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Anyone Seen A Ghost?

This isn't so much as seeng a ghost, as hearing one:

In summer 2006, I was 20 years old & a student at Swansea University - I moved into a flat with a friend. We moved in in June and both spent the summer living & working i town during the holidays.

I've always had an interest in fortean things but often this has taken a back seat in my life - I had a very busy social life & ghosts were the furthest thing from my mind when we moved in.

My flat mate had this boyfriend (who i never thought much of to be honest) and spent a lot of time round his, she also worked in a bar in the evenings so I was frequently alone in this flat more than I initially thought I would be

At night i started to hear this tapping sound coming from the bathroom - it scared me a bit and was a regular tapping sound (tap, nothing, tap, nothing). I remember getting out of bed to check there was no intruder & double check the front door & all windows were locked (which they always were of course). I realised the sound was the toilet roll holder tapping the wall, which was also my bedroom wall on the other side and there was no draught. I ended up sleeping with the radio on a low volume every night my flat mate wasn't there so I didn't feel alone and could drift off to late night love songs instead!

One evening, my flat mate was at work & i was chatting to a friend on my mobile in the living room. Suddenly I heard the sound of running water and asked my friend to stay on the phone whilst i checked it out. I looked round the bathroom door & the bath taps were on full force gushing water! As i stood there peeking round the door, the flow of water eased and then stopped. This happened within seconds and i was gabbling on the phone to my friend 'omg the taps are on what's happening' panic - when i didn't hear her voice, i looked at the phone and the call had ended (the phone was on but there was no call). This scared me as i didn't end the call and she was remaining on the line as moral support. Ended up waiting on the sofa for my flat mate to get home!

And the thing that freaked me out the most - again I was alone in the flat one evening & was brushing my teeth in the bathroom. As i was brushing my teeth, i heard a very clear male voice say 'hello' right in my ear. It was almost inside my ear (if that makes sense) and I was absolutely certain it was not my consciousness. Well i spat my toothpaste out and tore out of the bathroom like a shot! I considered running outside to a friend's but it was late & thinking quickly i decided tearing down round the streets at night in my pyjamas was probably less safe than just staying put and hiding under the duvet! The voice seemed perfectly friendly it just scared me a lot!

Nothing else really happened that I remember - both me and my flatmate were busy & i spent a lot of time either out with friends clubbing etc or round their houses, tried to avoid being there alone - we both moved out when the tenancy came to an end the following year

Activity seemed to centre around the bathroom, nothing really happened in the other rooms (was a 2 bedroom flat on the first floor)

I had a recent experience where something called my name at work. It is genuinely astonishing when it happens. Great account btw!
 
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Good for you, it seems like a demon picked up on your loneliness and was hoping to use that to worm its way into your head but you were savvy enough to keep your guard up..:)
A classic example of demonic probing is when Jesus told his followers "Satan wanted to sift you but I blocked him".

Below: a nice pic of Satan in Gibson's "The Passion" doing what he does, sifting the minds of us all looking for character flaws and weaknesses that he can exploit to use against us; Shakespeare's Macbeth called him "The common enemy of man"..

View attachment 14347

There is way too emphasis on everything being 'demon"- related in Forteana these days, which I find particularly sad.

There's a lot of us that don't subscribe to this Christian belief at all. As I've said before if you compare American ghost story podcasts to British ghost story podcasts you will find America has far more "Demonic" stories than the British particularly in Bible-belt areas.

These "demonic" hauntings are always worse than a regular haunting and are never helped by some sort of preacher trying to do a half-arsed exorcism which freaks out the haunted victims more.

Non-Christians just don't seem to get the level of activity that Christians do and I wonder why?
 
Don't forget the biggest horror movie franchise of recent years has been The Conjuring and its spin-offs, which promotes the "psychic investigators" the Warrens who were obsessed with demons being behind everything. The Warrens are not to be trusted, IMO.
 
Good for you, it seems like a demon picked up on your loneliness and was hoping to use that to worm its way into your head but you were savvy enough to keep your guard up..:)
A classic example of demonic probing is when Jesus told his followers "Satan wanted to sift you but I blocked him".

Below: a nice pic of Satan in Gibson's "The Passion" doing what he does, sifting the minds of us all looking for character flaws and weaknesses that he can exploit to use against us; Shakespeare's Macbeth called him "The common enemy of man"..

View attachment 14347
Satan's wearing a particularly attractive shade of lipstick.
 
There is way too emphasis on everything being 'demon"- related in Forteana these days, which I find particularly sad.
There's a lot of us that don't subscribe to this Christian belief at all...

It's not just a Christian thing, as "demons" have been in just about every belief system since the world began..:)
Anyway the words "demons" "and "Satan" are very oldfashioned, so perhaps we should regard them simply as a mass of naturally-occurring bad vibes or "negative energy" sloshing around the earth in the same way as flu germs do, and hope we don't catch some of it..:)
 
It's not just a Christian thing, as "demons" have been in just about every belief system since the world began..:)
Anyway the words "demons" "and "Satan" are very oldfashioned, so perhaps we should regard them simply as a mass of naturally-occurring bad vibes or "negative energy" sloshing around the earth in the same way as flu germs do, and hope we don't catch some of it..:)

Yeah but you've just changed your tune suddenly.

You don't have to emphasize everything with a Smillie face, (I've never understood why Christians posters need to do this here every time - like we've not seen it before, a million times.)

Not convinced by your sudden hokey change. You were full-on "demons" a couple of posts ago.
 
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There is way too emphasis on everything being 'demon"- related in Forteana these days, which I find particularly sad.

There's a lot of us that don't subscribe to this Christian belief at all. As I've said before if you compare American ghost story podcasts to British ghost story podcasts you will find America has far more "Demonic" stories than the British particularly in Bible-belt areas.

These "demonic" hauntings are always worse than a regular haunting and are never helped by some sort of preacher trying to do a half-arsed exorcism which freaks out the haunted victims more.

Non-Christians just don't seem to get the level of activity that Christians do and I wonder why?
Somehow, these demons seems to be catholic in the other dimension and needs a catholic cleansing.
I wonder what they were before christianity?
 
You don't have to emphasize everything with a Smillie face, (I've never understood why Christians posters need to do this here every time - like we've not seen it before, a million times.)
Not convinced by your sudden hokey change. You were full-on "demons" a couple of posts ago.

1- I never said I'm a Christian did I..:)
2- The word "demons" is just a short convenient way of saying "spiritual pollution/bad vibes/negative energy"
A good analogy is in the film "Forbidden Planet", where the invisible monster is born from the dark subconscious mind of Dr. Morbius-

forbid-invis_zps18697190.jpg
 
Somehow, these demons seems to be catholic in the other dimension and needs a catholic cleansing. I wonder what they were before christianity?

Perhaps they've always existed as "malevolent spiritual parasites", invisible life-forms that seek to implant themselves in human minds so that they can bend the will of the victim to their own; using him/her as a ventriloquists dummy to spout nasty stuff?
 
I came across this fascinating piece below on the web which could explain that some ghosts might just be hallucinations if our eyesight is a bit wonky-

Understanding Charles Bonnet syndrome
CBS tends to begin in the weeks and months following your sight getting worse.
..When you lose your sight your brain doesn’t receive as much information and fills in these gaps by releasing new fantasy pictures, patterns or old pictures that it has stored.
The hallucinations caused by CBS can appear in lots of ways including:
simple shapes and dots of colours
detailed pictures of people, animals, landscapes and buildings.

https://www.rnib.org.uk/eye-health/eye-conditions/charles-bonnet-syndrome-cbs
 
I came across this fascinating piece below on the web which could explain that some ghosts might just be hallucinations if our eyesight is a bit wonky-

Understanding Charles Bonnet syndrome
CBS tends to begin in the weeks and months following your sight getting worse.
..When you lose your sight your brain doesn’t receive as much information and fills in these gaps by releasing new fantasy pictures, patterns or old pictures that it has stored.
The hallucinations caused by CBS can appear in lots of ways including:
simple shapes and dots of colours
detailed pictures of people, animals, landscapes and buildings.

https://www.rnib.org.uk/eye-health/eye-conditions/charles-bonnet-syndrome-cbs

Yup, we have a thread on this fascinating syndrome.

My personal suspicion is that many apparently paranormal phenomena are actually products of our own overworked brains. Sometimes it's due to interaction with the environment, as when low-frequency sounds make our eyeballs vibrate or summat.

There are also brain conditions such as epilepsy which can cause feelings of being watched or 'not alone' and so on.

Charles Bonnet syndrome fits in well here!
 
My personal suspicion is that many apparently paranormal phenomena are actually products of our own overworked brains..

Yes the brain can be easily fooled especially when it's tired, or if the lighting is dark or dim.
For example on a night bike ride I once pedalled up a hill in the pitch black countryside and as I crested the top I was startled to see a vertical string of red lights on the road a hundred yards in front of me, and I thought "Oh great, I'm about to be abducted by aliens" until I realised it was only the tall Waltham TV mast 11 miles away, because my brain had simply lost it's ability to judge distance and perspective.

And there are plenty of optical illusions on the net like the ones below, our eyes/brain are fooled into telling us that the blue lines in the top one are horizontal, and that the snaky one is writhing..:)

illusion-lines.jpg



illusion-A800.jpg
 
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Back in the Eighties (?) l was on patrol in my Panda car when l spotted a column of smoke rising from a road about a mile away. l headed that way to investigate. Peering in that direction it became apparent that there was a car on the carriageway, and that it was well alight. People were walking away from it and toward me, though initially my attention was obviously on the burning car.

As l drew nearer, l saw that the men striding away from the conflagration were Cromwellian soldiers of the Civil War! l’m talking pikes, buff leather jackets, muskets, “Twelve Apostles” bandoliers, the works! My first thought was, “Fuck! l’ve gone through a time warp!

My second - and as it turned out more accurate, though prosaic - thought was, “A bunch of blokes en route to a Sealed Knot reenactment have experienced an unfortunate car fire”.

Made for an interesting shift, though.

maximus otter

My worser half works as an historical interpreter, so some days is a Roman, some days a Viking, etc. A couple of years back, he was about to start work so dressed in full Roman gear, when he heard a car crash on a nearby road. He runs out of work, without thinking, as he had done First Aid training so went to help. There was one man injured, not too badly, but obviously in shock. It was only afterwards he realised what that must have looked like to the man - it was a foggy morning, as well... a Roman soldier coming out of the mist to be his saviour til the emergency services got there.

Turned out the injured man was a vicar... on his way to a funeral.
 
Talking of which mum and I might have ended up as a ghostly legend. We went to the Jane Austen Festival in Bath and we dressed up. When we have finished one activity it was starting to ran and we were some distance from our hotel. We tried for cabs but none were available. As we continued walking we found a man with a horse and carriage for hire. We didn’t half get some double takes!
No-one gives you a second glance in York. You think nothing of standing at a pedestrian crossing with a Roman soldier or a Viking. Friend of mine did Anglo Saxon and 18thC living history, and she'd often walk round town in her 18thC cloak, in winter, as it was warmer than modern clothes. I walked round with her and no-one gave her a second glance. Only in York, I think...
 
You could possibly get away with weird dress in London too. You see all sort of strange things there.
 
Not convinced by your sudden hokey change. You were full-on "demons" a couple of posts ago.

Hmm.. aren’t demons full of negative energy? So in a way... kind of the same thing... a technicality... a word, really.

We don’t want to admit that we, ourselves, are to blame, so we blame something external? Does it matter if the word is ‘demon’ or if we use the words— ‘negative energy’? Once we peel away the layers, it is not religious or cosmic. We are simply ignoring responsibility for our own negative influences on the world.
 
Perhaps they've always existed as "malevolent spiritual parasites", invisible life-forms that seek to implant themselves in human minds so that they can bend the will of the victim to their own; using him/her as a ventriloquists dummy to spout nasty stuff?

Or we simply disasociate from our own negative internal dialogue and motivations by finding something else to blame.
 
Don't forget the biggest horror movie franchise of recent years has been The Conjuring and its spin-offs, which promotes the "psychic investigators" the Warrens who were obsessed with demons being behind everything. The Warrens are not to be trusted, IMO.
Popular culture has a huge impact on how people perceive the world. I don't have a TV and am fascinated and sometimes disgusted by the unreasoning ideas and assumptions that take hold in groups of people I become acquainted with. Every so often, I'm in a situation where I watch TV for an evening or two, and always find it interesting which things have become acceptable tropes in TV land shows and commercials. For me, it's like being a tourist.
 
Sometimes you can see one but not realise what's happened until later. So how do you know you haven't? ;)

'Afterward' is a short story by American writer Edith Wharton on this very subject. If you don't know the work I can recommend it, but PLEASE don't look it up first or you'll spoil the fun for yourself! The denouement is frankly terrifying.
rr
This is a brilliant story! One of my favorites. Interestingly, I think, is that the premise extends to other experiences, in that it isn't until later that you realize how significant an apparently mundane occurrence actually is.
 
Also had a nice experience there - there was a lad i was a bit infatuated with, sometimes he would stay...sometimes not, it wasn't a relationship, but my emotions were all over the place. This had been going on for months and i got that draining feeling whenever i thought about him, a heaviness & longing. One morning in this flat, i woke up and felt - fantastic is the only way i can describe it. I felt light and free, couldn't figure out why i felt so new. And then i realised i couldn't feel his energy around me anymore, he was gone from my being and i didn't miss him. It happened over night, and was one of the most refreshing things i've felt, a sense of being new and whole.

This si fascinating stuff - more so than the ghost bit!

Sometimes when we don't acknowledge or understand our own emotions then they tend to manifest in terms of bodly sensations. (It certainly happens to me this way, at least). It sounds as though your feelings towards this man were both deep and conflicted (`all over the place`) and perhaps you weren't letting yourself feel them outright. Instead you just felt `drained ``and `heavy`.

Then one night your subconscious chewed the whole thing over as your body was relaxed and your conscious mind out to lunch. And it thought: `Nah! The cake's not worth the candle!`

Little wonder that you felt such relief after having made this decision: your body had been carrying so much tension in keeping those unwanted emotions at bay!

I believe that the popular term for this process is `falling out of love`.

What a tribute to that young man it all was though! To have his `energy` around someone else and to evoke `longing`. He must have really had something - and would be feeling ten foot tall if he knew about this - even though you dumped him!
 
This si fascinating stuff - more so than the ghost bit!

Sometimes when we don't acknowledge or understand our own emotions then they tend to manifest in terms of bodly sensations. (It certainly happens to me this way, at least). It sounds as though your feelings towards this man were both deep and conflicted (`all over the place`) and perhaps you weren't letting yourself feel them outright. Instead you just felt `drained ``and `heavy`.

Then one night your subconscious chewed the whole thing over as your body was relaxed and your conscious mind out to lunch. And it thought: `Nah! The cake's not worth the candle!`

Little wonder that you felt such relief after having made this decision: your body had been carrying so much tension in keeping those unwanted emotions at bay!

I believe that the popular term for this process is `falling out of love`.

What a tribute to that young man it all was though! To have his `energy` around someone else and to evoke `longing`. He must have really had something - and would be feeling ten foot tall if he knew about this - even though you dumped him!
What kind words, thank you - never really thought about it that way before! I never did let myself feel those feelings fully because he wasn't really my boyfriend (i just wanted him to be!), it was just the suddenness of losing those feelings - went from barely being able to be in the same room as him without crying & bringing the drama and/or getting with him to waking up one day feeling totally cleansed of the whole thing. So you're probably right - my uncounscious mind decided it was his loss (it really was!)
 
I have seen what I can only explain as an animal spirit ----I was sitting in my front room one night and glancing across to
the kitchen I distinctly saw a black cat walk from one end of it to the other .
I didn't think anything of it at first , (my cat is black and approximately the same size ),but when I called his name and he didn't make his usual cat noises I started to worry .
I don't know what made me look to the side then ,to the chair next to me but I was startled to find my cat curled up in his favourite spot ,asleep ,where he'd been all the while .For a while my brain refused to take in the info ,and then ,reluctantly ,I decided to head into the kitchen to investigate the other cat
Needless to say ,there wasn't any cat there and no sign that it had ever been there I searched the whole flat ,but drew a complete blank ---all the windows and doors were shut . I still can't explain what I saw ,but it looked exactly like a living ,breathing 3d animal
 
I have seen what I can only explain as an animal spirit ----I was sitting in my front room one night and glancing across to
the kitchen I distinctly saw a black cat walk from one end of it to the other .
I didn't think anything of it at first , (my cat is black and approximately the same size ),but when I called his name and he didn't make his usual cat noises I started to worry .
I don't know what made me look to the side then ,to the chair next to me but I was startled to find my cat curled up in his favourite spot ,asleep ,where he'd been all the while .For a while my brain refused to take in the info ,and then ,reluctantly ,I decided to head into the kitchen to investigate the other cat
Needless to say ,there wasn't any cat there and no sign that it had ever been there I searched the whole flat ,but drew a complete blank ---all the windows and doors were shut . I still can't explain what I saw ,but it looked exactly like a living ,breathing 3d animal
Was going to say was it definitely a cat (as i tend to think everything i see out of the corner of my eye is my cat when it isn't!), however as you watched it walk across the room then it must have been, very interesting
 
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