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Paranormal Experiences?

I have read many profiles and it seems that the majority of Atheist/ Agnostics do not believe in "ghosts" or anything "supernatural". I for one have had paranormal experiences in my life, pre-cognitions, unexplained energy that slammed doors, tossed things across the room, unexplained noises in the house. I know it's energy, I'm not sure of it's source. Does anyone believe in the possibility of a parallel universe? Asking for a friend..?

Stephanie1961 5 Apr 1
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9

Read "Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. There are explanations for just about everything. And where there aren't, we just haven't figured them out yet.

8

My rational brain says no, however I did have one experience I cannot explain.

Tell us more. What happened, when, what was your state of mind at the time and who was with you?

@FrayedBear I used to work for a children's book publisher. We rented a building from the local Catholic school. The property also houses a sort of retirement community for nuns. Anyways, old building, lots of people have reported "stuff." I'm skeptical so never really bought into it. Had to work a Saturday morning. The staff I worked with was in the basement, we had cubicles and mine was situated so I could see if someone was coming down the hall from the rest of the building. My coworker Melissa had said she was coming in too. I was working an half keeping an eye out for her. I heard books loudly dropping on her desk and thought I must not have seen her come in. So I start walking over to her cubicle and as I'm coming upon it I start to say "Hey Melissa, I must have missed you come in." I got as far as saying hey Melissa and looking into her cubicle and it was empty. Now I had heard books heavily dropping from waist high onto her desk. Several books. It was loud. I'm sure I turned white as a ghost (pun intended) and went back into my cube. I turned my music up high and worked as fast as I could to get the hell out of there. After that I either brought my dog or my kids with me if I had to work outside of core hours.

We had cleaning companies that worked there in the evening and every once in a while one would see something and refuse to come back. Some coworkers reported being touched by something. One saw a full nun apparition.

@Marcie1974 Can't trust those nuns can you. But perhaps it proves there is neither heaven nor hell for them to go to.

@FrayedBear I used to work for a publisher based in Canterbury in England. The builging was 16th Century, but underneath it was a much older vaulted cellar stretching towards the cathedral. None of the staff would go down there alone and many of them claimed to have experienced strange stuff down there. I ventured a bit further into the darker depths, but not that far - I don't believe in ghosts, but it was damn spooky down there and I've been proved wrong before!

Marcie 1974 this is a great story, like wow, maybe the nuns spirits got trapped between world's for some bizarre reason lols

@ScienceBill72 why are nuns so fucking scary?

@Marcie1974 For some childhood memories of brutality and bullying by frustrated women leading indoctrinated subservient lives stressing the humanity out of them?

@Jnei ROFL Childish fears re-emerging in adulthood?

7

Funny you should ask, I spoke to my father about this today, he asked where I felt my mother was, (she passed away a year ago). I told him that I think she is just energy, she left her body and honestly, I don't know where she is. However, when she was in the hospital, on her death bed, literally, there was a point when I was at home and I felt and saw her presence walk up to my door and my body froze and I knew it was her and she smiled at me. I snapped out of it. The next morning when I went to visit her, the doctors said they took her out of the induced coma but hadn't woken up. Her eyes were wide open, not blinking or responding but she was still "alive", as in heart pumping and on a breathing machine. At that point I knew she was gone.

I told this to my brother and he said that same night he had his own experience. I cannot deny my experience. It was rather chilling.

Everyone has their ideas and experiences. That was mine. I don't need religion to tell me what that was about and where my mom is. 🙂

6

Of course I have had experiences. Lots of them. I used to study phenomena. When you believe it and follow traditional teachings of it things seem to happen. If you challenge it and question it with logic fewer things happen. In the end it is a mindset that comes alive when it happens. You may find that the paranormal is something that we do not understand and therefore we help cause it ourselves.
Paranormal experiences are much like Evangelical religion. It is all very real while you are a part of it, but it lessens as you slip away from it. For those who continue to be bothered by it, I would say out loud "I do not want to play the game." You find with time that this works mostly because you are talking to yourself. You are making a decision to abandon phenomena.

6

.One time in the late afternoon at dusk in very low light I was approaching in my car towards a dead end road I saw 2 motorcycles in the mist of somebodies garden. both were clear mages of motorcycles. I wondered why they were parked there.. As I approached this image and received more detailed resolution due to declining distance, the motorcycles disappeared and I was left with only the shrubs in the garden. This occurrence immediately struck me as how much the brain must assist the eyes when attempting to resolve ikmages being viewed with inadequate lighting.

Very true.

I was walking in the middle of a major city and glanced quickly to the side and thought I saw a Black Angus in someone's back yard. On second glance it was a black Great Dane,a really big one. Nice illusion

Correct ... in every sense realm your brain fills in the gaps of any missing information coming through your cortex and systems... So potentially you can have all sorts of effects/confusions.

6

I’ve had several experiences that have left me not able to to deny the paranormal. I know everyone from both sides of the fence would like to debunk it. Is what it is, and I refuse to try to rationalize them away.

Drunk or sober, stoned or clean?

@FrayedBear I’m clean and sober, except when I’m not. But every incident I’ve had has been 100% clear headed.

5

About 12 years ago, I shared a cottage out in the countryside with a friend. When we first moved in, I took the biggest bedroom, but I could never relax in there and after a couple of weeks switched to the tiny third bedroom. I put that down to the noise of the traffic on the road in front of the cottage.

One night, after we'd been there for about six months, my friend went out to the pub and I stayed home alone. As I sat reading in the room directly below that bedroom, I suddenly heard a loud bang followed by thuds that seemed to cross from one side to the other, like a heavy man wearing boots - and as I stared up at the ceiling, the light was swaying from side to side. I know with 100% certainty that no other living human was in the house with me that night

I don't believe in the supernatural and never have, and I'm certain that given enough data it would be possible to show that what happened was down to natural causes. However, I don't mind admitting that I was absolutely terrified and ran out of the house, then sat on the footpath running along the road for three hours before my friend returned home.

Jnei Level 8 Apr 2, 2018

Jnei thats some story, sounds terrifying, hope it didn't happen again

@ScienceBill72 Just the once. The cottage has since been sold and renovated; I've often thought about visiting and asking whoever lives there now if they've had any strange experiences, but I don't want to scare them in case they haven't and they believe in that sort of thing!

4

I've had more than a few strange experiences in my life. Every time something seemingly supernatural happens, I start investigating, and every time I find a perfectly natural explanation.

d_day Level 7 Apr 3, 2018
4

I've seen and experienced some stuff. I'll freely admit there does not appear to be any evidence for supernatural influences in reality. Still is fun to talk about, and as long as we haven't ruled out that we are living in a simulation or such, who knows. I run a Facebook group called "Glitches in the Matrix" where people can share such experiences and talk about them in an open minded environment.

4

Well...as a12 year old I used to always hear a strange voice on the other side of my closed bedroom door that would repeatedly say my name and as it did, it would always get deeper and deeper. Then there was the time when I was 9 and I saw a strange shadow appearing up the stairs in the hallway, heading for my room. I can never remember waking up from these dreams cause they seemed so real and until this day can’t understand why that happened.

I'm scared just reading that, never mind actually experiencing it!

That sounds quite creepy and bizarre, especially the shadow figure on the stairs

@ScienceBill72 It was! Best believe me!

I definitely don't doubt it !

4

I have had at least 2 dreams that were descriptive of future events.Twice I have done things that didnt make sense but resulted in being in a place that saved someones life.I can't explain them but thats about it

4

I believe in the possibility of alternate, possibly opposite though not paralell universes.

3

I've had a couple. But I'm fairly certain it was a matter or semi conscious mind over matter.

3

Anything is possible in multiverse theory.

3

raises hand

One thing that I get from here is that some agnostics/atheists can not fathom why I believe in aliens/the supernatural when there is no proof, but say I'm an atheist because there is no proof of God. For me, there is proof of aliens and the supernatural from experiences that I've had growing up.

Like I mentioned before, just because something hasn't happened to you doesn't mean that it's never happened to anyone. I have seen and experienced things that I can't explain. That's proof enough for me.

2

We have no scientific evidence of a parallel universe? I have had paranormal things happen to me as well. Things have moved in the house, I thought I have seen people in the house. I believe it is just the energy from the people that lived her almost 175 years ago. I live in a very old house that was a log cabin built by a carpenter in the 1840's.

ebdb Level 7 Apr 6, 2018
2

I just helped debunk the book "The Paranormal House" by Sybil Howe. Totally made up story to generate money to help her continue to make mortgage payments! Good for Sybil on that point.

My cousin bought the house last year, initially unaware of the story. She heard about the book and the TV program about it. I helped remodel the house, no surprises, and my cousin was able to find people complicit in fabricating the story.

No, no paranormal experiences, sorry there is no parallel universe, there was no "Ocean Born Mary" either, another old New England ghost story.

Yes, there are things that seem not to be able to be explained, but I believe with enough research most can be. But I used the word most, leaving the door open just a crack...

@Scoobs The movie, well TV Show, was already made! So the question I asked, does the "haunting" change the property value? Plus or minus?

The house is now an income property, debunking was to be sure the renters lived without people knocking at the door. I'm told for a couple of years Halloween Parties were held at the house, you had to buy a ticket.

It was on A&E "Paranormal State," still available on DVD, Season One. I'm told it is on line, but it is blocked to viewers where I live, in Australia.

2

I have had a few uncanny experiences in my life but I do believe that there is a natural explanation for everything. I think humans have a tendancy to attribute god or the supernatural to anything that they don't understand.

2

I've had these beings of energy following me around since last year. They've helped my a lot. And I can feel their warmth.

2

Thank you for your response. I simplified my examples as there have been many. Trying to give details to each occurrence would require a lot of time to type details. However, the 'door' example was interesting because it was inside the house, with no open windows or breeze. The door did not close easily because it hung uneven due to settling of the house. In order for this door to be closed you had to lift up and push really hard to close it. This incident happened while five members of the family were sitting in the next room watching TV. The bedroom door slammed with force. No explanation of how or why, it just left a very eerie feeling. In this same time frame a huge eucalyptus wreath that had been hanging in my living room for three years (by a very secure nail and hanging hook on the back of the wreath) on three occasions lifted itself off the nail and was propelled into the middle of the living room, this happened with all five family members sitting in the room.

What ages were the family members?

@FrayedBear it was myself, my husband and three kids that were the ages of 16, 15, and 12.

@Stephanie1961 I have read hypothesis that such experiences are caused/ happen because of teenagers.

@FrayedBear yes it could be psychokinesis energy some call it poltergeist activity. The strange part is my mother died just a few days prior to the onset of activity that continued for about six weeks..

2

Sure. I've observed all the stuff you mentioned, and FAR more, but found it's easy to get rid of that spooky stuff..just decide it's gone, and it IS.
We are creating our own realities, and when we don't "feed" that weird energy with fear or belief, it vanishes.

2

No. It's more likely any experience you've had has a fully natural explanation that your not aware of. Supernature is for people when they forgoe probability and seek fanciful explanations that don't really explain anything. Good for stories but nothing else. Why would a door closing make you think something not in this world done it... how would it close then? More likely a force in this world but because you don't know what it is and your suseptable to supernatural beliefs you go for the easy route. Magic. Just a way to satisfy the gap in your knowledge but it's intellectually dishonest. Really you have an unexplained occurance and have little to base a conclusion on.

2

There's a possibility if you believe string theory. Most paranormal activity is fairly easy to explain though. I use to go ghost hunting, almost every time there was a plausible explanation for the things that happened. It is amazing what the human mind can make you believe you saw or heard.

Since everything is ultimately made of energy, energy can't be created or destroyed, and time and space are only illusions, that means we've always existed and will always exist in some energy form. Of course there could be "ghosts."

Many young children in studies done of 2-6 year old children worldwide who remembered their past lives, remembered being ghosts between incarnations, described what they did and who they saw, and the accuracy of these events were verified.

@birdingnut do you happen to know of a location or journal for these studies, it sounds like a fascinating read.

@birdingnut I found at least one study from Dr. Ian Stevenson. I was only able to find the first 3 chapters from his book in a database, so I'll have to go pick up the book from the library. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

1

What I do not understand about humans is how anyone can be so certain something does or does not exist. Religion can be proven to be man-made. It has a traceable history but "God" "gods" "aliens" cannot be traced back to an original beginning. Every single tribe/culture throughout history has believed in some sort of deity or space creatures. I believe without a doubt that we are not alone in the galaxy and there are forces/energies/spirits/magic....that are not visible to the human eye and I hope to whatever is out there that non believers don't find out the hard way that we are not all there is.
One good look at ancient Egypt hieroglyphs, megaliths, and architecture should be enough to tell us we have lost knowledge not gained it so why do we assume our lack of experience is evidence?. Good and evil forces do exist and believing we have all the answers about the mysteries of life is rather arrogant when we cannot even name every shade of green. There is no end to the stories of men from the skies throughout history. The only thing that makes it "supernatural" is our reluctance to accept it as natural. I have had numerous "unexplainable" incidents that were no mystery to me.

Supernatural: departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature

@creativelyMe. Thank you! I feel the same but many on here are pretty staunch in believing if there is no God then there is no spirits. I have had so many experiences and I am not crazy. Many would say it's an over active imagination, not when five people experience and witness things at the same time. I seek answers and understanding and am on a lifelong quest to find them.

@Stephanie1961 You are welcome. I know we are not crazy. I think it is crazy (very narrow world view) to think we know wtf is going on. I know the first time I saw an opera singer shatter glass with the pitch of her voice I thought that was supernatural and it is if you think about it (I mean how natural is it?) I have experienced mind blowing stuff or even caused it to happen, I don't know for sure but faith really is a powerful force and fear is crippling. There is something to all that stuff just not rituals for everyone to assimilate to. I once wished for a motor home and had one the very next day even though I was broke. (Long story) I also had a car basically go right through my car without hitting us. I turned my head just in time to see the drivers eyes as he was sliding into me and screamed OMG NO and suddenly the car was safely on the other side of us. Lot's of stories like that and witnesses for most of them so no-one needs to believe it but you and I KNOW something is going on that boggles the mind even for those of us that have experienced it.

1

While I haven't had an experience I do believe in the nether world. I always watch programs and videos of paranormal and am intrigued by what I see. It is very hard to dispute when a " ghost" does some of the things that I have seen. I just think that those who experience it have a certian energy about them that awakens these spirits. Just sayin🙂

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