Ever seen a Ghost ?

I've always been fascinated by the idea of the supernatural and the paranormal and I'd love to live in a universe that contained ghosts, astral projection, telekinesis etc.

Sadly, I don't think I do.

There's a lass called Susan Blackmore who used to spend her time investigating the paranormal. After 25 years, she's given up because she never found any evidence that stood up to scientific investigation. She writes:

Imagine this ... Imagine a world in which if you love someone enough, or need them enough, your minds will communicate across the world wherever you are, regardless of space and time. Imagine a world in which, if only you can think a thought clearly and powerfully enough it can take on a life of its own, moving objects and influencing the outcome of events far away. Imagine a world in which each of us has a special inner core - a ‘real self’ - that makes us who we are, that can think and move independently of our coarse physical body, and that ultimately survives death, giving meaning to our otherwise short and pointless lives. This is (roughly speaking) how most people think the world is. It is how I used to think -and even hope - that the world is. I devoted 25 years of my life to trying to find out whether it is.  Now I have given up.

Her article here

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/Kurtz.htm

... is worth reading.

Thanks for the welcome, Paul - and I'm delighted to hear you visited my website.

I thought I saw a ghost once. I was out walking in the early hours and I saw a guy pruning a rosebush in a garden. After I'd moved on it struck me as strange that he should be doing that at 3 in the morning, so I went back to check.

He wasn't there - but I saw how the moonlight amongst the leaves made a pattern of shadows that was sort of man-shaped.

Did I see a ghost, or did my tired brain create a rose-pruning man out of the shadows?

The answer is clear to me now - but at the time I told everyone I'd seen a ghost. That sounded far more interesting - and I almost believed it myself.

Don't go looking for answers, they will come to you , and you cannot force the issue.

Don't try to explain it, just accept it.

Don't you think trying to explain stuff is important, Wolf?

We both have computers - these amazing machines that allow us to communicate on websites like PoE. We have them because people in the past didn't just accept what they saw: they tried to explain it. It was trying to explain that led to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics etc.

In my experience, if you don't go looking for answers, you generally don't find answers.

That is the only dream of its kind that I've ever had but it impressed me enough to make me wonder about the dynamics behind such a random occurrence.

It is a fascinating subject, Diana. I've been interested in it for years.

I remember when I was a kid I read about telekinesis - the ability to move objects with your mind. I was the kind of kid who liked to try stuff out, so I rigged up a thin, bent wire with a square of cardboard stuck on the end of it. I figured that if telekinesis did exist, it wouldn't be a very powerful force, so I'd need to make the cardboard very easy to move - and it was.

I sat and concentrated hard for minutes on end - gave myself a headache - and eventually the cardboard twitched a little! I was delighted. I had the power!

But something was nagging away at me, because the moment it twitched was just a short time after my sister slammed the house door on her way out. I had a hunch that the door-slamming caused an air-movement, and it was that, not my mighty mental powers, that caused the effect.

Now, I really, really didn't want to test that theory. I wanted to have the power. I wanted to be special.

But I couldn't cheat. I eventually got my friend to slam the door like my sister had - and every time the door slammed, after a short delay my cardboard twitched.

My point is, most of us really want to believe in the paranormal. It's exciting! And we're reluctant to consider the more mundane possibilities.

But if we want to know the truth, we have to examine everything carefully and, before we say 'paranormal' we need to dismiss ALL of the 'normal' possibilities.

I know your dog dream seems weird, but if you examine the mathematics of coincidence you find such experiences are bound to occur fairly frequently.