Do you see dead people?

that would explain it...

Seeing such things and highly suggestible people:
My helpers were working in an empty apartment, seperately. First, A, without incident. Next day, B works there. He tells us he saw a man in there, a spirit of somebody. (To my knowledge, only single older women have ever lived there). An exact description of the incident eludes me. But, next day, A works in there and he lies down a bit at lunch time. He says later that a man (spirit) held him down and he very nearly couldn't get up. I contend that B's story planted the expectation in A's mind, so that he imagined the whole thing. Neither of them has claimed to see any more spirits since then, which was several months ago.

I have felt the presence of spirits, at different times in my life.
Some have been wonderful, full of love.

One presence I felt had a particular scent (aftershave?), and a really strong, powerful presence. I don't know who he was. But the aftershave he wore actually woke me up in the middle of the night. I couldn't see anything but I could feel his presence & the scent lingered on.
I still don't know who he was or why he was there.

I have also been 'visited' by two of my cousins & a good friend after they passed away.
I saw their spirits & they came to say goodbye.

Just thought I'd share this with you.

The spooks are scared of you, Edgar.

That's kind of scary, isn't it?

We all see "dead" people, although their "death" has more to do with being spiritually lifeless than being physically deceased.

I can still picture James Coburn in Great Escape and Seven Samurai. Well, for that matter, I can still visualize Mifuni rather well...

I am not a ghost believer. My cousins are. Something about feet stomping in the attic, back when cousin P and her husband lived on whatever army base is near White Sands, New Mexico, and the other cousin, N, her sister, went to stay with them since P was about to give birth momentarily and could use the company.

So, both P and N heard stomping across the roof at different times, compared notes, and found there was an old (whatever, forget the story) who had lived there back when and was clearly revisiting in a not very threatening way but making his presence known.

Here I am in New Mexico, decades later, and I live in an area without a lot of trees... but stuff lands on my roof. Windy here, sometimes. Shall I be thinking of rooftop gnomes?

Well, a lot of people I know believe in spirits. I used to believe in the soul, but am not sure I ever really absorbed the idea of saints and spirits, even though I thought I did. It was sort of like two layers not quite adhering. I prayed to saints, but it was a conceptual leap I couldn't keep up.

I feel that belief in has something to do with fear of dead people we have maligned. Every society has some kind of funeral procedure, and often it seems that the funeral is, among other things (like grief management and a demonstration of social solidarity among the living) a way of getting the deceased to let go, to go away, to forgive. In some societies it is taboo to even mention the name of the deceased.
The belief that ghosts stick around because they are attached to their home or because they seek revenge for harms suffered (i.e., THEY can't "let go"), suggests to me our attachment to the deceased (i.e., WE can't "let go" of them or our guilt toward them--whatever).

I've thought that some belief in spirits is more than that, sort of a friendly connection across the chasm - at least some of my friends who are more open to all this than I am see it not so much as fear as being open to the spirits of the ages. Hard for me to express since I don't believe in it, but I don't think all belief is fear based. Although it may be fear allaying...

After my brother died, actually several months later, I lay in bed one night. I felt that I awoke to feel the warmth of his body as he slipped into bed next to me and slept. When I actually did awaken, I was convinced for a minute that he still was there.

A few years later, after my mother's death, I lamented the fact I had not been there to tell her good-bye. I dreamed I took her dead body and pushed on her chest until her eyes opened. But I was stricken when the eyes looked only at my daughter and not at me. Her head rolled to the side and the dream quickly ended.

These are obviously incidents created by my grief and longing, not contact with dead souls. But they help to illustrate how thin the line is between the real and not real of our experience.

Osso and Edgar, good insights. Edgar your description of your dream is worthy of a piece of literature or screenplay.

Osso, yes I do think our attachments to the "dearly departed" can be expressions of love and not just fear. But I think the anthropological literature might indicate the importance of fear.

I just saw your last post, jl. Thanks.

My youngest brother is the type of atheist who despises religious thought. Yet he believes in ghosts. Once, he and my mother were in Minesota for a protracted visit. The house they lived in had doors shutting on their own, and there was a "presence" near a stair or something, that they all avoided and the dog would not get near. Also, the day my mother died, he was in her room and he said personal items of hers violently crashed off of shelves.
I leave it to others to analize his stories. For myself, I repeat that I have had not a single instance of ghost activity to report.

My father's grandmother died near 1980. She was living with my uncle's home. I heard from my cousins for a lot of time she was coming at the middle of the night and was covering their quilts...
She was beloved lady.

But there r many facts that I ve heard about genies.. They appear generally nights as a relatives and also imitate their all specilities, bcs of they live more than us and ve a knowledge about old time and personals.. People who suppose that they r their family member attends them and get in trouble..

No common.. I sit my chair and don't open the door.. lol..

Edgar, I think that belief in ghosts and belief in spirits, demons, gods, etc. are of the same nature, expressions of supernaturalism.

jl
I agree, and have mentioned this to my brother, which angers him.

Ever since my father died, several family members visit me in my dreams. I usually see my Mom, Dad, Grandmother and Grandfather. The thing I think is interesting is I always see them as they were in their late 30's early 40's. They seem healthy and happy. My Mom and Grandmother succumbed to Altzheimers, which is a very cruel way to go. Both Dad and my Grandfather died about 6 weeks after a stroke. Yet I never see them as aged or sick.

Now for some really creepy stuff. My mother told me when I was about 10 that I had imaginary playmates when I was about 2 or 3. We lived in Iceland at the time. (6 months of nights and 6 months of daylight., including the Northern Lights) During the daylight she said I played happily with the 2 imaginary friends but was afraid of them during the night. I would love to know why the imaginary friends were named "The Muddy Man" and "Mr. Lucifer". My parents never used language like that. And my parents never subjected us to hurtful, hateful slurs. I suppose another child could have suggested the "friends". I just don't know. My father also told me that when I just turned two years of age, I was palying with toys on the floor and turned around and said "Pop Pop is gone". The next day, they received a telegram telling them my father's Dad had died the previous day. It doesn't make sense that I would have a connection to my grandfather, since we left Baltimore when I was 8 months old to go to Iceland.

I've had other friends tell me stories of strange things they have encountered. One friend told me about walking into the kitchen and smelling an Ivory Soap fragrance, she said it reminded her of her grandmother, the same mix of soap and slight sweat during the summer. And no, there were no bars of Ivory Soap in the house.

That's about all I can remember tonight. I'm not even goning to get into some of the stuff others have told me. I just had a funny thought!!!!! After typing all the stuff above I almost caught myself getting ready to say I wasn't going to repeat the silly stuff others have told me because it was so unbelievable. I can't believe me. Sometimes even I crack me up.

There is a great deal we don't know about our world.

Edgar, I hope your brother dies AFTER me. I wouldn't want his anger to cause him to haunt me.
Right, the natural world is mysterious enough.

Glitterbag, these are wonderful and understandable examples of our attempts to put a little enchantment into our lives. I try to do it with literature and art.

That's really what I meant this thread to be about. There are some things that happen and we just can't explain them. These things get labeled as: divine intervention, miracles, mental illness, delusions, tricks of the mind etc. but the truth is we just don't know it all. Religions I have studied don't seem to offer much in the way of fact, but I've had experiences that lead me to believe the universe presents many mysteries we have yet to explain.