The truth is out there. Or is it?

[Bumbus]

I have not read all the posts here, and I apologize for not responding a little sooner (original post was a while ago, but it is still near the top so…)

I voted yes, but the question is somewhat non-specific so I will explain what I see and everyone can choose for themselves whether it is “supernatural”.

I work at night and when I get close to a few particular street lights they turn off. I have been seeing this for almost a year now and it does not happen every time but often enough to make it seem more then coincidence. I generally do not believe in life after death, but my wife does and she thinks the light thing is somehow related to my dead mother. I have read or seen on TV that people believe that ghosts are able to affect the “living” world and they often do it through electricity. I am not sure I believe that my mother is trying to contact me and if she is I cannot guess at what she wants, but it is something I have considered. I realize there is most likely a simply scientific reason this happens, but I cannot come up with anything that makes sense on that level either.

[Iron Greasel]

Maybe the lights blink all the time and you're just not there to see it?

Meh, if dead people could come back to life, everyone would be doing it. You couldn't throw a rock without hitting at least six of the buggers. Ghosts are just too... convenient to be believable.

[Firestormalpha]

Well the general idea of Ghosts isn't that they come back, it's more that they're trapped between life and death. Something like that anyways.

At any rate I know people have experiences, and whether it's ghost's, demons, or delusion, I couldn't say. Though to have a family move into a home and experience the same things the family before experienced, without being told anything about it, makes delusions a little less likely.

There is of course also the theory of electromagnetic fields messing with your brain, but that doesn't explain objects moving by themselves (i.e. doors opening, faucets turning on, books flying off shelves, etc.)

Another theory out there is "place Memory" where a person's psyche leaves an impression of itself in the area. This is generally used to explain apparitions that don't interact with the physical world and follow a set pattern.

I don't have an official opinion as to what exactly is going on in any of those cases, suffice it to say I don't think that all of the people who claim to have a supernatural experience are crazy, before or after said even. Some maybe, but not all of them.

[Olorin]

While I am generally skeptical of stories involving ghosts (particularly when someone is getting rich and famous by talking to them); I cannot rule them out. But the debate here between science and the supernatural seems odd. If people sometimes linger after death in some form and are able to affect the world, then it stands to reason that science will eventually find an explanation for it.

It reminds me a little of a sci-fi series I read by Peter Hamilton. He explained the existence of souls as an energy matrix that is formed when consciousness interacts with a living body. When the body dies, the soul survives as an energy pattern. Put another way--I think, therefore I have a soul.

So, though I am personally a skeptic about most "supernatural" stories, I have to admit that I cannot rule them out. But if some of them are true, I still have confidence that science would be able to explain them eventually. Then again, I also feel like science and religion shouldn't be thought of as opposites, since they address fundamentally different questions. Religion is more akin to philosophy, it attempts to explain WHY we exist, and what the purpose of life is. Science is much more about HOW does the universe work, it has nothing to say about whether or not the universe has a purpose.

[Cadfael]

I do not know if this is supernatural, or 'supernature'.

My mother birthday is the 7th April... so this date sticks in our minds. On that day in 1968 she got up early to open her cards and her pressies. I can remember her saying she had dreamt Jim Clark the racing driver had been killed in a car crash, and that the wreck reminded her of a pack of cigarettes. We all thought she going of her head.

8 hours later the news broke, Jim Clark had been killed in a crash at the Hockenheim race track, and this happened over 5 hours after my mother mentioned the dream. His car was a Lotus 48, and was liveried for John Players Gold Leaf sponsorship.

Now, my family are all petrol heads, we are all F1 fans. We had followed the qualifying for this race, so it may be her dream was influenced by that... a coincidence. However, it is not the first time nor the last she has had precognitive dreams.

[burnzey boi]

Call it over-active immagination but when i was about 8-9, there was this figure that used to sit under a picture in our hallway. It used to get up, walk slowly and lean over the bed then walk away. My brother saw the exact same thing, and only recently my nefew (9) who had been sharing my room with me while he stayed with us had believed to have seen the exact same thing. A tall man, not white but visible, with long arms and a bald head.

A universe with billions of stars and Earth is the only one with stuff on it? Hmm..

And NO i am not crazy....... or am i?

[Bumbus]

Originally Posted by burnzey boi A universe with billions of stars and Earth is the only one with stuff on it? Hmm..

I defiantly agree with the idea that there is more life out there, besides what we have on earth; I don’t understand what that has to do with ghosts and ESP (supernatural experiences) here on our planet. Unless you are suggesting when earthlings experience these things they are aliens, or aliens manipulating our minds somehow.

To respond to Iron Greasel; I have pass the same lights with others in the car and they do not blink. Also I have asked various people I know to pay attention and see if these lights blink when they pass them and I am not around. So far a few of them have said they see the lights blink. I still wonder what caused it. Maybe the others have people who have passed away and it is their ghosts doing it. Honestly I don’t really believe the blinking is caused by ghosts; In fact I am still undecided in my belief of ghosts.

Someone mentioned seeing an apparition when they where young and then a related youngster says he sees the same thing. I have a theory about that; if the living can sometimes see the dead it is more likely that the younger someone is the more susceptible they will be to it. As we get older our minds fill up with all kinds of reasons and beliefs which may make it impossible, or at least unlikely, that an apparition would register in the brain. In other words, if you have trained yourself to not believe it is unlikely you would see a ghost.

As for people being able to predict the future; I am not sure I will ever believe that is possible. Since I don’t believe our lives are predetermined it just does not make sense that someone could know what happens next.

Lastly my theory on hearing voices in your mind, that would include people who are labeled insane or schizophrenic; I do think the human brain is capable of more them we use it for today. I believe we will evolve into beings that will be able to communicate telepathically. It seems likely to me that these individuals are just slightly more evolved and are picking up random thoughts from other people, especially the ones whom claim they hear voices telling them to kill. I know that when I am mad enough I sometimes think “kill them”, “die you ***”, and so forth and it seems to me visceral emotions would be the easiest thing to pick up telepathically. That’s just a weird theory of mine. My wife thinks I am crazy sometimes, but I also think that male pattern baldness is evolution (I mean what do humans really need body hair for at this point).

[Iron Greasel]

Originally Posted by burnzey boi A universe with billions of stars and Earth is the only one with stuff on it? Hmm..

Indeed. The only problem is that everything out there is, well, out there. Separated from us by the unfathomable featureless void of space.

Earth is the only planet accessible from earth capable of supporting life.