Or failing that, a dehumidifier might stop the bacteria/mold/whatever from doing its thing.

LSD (well not quite, its a bit like raw nutmeg containg the non amide precursor to E)is produced by a bacteria that grows in wheat (Ergot). Its a theory as to where 'whitchcraft' came form in medieval times, as quite often the whole town would becme possessed. The diesease is coloquialiy called 'St Anthonys Fire', or more recently, 'tripping' :p

As for haunted houses, my mums side of the family use to live in a big old house on the site of an old convent, just up from the shore where the slave ships used to anchor waiting for the tide to turn and sail into Lancaster. Some proper stories about noises in that house, including a drummer boy who'd cry on the stairs.

My son is 2 and had a recent period of waking up hysterically in the middle of the night. Fortunately, his language is good enough that we eventually figured out what he was so upset about.

Basically, he was dreaming about a event that he had been particularly upset about during the day, so one night he was screaming because he wanted another biscuit (and we didn't give him one), another night because he wanted to carry on watching Buzz Lightyear (and we had turned it off because it was dinner time) and so on and so on.

I put it down to the fact that he is now able to interpret his dreams, but doesn't yet realise that they are just dreams – all part of the brain developing I'm assuming.

Lately it's been all about monsters everywhere when he goes to bed, but we've told him that all his toys will jump/roar/shout at the monsters and scare them away – seems to be doing the trick…

Toby

I'm with what Mastiles says, I can't believe that any supposedly educated and otherwise apparently intelligent adults can actually place any credence in this nonsense whatsoever.

n.b. I didnt say I believed in ghosts, but if you've ever been out past Glason/Cockersands on a misty day it's wouldn't take long to give even a sane person the heebie jeebies, desolate doesn't come close!

Its one of those things that if you never experience it PERSONALLY then you will be a sceptic.

If you do experience – then you are a firm believer.

What happens to us when we die? Is that it. Nothing? Blackness? We go somewhere but where?

You go in the ground or up in smoke and stop existing. If we all became 'ghosts' the world would be somewhat crowded with them and we would all see them day in, day out. And why is it ghosts only seem to exist of people from the relatively modern day? Surely if we 'go somewhere' there would be ghosts of all manner of man and beast through millennia of evolution.

If you do experience – then you are a firm believer.

Or you apply logic to it and make sense of what happened.

It seems to me that most of these 'sightings' are in the middle of the night when people are woken from a sleep. This suggests that they have become concious in some state between sleep and wakefulness and their minds are playing tricks with them.

Its one of those things that if you never experience it PERSONALLY then you will be a sceptic.

If you do experience – then you are a firm believer.

no, everyone wakes up and is absolutley convinced that there's "something" in the room, either you can see it (a shadow, a dressing gown, a light etc) or you lie in bed not wanting to move because you're utterly convinced something is standing over you.

Its becasue for millenia our ancestors were scared of the dark, it'll take a while to get over that!

Fortunately, I'm educated,rational and not gullible and impressionable enough to "experience" unusual events, then interpret them as extra natural or beyond scientific rationale. I have experienced plenty of events that maybe described as supernatural or spooky. That does not mean that they were.:)

If you do experience – then you are a firm believer.

If you want to believe it, if you use common sense and reasonable explanations then you see sense.

Its one of those things that if you never experience it PERSONALLY then you will be a sceptic.

If you do experience – then you are a firm believer.

I have, but I am able to suspect my mind playing tricks, rather than the world being full of spirits.

Until this comes down my stairs in full daylight, shakes my hand and introduces herself, I've no reason to assume it's anything but an oddity of my own head or a trick of the light.

So your friends could not imagine it could be one of the many million possibilities within the realms of reality, so instantly suspect it was an impossible being??

Where did the "instantly" come from ?

Ok – so remove the 'instantly' and it immediately becomes more acceptable in the eyes of science and possibility….??

Wasn't meant as a nasty comment – plenty of people believe in the wrong things, but it's just when the poster said 'they are rational people' I find it surprising that often, when no immediate possible explanation can be made, it jumps to hocus-pocus as an answer!

The thing is, humans are very egotistical beasts, and if we can't come up with a reasonable explanation, we 'assume' it's the mythical/unreasonable in order to satisfy the 'I know the answer' cortex!
Science does the exact opposite – it states 'we don't know the answer, but there must be one, let's keep looking…'!

In olden days we didn't know what made thunder.
Man wasn't sure, so said it was Thor, the thunder god – all's happy now there's an answer.
Do we still believe that, or has science developed enough to give the REAL answer?

DrP

that pictures is **** SCARY!

I've just been reading through this thread, and cant help but notice the similarity in peoples responses to the ones posted whenever religion or 'faith' is mentioned. People have always believed in 'ghosts', with no scientific evidence (as far as I am aware) of their existence. Basically, a lot of people (and I'd include myself here, to a degree) want to believe that there is 'something more' after death, presumably to protect themselves from the inevitabilty of it all. I feel torn, as despite having a keen interest in all things 'paranormal', I am able to see how unbelievably naff the so called 'experts' (Yvette Fielding, Dereck Acorah, etc) come across. I personally despise these people, as I feel they are making a profit from peoples grief, particularly 'mediums' who claim to be able to contact the dead – spare me the details please, I understand only too well how 'cold reading' works. And still, I want to believe that there is something more. To add to the original post, I dropped my five year old off at 'beavers' last week, which is held in the local church hall, and as I was fannying about making sure he had all his stuff with him, he began giggling and pointing towards the adjoining graveyard. When I asked him what was so amusing, he said 'it's that funny grey man hanging in that tree'. Needless to say, we got into the church hall in fairly good time 😕

Sit him down and show him Paranormal Activity.

Then tell him he's not to make contact with the 'demon' under any circumstances.

Confiscate his ouija board.

People have always believed in 'ghosts', with no scientific evidence (as far as I am aware) of their existence

SOME people have always believed in ghosts.

"SOME people have always believed in ghosts."
I'll go out and do a head count shall I? Pedant.

That pic. Shes oriental? Well hellllooooo ghouly 😀

I'll go out and do a head count shall I? Pedant.

Not being pedantic at all just correcting your disingenuous statement.

And still, I want to believe that there is something more.

That's the point, you WANT to believe. The people who tend not to believe, I'd say in general, don't care if it's true or not but wait for evidence rather than wanting it to be one way or the other.

please, I understand only too well how 'cold reading' works. And still, I want to believe that there is something more. To add to the original post, I dropped my five year old off at 'beavers' last week, which is held in the local church hall, and as I was fannying about making sure he had all his stuff with him, he began giggling and pointing towards the adjoining graveyard. When I asked him what was so amusing, he said 'it's that funny grey man hanging in that tree'.

Kid in made-up-ghost in graveyard shocker.

"just correcting your disingenuous statement." – sorry, didnt realise I was being (disingenuous).
"Kid in made-up-ghost in graveyard shocker." – please dont think for a minute that I was trying to offer this as some kind of 'proof' of anything, I was merely trying to give an example of how easy it is to get freaked out by stuff your kids come out with.
For the record, I'm being extra sensitive (grumpy) due to a stinking cold and the fact that I had a dodgy curry on Saturday night and have been to the bog six times so far this morning – my arse is like a sauce bottle top!

my arse is like a sauce bottle top!

Ketchup or HP? 😀

Japanese flag?

Fresh bullet wound?

You non-beleivers. Im going to haunt you- stripped/butt-naked and swing my tassle around late at night whilst singing 'who wants to live forever' at the top of my ghouly-voice.

Hora, will you haunt me please? Sounds awesome. Keep yer pants on though please…

local vicar was happy to sort it.

Course he was.

"Ketchup or HP?" To be brutally honest, I would have to say a mixture 😥

Reminds me of Baddiel&Skinner 'what if you were the invisible man and decided to have a w&nk in a girls bedroom' 😆

I was staying alone in an old country house hotel in Ayr a few years back. I was fast asleep in bed when i felt someone snuggle up behind me and put an arm right over the top of me. I was absolutely unable to move or to call out, but I swear I was awake and not dreaming. After a few moments s/he disappeared; I sat up, looked around and there was no-one else there. It had to be a ghost.

-or-

I was staying alone in an old country house hotel in Ayr a few years back. I was fast asleep in bed when i felt someone snuggle up behind me and put an arm right over the top of me. I was absolutely unable to move or to call out, but I swear I was awake and not dreaming. After a few moments s/he disappeared; I sat up, looked around and there was no-one else there. This was due to the reflex that paralyses us when we sleep to prevent us acting out our dreams not switching off at the same point as i woke from a dream about being cuddled.

You decide?

Did you feel violated when you did wake up? Your answer is there…

😉

actually slightly disappointed it wasn't the cute receptionist bringing up my early morning reach around newspaper.

this was due to the reflex that paralyses us when we sleep to prevent us acting out our dreams not switching off at the same point as i woke from a dream

I hate it when that happens, as it seems to prevent me fom breathing, which is fairly scary…

the breathing one is slightly different IIRC, someone posted about it on here a while back.

Sleep paralysis can be combined with halucinations, your brain is still dreaming and rationalises the constricted feeling with an object/person.

I woke up once dry humping the air. 😆

I woke up once dry humping the air.

Me too.
I can never go in that pub again…..

My 2 year old regularly wakes up screaming in the night. I don't assume it's a ghostly presence in his room; I assume it's a bad dream.

I feel so foolish now. Bring in Max Von Sydow

I once stayed at a country house hotel. Ran out of bog paper in the night so went to reception to get some more. As I was half asleep I stumbled back upstairs, but turned off a floor too early. I let myself into my room, and had a #2. Jumped into bed and realised it waasn't my then girlfriend but some smelly hairyarsed bloke.
Legged it as quietly as possible up to the second floor before he woke up.

IGMC

I'm a sciencey type person and generally quite a sceptic about most things paranormal. I don't know about ghosts etc but I've seen and heard some strange things that I can't understand. Thats not to say they aren't understandable, just not within my fathom of knowledge! However, I do have a very intense sense of smell (hold on this is going somewhere). The human body is designed to detect hormones (like pheromones when sexy time is on the cards etc)
/ fear from addrenaline etc) Now I'm not suggesting that I have some super skill, but sometimes I get strange feelings just before something weird happens (for example I always feel very relaxed just before some one stops breathing, but I get a surge of addrenaline before someone goes into a cardiac arrest rythym. I can also tell all sorts of symptoms from slight whiffs of smells (most paramedics can do this though.) Personaly I put this down to me using parts of my brain that through evoloution we have left underdeveloped, I wonder if it is any coincidence that my brain works very fast, but has no scope for maths? (think autistic kids with amazing arts abilities or mathmatical skills?)

whew, kinda went off on a tangent there! to come to some kind of conclusion, kids cognitive development is a weird thing. Society tells them which parts of the brain they are supposed to use and which aren't required, but at a young age perhaps they use bits that we don't understand? If anyone is going to be able to "sense" things its going to be kids who's brains are still developing?

but… When you are around the newly dead weird things can happen, animals can behave very strangely. I've been in some very creepy houses where you just feel uncomfortable only to find out bad things have happened in the rooms you were in. My old house was 350 years old and backed onto a churchyard. Weird noises with no obvious source would wake several members of my family, but noises would stop if you asked nicely? the previous owner of the house i was born in hung himself, and my mum was adamant that at night she would here a bang then the bannister creek?

its scary out there peeps!

al_f – Member

IdleJon – Member
The problem though is that there isn't a rational explanation for everything in the world

Yes there is, it's just that we haven't worked some of them out yet.

How very egotistical of you! Do you think that humans will eventually be able to explain everything then? We don't even know how gravity works properly yet.

luked2 – Member

Then as soon as Im Dad walked back in- it would stop immediately. you knew as soon as he walked in. Same when he walked back out.

Your dad's extra weight on the floor joists was enough to alter that part of the building's dynamics that the creakings went away. You could probably have achieved the same effect with a large sack of cement.

So why would it only happen to his Dad then? If a large weight of any sort would work, then the same thing would happen when anybody walked into the house.

If you are going to be a sceptic, put some thought into it!

Poltergeists making me do a double post – where's my crucifix?

When you are around the newly dead weird things can happen

Do give over.

My unit sees about 80 to 100 deaths a year.

I've been there for over 10 years.

That's about a thousand 'newly dead' people.

Paranormal activity? None.

Weird things? None.

Dead people are just dead. Not scary, not weird, not paranormal, not speaking from beyond the grave, just dead.

its scary out there peeps! No, it's not.

The gf used to "see" a fair number of things, as does her mum on the odd occassion. Plus we now live in a very old house with lots of history, hence we have some unusual goings-on. And the cat definitely sees the odd visitation of sorts, e.g. one night a couple of weeks ago, he very visibly appeared to watch something/someone come in through the (closed/locked) front door, into the hall and then disappear into the kitchen.

I'm not bothered by whether or not it's rational or scientific or whatever – it if happens and it's harmless then so be it. On the other hand, I know people (that I trust implicably) that have experienced some horrible stuff – that's not so good.