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Do My Cats Hear Things That I Don't?

rynner2

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
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As this is turning into a Cats thread, there was a story on our local TV news today about a cat in a rescue home that loves classical music. He's a very noisy cat, always speaking with a very loud voice, and only quietens down when classical music is played.

A Classic-FM cat!
 
Does that mean th FM, as in Classic-FM, stands for Feline Music?
 
My cats are freaking me out! I just moved into a house, and of course there are little noises that don't mean anything ( the toilet burbling, the heater cooling after I turn it off), but some loud noises that startle me go completely unnoticed or unregarded by my cats.

However, sometimes something will make them stop whatever they are doing and look up (whether they are eating or whatever) and stare at the walls or windows. What stuff are they aware of that I am not?!
 
Cats are freaky.

This is something that I have learned.

We moved into a house and inherited the cat who lived there before us.
He constantly behaves as if someone else is in the house ie. he looks at nothing and purrs at nothing and sometimes looks as if he is being stroked!

The cats previous owners died in the house and I wonder sometimes if he can see things we can't....
 
A bit off-topic, but...

My ex-girlfriend's flat has this phantom black cat that we've both 'seen' out of the corner of our eyes. She has three cats, two are mostly white and the other is pure black. "A-ha!" you say, but when I saw it the black one was outside and the other two were asleep by the chair in which I was sitting. I heard it first 'running' over the other side of the room, and then saw a black shape shoot past.

In fact, it's not the first time I've seen black cats that weren't really there, but that's to do with strong anti-anxiety drugs...
 
We used to have a black cat, that sadly got killed by a taxi.

Months after, we would awaken in the night and "feel" him walking over the bed. He used to sleep there sometimes when alive.
At first we would turn on the light and have a look, but never saw anything. As it continued, we would just go back to sleep!
He didn't "follow" us when we moved house.

Spook-mongous there, mate!:)
 
Cats are brilliant !!

Cats hearing stretches beyond the extremes of human hearing. They can therefore hear stuff at either end of the spectrum that humans have no chance of hearing, both high and low pitched sounds. So they're probably hearing stuff you can't hear, and then when they react, they look suitably spooky. Cats are great this way. I luve em !!!

Moggadon
 
Cats have also evolved to hunt prey that uses freezing as a method of hiding. If they see something, a bug, a piece of fluff, whatever, out of the corner of their eye and that something stops moving, they will stare at the last place they saw it until it moves again.

That can look really spooky. I have three of them running around here.
 
That's the first time I heard that explanation but it makes purrfect (sorry) sense. My Sisters cat does exactely that, staring intently into empty corners and it always spooks us. She has actually gone through stages of thinking her house might be haunted. Can't wait to tell her what might really be going on...bad news is shes gotta get dusting!
 
Cats are also particularly sensitive to and interested in anything that sounds as if it might be crunchy snacks running around in walls, under floorboards, etc.

Having said that, to be honest, sometimes they just seem to have completely zoned out and be staring at nothing. I had a friend who owned a very old (and a bit brain-damaged) cat, and his next door neighbour came round one day to say that, while it wasn't exactly a complaint, was there anything he could do to stop Whisker sitting in his garden, in the same spot, staring at the same bit of wall for hours every day, cos it was beginning to freak him (the neighbour) out!

They're also very aware of the presence of other cats, particularly 'enemy cats', to an extent which convinced Tom Lethbridge they detected each other by ESP! I imagine this could be particularly true in a new location, where all the neighbour cats are unknown quantities.

As for phantom black cats, I've seen these, and I'm pretty convinced that they're floaters at the corner of your eye, which your brain interprets as cats because you're so used to cats being around.
 
wintermute said:
As for phantom black cats, I've seen these, and I'm pretty convinced that they're floaters at the corner of your eye, which your brain interprets as cats because you're so used to cats being around.
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I'd be inclined to agree with you, if it wasn't for the associated noises we have both heard. One time, my ex was letting in the cat and saw him run past her up the stairs and bang into the open door on the way. Then just as she is about to close the door, she sees the real Neo the cat sat outside...
 
Neo the cat
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If you name your cat after the protagonist in a 'what is reality' movie, you're gonna expect some wierd shit! Lets face it cats know!
 
cats are weird

I had my cat Huckleberry since I was a year old, and he died when I was 19, two years ago.
The number of times I have seen that damn cat since he died... I've honestly lost count. Always when I came up to my bedroom, I'd open the door and he'd be walking away from me across the room with his ears in "pissed off" position.

I know it's probably like wintermute says, I'm just so used to seeing him around that I see "floaters" out the corner of my eye, but being a soppy cow, I'd rather believe he just can't bare to part with me :)
 
Yeah, I still see Smokey and Bill once in while. The freakiest thing is that I used to have a German Shepherd named Clyde who had some odd habits. About six weeks after Clyde died I got a white mongrel named Zeke.

Zeke has the same habits...begging from the cats, drinking my coffee, insisting on the pots and pans after supper, rolling in spilled gas and barking at the lawn mower... We have two other dogs, one who knew Clyde, one who didn't, and neither of them have these habits. The only thing I can figure out is that I somehow subconsciously encouraged Zeke to pick up all of Clyde's bad habits.

The cats like Zeke though, and they liked Clyde. Maybe there is some sort of weird psychic animal thing going on? One of the cats, Alex, taught Zeke how to hunt mice like a cat. Maybe she passed on the habits too?
 
Reminds me of an incident driving down a busy road towards some traffic lights on a busy, sunny day - lots of traffic & pedestrians around.

As I drove down towards a busy junction, out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a Weimeraner dog, bright-eyed, floppy-eared and tongue lolling, apparently loose next to a busy junction.

Instantly, I slowed down just in case it ran out into the road, but on turning my head, it proved to be a large patch of grey moisture on the pavement, which somehow in the dappled sunlight my brain had "filled in" the necessary detail to make it look like a dog.

For an instant it was like one of those "rabbit/duck" optical illusions, and enough to make me prepare to stop. I was quite amused by the illusion and the "added detail" that was filled in, and hasten to add that it's not something that happened since - maybe just a combination of dappled sunlight and a heightened sense of danger due to the amount of traffic and pedestrians around that made me "look" for a dog just in case.

I might also add that I have two cats, with the accompanying bizarre expeditions into cat psychology - the chasing of "nothings" and fixations on tiny moving/non-moving light patterns and pieces of fluff.

I'm amazed at their patience with small visual things that disturb them, presumably as an evolutionary result of waiting for extended periods outside mousehouses, waiting for things to emerge.

There's a small patch of paint next to my bed a few feet off the ground, that's been absent-mindedly "touched up" with a single brushstroke of eggshell paint on a background of matte emulsion - in the semi-darkness of my reading light I'm quite frequently disturbed by one of the less sane of our cats repeatedly leaping at this tiny patch of paint, presumably because it differs sufficiently in brightness and contrast to make it worthy of investigation.

I'll quite frequently get a "start" whilst trying to have a quiet read, by the cat unexpectedly leaping at this seemingly inconspicuous patch of paint not far from my head, with an accompanying alarmingly-elephantine "thump" as she returns to earth. You would think that this would provide only a moment's amusement, but no, she has to be firmly told off for her to leave it alone, and will decide to have another go a couple of days later. Something about it, whilst seeming completely insignificant to me, and after a considerable number of unsuccessful investigations on her part, seems to make it a cat magnet.
 
RE: Seeing ghost cats

About 10 years ago my girlfriend and I were staying at her parents house in Hayes, Middlesex.

She always used to go on about their ghost cat and I never really believed her until I saw it for myself!

You always used to encounter it on the upstairs landing, often if you were going to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

You would never see it full on, but always out of the corner of your eye. It was white and fluffy, a persian I expect, and every time I encountered it, it was either running up the stairs or down them.

Now at the time I was sceptical and was willing to believe that it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. However on a number of occasions I actually FELT it brushing past my legs!

This was just one of many strange happenings that used to go on in the house, far too many to go into detail here!

Another strange cat related incident re this house happened one day.

Her parents had their own cat (no not white!) which always used to sleep on my bed. One morning after breakfast I was climbing the stairs and their cat passed me on the way down. When I walked into the bedroom I stopped in my tracks. Lowe and behold the very same cat that had passsed me going down the stairs was fast asleep on the bed. Very weird, perhaps cats can have dopplegangers too!

Finally, as well as a cat, her parents had a german shepherd dog. Often, if the door to the hall was ajar, the dog would lie in the living room and then suddenly sit up gazing at the stairs. Its head would then follow something invisible going up or down the stairs!

As I said before, many strange things happened in this house and my eyes were opened to the paranormal.

BTW The house was a 1940s semi and not in any way the type of place you would imagine to be haunted.

John
 
Very weird, perhaps cats can have dopplegangers too!
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Presumably they evolved this ability in order to finally be able to be on both sides of doors!

BTW - Michael Marshall Smith's 'Spares' has a good riff about cats being used to access another continuum. (And its a rattling good yarn!)
 
My cat will run then suddenly stop about a foot from a wall and sit staring up at the top of the wall for ages, then suddenly turn and run away again!

So wierd!

:eek!!!!:
 
Robt. Monroe of the "Journeys Out of the Body" books stated that his cats were OBE-ers too and that he would sometimes see his passed-on cats when he left his body. I'm sure I've read of this in other OBE literature too...


No big shock if cats did turn out to be astral travellers, god knows they don't seem to be "of this world" sometimes anyways :p
 
My beautiful cat, Puzzle, (Who I found as a stray when I was young and sadly passed on when I was 18.) would often sleep at the end of my bed. He would purr and sleep over my feet which kept them lovely and warm! :) About a week after his passing I temporarily woke from my sleep and felt the usual pressure on my feet and heard/felt purring. I turned and drifted off again....It was only in the morning that I remembered that he had gone! I think he was saying goodbye. Same thing happened with one of my well loved rats.
As for cats suddenly looking up - Don't forget they have a more evolved sence of smell than us, and due to the hunting instinct, are probibly more sensative to movement vibrations or a change in the air pressure.
I also know cats like to look cool and if suddenly woken from dozing they would rather stare and pretend to be doing something rather than look stupid!lol
Rev Blair - I just watched a wildlife documentry on BBC 2 (6.10 pm, Wild: Natural World) about dogs. Made me think about your dog mouse hunting! Dogs intergraite themselfs with the surrounding animals/people to become part of the family. They learn a role or purpose. Perhaps this is why your dog is mimicing your cat?
 
I used to have a lovely cat called Blackie who I got when I was 8 years old. We grew up together and I regarded him as a (feline) kind of brother! He always slept at the foot of my bed.

Years later when I was 18 and away at University, I came home for a weeks holiday. Naturally the first thing I did was ask my Mam where Blackie was as I wanted to see him. She told me that she had taken him through to my Grandmothers house the previous week (long story!) and a dog chased him and he was lost.

Even though my Mam had searched everywhere for him, I spent my whole weeks holiday walking the streets and knocking on doors hoping to find him.

I never found him.

Anyway, to the point. On my last night at my Mams before going back to college, I woke up in the middle of the night and I could feel Blackie lying on top of my legs at the bottom of the bed, where he always used to sleep.

I sat up and put the light on, but of course he was not there. When I turned off the light and lay down I could feel him again.

I didn't know if he was alive or dead, I was pretty certain that he was still alive, perhaps somebody took him in as a stray, but I was comforted that he came back to me to spend one last night.

I truly believe that cats can see things we can't, read our minds, and even have OBE's. Now I know why they sleep all the time, they're just OBE'ing, think of all the energy they must conserve by running around in astral form!
 
In Mysteries, in the part about pendulums, Wilson says that Lethbridge(?) thinks cats' whiskers act like pendulums and can pick up vibrations from living things that are rather far away and out of sight. I'm not sure if that helps any.

Speaking of ghost pets, I grew up in a house that was haunted by a man and his dog. I never saw the man--I heard him. But once, as I was coming down the stairs, I saw the front HALF of the dog in the front hall. It was standing, looking at the front door, but the back half of it just wasn't there! Most of the people who saw or felt the dog saw it going up and down the stairs, and no one ever mentioned seeing just half of it.
 
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