Woken up by a ghost

Any story that starts "I woke up and..." (or similar) can generally be rephrased "I dreamed..."

Most ghost stories start with someone "waking up" (usually at night) dreaming something weird, then really waking up. These stories are very convincing, because the person who experienced it genuinely believes his version of events.

Brains are lying bastards.
 
Renmarkable said:
I put my much beloved cat down some ten days ago. In the first intense stage of grief, I really truly saw him everywhere. half asleep I was sure he jumped on me..... funny what you're mind can do to you!
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I'm sorry for your loss... I know how it feels. I had those experiences for over a year after my cat died - mind you, we'd lived together for 19 years. But it did give me a vivid personal example of how much of our apparent perception is internally constructed.
 
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dlorde said:
I'm sorry for your loss... I know how it feels. I had those experiences for over a year after my cat died - mind you, we'd lived together for 19 years. But it did give me a vivid personal example of how much of our apparent perception is internally constructed.
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now,I'm so glad I got the choice before he got worse. He was only five but we found he had cancer,and it wasn't going to end any other way, BUT, it has certainly made me think of how easy it would be to see a ghost..... I woke up alarmed, convinced I heard him outside! trying to get in, I would have staked my house on it,I was THAT convinced he was there.... iT certainly made me aware that a lot of what I think is happening externally really insnt.
 
Quinn said:
I was rudely awakened early this morning by being poked in the ribs -- two hard jabs in quick succession. I rolled over and looked up to see why my girlfriend was waking me up in such a hostile manner.

She wasn't there. Neither was anyone else.

My first thought was that she had poked me and then quickly left the room for some reason. But it would have had to be really quick. Though I had been fully asleep, I was startled by the poking, and I spun around fast to see what was going on. Plus the bedroom door was closed. She would have had to close it while quickly running out of the room, which meant I would have heard it close, which I hadn't.

Just to make sure, I opened the door and looked in the living room. She was napping on the couch, under a blanket, with her dog sleeping next to her.

My next thought was that something had fallen on me. But it would have had to be something fairly substantial to land on me with that much force, and therefore would have been easy to find (and there would have been two of whatever it was). There was nothing to find, either in the bed or on the floor nearby. Plus, there's nowhere something could have fallen from except the ceiling (there are no shelves or anything nearby). There hadn't been anything hanging from there, and the ceiling itself was intact.

I was rapidly running out of possible causes, and the ones that remained were getting more and more unlikely. Nonetheless, did I check under the bed and in the closet to see if there was anyone hiding there? You bet I did. (There wasn't.)

At that point it was basically down to mind tricks or ghosts. So I chalked it up to an unusual but certainly not inconceivable misfire of some part of my brain, and laid down to go back to sleep.

And as much of a skeptic as I am, and for as long as I've been one, and for all the ways I understand and appreciate (and even utilize) the ways our minds can make us perceive things that never happened… I was too freaked out to go back to sleep, because dammit, I felt something poke me! I know what I felt! There's no way it could have been all in my head!

So today, as I sit here groggy and sleep-deprived, I feel just the tiniest bit more empathy than usual for people who believe in paranormal things because of inexplicable personal experiences. If I could be that freaked out, with the collection of information in my head, it's not at all difficult to understand how someone with less information could interpret such an experience as irrefutable proof of ghosts (or whatever entity they chalk it up to). It really did feel like something I couldn't possibly have imagined. And for someone who isn't familiar with the degree to which it's possible to imagine things that don't seem like you could possibly have imagined them, it would be easy to dismiss that option as ridiculous -- possibly even more ridiculous than ghosts.
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I haven't read the thread yet, and I'd be willing to bet someone has already mentioned this, but I call random muscle spasms.

I get them in my lower back sometimes from an old back nerve injury. I'll wake up feeling like someone has poked me a few times. Then I'll feel the twitches a few more times and back off to sleep I go.

No ghost, just muscle spasms.

ETA:

Resume said:
Maybe this?

http://sleepdisorders.about.com/od/glossary/g/Hypnagogic_Jerk.htm
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This. ^^^^
 
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Brattus said:
I don't believe in the devil. That means it had to be aliens from another planet.
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Actually, upon further reflection and examination of the evidence, I've concluded it was the underpants gnomes.
 
Renmarkable said:
I put my much beloved cat down some ten days ago. In the first intense stage of grief, I really truly saw him everywhere. half asleep I was sure he jumped on me..... funny what you're mind can do to you!
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Commiserations for your loss. People who have never had a pet like a cat that has such a sentient relationship with its companion human (if the human gives due attention to the animal, and doesn't just treat it like an autistic self-centred cupboard love automaton, which some are prone to do) might not credit the depth of mourning required when your companion has died (and having to put down one's friend is especially painful).

I shed tears frequently for weeks after my first cat died (never had one when a kid, I was around 40 when we got the kitten that I fell in love with!).

This post may be too late for you to see. Be well.
 
Stray Cat said:
Thanks

And "yes"... but in all honesty, I didn't have time to write it myself, I used a ghost writer.

[qimg]http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg117/ThePsychoClown/MySpaz/New%20Pics/ProdBook.jpg[/qimg]
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LOL! That's awesome! How long did it take to put that together?
 
skullerello said:
LOL! That's awesome! How long did it take to put that together?
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Thanks.

The cover only took 15 minutes*... Writing the book, more than a few months :D


* The design studio staff here at Squid Fishing Monthly are fast workers ;)
 
asydhouse said:
Commiserations for your loss. People who have never had a pet like a cat that has such a sentient relationship with its companion human (if the human gives due attention to the animal, and doesn't just treat it like an autistic self-centred cupboard love automaton, which some are prone to do) might not credit the depth of mourning required when your companion has died (and having to put down one's friend is especially painful).

I shed tears frequently for weeks after my first cat died (never had one when a kid, I was around 40 when we got the kitten that I fell in love with!).

This post may be too late for you to see. Be well.
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thank you so much. I was honoured to have Buster in my house and heart. I have never seen a cat like him, and suspect, never will again. He had personality plus, and gave us such a lot of love and genuine pleasure. thank you once again for your kindness.....
mourning him at the age of 45, made me realize I'm still the same as that pre school me child who cried themselves to sleep for weeks after my Siamese died....some things never change, i guess!
 
If it happened to me I would just presume it was some kind of muscle thingy. Do I believe in ghosts? I think it's possible they exist but I am skeptical.

My own "woken up by a ghost" experience happened when my wife went to a family event in Florida and I couldn't get away. The first night alone in our bed, half-dozing, I felt one of our her cats jump on the foot of the bed and walk forward. It was unmistakable. When I opened my eyes and half sat up to see which cat it was (we have four) I discovered there was no cat. :eek:

I thought it was odd. Then it happened again a few moments later after I lay back down. We have a box spring mattress and I could feel each step the cat was taking. Only there was no cat. It's happened once or twice since. And we did have a cat that used to sleep on the bed and has since passed on to that great cat place in the sky. Was it him?

The funny thing was, I didn't find it especially unnerving. Was it a ghost? Or was it something else? I knew I wasn't going to figure it out and, I did have to get up early, so I went back to sleep. I was surprised I was able to easily fall back asleep. Even though it happened a third time, just as I was drifting off, I sleepily ignored it. Next thing I knew....it was morning.
 
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Donn said:
Brains are machines that create 'us' and we feel they are lying bastards.
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That would say more about the 'us' that feel brains are 'lying bastards' than it says about brains. :)

On the subject of 'things that go bump in the night' I have had some graphic experiences which cannot so easily be explained away as 'some kind of muscle thingy'...or for that matter, a scripted event created by a lying brain...
 
Navigator said:
That would say more about the 'us' that feel brains are 'lying bastards' than it says about brains. :)
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Scare quotes don't explain anything.
On the subject of 'things that go bump in the night' I have had some graphic experiences which cannot so easily be explained away as 'some kind of muscle thingy'...or for that matter, a scripted event created by a lying brain...
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Yes, many people have bare assertions/campfire stories. They don't explain anything.
 
freedy said:
Ghosts have a very strange sense of humour. They poke and run.
Let's find a ghost that sits on the end of the bed, discusses the afterlife, who's there, what it's like and how they came to be between two worlds. And maybe even do it in public and broad daylight.
Then I might believe.
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You might but I wouldn't. Why can't the ghost show up at the FA cup final or the state of the union address and knock over Obama's mike or something? What rule says ghosts must inhabit a shadow world between sleep and waking or in the minds of the young or feeble-minded? Oh yeah, that rule.
 
Navigator said:
That would say more about the 'us' that feel brains are 'lying bastards' than it says about brains. :)
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Yes indeed. It would confirm that our perception can be skewed.

Navigator said:
On the subject of 'things that go bump in the night' I have had some graphic experiences which cannot so easily be explained away as 'some kind of muscle thingy'...or for that matter, a scripted event created by a lying brain...
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There you go (see above).
 
Stray Cat said:
Yes indeed. It would confirm that our perception can be skewed.


There you go (see above).
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So you are saying that no matter what , either the brain or the consciousness is lying?

You are saying that it doesn't matter what the experience is, or what the source is the experience/source is a lie?
If so...

Good luck with that. :)
 
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