Do you believe in ghosts?
Most people are skeptical. After all, there is no conclusive evidence that ghosts exists. Mediums can be easily sniffed out as charlatans or opportunists, looking to profit off of people's grief.
Yet this little nagging voice in the back of our heads continually asks...what if there's some truth there?
u/TheDashingMan asked:
"Paranormal believers of reddit, what made you believe? (Serious)"
Here were some of those answers.
Just A Reflection?
When I was younger my mom used to invite random neighborhood children over for dinner and parties so they could eat.
At my sisters birthday party everyone was outside getting ready to hit the piñata. My father noticed a girl sitting inside staring out the window at us. We have a large window beside front door. He told me to go inside and ask her to come out and join the party.
I ran up the walkway, looking at her through the window as I went towards the door and then as soon as I passed through the doorway, losing sight of her for a few seconds, she was gone. My dad thought she had fallen. (Theres a couch in front of the window so he thought she fell on the couch).
I looked around for her but couldn't find her so I told my dad. He helped me look for her but still nothing. No one else saw her except me and my dad. My mom said she didn't recall inviting any girls with our description of her. We forgot about it until some years later though I don't really know exactly how many.
My dad and I were sitting in the living room watching TV. From my dad's armchair you can see into the kitchen a little bit. Me and my dad were talking about the show we were watching when he suddenly got quiet. He said my name and motioned for me to come over to him. He told me to look at the microwave. I saw that girl's reflection in the microwave, exactly the same as before. I ran into the kitchen and my dad followed but again no one was there. We were both pretty spooked so we went out for ice cream until my mom came home.
I thought it was a neighborhood kid playing a prank on us the first time. But seeing her the second time unchanged in our kitchen many years later made me start believing in ghosts.
A Benevolent Visit
Shortly after my mother died, I heard her call my name and I turned around and she was standing before me, smiling. Then she simply vanished.
I've never hallucinated before or since, I have no mental problems, etc, so I feel like I have to at least entertain the possibility it was for real.
Moving On
A few years ago my great-grandmother was in her last few days. My family lives a couple of hours away and I wasn't really able to get there. I had just seen her a couple of weeks before that and had personally made peace with the inevitable.
One night I had a dream where my great-grandmother and I had a nice, long conversation in the house that she had lived in when I was a young kid. We talked about her life and experiences, my life, and my future. It was the most vivid and lucid dream I've ever had.
The next morning, my mother called with the bad news that my great-grandmother had passed during the night, probably about 11pm. I don't know at what time I had that dream, but I definitely didn't go to bed before 11.
A Good Ethereal Feeling
When I moved in with my boyfriend he told me there was a (ghost) man that had always followed him wherever he lived. I am a firm believer in the paranormal anyway, but it really didn't bother me after some reassurances that he was benevolent. Not long after moving in, our roommate's girlfriend started staying over more often and this ghost hated her. If she'd use our bathroom the faucets would both turn on full blast. This would always cause her to run out of the bathroom with her pants around her ankles.
The ceiling fans would turn on by themselves, the TV would increase volume on its own. You had to unplug it to get it to stop. We replaced the TV, that one did the same thing.
After a few months of weird stuff happening, I awoke to the feeling of someone sitting at the foot of the bed. I felt the bed compress as though a real person had sat down. I jerked up and looked around and saw nothing but there was an imprint in our comforter where someone had sat. Several more weeks go by and finally the same thing happened again, only this time there was a man there. Big hat, trench coat, looked like he was straight out of a western. After a few seconds he disappeared. I told my boyfriend about him and his response was "Oh good, he finally let you see him".
After that it just became normal. He sat at the end of the bed most nights while I was pregnant and then after the baby was born he must have went in and sat with her. We would still catch glimpses of him here or there and you'd hear footsteps when home alone. We eventually broke up and I gotta say I miss the ghost way more than the boyfriend.
The Same Nightmares
Experiences. My own and other people's. There are things nobody understands that happen. This is one of many stories:
My grandma + uncles bought a house together in 2008 because it was unbelievably cheap. Every man who was married or in a relationship who slept in a particular room in the house would wake up from the same nightmare. We later found out a woman who had been assaulted by her husband's married friends had hung herself there 30 years prior and the house had been going from owner to owner ever since. They (my family) did a bunch of purification rituals and finally ended up locking that room up for good. And that kept it okay for a while but 3 years later, my grandma also passed in the same house so nobody wanted to stay there anymore and they sold it again. For the same unbelievably low price they got it in the first place.
I have many other stories that are just inexplicable if not for something supernatural or other dimensional.
"Nun"sense
3 things for me. two were/ are sightings and one was an experience that saved my life. Firstly was in my first house, i was alone in the house with the bathroom door locked as i was taking a shower. i turn to get the soap and there was someone standing right outside the shower door! I thought my room mate came home and was messing with me so i told him to get lost.... only after finishing my shower i find that the door was indeed locked!
Second was that in my current house we often have "nuns" walking across the corridor from the spare room to our bedroom, still happens on occasion today........
Lastly it was about 5 years ago when something pulled me back from a pedestrian crossing just as a lorry went barrelling through the red light whilst the driver was looking to his left.........i surely would have been severely injured if not killed. there was absolutely no one near me to have been able to pull me backwards....
In Moments Of Need
I have two spooky incidents that happened after my dad died.
First time is that my dad passed away while we were out of the country (it was very unexpected). A couple days before he passed he had issues sending and receiving texts/calls - his phone was always on for business calls/emergencies when we were on vacation/traveling. Several days after we get back home and are planning his funeral with my family. I'm confessing to my them that he embarrassed me at dinner and my last conversation with him was us arguing before he passed and felt horribly guilty.
Just as I explained that, I hear my phone go off and see a text from my dad. We had his phone charging in the kitchen so it was already creeping us out that none of us had touched it for the past few days. I opened the text and it said "I love you, love dad". I obviously lost it and so did my family. My logical mind says that it's just a text he sent while I was testing his phone the week prior that finally went through but his phone was on and connected for at least 3 days back home and the text came at that exact moment.
A month or so after my dad passed, I was driving to the first family get together since the funeral and I was sort of in a funk that this is the first family outing without my dad. As I'm driving through a rural area, I hear my dad's voice yell at me to stop. (He taught me to drive and I was very familiar with his panic yells). I slam on my brakes at an intersection with a green light for me and an 18 wheeler comes barreling through the intersection. If I didn't stop I would have definitely been hit. Once again could be grief and thinking about the times my dad taught me how to drive but still weirds me out to this day. Haven't had any other weird instances since these and it's been almost 8 years now.
Have We Met It Yet?
I don't know how much I believe in most paranormal things, but when I think about the topic, I can't help but think of the mantis shrimp can see. The human eye can sense red, green, and blue, and with varying combinations of those three colors, we get to enjoy millions of colors. The mantis shrimp has 16 different receptors, meaning the mantis shrimp can see in potentially trillions of colors we are physically incapable of even imagining.
I believe that it's not just possible, but almost guaranteed, that there's a huge portion of knowledge we're locked out of because we, as a species, simply are lacking whatever specialized organs that would allow us to study and explain. Problem is, try imagining a brand new sense. How do you explain it to others that have never felt it? If you can't feel it, how do you build a machine that translates it into senses you CAN experience?
There's just so much we don't know that we don't know. Current scientific evidence suggests the paranormal doesn't exist, but I'm willing to say there's every chance that we don't know how to interact with that part of the universe yet and that one day the supernatural skeptics (myself included) may be completely proven wrong.
Poltergeist
When my family and I moved into our new home things started to freak us out. We would hear people talking in other rooms and sometimes we would hear footsteps coming from the attic.
I told my friends when they visited and they laughed at me. The. All of a sudden a lamp turned on and then off by itself. It was weird but we just thought the outlet or the lamp switch is broken. However, when I took a look I found out that the lamp wasn't even plugged in.
Another day my mom was in the living room and 3 windows and a couple glass things broke simultaneously all of a sudden and she heard voices in another room.
Fun With Jane
I used to work at a daycare, and there was a one classroom that always housed the two year olds. Year after year, the kids would whisper in a corner. When asked who they were talking to they would, without fail say "Jane".
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It's highly believed that it is important to learn history as a means to improve our future.
What is often overlooked is that what is taught in history class is going to be very different depending on where you went to school.
And this isn't just internationally, even different regions of the United states will likely have very different lessons on American history.
This frequently results in our learning fascinating, heartbreaking and horrifying historical facts which our middle or high school history teachers neglected to teach us.
Redditor Acherontia_atropos91 was curious to learn things people either wished they had learned, or believe they should have learned, in their school history class, leading them to ask:
What isn’t taught in history class but should be?
The Irish Troubles
"The troubles."
"Too many people in America do not understand why a wall straight through Ireland would be a BAD idea."
"I’m referring to the Brexit referendum and possible outcomes."
"If people were wondering why we were talking about walls through Ireland in the first place."- CLCVS.
Forgotten elements of World War II
"What the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2."
"Unit 731."- CaptainMcBoogerJew.
"Japan gets off easy for their war crimes in WW2."
"They killed an estimated 16mil Chinese civilians and another 8mil soldiers"
"Also, Pol Pot."
"Didn't know who he was until I was like 25."
"Worst dictator all time (in terms of percentage of population he decimated)".
The truth about the American Revolution
"That the American Revolution was part of a wider cold war type of conflict with France."
"The American Revolution was basically the UK's equivalent of the US version of Vietnam."- vinsant7.
The Dark side of Swedish history.
"As a Swede, I'd like to know more of all the horrible sh*t my country has done throughout history."
"It's a damn shame we're trying to hide our history."
"For example, Swedes killed a metric sh*t ton of all Polish people when we were at our strongest."
"That's the kinda sh*t we don't get to learn."- mogwandayy.
Colonization
"Basically what Belgium did to the Congo."
"A lot of people are telling me that they are taught about this actually."
"I'm glad to hear it because I wasn't taught about this in the USA during my public school days (1995-2008)."- EconArch.
The truth about "heroes".
"While teaching about historical Heroes they should also tell students about the unspeakable things some of them did."
"Many famous figures throughout history who are pillars of morality actually did many terrible things." - User Deleted
Intolerance for Mental Illness
"The dark history of mental illness treatments."
"I think it's worth learning about."- 7dayexcerpt.
Slavic Mythology
"Slavic mythology in Slavic countries."
"Don't get me wrong, I love both Greek & Roman mythology and as a person from the Balkans both of those cultures are part of my country's history and had great influence over not only my region but the entirety of the continent & the western world but I wouldn't mind knowing more about Slavic mythology as well."- ShorsShezzarine.
The truth about the CIA
"How the CIA was made and all the shady things they did over the years."- ALargeChip.
There is a lot about the history of our world, not to mention our own country which shouldn't be ignored.
And it's from learning from our mistakes that we really improve our future.
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So apparently we are in the endemic phase of this nonsense.
We have light at the end of the tunnel.
So what now?
Where do we go from here?
Normal seems like an outdated word.
How do we get back to normal though?
Is it even possible?
What are reaching back to?
Life pre-Covid.
Those were the days.
If only we could bring them back.
Redditor hetravelingsong wanted to discuss our new normal in this hopeful "endemic" phase. So they asked:
"What’s something random you miss about pre-COVID times?"
I miss people being sane. Though that maybe election cycle issues not COVID. We'll never know.
I thought I was Alone...
"Being able to grocery shop after 11 pm."
Reading_Rainboner
"Hell yes. I miss the days where the Walmart across the street was open 24 hours."
Small_Tax_9432
let's just go...
"I miss spontaneity... everything now seems to have a barrier of difficulty."
iidosee
"I live very close to Disneyland so I have an annual pass. My friends and I would just go there after work and hang out and grab a bite to eat."
"Now, we have to reserve a day to go. And most of the time, the days are at 'full' capacity so we couldn't even reserve. I don't want to schedule to hang out at Disneyland for a couple hours for July. So yeah, I definitely miss the 'lets go eat at Disneyland tonight?' texts."
mymymissmai
Not til 24-25
"Functioning global supply chains. Ah, the product you want has got microchips in it? 9 month wait."
richard-king
"Minimum, I'd been saying for a while now that I wouldn't expect a true return to normalcy in terms of electronics prices till 2024-2025. Although Crypto crashing through the floor really took some of the pressure off graphics cards which I really appreciate."
statiiic
WTF?!?!
"How affordable everything was!"
Disastrous_Hour_6776
"Yep. Today I was bagging up my things at the grocery store and I heard the cashier say to the lady behind me 'thats $78.12.' She had -- 2 boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes, a carton of 12 eggs, milk, strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, a small cheese cake, English muffins, coffee, and a small whole frozen chicken that could maybe feed 3 people if the meat portioning was small."
SnowyInuk
Sushi
"My favorite sushi place. It was good quality, close by, kid-friendly, and not too expensive."
InannasPocket
All of this... it was a simpler time.
NASTY
"As a retail worker, just how f**king NASTY some people have gotten."
DmitriPetrov*itch
"They applauded you for being an essential worker but won’t vote for policies that’ll raise minimum wage while insisting a wage cap for heavily paid employees."
sketchysketchist
CHANGES your DNA...
"Some of the people closest to me became very bitter and petty over the last 2 years. So many people have the 'crazy eyes' now."
__--__7
"So true and holidays with the family is like who has the biggest tinfoil hat building contest. How many jumps does your brain have to go through to think that the Covid vaccine CHANGES your DNA into the patented DNA so that the government now controls your body."
"So like vaccinated people now have a singular DNA set. I feel like I still have a chunk of my brain just broken off due to that comment alone. I was also told by same family member that I could never donate blood again due to the vaccine. I guess it is so my patented DNA doesn't affect people?? FYI my vaccinated butt just donated today fine and multiple other times after the vaccine."
tyreka13
Homeward Bound
"House prices."
adrianinked
"I'm resigned to never thinking I have a chance on owning property where I live. I'm 30 and just can't imagine it anymore. And I don't want to live anywhere else so, whatever."
Osdab2daf
"That didn’t happen because of the pandemic. That was already happening regardless."
CH11DW
Oh Mickey
"All Day Breakfast at McDonalds."
hutch2522
"It was honestly hell to do, and not very popular. ITs margins aren't anywhere dinner and lunch specials. ON top of that, the temperatures are such that They require its own grill, meaning that if you have 2 grills in shop, you are down 50% of lunch capacity."
Freyas_Follower
Way back when...
"Hanging out with friends. And I mean waaaaaay before Covid. Like 2006 back when I had some friends."
LoocsinatasYT
I miss the old days. Maybe we'll get back there.
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What do you believe?
Is there a GOD in the sky?
Is he guiding us and helping us?
Life is really hard. Why is that is a big entity is up there loving us?
Atheists have taken a lot of heat for what feels like shunning GOD.
What if they've been right all along?
Maybe let's take a listen and see what they really think.
Redditor __Jacob______ wanted to hear from the people who don't really believe all that "God" stuff. They asked:
"Atheists, what do you believe in?"
I'm waffling between G-O-D and nothing. So please give me some education.
911
"We need to look out for each other because help isn't coming."
cknipe
Peace Out
"More than 2 decades ago, a priest was giving a sermon in my church and he said 'our faith requires you to believe without question. Why call it faith if you have to ask questions?' I haven't returned to church. Not until my wedding day but you know what I mean."
asiangontear
Delusion
"When I was young I used to think that after death you would have access to a PC that you could see absolutely anything about your life. Stats, any question you had no matter how obscure, replays of moments, perspectives of others in relation to you. No matter what you wanted to know, if it was relatable to you, you could see it. I know it's silly, but as time goes on I just want it to be real, and I don't think I'd have any issue allowing myself to fall into that delusion."
eggwardpenisglands
I think nothing happens...
"Realistically, I think nothing happens. We literally experience nothing after death. Same thing that we experience before birth. We don't exist, so it's nothing. I think the tenant that we should follow while living is to try to be happy and healthy while minimizing the damage we do to each other."
"What I would LIKE to happen after death is whatever you believe in, exists. I think Christians should get to go to heaven if they truly believe in it, Hindus and Buddhists get reincarnated, and everyone else also gets to experience what they believe they will experience."
"'I would still experience Nothing. Maybe it's one of those things where at the moment of death their brain makes them experience what feels like an infinitely long moment in time where they experience their afterlife. I just think it would be neat for everybody."
Better_Meat_
Shrug
"Best advice I received from a dear senior on their way out. 'You win some, you lose some' shrug. Nothing divine, life is that simple and wonderful, accept it and move on."
Tune_Kindly
It all sounds pretty simple. Why are people so up in arms about Atheists?
Whatever
"I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do."
imCIK
Cool with Empty
"Nothing. [Serious]."
rumblingtummy29
"I feel this way about death. When I was 5, my grandfather died and my cousin simple said, he is dead, that means you are gone forever. Everything ends up dying, even plants and animals. I'm now in my 40's and still have this simplistic view of life and death. People think I'm ambivalent to life and death but it's just what it is."
thepigfish82
puppet-masters...
"I think a lot of religious people struggle with the fact that we are all just swirling units of chaos. There is no grand plan or great orchestrator. I think that’s why people who are prone to religion are also susceptible to things like Q anon and the Cabal and all that. They REALLY want to believe that there is some almighty puppet-master who determines all of humanity’s fate."
Lngtmelrker
“we’re living in a society!”
"Just be a kind and empathetic person not because you’re worried about some cosmic justice, but because it’s the right thing to do. If there is some being that created us there’s no way they actually care about believing in it or adhering to some rules from over 2000 years ago."
"Also a big thing for me is that I find the idea that you need religion or the Bible in order to have morals and ethics pretty dumb. It’s pretty f**king clear that most evangelicals have neither. But my main thing is being a good person simply because, as George Costanza once said we’re living in a society!' If you’re only a good person in order to make it to heaven you probably aren’t actually a good and moral person."
conservative_genius
That's All
"You're born. You live. You die. That's it. After you die you cease to exist, the same as before you were born."
serefina
Believe what you want. We're all here together. So let's focus there.
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The list of what irritates me is endless.
I mean... breathing too loud or dust can set me off.
I'm a bit unstable, yes.
But I'm not alone.
So let's discuss.
Redditor Aburntbagel6 wanted to hear about all the times many of us just couldn't control our disdain. They asked:
"What never fails to piss you off?"
I feel like this article can go on forever. Let's get some highlights.
Wasted Time
"Meetings that could and should have been an email."
Sirena609
Lotto People
"Getting stuck behind people playing the lottery at a corner store."
thenuggetlover
"I also used to work in a gas station and you’re SO right. I f**king hated the lottery people. Especially since my store had a small staff and there was usually only one of us working at a time, which meant that I couldn’t get any of my other work done as long as they were there."
"And you’re right, it’s also pretty sad to watch. I had one lady who used to come in every day and spent hundreds and HUNDREDS of dollars on scratch tickets. One day, she won $200 after spending probably around $600 and she was so excited and saying she can 'finally pay her bills.'"
i-am-your-god-now
Aware...
"No situational awareness. Job, home, shopping, driving. Think for one minute and go about. OBSERVE!!"
Dizzy-Foundation8122
"My mom is one of those people who leave the shopping cart in the middle of the damn aisle and proceed to walk twenty feet away. After correcting her a million times to no effect I just walk away now so people don’t know I’m with her."
OutrageousEvent
Shut Up!
"Endless barking in the middle of the night, I love animals but that sh*t I can't stand."
Acceptable-Lemon2924
"Endless barking in general drives me up a wall. One of my friends dogs was barking almost an entire gaming session the other day. I wanted to reach through the computer and smack him for letting it go on."
bangersnmash13
Kindness
"People being mean to service workers, especially if the workers are very young."'
scaryboilednoodles
All of these things. I hate them all.
Admit It
"People who never accept fault when they mess something up. Like, why blame a million people when it was clearly you who did it???"
Quirky-Area-8978
From Above
"My upstairs neighbors."
lutzow89
"I had terrible neighbors at my previous apartment. It was a one person studio for students, but her boyfriend was clearly living with her illegally and he was loud."
"One night we knocked n the door at 3 AM because of the loud music and an unknown girl opened the door. I just thought they were having a little party. But the next door I saw the girl living there come home with a suitcase after having been away for the weekend... Her BF was cheating on her in her own apartment."
Th3_Accountant
Move Away
"People who sit directly next to me at the airport, movie theater, any other place where you can choose a seat when there is PLENTY of other seating."
BacardiPardy33
"I can’t YES this enough and the ones who can’t park for crap so they park so close you can’t open doors on one side of the car or the ones who park directly behind when you pulled through so the door won’t open to load groceries."
BacardiPardy33
It's Over
"People who try to restart old drama. Like I'm done with you, just leave me alone."
Tired_Potatos
"Yep, half the reason I've basically quit playing one of my favorite online video games. People keep bringing old crap up or sh*tting on on someone who used to be our friend. I got tired of it so I just ejected the game out of me."
CaucasianHumus
AHHHHH!!!
"People walking too slow in front of me with no way to get around them. It’s even worse if it’s a couple or group taking up the whole sidewalk. HAVE SOME SPATIAL AWARENESS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!"
_-v0x-_
Life in general pisses me off. I'm easy.
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