Thoughts on the Afterlife, ghosts, and spirits.

[fringed n fab]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

I've had several things happen to me that I personally place meaning to... that others may discount. I'll share my experiences, and everyone can come to their own conclusions.

I've been in two serious car accidents in my life. The first occurred when I was 18. It was early in the morning, and I was on my way to my summer job: I worked as an assistant ranger at a State Park out in the middle of nowhere. I was on a deserted back highway on a big sweeping curve when I noticed 2 little girls walking their puppy by the road. Suddenly the dog darted out in front of me, and I swerved around it... not wanting to cream the poor girl's puppy right in front of them. This made my car start fish-tailing violently... and I lost control of the car, it flew into a ditch, and flipped over. I unlatched my seatbelt and crawled out of the car unharmed. Before I knew it, there was a woman standing beside me who said she was a nurse. She handed me a bottle of water, and her cell phone and told me to call my parents, which I did. I don't know that I ever looked up at her.

Fast forward 3 years. I'd just finished a 12 hour job of putting a new water pump in my DeLorean car at my parents house. I needed to have the job finished so I could be back at college for classes the next morning. I finally got the car finished up well into the night, packed my things in it, and hit the road for the 2.5 hour trek back to school. In the middle of nowhere I saw a giant old Cadillac suddenly run off the road, and I instantly knew the car would overcompensate and come straight for me... which it did. All I had time to do was floor it, and swerve my car before the Cadillac careened into me. My car spun around 200 degrees, and came to a rest. I tried frantically to get out... but my door was jammed shut. I hopped over to the passenger side... also jammed. About that time I noticed my driver's window didn't have any glass left in it, so I crawled out unharmed. Again, almost immediately, I had a woman standing beside me and telling me she was a nurse. She handed me a bottle of water, and told me to call my parents. I did as I was told... and again, didn't look up at her face.

I didn't put two and two together until I was in the hospital being checked out after the second wreck. Every time I think about the accidents now I get chills. I've never been a religious person at all... but this was a flashing billboard for me. People can interpret my story how they will, but I know the conclusion I've drawn from my first hand experience.

This is a picture of me with my DeLorean the day after my accident. My Mother has always sworn that all the orbs around me were angels. The orbs are in both pictures. I didn't even pay attention to them until my Mother pointed them out. I'm not sure I'm an orb believer... but here are the pictures anyway:

That's so weird Louie! How come we didn't point any of that out before when you showed us the pictures? (smh) but I totally believe you. And I don't think you're nuts. From what you've described it sounds very much like some kind of guide or guardian angel has been watching over you. We're all supposed to have them and I'm sure if you ever asked a noted psychic* (lol) they can tell you the names of them and most likely describe these beings to you to a "T" without you having to say a thing. Too many people have had your experiences so please never think you're delusional or nutty. I'm just glad I'm not the only one who's experienced some of these unexplained things and I'm glad you made it out safe both times. Sounds to me you're definitely being watched over.

[fringed n fab]

So now that we're on the topic of orbs appearing in photos and stuff like Louie's above, a few years back on aol one day in the chat we all got on the subject of ghosts and weird happenings and one of my buddies who I knew was always very spiritual in his beliefs, he was talking openly in the room about this "being" he always felt was around him and following him around all the time everywhere he'd go. But that he never felt at all threatened by it or anything, things felt more like it was watching over him all the time or something. And then he IM'ed me and said "I want to show you something. Let me know what you think?" and he sent me a picture. In the picture, plain as day on a bright sunny morning with the sun shining through the back seat of his Camaro, was this orb figure of a man in what looked to be some sort of Civil War get up with a hat on, sitting right behind his driver seat. And he asked me "Do you see it?" and I replied "Yes I do" and I asked him what it was he thought, and he said he felt it was someone just watching over him and had been doing it for quite a while. And he never felt it was threatening. I had asked him well have you ever tried talking to it or calling it out or anything? You should tell it it's dead and to go Home or something. But he said he never wanted to do that for fear of maybe making it upset or something so he just left it alone. I had this photo forever but over time I must have lost it switching different computers over time. But it was clearly not a doctored photo. It looked just like a ghost figure to me that was clearly see through in appearance and sitting right directly behind his driver seat with the morning sun shining through it. And I totally believe what I saw and what he told me. I knew his personal beliefs on this kind of stuff and I knew he would never be one to play any games about it. Beings appearing in photos have happened to quite many people.

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by fringed n fab

That's so weird Louie! How come we didn't point any of that out before when you showed us the pictures? (smh) but I totally believe you. And I don't think you're nuts. From what you've described it sounds very much like some kind of guide or guardian angel has been watching over you. We're all supposed to have them and I'm sure if you ever asked a noted psychic* (lol) they can tell you the names of them and most likely describe these beings to you to a "T" without you having to say a thing. Too many people have had your experiences so please never think you're delusional or nutty. I'm just glad I'm not the only one who's experienced some of these unexplained things and I'm glad you made it out safe both times. Sounds to me you're definitely being watched over.

I've actually had quite a few things happen to me throughout my life which have been affirmations of an afterlife, God, angels/spirits, psychic knowledge, etc. I think I'm probably more sensitive/in tune than most to such things.

For starters, I tend to have psychic dreams. The problem is they're totally pointless. I'll have a very vivid dream of a red house next to a strange field strewn with large boulders... then several years later I will drive past that exact house and field while visiting a state I'd never been to. That kind of stuff happens to me all of the time. Totally random, useless images are fed to me in my dreams... and years later, they'll come true. It's never anything pivotal or even meaningful. They just turn out to be exact impressions of places I've never been before... and one day end up in. Never famous places I've read about or seen on TV, just totally pointless random places.

On another subject, the house I grew up in seemed to have a poltergeist. One day when I was 15 I was in my room, bending down to pick up a sock, and I felt a hand give me a shove in the middle of my back. I turned around screaming and cursing, thinking it was my Mother trying to scare me. It was then I realized that my Mother was out of town shopping for the day... talk about chills. 10 years after that incident, I had taken one of my college friends home to meet my family. Over breakfast the next morning he said the most interesting thing happened when he was about to get in bed the previous night. He said he felt a hand on his back shove him down when he was about to turn off the bedside lamp. I never told my friend or ANYONE about the hand incident that happened to me 10 years earlier, so this wasn't something planted in his mind.

The last house I lived in also had a ghost whom I affectionately called Robert. Some people saw him, others didn't. I was single at the time... and I'd bring lots of new people into the house. I never told anyone about the ghost at first. Some people would sense him as soon as they walked in the door... and would say so (without me ever having brought him up). They'd point over towards the bedrooms, and say they feel or see something over there. Which is where Robert always was. He would always be seen walking in the little hall between the bedrooms and bathroom. Never anywhere else. Robert was fairly vapory and indistinct and was always just a flash... but everyone unequivocally knew he was a man. What's interesting about Robert is just as soon as several months had gone by, and you forgot he was there... boom! He'd walk out of the bathroom and go into my bedroom!

The funny thing is, even after all of these encounters, I still don't entirely know if I believe my own experiences. Years and years later I'm still questioning whether or not they were what I thought they were. Was I simply seeing flashes of light or reflections? Was my poltergeist just a twitching nerve, or an overactive imagination? What about the other people who experienced the same things? Whatever the case, this is the stuff that makes life worth living. The unknown. I'm glad not everything is literal, tangible, and measurable. There needs to be some mystery out there, unsolved answers. We need to always be asking new questions. People who think they have all of the answers bug me. We all need to accept there are things out there we just know nothing about.

[LukeA]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

For starters, I tend to have psychic dreams. The problem is they're totally pointless. I'll have a very vivid dream of a red house next to a strange field strewn with large boulders... then several years later I will drive past that exact house and field while visiting a state I'd never been to. That kind of stuff happens to me all of the time. Totally random, useless images are fed to me in my dreams... and years later, they'll come true. It's never anything pivotal or even meaningful. They just turn out to be exact impressions of places I've never been before... and one day end up in. Never famous places I've read about or seen on TV, just totally pointless random places.

I once had a very specific dream involving a completely random particular business in a particular city. I couldn't recall hearing of either before and had no idea why on earth I could have thought of them, so I scrawled it out while half-asleep and went back to bed. I went to the library a few days later (me, being 8 and this being 1990)- sure enough, it was a real town (not anywhere near I had any kind of association) and a real business (not in any field I had a particular interest in/association with).

This happens to me all the time. At least once a week. Not just businesses/cities... people. Movies. Artists. Animals. Anything. I stopped counting after the first couple dozen. I don't chalk it up to anything supernatural or otherwise psychic, though- I've just always cast a wide net in terms of my interests & research subjects, and my photographic memory subconsciously collects things I ultimately have zero conscious recollection of.

[fringed n fab]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

Whatever the case, this is the stuff that makes life worth living. The unknown. I'm glad not everything is literal, tangible, and measurable. There needs to be some mystery out there, unsolved answers. We need to always be asking new questions. People who think they have all of the answers bug me. We all need to accept there are things out there we just know nothing about.

I agree! And it's nice to know I'm not the only one who's experienced things myself or known of others who have. I think some people are just scared or confused or whatever to open up and talk about it. And that's ok. I would think what's happened to you on several occasions is very real. And I think the more we open our minds and "tune in" the more things you might see and hear. I think that's why true psychics are able to see and hear/feel so much. Because they've opened themselves up to it and are tuned in. I wouldn't easily write off your little "trips" in dreams. From my understanding and personal experience, we all have them all the time, sometimes we awake to remember what just happened, sometimes we awaken and don't remember a thing. Sometimes, if you've had ones like I've had on a couple occasions in recent years, you lie there and are not even asleep yet but literally will feel yourself bounce out of your body and then be in another place you can instantly feel is not of this world, and I'm in that moment living and feeling whats all around me and the smells... the smells are things I can't explain but are very real.. all the while I know I'm still right there on that bed and I then try and snap out of it to get back to "here". People may think you're nuts and crazy, but unless you've ever had this happen to you it's hard to explain. But astral projection is very real and can happen whether you want it to or not. It's just a natural thing, us leaving our bodies going on little "trips" and then popping back in. I feel weird when it's happened. I certainly wasn't preparing for it. But I take comfort in knowing I'm not the only person it happens to. And from what you described about having "dreams" where you envision places you've been to before, well maybe you have? Maybe we all have. Sometimes I wonder if the places I "go to" when I have those out of body experiences are places I may have been before? It's hard to understand unless it's happened to you so I hope fellow Ledgies won't come at us with the white jackets just yet lol.

[jaycee]

I've had an out of body experience. It was at the start of a physics exam in November 2008. I felt like I was standing behind myself! It's certainly something that leaves you shaken up a bit!
However, to go on and say that it's a supernatural phenomenon, like your "spirit" leaving you, is jumping to conclusions far too hastily:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-...ke_experiences
(And I was able to reclaim my composure and pass the exam, in case you were wondering. I spent a couple of minutes staring blankly at my exam paper, shakily musing over what I'd experienced, but managed to remind myself of the importance of the exam, and hopped to it!)
It's probably worth saying this, even it you don't believe me - it's not like I'm a skeptic that wants to suck the fascination and mysteriousness out of "supernatural" phenomena... basically, I'm not a killjoy! It's just that I'm interested in finding out how the universe actually works. And, for better or worse, non-physical explanations of phenomena simply aren't true.
Something else worth saying - the universe will always, always be more incredible than we can imagine! So we shouldn't do to it the insulting disservice of making up simple, anthropocentric beliefs about its workings!

[holidayroad]

Originally Posted by Zombie

That's terrible! It would never occur to me to send a letter to a religious family in my town calling them names for being religious. I'm sorry that you have to deal with that.

Thank you for saying this. It helps to know that there are understanding people out there!

[holidayroad]

Originally Posted by LukeA

Wait- you're telling me people who identify themselves as religious are also timid & hypocritical?

(I'm very sorry that you have to deal with such idiots)

Thanks! Hypocritical....some!! Timid....

[holidayroad]

The house I lived in for four years (2001-2005) definitely had some kind of spirits/ghosts. I believe they were children. My husband and I would often hear sounds like a music box being played and children laughing. They were often mischievous. They would tickle my husbands feet while he was trying to sleep. They would put toys in my son's crib. Something broke the wheels off of my son's crib, as well. Once, when my mom and sister were visiting from out of town, they were totally freaked out. My sister was sleeping on an air mattress in our living room. My mom sleeping on the couch beside it. There was maybe 6 inches between the couch and mattress. One morning, my mom awakened me and said "Please tell me you put that vase there." I had no idea what she was talking about. Turns out that this small vase that we had on our end table was placed between the mattress and the couch. It couldn't have just fallen off the table or anything. The vase came with a seperate bowl and the vase was set in the bowl, right in between the couch and the mattress. We don't have any ghosts in our new house and we kind of miss them. I'd love to ask the people living in the other house if they have seen anything!

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by Zombie

Well, just because something looks like it was designed, doesn't mean it is/was designed. We do ...

...In fact, it was a priest when I was about 10 that taught me how to view the Bible with a critical eye and read it for the beautiful stories, metaphors and life lessons it contains, rather than taking it as literal truth. Thanks, Father Palko! You were awesome.

To be honest I don't have the energy to argue against any of this right now. You've made some good points; so let's just leave it there.
Except I'll just say that science is a Faith too, based on observations of the Universe and a certain point-of-view.

One other thing I'd like to emphasize though, is the tv example. What I meant was that the materials that go INTO a tv set (or computer, medical scanner, etc.) happen to have EXACTLY the properties which are necessary in order to make them possible IF PEOPLE SEARCH FOR THEM. That, too me, seems like something that's extremely unlikely to happen "on its own."

Does there HAVE to be an underlying, first "cause?"
Well, technically no, I guess not -
But I feel that it's a rational possibility that there might be.

[fringed n fab]

Originally Posted by holidayroad

The house I lived in for four years (2001-2005) definitely had some kind of spirits/ghosts. I believe they were children. My husband and I would often hear sounds like a music box being played and children laughing. They were often mischievous. They would tickle my husbands feet while he was trying to sleep. They would put toys in my son's crib. Something broke the wheels off of my son's crib, as well. Once, when my mom and sister were visiting from out of town, they were totally freaked out. My sister was sleeping on an air mattress in our living room. My mom sleeping on the couch beside it. There was maybe 6 inches between the couch and mattress. One morning, my mom awakened me and said "Please tell me you put that vase there." I had no idea what she was talking about. Turns out that this small vase that we had on our end table was placed between the mattress and the couch. It couldn't have just fallen off the table or anything. The vase came with a seperate bowl and the vase was set in the bowl, right in between the couch and the mattress. We don't have any ghosts in our new house and we kind of miss them. I'd love to ask the people living in the other house if they have seen anything!

Ghosts can be playful, especially with children. Or they can be mischievous. It just depends. I really think to ghosts, we're the intruders in their world and that's why they can appear upset sometimes or make loud noises etc. People may sit and judge us for talking about this and offer every explanation in the book but maybe these things have to happen to them for them to understand.

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by fringed n fab

Ghosts can be playful, especially with children. Or they can be mischievous. It just depends. I really think to ghosts, we're the intruders in their world and that's why they can appear upset sometimes or make loud noises etc. People may sit and judge us for talking about this and offer every explanation in the book but maybe these things have to happen to them for them to understand.

I'm surprised this hasn't come up; but Stevie once told a story about encountering a ghost at a castle or maybe a chatteau that she was staying at in England. Pretty sure it was in Rolling Stone - it was part of an interview. It's easily findable on Nicksfix.
Personally I think the reporter should have pressed her for more information; I received an overall impression that Stevie was "holding out" on her...

[fringed n fab]

I had never heard of such stuff until very recently but apparently this kind of thing has happened all across the world and that is the creation of a Tulpa. If you concentrate and clearly think or meditate about something for so long, it becomes real. And this scares the **** out of me I won't lie! And I don't feel it's something to dabble with really. These creatures once created can take on mischievous lives of their own and have to be destroyed by their creators from my understanding. EEERIE!!!!

In mysticism a tulpa is the concept of a being or object which is created through sheer willpower alone. It is a materialized thought that has taken physical form and is usually regarded as synonymous to a thoughtform.

The term comes from the works of Alexandra David-Neel, who claimed to have created a tulpa in the image of a jolly, Friar Tuck-like monk which later developed a life of its own and had to be destroyed.

Fringed n Fab talking-

Ok this stuff was especially weird when I read about it because I remember when I was 15 we had these weird neighbors who lived next door to our old house and people always said they dabbled in witchcraft (occult) stuff sometimes and I had even asked their two teenaged daughters who we went to school with about it and they had told me yes, their dad did at times dabble in it and they all would sometimes see this hairy little creature appear from out of the walls and run across the room into the other wall and disappear into it. They even had a name for it. So time passes by and another neighbor woman, she was a lot older than all of us, she was talking about the time she was over there visiting and this thing appeared from out of the wall and came out into the room and then ran into the other wall, again disappearing into it. And when I say that, I mean it went into the wall literally. No holes there, nothing. CREEPY I know. But anyway this thing had scared the neighbor lady so bad that she wouldn't ever step foot in their house again unless she had a ball bat with her. So years later I wonder if that very creature was some kind of Tulpa their weird father had created. Because he had a name for it and everything and these people were just wierd.

[fringed n fab]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

I'm surprised this hasn't come up; but Stevie once told a story about encountering a ghost at a castle or maybe a chatteau that she was staying at in England. Pretty sure it was in Rolling Stone - it was part of an interview. It's easily findable on Nicksfix.
Personally I think the reporter should have pressed her for more information; I received an overall impression that Stevie was "holding out" on her...

I think Stevie's a very spiritual person, but in the good way. So it's funny so many on this board have issues with it, when FM and Stevie have dealt with visions, and crystal balls, and Buddhist decor in their homes, on album covers, they've talked about it, wrote mysterious songs about this stuff. So I find it quite funny that people question us when we're talking about some of the very things this group has written about for 30 years.

"She was dark at the top of the stairs"

[Zombie]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

To be honest I don't have the energy to argue against any of this right now. You've made some good points; so let's just leave it there.
Except I'll just say that science is a Faith too, based on observations of the Universe and a certain point-of-view.

One other thing I'd like to emphasize though, is the tv example. What I meant was that the materials that go INTO a tv set (or computer, medical scanner, etc.) happen to have EXACTLY the properties which are necessary in order to make them possible IF PEOPLE SEARCH FOR THEM. That, too me, seems like something that's extremely unlikely to happen "on its own."

Does there HAVE to be an underlying, first "cause?"
Well, technically no, I guess not -
But I feel that it's a rational possibility that there might be.

All righty. I'll leave it.

But I do have to add one respectful disagreement: science does not involve faith. Faith, by definition, is belief in things unseen or for which there is no proof. Science is in the business of finding proof.

And I do not deny the possibility that there might be a god, either. That would be entirely hypocritical of me.