ghost question

[...JR]

Alright, let me set this up for everyone:

A friend of mine and I entered into a lengthy discussion about deja vu, which he considered to be evidence of psychic abilities. He then went on to say something about a study which proved we use 10% of our brain. I had to explain that such a claim makes no sense. However it seems more likely we only use 10% of our brain at a time (but even this may be wrong...someone help me out), but anyway he left all angry and ended with some ufo story and a video that happened to have been thrown away and i was left with a nother friend of mine.

I have known this guy for about 10-11 years and he's essentially a metalhead atheist not known to believe in supernatural nonsense, but he admitted that he had seen a ghost.

obviouslty i asked a few questions....were you sleeping or in bed or about to go to bed....were you stressed out, and so on. This is the story he went on to describe:

He was younger, around 15 and was home alone with his older sister and younger brother while his parents were out of town. They were all watching television when suddenly they started seeing mist and such floating around them. In total he said he saw abaout 20 ghosts that looked exactly like people (a bit misty though) and they were just walking around them, while my friend and his siblings sat on their bed. At one point he said the ghost of his dead uncle came in the room and sat down on his sisters legs, who she still recalls as feeling warm. He said they sat there in silence for a while and then the mist creatures which filled his home just vanished. He also said that he brought it up to his sister the next morning and she just said she never wants to talk about it again, and still remembers it to this day.

so now i start thinking. if it was just him i could probably explain it away as being some sort of sleep paralysis, but the fact that both he and his sister still recall the events and it left a toll on them leaves me confused.

i know there has been cases of mass hallucinations before where more than just two people see something, but in this case, what could it have been? extremely dirty vents, an older sister humoring her brother about a nightmare, yet keeping the joke going to this day (alot of work for a little prank), was it some sort of communal dream?

i just can't come up with any ideas as to how two people could see the same ghosts and have the same experience. I know if i saw a bunch of ghosts walking around me, and i looked over at my sis and she is seeing the same thing, i'm going to have a hard time dismissing it as a a hallucination.

Does anyone have a reasonable explanation as to how two people could see the same detailed "ghosts"? (they kept their younger brother's eyes closed the whole time)

[Loss Leader]

Does anyone have a reasonable explanation as to how two people could see the same detailed "ghosts"? (they kept their younger brother's eyes closed the whole time)


Here's one explanation: Your have admitted hearsay evidence.

Your major claim is that two individuals saw the same unexplainable apparitions. But you've only spoken to one individual. One guy said he saw it and also his sister saw it. Why take that as a given? The most likely explanation is that the hearsay statements attributed to the sister are inaccurate, out of context or just completely made-up.

Call the sister, get her side of the story. And then we can start working on step two: whether your witnesses are reliable.

[CLD]

Red flags:

-home alone
-parents out of town
-watching television
-they sat in silence (1)
-kept younger brother's eyes closed
-sister adds the "uncle on her leg" as a 'convincer'
-The sister says she never wants to talk about it again, then does lot of talking about it. (2)

Sounds like a bunch of kids home alone watching a spooky TV show, the sister believes she's seeing something spooky, she influences the highly suggestible and fearful siblings, and voila....false memory implantation.

*(1) Silence? No one said anything? Even the younger brother with the sisters hand over his eyes? Yeah...riiiight. ["Hey! Take your hand off me! Quit it will ya! What's goin on? I'm tellin' mom!"]

*(2) My own sister went through a brief phase of fascination with the occult. I suspect many adolescent girls do. Once she and her friends were old enough to date boys, "the occult" was tossed by the wayside like a discarded Kleenex. :D

[Loss Leader]

Red flags:

-home alone
-parents out of town
-watching television
-they sat in silence (1)
-kept younger brother's eyes closed
-sister adds the "uncle on her leg" as a 'convincer'
-The sister says she never wants to talk about it again, then does lot of talking about it. (2)


Okay, CLD moved on to step two, reliability, without me. Assuming the sister will actually say what your firend reports she'll say, CLD now brings up many good reasons why she should not be believed.

[Miss Whiplash]

I once had a friend who joined some fundementalist cult as a teenager. She and some other friends became so worked up during a private "bible study" they shared some vision of the angel of death superimposed over the moon. Well, no one else saw it the said vision so I put it down to some hysteria fueled folie à deux .

[latent aaaack]

How old was the youngest brother and older sister? Looking at it skeptically, I'd say it's best attributed to a hypnogogic dream that your sister and/or brother had. It's still an incredible occurrence, but if they were both in between sleep and alertness one of them freaking out could have influenced the other. It sounds like a classis hypnogogic dream. Their reluctance to scream and run like hell is a dead giveaway that they were in an altered state and felt paralyzed. I believe that both are telling the truth and that happened to them though. It's what convinces many of being abducted by aliens (an experience not suprisingly that's limited to post-WW2 Americans recently aware of space race/alien-from-outer-space culture).

Looking at it not so skeptically though, the house my family lived in for a few years when I was a young child was supposedly haunted. Reportings of inexplicable disturbing incidents in the house came from people that had no idea of the house's past or reputation. One report I can remember was of twins that were being babysat playing on the stairs and both hearing footsteps coming up the stairs but seeing nobody, so they ran away screaming. There was a murder in the house within a decade before we moved in. I wasn't lucky enough to witness any events but other family members have stories.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnogogic_hallucination

Hypnagogic sensations are vivid dream-like experiences that occur as one is falling asleep or waking up. Accompanying sleep paralysis can cause the sensations to be more frightening. The features of these sensations generally vary by individual, but some are more common to the experience than others:

Most common

Vividness
Fear
Falling sensation
Common

Sensing a "presence" (often malevolent)
Pressure/weight on body (especially the chest).
A sensation of not being able to breathe
Impending sense of doom/death
Fairly common

Auditory sensations (often footsteps or indistinct voices, or pulsing noises). Auditory sensations which are described as noise instead of sensations of legible sounds, are often described to be similar to auditory sensations caused by Nitrous Oxide by persons who have experienced both.
Visual sensations such as lights, people or shadows walking around the room
Less common

Floating sensations (sometimes associated with out-of-body experiences)
Seamless transition into fully immersive lucid dreaming, also associated with out-of-body experiences
Tactile sensations (such as a hand touching or grabbing)
Rare

Vibration
Involuntary movements (sometimes the feeling of sliding off of the bed or even up walls).
The feeling of being pulled in different directions

[sat556]

Well mine isn't in that list for some reason. I frequently get jolted out of that lovely snoozy part just prior to sleep by somebody apparently shouting at me about a foot away from my ear. It's irritating at times, yet great when I am thinking that I'm just never going to get to sleep, as I know it's on it's way.

[latent aaaack]

One time when I was about 12 I was woken up by 2 soldiers in my room shouting at me with rifles drawn and a flashlight shown on my face so they looked silhouetted. I felt clearly butted by the rifle in my shoulder and the barrel was put in my mouth. They asked me who "Himalyan Hayes" was while one of them shuffled through some papers. I leaned there with my eyes open for a minute as I got my thoughts about me. When my eyes eventually started to dart around the room the figures became less defined and harder to find until I realized I couldn't see them anymore and there was a clothes hamper where one of the had been standing.

If I had seen a ghost or alien movie the day before instead of news coverage of the Bosnian war the cast of characters might have been changed and I might've believed that alien or ghost attack was to blame.

[De_Bunk]

Hey...

You wanna hear the voices that i hear when i'm sleeping...

Lucky i know its nothing but my own mind talking bollox when im half awake / asleep...

I sleep with one ear and one eye open...

My 'Alsation X Pitbull' breaks wind and im awake...

Think yourself lucky you dont live the life i have to...

DB

[CLD]

If the soldiers come back, tell them Adrian "Himalayan" Hayes is a veteran of the Ghurkas (an elite British regiment recruited in Nepal). Hayes has often climbed in the Himalayas and is able to chat with his Sherpa guides in their own language.

http://www.gulfnews.com/indepth/everest/The_climb/10023710.html

[mommyrex]

Well mine isn't in that list for some reason. I frequently get jolted out of that lovely snoozy part just prior to sleep by somebody apparently shouting at me about a foot away from my ear. It's irritating at times, yet great when I am thinking that I'm just never going to get to sleep, as I know it's on it's way.

I recently started occasionally hearing, while just dropping off to sleep, a shot or a loud crack, almost as if it were inside my head, which will jolt me awake. (I used to get the falling sensation, and would jolt awake from that.) The first time it happened, I thought it was a real noise, but figured I'd hear somthing else if I needed to be concerned. The next time, I thought it must be my jaw popping or something. Soon after the third time, I picked up a pamphlet on parasomnias in MIL's neurologist's office, and read a good description of what I'd been experiencing. A common parasomnia, apparently.

[TimmyBerry]

I've had it when I felt a sudden plunging or rocking sensation at the point when I was falling asleep.. Seems that this sort of stuff is pretty common, though!

[Miss Whiplash]

I though something was shaking my bed once. I woke up enough to realize it was my own foot.

[tkingdoll]

He then went on to say something about a study which proved we use 10% of our brain.

When people say this to me, I like to reply "no, YOU only use 10% of YOUR brain" then walk off.

[CLD]

Two more red flags from the OP's story:

-the friend considered deja vu to be evidence of psychic abilities
-the friend is not known to believe in supernatural nonsense

See the contradiction?

[Azrael 5]

One time when I was about 12 I was woken up by 2 soldiers in my room shouting at me with rifles drawn and a flashlight shown on my face so they looked silhouetted. I felt clearly butted by the rifle in my shoulder and the barrel was put in my mouth. They asked me who "Himalyan Hayes" was while one of them shuffled through some papers. I leaned there with my eyes open for a minute as I got my thoughts about me. When my eyes eventually started to dart around the room the figures became less defined and harder to find until I realized I couldn't see them anymore and there was a clothes hamper where one of the had been standing.

If I had seen a ghost or alien movie the day before instead of news coverage of the Bosnian war the cast of characters might have been changed and I might've believed that alien or ghost attack was to blame.

Blimey I thought my SP events were freaky,but you take the biscuit,the jar the whole pantry!! ;)

[CLD]

http://www.philsp.com/data/images/g/ghost_stories_192609_v1_n3.jpg

[De_Bunk]

Latent aaack...

Why don't you and the rest of your silly friends from LooseChange or what ever 'believer' board you're from, go back and tell everyone you lot are still being laughed at and turned up your own asses...

Bring them all here...

Especially all the ones that need the excuse of having some kind of mental health issue...or learning disability...

DB

[latent aaaack]

Blimey I thought my SP events were freaky,but you take the biscuit,the jar the whole pantry!! ;)

Well that was the only time I had a dream/hallucination mix and I just wanted to show how messed up one's perceptions can be coming in and out of sleep and how that could explain the "mist people". What's SP?

De Bunk I'm not sure what you're babbling about.

[...JR]

Two more red flags from the OP's story:

-the friend considered deja vu to be evidence of psychic abilities
-the friend is not known to believe in supernatural nonsense

See the contradiction?

well i apperciate everyone's input, especially about the hypnogogic dreams. Also, my original post wasn't clear on some points some of you missed. This wasn't me or my sister and i was speaking with two friends.....one was talking about deja vu, psychics, and ufo, and then when he left i was with my friend who told me this story about the ghosts. And yes, I would have to hear the sis's version as well...i completely forgot abopt that, and also the younger brother as he would remember being in a weird situation like that.

once again thank you all...i'll be back with more questions at some point

[Bandersnatch]

Well that was the only time I had a dream/hallucination mix and I just wanted to show how messed up one's perceptions can be coming in and out of sleep and how that could explain the "mist people". What's SP?

De Bunk I'm not sure what you're babbling about.

Sleep Paralysis.

No one really does.

[CLD]

JR....you may want to check out specific details of the story. You said no one spoke, yet the friend said his sister was seeing the same thing at the same time he was. The part where the friend sees the apparitions then turns to his sister and somehow knows without speaking to her that she is seeing the same thing. Is that an embellishment, or is that fact? It's a fun ghost story and nice to enjoy a woo-woo tingle from it, however, if you are interested in trying to validate it the first thing you might do is interview the friend and sister separately and take notes, like cops do, repeating the interview process several times to note any inconsistencies.

[RichardR]

FYI the “only use 10% of our brains” is a total myth (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_028.html):

...attempts to map out the cerebral cortex, the center of the higher mental functions, have not found large areas that don't do anything. The general view is that the brain is too small (just three pounds), uses too many resources (20 percent of body oxygen utilization though it accounts for just 2 percent of weight), and has too much to do for 90 percent of it to be completely comatose. Also:

Myths About the Brain: 10 percent and Counting from brain connection (http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-myth)

There is no scientific evidence to suggest that we use only 10% of our brains from Dr. Eric H. Chudler (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html)

The Ten-Percent Myth from CSICOP (http://www.csicop.org/si/9903/ten-percent-myth.html)

[...JR]

FYI the “only use 10% of our brains” is a total myth (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_028.html):

Also:

Myths About the Brain: 10 percent and Counting from brain connection (http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-myth)

There is no scientific evidence to suggest that we use only 10% of our brains from Dr. Eric H. Chudler (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html)

The Ten-Percent Myth from CSICOP (http://www.csicop.org/si/9903/ten-percent-myth.html)



thank you for those links...I had already read the last one and used it for the basis of what i was trying to tell my friend, but he kept on with "this study found out that this and that and blah", but i couldn't reason with him so i just quit trying

[KillerBob]

When people say this to me, I like to reply "no, YOU only use 10% of YOUR brain" then walk off.


The few times I've had someone try to defend this little myth, I simply ask them if they believe it enough to have 90% of their brain removed.

Still no takers...

[Big Les]

I've had the sleep paralysis with hallucination thing. I could see a seething mass of *something* in the ceiling, plus the prescence thing, and was generally terrified all around. Trying to scream and run but unable to do either.

So yeah, there could be something along those lines involved, or it could be pure BS (self-delusion), or something inbetween.

[RemieV]

The experience reminds me of the part in Poltergeist when all the misty looking people come down the stairs. I'm searching for a screen shot, but can't find one.

[skullerello]

I know this doesn't necessarily fall under the sleep paralysis blanket, but it was a peculiar incident.
My wife and I routinely put in a movie when we go to bed. The DVD player restarts the movie automatically from start to finish. This may happen 3 or 4 times each night, depending on how long we remain abed in the morning. So, one of us may awaken, catch a bit of the film, drift off back to sleep; lather, rinse, repeat.
Last week I distinctly recall asking my wife 'but why did that guy wrap himself all up in cellophane at the end?'
All I got in response was a puzzled look. No such thing happened in the movie we'd put in. I just pulled the whole notion out of my sleepy ass. I think the film in question was "Brick"; an otherwise enjoyable film without cellophane.

[Skeptic Ginger]

The problems with the witnessed event are many. Some have been mentioned such as only hearing from one what the other remembers.

The brain turns unclear data into conclusions. That is how latent aaaack's clothes hamper became a person for a while. Once the brain receives more data it changes the interpretation. But while your brain is interpreting the clothes hamper is a person, you see details of the person that are not there. The brain takes lots of liberties filling in blanks. So any vision of "a mist" is not going to be very reliable.

In addition, your brain also regularly changes memories. This has been shown in the many studies that provide evidence that eye witness testimony in criminal cases is plainly unreliable. Also, people have been tricked to create memories that the researcher instills. Once the subject adopts the false memory, it becomes a real memory to that person.

The story is interesting. Many of us have fun stories of weird things. But unfortunately the explanation is usually uninteresting.

[Hellbound]

The problems with the witnessed event are many. Some have been mentioned such as only hearing from one what the other remembers.

The brain turns unclear data into conclusions. That is how latent aaaack's clothes hamper became a person for a while. Once the brain receives more data it changes the interpretation. But while your brain is interpreting the clothes hamper is a person, you see details of the person that are not there. The brain takes lots of liberties filling in blanks. So any vision of "a mist" is not going to be very reliable.

In addition, your brain also regularly changes memories. This has been shown in the many studies that provide evidence that eye witness testimony in criminal cases is plainly unreliable. Also, people have been tricked to create memories that the researcher instills. Once the subject adopts the false memory, it becomes a real memory to that person.

The story is interesting. Many of us have fun stories of weird things. But unfortunately the explanation is usually uninteresting.

Just another interesting point on memory being changed. Some research suggests that each time we remember a specific event, we're modifying that memory. The act of remembering gets tied into the memory itself. So even consistent remembering and recounting of an event is no garauntee of accuracy.

Also, memories are, at best reconstructions to begin with. For example, think back to the first time you got in a fight. Picture the scene in your head, as you remember it. What do you see?

I can almost garauntee what you see if yourself and your opponent, from a third person perspective. When we recall events, we often recall entire scense, rather than the actual first-person limited view that was all the information we actually had. The brain fills in the rest of the details. The stored memory is typically just key elements, certain images, sounds, events...the details are created to fill in the memory as needed.

[...JR]

i know this is an old thread, but this last weekend, the same friend of mine (my roomate) and I along with a couple other friends of mine stayed up drinking and talking and soon enough the topic fell on ghosts and my roomate rehashed this ghost story. I tried, in vein, to get through to him, but his major point besides "i know what i saw and what i felt" (which i could easily dispute) was that both him and his sister saw it and both still remember the event clearly is one i'm having more trouble tackling.

I explained that there have been events of mass hallucination before (UFO in Mexico) and he seemed to by that, but still couldn't think of how him and his sister could have both seen the exact same thing in that room. There's no point in talking about hypnogonic dreams or sleep paralysis because everything i read only involves one individual so any help providing an explanation that could account for both him and his sister having the same hallucination?

And no I haven't talked to his sister since I don't know her and he never really talks to her anymore, but lets assume that they both do have the same story...anyway in which they both could have seen the same things (ex relatives..animals...random ghosts floating around) at the same time? Has there been reports of a communal or dual sleep paralysis experience or anything of that sorts? Any information is much appreciated.

[latent aaaack]

The skeptical main point is that they were both in an altered state of consciousness. That much is known because they didn't react to that stimuli the way someone who is alert and aware of their surroundings would. You also know that they did not in fact fearfully never talk about it again to one another. Their subsequent conversations about it in the future would have provided ample opportunity for the power of suggestion to take hold and/or a sense of deja vu about it. Haven't you ever been stopped in your tracks when some stimuli or thought made you suspicious that you've dreamt about it before, only for you to remember a moment later that you actually saw it some days ago, not dream it? Something like that happened as one of them was trying to remember his/her environment when he/she was only semi-conscious and the other was offering suggestions, so to speak.

[Zygar]

Pot, acid, or maybe opium. I'm leaning towards pot because "they sat there in silence for a while", and because he was 15.

[...JR]

Pot, acid, or maybe opium. I'm leaning towards pot because "they sat there in silence for a while", and because he was 15.

definitely no drugs.

latent aaaack had a good point though so I might bring it up whenever this comes up again

[Old man]

... so any help providing an explanation that could account for both him and his sister having the same hallucination?

And no I haven't talked to his sister since I don't know her and he never really talks to her anymore, but lets assume that they both do have the same story...

Why assume that?

My girlfriend plays the "I'm not nuts because so-and-so was right there, and saw it too" card all the time, but when I talk to 'so-and-so' the story is a lot different.

Some people have a compulsion to have some kind of 'great' story.

[Marc L]

Just to chime in with my own "ghost story," I remember when I was about three years old, walking through our kitchen at night, and seeing a human shaped shadow leap from standing on the floor to sitting on the counter. Oddly enough, I don't remember being scared, so I suspect I was dreaming, though at the time it seemed quite real. It does amaze me that I remember it three decades later, though.

Marc