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Buzzfeed: 14 Former Skeptics Who Turned Into Paranormal Believers After A Freaky Experience

CharmerKamelion said:
Yes, I suppose that's true. It is hard for a kid to be 'a skeptic'. Most people don't arrive at a point of view on 'things like that' until they get a bit older and have a bit of life experience under their belt. Young kids are generally inclined to believe stuff. Having said that, even when I was very young I know I never fell for all that Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy crap - but all the presents/ chocolate eggs/sixpences under the pillow were very welcome nevertheless :wink2:
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Yes. Believe in stories they've heard (the couple in the car with the hooked hand murderer scared the crap out of me) or misinterpret what they have seen.
 
merricat said:
It’s also interesting how many people have experienced such things yet still double down rejecting/dismissing the reality of them. If we are alone, and often sometimes even in company, the terror of witnessing something inexplicable might be easier to assign to a brain glitch or imagination. It’s a tidy way of continuing on as normal.
Me?
I just take it all in my stride :chuckle:……..
Weird presence or time slip in the morning, trip to Tesco in the afternoon…
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Visiting Tesco has to be one of the weirdest experiences on it's own.
 
Spookdaddy said:
Yep. I'm trying to work out if I can define a personal standpoint on this.

I think it would be something along the lines that in individual conversation, the appeal to prior scepticism can have meaning - but in presentation, when packaged for general consumption, it's just another cliché.
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My take on this is that our personal beliefs don't matter and need have no external logic.

We are only monkeys who have no idea what is beyond our experience of what, in our modern world, passes for bananas and banyan trees.

Monkeys can be induced to show what looks very like superstition if tempting fresh fruits are deployed with a sound enough mixture of randomness and predictability.
Same applies to us.
 
escargot said:
My take on this is that our personal beliefs don't matter and need have no external logic.

We are only monkeys who have no idea what is beyond our experience of what, in our modern world, passes for bananas and banyan trees.

Monkeys can be induced to show what looks very like superstition if tempting fresh fruits are deployed with a sound enough mixture of randomness and predictability.
Same applies to us.
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Quite. You don't have to go along with the monkey-brain's need for magical thinking, it's permissible to say to oneself "That's clearly bollox, so I'm going to ignore it and/or evaluate the situation rationally". And if you want to wallow in mysticism, crack on, but don't impose it on others as 'truth'.
 
I find that many people forget about weird happenings.

I have, I've remembered some things that have happened to me when writing up some experiences on here, but then I'm getting old and dribbly anyway.

I've asked some people about things they've told me about and they've looked a bit blank and then said something like "God yes, the time I was working at ....... and heard those footsteps on the floor above.." It seems they've not forgotten as such but just filed it away like any other incident. The reaction is a bit like asking "Do you remember the time we went to ...... and that guy streaked down the High St.? Something out of the ordinary, stored in the memory but not as anything really outlandish.
 
Tunn11 said:
I find that many people forget about weird happenings.

I have, I've remembered some things that have happened to me when writing up some experiences on here, but then I'm getting old and dribbly anyway.

I've asked some people about things they've told me about and they've looked a bit blank and then said something like "God yes, the time I was working at ....... and heard those footsteps on the floor above.." It seems they've not forgotten as such but just filed it away like any other incident. The reaction is a bit like asking "Do you remember the time we went to ...... and that guy streaked down the High St.? Something out of the ordinary, stored in the memory but not as anything really outlandish.
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We had a thread on that, where people would have some weird experience together but somehow found it so unsettling they never spoke of it again.
 
Tunn11 said:
I find that many people forget about weird happenings.

I have, I've remembered some things that have happened to me when writing up some experiences on here, but then I'm getting old and dribbly anyway.

I've asked some people about things they've told me about and they've looked a bit blank and then said something like "God yes, the time I was working at ....... and heard those footsteps on the floor above.." It seems they've not forgotten as such but just filed it away like any other incident. The reaction is a bit like asking "Do you remember the time we went to ...... and that guy streaked down the High St.? Something out of the ordinary, stored in the memory but not as anything really outlandish.
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Quite a lot of weird and paranormal or potentially paranormal experiences are relatively mundane - hearing footsteps etc, unless the experience was dramatic or traumatic people are just going to file them away as "just one of those things."
 
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