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How do we explain ghosts?

Robin said:
The woman was, I assume, a waking dream.
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I woke up once as a kid with some troll/smurf/gnome like little fellow on the floor beside my bed.

As soon as I was struck by the weirdness of it, I had the thought "I have to still be a little bit asleep. That can't be real" and...poof! It disappeared.
 
AmyW said:
I am wondering about ghosts and how rational minded people claim to see them. When my mum was a child she claimed to see three shadows, she awoke from a strange noise coming from the window and then three spirits appeared and one pointed at her. How do we explain when people claim to see ghosts?
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The power of suggestion possibly with psychological disturbances mixed in.

Some researchers argue ghost sightings may stem from vestigial psychological adaptations developed in the days of prehistoric hominids, or at least humans.
Our ancestors would have seen human agency in a lot of things we now know are natural phenomena. They had a keen sense of their environment, but they didn't do the skeptical sifting of the evidence we (some of us) do today.

Some cool reads:
http://nautil.us/issue/53/monsters/how-evolution-designed-your-fear
 
The question cannot be answered .... There is at least dozen(s) of base reasons, there is a specific group of reasons, for each persons 'sighting"

One example is if the person had ZERO data input on ghosts, would it occur to them what they saw was a "ghost""
 
Someone on this board (sorry can't remember who) has a great story about how the completely unmistakably ghost of a woman in white appearing and disappearing turned out to be a cow. I've had a few very creepy examples of pareidolia when out at night, and once after about 36 hours without sleep was seeing people out of the corners of my eyes when anything moved, and had a long conversation with someone who was demonstrably somewhere else. I've also had one experience I can't explain but I can't vouch for the accuracy of how I remember it. I believed is such things at the time and was tired and very stressed. It's a story I've told many times but never documented and that is a recipe for creating false memories.
 
Robin said:
In this case she was perhaps still dreaming and didn't realise it.

Or hallucinating. Hallucinations are not uncommon in childhood even where there are no mental health issues.
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Yes I thought that perhaps she was just dreaming still, a lot of people who 'see ghosts are in bed, thinking they are awake when are in fact asleep
 
Awesome and rational responses, thanks guys. This was my thought, I think my mum was still in a dream state, just wanted others views. My colleague at work said she saw a man lying next to her, a ghost, my immediate thought was omg, but then I thought 'she was probably still dreaming'
 
What I also find interesting is how a lot of people seem to see ghosts in the night, this must mean that they are still in a dream when they think they are awake. If ghosts were real we would see them everywhere but we don't!
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I've also had one experience I can't explain but I can't vouch for the accuracy of how I remember it. I believed is such things at the time and was tired and very stressed. It's a story I've told many times but never documented and that is a recipe for creating false memories.
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1) well, not I'm just super-curious about what that "also" thing was.
2) Yeah, believing in such things at the time is key. I "saw ghosts" when I believed in them, too, and would not be surprised if my memories were embellished over the years in my re-remembering of them (while I still believed.)
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Someone on this board (sorry can't remember who) has a great story about how the completely unmistakably ghost of a woman in white appearing and disappearing turned out to be a cow. I've had a few very creepy examples of pareidolia when out at night, and once after about 36 hours without sleep was seeing people out of the corners of my eyes when anything moved, and had a long conversation with someone who was demonstrably somewhere else. I've also had one experience I can't explain but I can't vouch for the accuracy of how I remember it. I believed is such things at the time and was tired and very stressed. It's a story I've told many times but never documented and that is a recipe for creating false memories.
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Do you think our brains can malfunction at times/hallucinate if we are stressed etc? Like others have said when we really believe in something we start to see them. Personally I've never seen a ghost
 
Ron Swanson said:
The question cannot be answered .... There is at least dozen(s) of base reasons, there is a specific group of reasons, for each persons 'sighting"

One example is if the person had ZERO data input on ghosts, would it occur to them what they saw was a "ghost""
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Very good point. The brain can see things but it may be that there is nothing there
 
Venom said:
The power of suggestion possibly with psychological disturbances mixed in.

Some researchers argue ghost sightings may stem from vestigial psychological adaptations developed in the days of prehistoric hominids, or at least humans.
Our ancestors would have seen human agency in a lot of things we now know are natural phenomena. They had a keen sense of their environment, but they didn't do the skeptical sifting of the evidence we (some of us) do today.

Some cool reads:
http://nautil.us/issue/53/monsters/how-evolution-designed-your-fear
Click to expand...
Awesome response, thank you
 
AmyW said:
I am wondering about ghosts and how rational minded people claim to see them. When my mum was a child she claimed to see three shadows, she awoke from a strange noise coming from the window and then three spirits appeared and one pointed at her. How do we explain when people claim to see ghosts?
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I don't explain ghosts.

Nothing ghosts do is significant enough to require explanation. It's not like they're hurricanes, or internal combustion, or stellar fusion, or anything else that's actually important. Stuff happens, and you want to attribute it to ghosts? Be my guest.

Show me a ghost that can do something predictable, repeatable, and useful, and I'll show you a ghost that requires any more explanation than, "that's nice... more tea?"
 
AmyW said:
I am wondering about ghosts and how rational minded people claim to see them. When my mum was a child she claimed to see three shadows, she awoke from a strange noise coming from the window and then three spirits appeared and one pointed at her. How do we explain when people claim to see ghosts?
Click to expand...
There are as many explanations as there are ghost stories. I personally see things that aren't there when I hear a noise. I am very suggestible and when some noise on the roof sounded like walking I saw a big tall ghost walk in. It was in broad daylight. Cartoon Casper like thing. My cousin has morning hallucinations and chases them with a shotgun.

A noise like words that are just under our ability to hear cause us to believe a ghost is around. Schizophrenics and brain-damaged people see things. The power of suggestion makes us believe in ghosts

I personally am among the brain-damaged people who see things they don't want to see whether they are there or not.

Phenothyizides stop hallucinations but they make you feel so bad your better off without them.
 
Venom said:
The power of suggestion possibly with psychological disturbances mixed in.

Some researchers argue ghost sightings may stem from vestigial psychological adaptations developed in the days of prehistoric hominids, or at least humans.
Our ancestors would have seen human agency in a lot of things we now know are natural phenomena. They had a keen sense of their environment, but they didn't do the skeptical sifting of the evidence we (some of us) do today.

Some cool reads:
http://nautil.us/issue/53/monsters/how-evolution-designed-your-fear
Click to expand...

Cainkane1 said:
There are as many explanations as there are ghost stories. I personally see things that aren't there when I hear a noise. I am very suggestible and when some noise on the roof sounded like walking I saw a big tall ghost walk in. It was in broad daylight. Cartoon Casper like thing. My cousin has morning hallucinations and chases them with a shotgun.

A noise like words that are just under our ability to hear cause us to believe a ghost is around. Schizophrenics and brain-damaged people see things. The power of suggestion makes us believe in ghosts

I personally am among the brain-damaged people who see things they don't want to see whether they are there or not.

Phenothyizides stop hallucinations but they make you feel so bad your better off without them.
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Wow, so ghosts are merely a picture that is produced by our brains, not some outward entity? I personally have never seen or heard a 'ghost'
 
theprestige said:
I don't explain ghosts.

Nothing ghosts do is significant enough to require explanation. It's not like they're hurricanes, or internal combustion, or stellar fusion, or anything else that's actually important. Stuff happens, and you want to attribute it to ghosts? Be my guest.

Show me a ghost that can do something predictable, repeatable, and useful, and I'll show you a ghost that requires any more explanation than, "that's nice... more tea?"
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I personally don't believe in them, I am just curious as to how some people suggest to have seen/heard them.
 
Darat said:
I'm unusual on this forum in believing that ghosts do truly exist.



Ghosts are a very real phenomenon it is just the fact that some people conclude they are something they are not
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If by 'truly exist' you mean exists as much as my imaginary madras curry that i'm drooling over, even though it's not real, then yeah it truly exists.

There's no evidence that ghosts exist, in the sense of having an existence.

People seeing ghosts is a real phenomenon yeah, that doesn't mean ghosts truly exist. If it does then my imaginary madras curry truly exists too. I drooled after all.
 
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AmyW said:
What I also find interesting is how a lot of people seem to see ghosts in the night, this must mean that they are still in a dream when they think they are awake. If ghosts were real we would see them everywhere but we don't!
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Le sigh. Here are a pair of ghosts photographed in my hallway.

XoWNj1E.jpg


Real? Or fake? No CGI involved it that pic. Can you explain it? I can because I took it. Can you?
 
abaddon said:
Le sigh. Here are a pair of ghosts photographed in my hallway.

[qimg]https://i.imgur.com/XoWNj1E.jpg[/qimg]

Real? Or fake? No CGI involved it that pic. Can you explain it? I can because I took it. Can you?
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And they say ghosts have disappeared in the age of mass media. Great work.
 
AmyW, no one has yet demonstrated that there are any supernatural things or phenomena.

Please examine your reasons for wanting them to be real. Understanding those reasons might be beneficial to you.
 
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