghost I think I'd be baffled for a very long time.

I'm guessing that if you woke up as an otter or daffodil you probably won't know that you've just woken up as an otter or daffodil, as opposed to the human that you were before, and you'd simply accept the situation and get on with your otter/daffodil life. When I was born as a human baby, I had no distress or awareness that I was no longer a polar bear. I just got on with being a baby. A very chubby baby! (So far as I'm aware, I wasn't a polar bear in a previous life, but that's only based on my awareness. Who knows what, if anything, I was before...)
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I'm not too sure that everybody has no awareness of a previous life, even if they don't know what that previous life was. My wife swears black and blue that when, as a baby, she first woke up in an incubator, she had a Charlie Drake moment of "What am I DOIN' here?"

She is a sensitive, as a kid she had a nightmare about a train accident at the adjacent train station that she knew nothing about until she researched the nightmare many years later, and it matched her dream exactly.
 
EyronRen said:
If ghosts are a product of the "Stone Tape" theory, then presumably they are not aware of us, anymore than Adele is aware of us yapping whilst recordings of her songs are playing.

If it's some form of time-travel then interaction could be feasible and possibly distressing for everyone involved. However, for all the people involved to become distressed would involve the 21st century accidental traveller (travelling backwards) desisting in looking at its smartphone for more than a second and actually observing the world around them, so maybe only distressing for the people who inadvertently travel from the past/encounter the traveller from the future...obviously I'm only thinking about travel between the present day and the past.

If I died tonight and woke up tomorrow with awareness that I was now a ghost I would be terrified. Truly, truly scared. Assuming that the ghost world doesn't provide support networks, it would take one heck of a lot of getting used to. Then, if you still have freedom of choice in the spirit world, it might become quite fun. But probably only if, like me, you relish being alone.

If I woke up unaware that I was a ghost I think I'd be baffled for a very long time.

I'm guessing that if you woke up as an otter or daffodil you probably won't know that you've just woken up as an otter or daffodil, as opposed to the human that you were before, and you'd simply accept the situation and get on with your otter/daffodil life. When I was born as a human baby, I had no distress or awareness that I was no longer a polar bear. I just got on with being a baby. A very chubby baby! (So far as I'm aware, I wasn't a polar bear in a previous life, but that's only based on my awareness. Who knows what, if anything, I was before...)
Click to expand...

For me, sadly, I'm gravitating slowly towards the Stone Tape theory. Sadly because I would love to believe/know that once we conk out in this world there is another, and would also love to believe that time travel will one day be possible.

But "ghosts" are traditionally seen as having the clothing and mannerisms of the past, and not interacting with their observers. Stone tape.

On the other hand, "mysterious entities" from the future (they'd have to be from the future as TT hasn't (officially) been invented yet) .. if at all visible in this time .. would, theoretically, be very averse to interacting with this time-frame, because of the paradoxes and conundrums this could cause. In other words, visitors from the future would likely be 2-way holographic, rather than physical, so as to be risk-averse.

I remember reading a short story, author forgotten, where a "time-traveller" stepped out of his pod at a time when only small crawly things comprised land-life on earth. He felt something squish underfoot, and went back where he came from ... to find it horrendously different because of what he'd squished.
 
Doc said:
For me, sadly, I'm gravitating slowly towards the Stone Tape theory. Sadly because I would love to believe/know that once we conk out in this world there is another, and would also love to believe that time travel will one day be possible.

But "ghosts" are traditionally seen as having the clothing and mannerisms of the past, and not interacting with their observers. Stone tape.

On the other hand, "mysterious entities" from the future (they'd have to be from the future as TT hasn't (officially) been invented yet) .. if at all visible in this time .. would, theoretically, be very averse to interacting with this time-frame, because of the paradoxes and conundrums this could cause. In other words, visitors from the future would likely be 2-way holographic, rather than physical, so as to be risk-averse.

I remember reading a short story, author forgotten, where a "time-traveller" stepped out of his pod at a time when only small crawly things comprised land-life on earth. He felt something squish underfoot, and went back where he came from ... to find it horrendously different because of what he'd squished.
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My dad - usually a total sceptic and disbeliever in anything - when I told him the next day what I'd seen, said something that I'd now recognise as a Stone Tapes theory. I was stunned he believed me. And felt this was the only 'logical' explanation someone like him could offer.

Looking back, I suspect what convinced him was I described the man as sitting on a chair (which I couldn't see - only the figure) but it was hovering several foot in the air. And as my dad, he knew I had no way of knowing, he'd remodelled that part of the house in the 1950s, before I was born. And the original floor of that room was about three foot higher than the only floor I'd ever known... The interior of the entire room was pure 1950s... no original doorways, windows, cornicing, or any clue that the room had once stood several feet higher. The whole back of the house had pretty well fallen down and been rebuilt.
 
Doc said:
For me, sadly, I'm gravitating slowly towards the Stone Tape theory. Sadly because I would love to believe/know that once we conk out in this world there is another, and would also love to believe that time travel will one day be possible.

But "ghosts" are traditionally seen as having the clothing and mannerisms of the past, and not interacting with their observers. Stone tape.

On the other hand, "mysterious entities" from the future (they'd have to be from the future as TT hasn't (officially) been invented yet) .. if at all visible in this time .. would, theoretically, be very averse to interacting with this time-frame, because of the paradoxes and conundrums this could cause. In other words, visitors from the future would likely be 2-way holographic, rather than physical, so as to be risk-averse.

I remember reading a short story, author forgotten, where a "time-traveller" stepped out of his pod at a time when only small crawly things comprised land-life on earth. He felt something squish underfoot, and went back where he came from ... to find it horrendously different because of what he'd squished.
Click to expand...
 
One of the earliest questions that SPR investigated was to do with the apparent fact that ghosts have clothes (Eleanor Sidgwick?) Maybe ghosts can come from both stone tape and awareness. The same with humans, perhaps some remember a time before and others can't. Or possibly didn't have a time before; there is that idea about meeting children who have old souls.
GhostInTheMachine said:
Looking back, I suspect what convinced him was I described the man as sitting on a chair (which I couldn't see - only the figure) but it was hovering several foot in the air. And as my dad, he knew I had no way of knowing, he'd remodelled that part of the house in the 1950s, before I was born. And the original floor of that room was about three foot higher than the only floor I'd ever known... The interior of the entire room was pure 1950s... no original doorways, windows, cornicing, or any clue that the room had once stood several feet higher. The whole back of the house had pretty well fallen down and been rebuilt.
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My favourite (read: the one that frightened me and almost convinced me) is the story of the chap who saw a Roman legion walking, but only from the knees up, because the old Roman road was lower than the ground now. In York (a place saturated in ghosts, I think) I seem to recall.
 
I remember reading a short story, author forgotten, where a "time-traveller" stepped out of his pod at a time when only small crawly things comprised land-life on earth. He felt something squish underfoot, and went back where he came from ... to find it horrendously different because of what he'd squished.

The Simpsons used that idea in one of their Treehouse of Horrors episodes. H.G. Wells' The Time Machine terrified me when I first read and then saw a movie of it.
 
I think the short story you're remembering is The Time Machine by Ray Bradbury? The traveller accidentally kills a butterfly when he goes on an organised dinosaur hunting trip. We read it at school and I've always remembered it, even after all these years. :(
 
Maviself said:
I think the short story you're remembering is The Time Machine by Ray Bradbury? The traveller accidentally kills a butterfly when he goes on an organised dinosaur hunting trip. We read it at school and I've always remembered it, even after all these years. :(
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A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury.
 
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This is why I love this site so much ..
 
Actually, considering what happens at the end of The Stone Tape, I hope it isn't true... something's watching and waiting, something immeasurably ancient...
 
GNC said:
something immeasurably ancient...
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That is a terrifying expression and idea. Cthulhu is "immeasurably ancient".

It brings the goosebumps to me in the same way this bit from War of the Worlds does:

"...And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us…”

(random add on: as I am apparently a Great Old One, can I be Mordiggian?)
 
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I must have been unintentionally influenced by Herbert George! It's a good word, "immeasurably"...
 
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