My wife had a bad dream on Monday and woke to what she thought was a ghost, she says she did not believe in them before but now she is very scared (un-characteristic of her). Her parents are even sending over a buddhist monk to spend the night here and bless the house!
People on this site seem insightful and intelligent. I am curious, do you believe in ghosts?

I don't believe in ghosts in the classical sense of dead people that haven't "crossed over". Do I believe in a holographic universe where every possible existence is occurring at the same moment in different dimensions/frequencies and possibly in the same places, which could hypothetically create the possibility of encountering an entity on our plane of existence? Sure.

Also, you mentioned she had just awoken from a bad dream to see the ghost. It isn't that uncommon for people with sleep paralysis and related sleep abnormalities to hallucinate such things as demons sitting on their chest or possibly even ghosts during an episode. You should have her do some research on sleep disorders and see if anything rings a bell.

Believe isn't the word I'd use; you can observe something, independently of belief...it doesn't matter if you believe it or not, once you experience it.
I observe something, I just don't fully understand what it is. I used to be a pure skeptic when I was younger, but as you get older, you realize you really don't know anything.

My mom and wife observe these things more clearly than I do, and my aunt knows whether or not there's a 'presence' before she even enters a building.

I didn't believe in ghosts prior to when i saw something. Now i still don't know what/how so i'll just share a similar experience for the sake of analysis. It is scary when you experience it. Because it seems so real.

A genderless figure about the size of an average human with a classic transparant colour and white dress. Had a round head and it stood out that it's face(eyes,nose,mouth) was replaced by a cross. It appeared when i woke up and it echoed what happened in the dream. (something scary was on it's way to my room in this dream) When aweoke it entered the room through the door and was on it's way out with an atonomous floating motion about 1 meter above the floor. It appeared lifeless and non-intrusive.

Another variable is that i woke up in multiple false awakenings from a big long lucid dream. I experienced a kind of sleep paralysis (inability of speech, unable to move) and vibration throughout the false awakenings and it lasted for as long as i was awake and disappeared as i forced myself to move and the ghost dissapated in accordance whith my sleep paralysis that was also dissapating.

I'm not sure if this is necessarily a ghost story but as far as I can work out it is either ghosts or telepathy.

I used to be into ouji boards and did them all the time, 1 day me and a friend were doing one and he took his finger off the glass and it still worked. This was pretty freaky, especially as when I turned over my finger to have just the nail of my little finger on top of the glass it kept moving in a very strong fashion (later I tried to move the glass with my little finger nail and it wasn't possible)

So after a while my friend left the room a started to write down the names of roads and friends he had known before he moved to my town, every time I asked what he had written the board gave me the correct answer. Even though we knew there was no way for me to know these thing we moved onto random number sequences of about 10 numbers, the board never missed a single one.

It was pretty freaky and all I can come up with is either the board really does channel some kind of awareness or that we were telepathically communicating. Either way it was cool and kinda scary.

No one has ever given me a good explanation of what happened, mainly i get the feeling they just don't believe me

No, I have no belief in ghosts. I have no observed them and I have not found anyone who can demonstrate these things to me. But if I do, I will of course be amenable to changing my mind.

I do feel there are discarnate energy forms and as per the previously mentioned holographic principle I feel they can, at times, either manifest or interfere with aspects of our current physical world (I have observed this in 2 houses, via actual movement of solid objects, seemingly being flung across empty rooms in a house that could NOT have had this set up by a trickster as I was living in them at the times).

I have also participated in Ouija boards some time ago and seen enough oddness happen for me to decide I do not want to be around such things ever again..

When a shot glass is moving fast and hitting seemingly random letters, only to be talking in dutch and when translated found to be swearing and threatening to kill the one dutch person in the room (who was actually sat to one side and NOT participating in the session)...

Well, lets say I have never seen anyone so scared out of their wits or leave a room so fast in my entire life.

Then there was the guy who was thrown back from his position into the tree behind him with such apparent force that the bark managed to cut through his shirt and leave massive welts and scrapes down his back...

Some might laugh but it sure gave me the chills (and then some)..

Yeah. I do.

My old man had me late in life, aged 54. He was born in 1922. He served in the last 4 years of WW2. He was a big man, thick wrists, broad set and not given to bull shit. (Whereas I am strong but skinny and overly imaginative).

He told me and my younger bro this tale several times as I was growing up. I'll abridge. He was 14. On a river bank. Thatch roof cottages. Twilight. With his friend - Harry Bowers. A metre wide glowing orb "appeared" near the roofs of these cottages and as it descended to them it unfurled into a boy of similar age but adorned in olde Tudor clothing (a neck ruffe, boots with oversized buckles and an oversized belt)..it floated or came towards them...they ran....my dad looked back to see the boy re-forming into an orb.


Now his story never changed. As I said, he was no bull-shitter. Fast forward...I am in my late twenties, polishing my car at the front of my old mans house. My old man is stood out front. He exclaims: "I don't believe it" (An elderly Harry Bowers is approaching). My old man is so happy...he ain't seen this dude in many, many years. They stand and talk...chewing the fat and reminiscing...I am called over...Harry Bowers tells me, almost word for word, the self same story.

Do I believe in ghosts. I believed in my dad (he's dead now) and old men (Harry Bowers) tend not to make fools of themselves.

In my experience most people have at least one odd experience in their life (not just with psychedelics)

"Who ya gonna call...."

Yes i believe in ghosts because i have seen one.

I was out taking one of my nightly constitutionals by an old 13th century Cathar castle that is in my locality and i sat down in my usual place where i like to look at the moon and partake of a hot flask of sweet tea. Sometimes i take my vapour genie as it is very tranquil and deserted at that particular time in the evening.

So i was just finishing my first cup of tea when i noticed that the temperature had noticably dropped and i could suddenly see my breath in the night air. Then i saw a figure approaching silently from the pathway leading up to castle.
I wasn"t frightened but i did wonder what someone was doing out there at that time of night. I was out aswell, so maybe it was just another lonely weirdo. I thought nothing of it.
Now i don"t know whether it was due to the light of the nearly full moon but the man, for that was what i thought it was at the time, was deathly pale and dressed in outlandish garb. He was wearing dark tights, a leather jerkin and codpiece and was muttering in what i believed to be a local Occitanian dialect. My command of the Occitanian language is a little rusty nowadays but i am pretty sure i heard the mention of stirrups. Not thinking too much of the oddness of the situation i bid him a cheery good evening and was completely ignored as he walked by muttering to himself.

And just like that he was gone.

The weird thing was that when he had dissappeard the ambient temperature went up by quite a few degrees. In spite of this, the hairs on my arms were prickling and my whole body was covered in goosebumps. For some strange reason i still wasn"t frightened.

I relayed my story to one of my neighbours later in the week and she blanched at the mention of the codpiece. When i pressed her for more information she just crossed herself over and over and kept repeating "the Occitanian Chevalier has returned". Now my neighbour could not be described as the fizziest bottle of pop in the fridge and a bit of a moaning old bint at the best of times, but the look of abject fear in her eyes froze my heart.

Make of this story what you will but i believe i saw a ghost.

Ghosts, to me, are like echoes through time..replaying..not really conscious as such..
i've seen this, particularly in places where a lot of energy surrounded a death..e.g. harrowing, unacknowledged etc..

Spirits in places IMO (benevolent or malevolent) on the other hand are discarnate entities..minds or thoughts without bodies..these i've felt at times, but not seen (except occasionally with the aid of entheogens)

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It is my current belief that these things people see, are a form of hallucination. Caused by the observer being in an elevated state for one reason or another. The mind is so powerful, it can make us see and feel things our reason can't explain. We decide to label these things as ghosts, and declare them to be as real, as the physical things we are custom to in order to explain the un-explainable, similar to religion. To me they are as real as the things we see on psychedelics. But then, I have never really seen one....hehe.

Oh, by the way. There were two monks that came to bless the house for us. They drove 5 hours to get here, because my wives father wanted the best. It was quite the production! Most of her family was there, they were all very concerned for us, and the teenage ones were terrified! The next night after the blessing, my wife said she had a good nights sleep, and she felt better. So I told her it must have worked. It is nice to have so many people care for our families well being. Especially for something as relatively minor as a bad dream.

yeah, you'll revise that "belief" once you experience it.

elevated states, as in "psychedelic states", have nothing to do with it, other regions of the brain just seem to be dormant in some people, and active in others. telling them they're just hallucinating, you may as well just insult their intelligence, or call them crazy.

I tend to think of dreams as little more than indexed memories of any and every sensation/thought we've experienced throughout our lives, but others would argue that there's
more to it than that (and indeed, there may be). there's a lot of phenomena we simply can't provide evidence for, nor explain using the scientific method.

In fairness, this is not the kind of post I expected. I mean, the first line essentially says "I know it is truth and you will too in the end" which seems a little closed minded. Surely as a scientist you must keep an open mind to the notion that you are in fact not in possession of the truth and perhaps this phenomenon is a result of aberrant brain activity, not the actions of discarnate entities.

Also, if you are seeing things which turn out to not be there, one way or another you are hallucinating. Hallucination is not equable to being crazy though. Oliver Sacks' book "Hallucinations" clearly demonstrates so. Hallucinations can arise from a variety of causes, not just mental health issue despite common conceptions.

As for your 'dormant brain regions' hypothesis: citation please? I have never stumbled across any research which shows that there is any correlation between dormancy in any brain region and the perception of ghosts etc. Even if we saw higher activity in such studies, who are we to say that this is not overactivity in those 'perceiving' as opposed to unnatural dormancy in those who do not perceive. After all, overactivity in brain regions is often linked with mental health issues like depression and other perception disorders.

Your final line is essentially a rehash of the God of the Gaps argument: science hasn't worked it out yet so I will fill the hole with whatever I feel like. Sad to say that this is not how a rational and skeptical observer should go about their perception of the word. Either it has been shown to be unknowable, or you try to know it. The best way to know the world we have discovered is science, so we should suspend our judgment until the jury is.

Just my two cents.

#EDIT#

I just reread this and realising there is not tone on the internet I realised this could sound really... dickish. I don't mean it that way at all. I just want to make an objective criticism of Benzyme's response. I have great respect for him as a scientist, which is part of what engenders my confusion at this type of response. I honestly want to hear his view on my points

LOL yeah bet you expected all the scientists to jump in and agree with your beleif and got quite confused when it didnt turn out the way you had hoped eh??

I beleeve in them, not sure what they are but an old abandoned church where I used to live had really bad vibes, when I was young we were pretty brave and would go anywhere really, to climb really dangerous buildings and other stupid stuff, but this church was so spooky, was running through it one day and swear felt something push me and I fell and hit my head off a beam on the floor, never went back in the church. They tore most of it down apart from certain walls and built luxury apartments, no way would I live there everyone in the area talked about, all the groups of children, older ones than us some adults talked about it, everyone said the same thing, there were a few abandoned churches and no one ever spoke of them like that. Good storys hope more post hehe sure it will turn into a big exciting debate though

I find it odd when the faculty of reason applied to the acceptable evidence does not come to the same conclusion yes. But I didn't expect all scientists to agree with me, because I take into account for the possibility that I am the one in the wrong.
However, in the presence of conflicting opinion, critique and discussion are then a must.

LOL yeah like the ufo thing, personal accounts dont count as evidence. eye witness testimony doesnt count, then people say oh you must have hallucinated etc. I think a lot of people who state I dont beleive it give me the evidence have already made their minds up so will dismiss evidence when presented. You starting this and then getting what you didnt expect is kinda like an atheist starting a thread asking does god exist?? then shooting down any believers of god trying to say they are wrong, similiar analogy though I think there is evidence of such things like ghosts and ufo's, moreso than god but personal experiences arent good enough.

Ive read one of Oliver sachs books, the man who mistook his wife for a hat and was a great read and shows the power of the brain but all these alien and ghost reports go back a long time and the many personal accounts you read is evidence to me, I dont think its all hallucination, why do different people experience the same things?? see the same ghosts in certain places but then no offense but debating such things to me is like an atheist debating with a beleiver of God, doesnt excite me and its always the same rhetoric, round in circles etc. more ghost storys please

Yes, it is like the UFO thing. In that, you are correct, anecdotes are not evidence. The human observer is fundamentally fallible: highly suggestible, prone to memory revision and to filling the blanks with whatever they pick out of the ether. I haven't made up my mind, and I can give you plenty of things I would count as perfectly satisfactory evidence. Rather, it is generally those who believe in the absence of such evidence who will be unwilling to accept that their perception is the flawed one.

People have 'personal experience' of many things later prove to be completely fabricated. Also, I referred to the specific book 'Hallucinations' in regards to disconnecting the idea of hallucination from that of mental illness. I didn't 'start this'. I have encountered a difference of opinion with someone who I see to be reasonable and I inquire as to their reasoning. That's not 'starting something'. That's how intellectual debate works.

If it doesn't excite you, why respond? Moreover, I am not much liking your suggestion that I am somehow being dogmatic or predetermined because I refuse to accept anecdotal evidence as wrote. People are simply too susceptible to the corruptions of suggestion, be it autosuggestion or externally imposed.

Nah, bollocks.

I understand the limitations of the scientific method, particularly in explaining anomalies like discarnate entities, although, people have repeatedly shown them to exist (cameras don't hallucinate, and lens abberations don't erraticly shift across the field of view), and skeptics alike have seen/felt something.
Are my mother, wife, and aunt mentally ill? I'd have to say no. They seem to be of sound mind, and function quite well in social situations.

Suggestion didn't just flip the skeptic switch for me. We can't see atoms, does that mean they don't exist?