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Paranormal Experiences

BunksBunks Australia Veteran

Hi all

Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding.

I have become a little obsessed after hearing a couple of ghost stories recently. Never really had any experiences myself but curious if others can share a story or two.

The first story was second hand through my father.

  1. A friend of his moved in to a new home in the country and swears blind there's a ghost in the house. My father is as cynical as they come but is truly puzzled as he says this lady is one of the most down to earth and honest people he knows. She now says the ghost is talking to her grand daughter. It's apparently an old lady.

  2. A good friend of mine (very down to earth, honest, non spiritual) told me he and another friend of ours were driving out on a country road near our home town late one night. They passed a turn off and he was surprised to see a young boy perched atop a road sign. The sign was about 3 metres high and the top as thin as signs can be (a few millimetres at most). He asked if his friend had seen the boy but he hadn't so they turned around and went back. The boy was still there as they went past again so the other friend saw him too. They turned around again and went past but he'd gone. They thought about stopping and getting out but they were a bit freaked out so left.

DavidShoshin1

Comments

  • BunksBunks Australia Veteran

    @Kerome said:
    Whenever I have a slightly paranormal experience, and I’ve had several, I tend to forget the specifics soon afterwards. The world is just the world, and sometimes it can be a little strange, but those things can be explained.

    It’s like card tricks. They seem magical at first, but when you know how they’re done, it turns out they were perfectly ordinary after all.

    Well you’re no fun! ;)

    lobsterWalkerShoshin1David
  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    @Bunks said:
    Well you’re no fun! ;)

    That’s true, my life is a relentless struggle against rationality. I keep telling myself, don’t be too reasonable, allow room for the wondrous in your life, don’t become a dry old shtick. But it only seems to work in short bursts...

    Hence my admiration for @lobster’s presence on this forum. ;)

    Bunks
  • BunksBunks Australia Veteran

    @Kerome said:

    @Bunks said:
    Well you’re no fun! ;)

    That’s true, my life is a relentless struggle against rationality. I keep telling myself, don’t be too reasonable, allow room for the wondrous in your life, don’t become a dry old shtick. But it only seems to work in short bursts...

    Hence my admiration for @lobster’s presence on this forum. ;)

    Yes! I understand. I've grown up in a very similar environment @Kerome.

    Just trying to inject some more magic and wonder in to my life...

  • I was born in London, a place which has more ghosts than you can poke a stick at...haunted churches, haunted houses, haunted cemeteries, the Tower of London and its hoards of ghosts....However....

    Paranormal

    Neuroscience
    It was also realized that people with higher dopamine levels have the ability to find patterns and meanings where there aren't any. This is why scientists have connected high dopamine levels with paranormal belief.

    Psychology
    Findings have shown in specific cases that paranormal belief acts as a psychodynamic coping function and serves as a mechanism for coping with stress.[66] Survivors from childhood sexual abuse, violent and unsettled home environments have reported to have higher levels of paranormal belief.[67][68] A study of a random sample of 502 adults revealed paranormal experiences were common in the population which were linked to a history of childhood trauma and dissociative symptoms.[69] Research has also suggested that people who perceive themselves as having little control over their lives may develop paranormal beliefs to help provide an enhanced sense of control

    This is not to say that the sciences are always right...It is important to have an open mind when it comes to these sort of things......, but as Carl Sagan once said... “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”

    lobsterJeffreyFoibleFullKotishka
  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran
    edited April 2021

    @Bunks said:
    Just trying to inject some more magic and wonder in to my life...

    I’ve always done this by reading copious quantities of science fiction and fantasy, watching films like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. It expresses my love for the wondrous, without giving away my respect for and understanding of the natural.

    My father is more the man for the esoteric and the paranormal, he gets into areas like Edgar Cayce and Atlantis, the Pyramids, crop circles, ancient aliens, and so on. He is a mix of the rational and straightforward, with a sideline into meditation, guru’s and the esoteric.

    He does believe in ghosts, or at least the presence of loved ones who have died. Once, a few months after my stepmother had died, he went to visit a medium’s show, and this medium picked him out of the crowd and said how grateful my stepmother was for the help he had given her with the dying process. Nobody there knew him, or that she had died, or that he had helped her in the last days by telling her information from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. So I guess he has reason to believe.

  • Yes, Shoshin1, high dopamine also associated with psychosis. I've often had experiences that occur during my more psychotic periods of my life that afterwards I wonder if some of them were accurate/legitimate patterns or meanings amidst the many that surely must have been inaccurate.

    Shoshin1marcitkoDavid
  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    @Jeffrey said:
    I wonder if some of them were accurate/legitimate patterns or meanings amidst the many that surely must have been inaccurate.

    Well you know Joseph Campbell’s saying, “the psychotic drowns in the waters where the mystic swims with delight”. It always seemed to me to say that any psychotic had best learn to be like a mystic and swim.

  • It's interesting how paranormal things only seem to appear/happen to some people whilst the vast majority never have such experiences, no matter how much they would like to have a paranormal experience....

    Also I guess one has to take into account, how our six sense doors take in/process data ...bearing in mind....

    We're just vibrating bundle of energy flux held together by karmic glue
    Who tend to process things differently, things we may wish to be true
    The neuropathways form in the brain and patterns begin to emerge
    Some create feelings of pleasantness (dopamine) . these feelings create an urge
    Our mind may create what is not really there, in order to appease
    The cravings of the clinging aggregates. a short lived sense of being at ease
    And so the cycle of craving continues, we get caught up in this ongoing flux
    The pleasantness will eventually turn sour and one finds that Dukkha sucks

    JeffreyKotishkaDavid
  • ChoephalChoephal UK Veteran

    I was walking with my first teacher and two other students. We were near a small river in open country. A very light breeze blew. He suddenly looked across at a group of wild iris leaves sticking out of the water. “ There are nagas there” he said quietly. We looked, could see nothing. He smiled and intoned something in Tibetan. Suddenly the water around the plants began to churn and the plants twist as though a large animal was swimming through them.
    We looked open mouthed. He laughed, and we went back for lunch.

    BunksKotishkaShoshin1David
  • KotishkaKotishka Veteran

    ~So much unknown left inside our dimly lit known part of the world / reality. I like to remain skeptical, but sometimes I cannot stop but wonder. What are these karmic clouds up to? Hm..

    Shoshin1DavidFoibleFull
  • Shoshin1Shoshin1 Veteran

    If you think about it, the mind is amazing, as is this psychophysical phenomena we call the self, which for the most part is beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding

    Look around at your surroundings , this piece of fatty flesh. muscle, gristle and bone is experiencing all what's seen, heard, felt, etc, through its sense doors, the colours, shapes, sounds, smells tastes, touch, and sensations/feelings, it has a magical mystical feel to it all...

    For the most part we are a walking talking paranormal experience but have yet to fully experience/explore/appreciate what really lies within...

    One hour and then another.
    Inexorably march. step by step
    Whenever I meet you, we each smile.
    But who is dragging your corpse around ?

    ~Chan~

    lobsterFosdickKotishkaChoephal
  • lobsterlobster Veteran

    Exactly so @Shoshin

    We hypernormals are dead already. With time to live. A list of miracles:

    • energy and matter from star dust made conscious
    • spinning around a fireball of chaos
    • chocolate is medicine
    • suffering keeps us awake, ease is for the dead
    • nature is Buddha

    and now back to the real-fantasy …

    Shoshin1JeroenDavid
  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    Attending a funeral of a well-known monk, the Zen master Joshu said “is it not strange, that we go to watch a procession with one living man at its head and many dead ones following on behind?”

  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    edited May 2021

    @Kerome said:

    @Bunks said:
    Well you’re no fun! ;)

    That’s true, my life is a relentless struggle against rationality. I keep telling myself, don’t be too reasonable, allow room for the wondrous in your life, don’t become a dry old shtick. But it only seems to work in short bursts...

    Hence my admiration for @lobster’s presence on this forum. ;)

    Maybe I'm just weird but I don't see why there can not be a healthy mixture of reason and wonder. In fact, I wouldnt recommend using one without the other as the ratio seems to be in line with compassion:wisdom.

    Reason without wonder leads to dogma. Wonder without reason leads to flights of fancy.

    If ghosts or other paranormal phenomenon happen, there will likely be a reasonable explanation as to how they happen.

    If it is a case of the snake really being the rope then we get a good laugh when we see the illusion but just because the mind is conditioned to look for patterns doesn't mean there are no patterns.

    "When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer"
    --Stevie Wonder

    I so wanted to attribute it to Stevie Reason but nah.

    Shoshin1
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