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noxious.sunshine
07-08-2013, 04:50 AM
Do you believe in them?

I'm always on the fence about paranormal stuff in general, but once in a blue moon, I get interested in things like the Dibbuk Box and then I google the ish out of it mostly to freak myself out 'cuz I like things like that.

But then I get over it and I'm good ...... for a few months.

Halloween is a busy time of the year for me to be invested in that stuff though.

On the real, my grandmother's ashes were stored in my closet in the shipping box they came in, and I swear my PC would turn itself off. I told my dad and he said that she couldn't stand for stuff to be left on when they weren't being used.

... I want a dibbuk box.

Scotty_ffgamer
07-08-2013, 05:32 AM
I'm sort of on the fence with this sort of thing myself. I love researching and hearing about paranormal things for fun, and I've had friends who have had some pretty crazy experiences. I'd say in the end I don't really believe in ghosts, but I have fun pretending that they are real for short moments just for a scare.

Unbreakable Will
07-08-2013, 05:37 AM
As much as I've heard from my uncle (and his entire family, as well as my aunt who did not believe until she visited their reputedly haunted home) and as much as I experienced after my visit to Bell Witch Cave I'm a believer.

I think that a grand percentage of ghost tales and haunted locations are falsehoods/myths and tourist traps respectively, but there are some that are without a doubt the real deal.

As far as me being ignorant or superstitious goes, as people who don't believe generally try to assert, I know what I've seen, what I've heard and I think I'm fairly educated and rational.

noxious.sunshine
07-08-2013, 06:05 AM
WHAT HAPPENED THERE!?

I've been dying to go for ages.

Unbreakable Will
07-08-2013, 06:19 AM
It didn't happen there per se, I took a rather large stone back from the spot where the father of the Bell family had supposedly been speaking with the entity. The stories and owners of the property suggested not to do so to everyone present (as they always do) as whatever still lives there takes it as a challenge 9/10.

I laughed about it and took it home. About three days afterward I'd forgotten about it until I was home alone (I had lived with my grandparents, aunt & uncle and their 4 kids at the time), my grandparents were out of town and my aunt & uncle and their progeny had moved out about a week beforehand. I was in my room about to go to bed (it was about 8:30 or so) when I heard extremely loud footsteps running down the hall and stopping at my closed door, I of course thought it was my uncle or someone and opened the door thinking they'd forgotten something. No one was there.

I shrugged it off thinking it was my imagination and quickly forgot about it until the middle of the night when I woke up hearing it again, this time it came from upstairs. The footsteps went all the way down the stairs, through the living room and down my hall to my closed door where they stopped. I got up screamed profanities thinking my family was playing tricks on me and nearly shat myself when I discovered there was no one there.

Yeah this kind of trout continued to happen until I finally broke down and threw that damned rock in the woods behind our house.

To further my case our friends Jeremy & Tammy (both well into their 40's) took a stone home as well. Within a week their son (4) had developed an abusive imaginary friend, their stove kept turning on by itself every single night and they had loud footsteps throughout the house at all hours of the night until they got the stone out of their house. Where all of it abruptly stopped.

noxious.sunshine
07-08-2013, 06:22 AM
Ok now I'm definitely going and I'm definitely picking up a rock.

There's something wrong with me.

Unbreakable Will
07-08-2013, 06:24 AM
Yeah it's not as entertaining as it is terrifying.

Shorty
07-08-2013, 06:36 AM
I've never had a paranormal experience, but I do believe in them.

My friends and boyfriend said my house in Utah was haunted. But then, every place in Utah is haunted.

noxious.sunshine
07-08-2013, 06:42 AM
That's the point. DUH.

I was actually looking up where to find other Dibbuk Boxes on Google just now. .... Surprisingly there are still a few for sale, and they're all sealed with wax. Only one of them seems to be "authentic" - the seller says they don't claim to know if it has anything demonically/spiritually wrong with it, even though it's sealed.

Araciel
07-08-2013, 07:34 AM
nah man..I'm too chill

Scotty_ffgamer
07-08-2013, 09:12 AM
The closest thing I've ever actually come to something supernatural was that in my house where my parents live, I would talk on the phone a lot in our upstairs area. Sometimes while I was up there, I would hear a weird static coming from a thin wall that separated a bedroom and what was meant to be a living room-type area. That was kind of fun.

I was also terrified of a sort of no-faced man whenever I was a small kid (between 2- maybe 8 years old). Always thought I could see him from the corner of my eye sort of peaking around corners/barely hanging out from doorways. I'd also think I'd hear something say my name a lot whenever no one would be in the house. All that I believe to be a trick of the mind though; I was easily frightened back then.

TrollHunter
07-08-2013, 10:20 AM
God... paranormal thread at 3:20am.
Terrible ideas I have.

I'm definitely a believer, though that may be due in part to my extremely overactive imagination/paranoia.

I know I've experienced things at least similar to those of the paranormal... though I can't seem to recall them right now.

Pike
07-08-2013, 10:24 AM
I do not believe in ghosts and I do believe that most haunted house phenomena is caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. Moderate amounts of carbon monoxide seeping into the atmosphere in a home is known to cause hallucinations and a feeling of dread. Sprinkle in the power of suggestion and voila, you've got a haunted house.

~*~PIKE THE BUZZKILL~*~

Aulayna
07-08-2013, 10:24 AM
Thankfully I'm reading this thread during the day.

Although I know I'll end up inadvertedly checking up just before I go to bed and TB's posted one of her horror stories...

Loony BoB
07-08-2013, 10:32 AM
No, I don't believe in ghosts.

Pike
07-08-2013, 10:37 AM
Meanwhile in this thread

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025899/CH860405_JPG.jpg

Chris
07-08-2013, 11:50 AM
Scary, indeed :(

http://i40.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:/2lc1yfc.jpg

Jinx
07-08-2013, 01:19 PM
Yes, yes I do.

Cuchulainn
07-08-2013, 01:40 PM
Don't believe in any superstitions whether they be ghosts, banshees, gods, leprechauns (despite looking in the forests all the time when I was a kid).

I don't understand the human compulsion to fill in blanks in knowledge with magic I really don't.

Pumpkin
07-08-2013, 01:50 PM
I don't believe in ghosts but I also don't not believe in ghosts. I just don't have an opinion one way or another.

Sharky doesn't believe in ghosts.

Quindiana Jones
07-08-2013, 01:50 PM
I believe in Cuch's avatar.

Shorty
07-08-2013, 03:06 PM
Scary, indeed :(

http://i40.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:/2lc1yfc.jpg

You ruined the trout out of the no-makeup photo! Have some respect!

was it really necessary to give me longer eyelashes as a ghost

Denmark
07-08-2013, 04:02 PM
sam says her grandma's house is haunted but i didn't notice anything when i was there overnight

maybe i just keep the spirits away

Jinx
07-08-2013, 04:07 PM
sam says her grandma's house is haunted but i didn't notice anything when i was there overnight

maybe i just keep the spirits away

EVERYONE IN OUR FAMILY SAYS IT'S HAUNTED AND THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS

noxious.sunshine
07-08-2013, 04:08 PM
So I think our apartment is possessed.

Within 1 week, the light bulbs in the sink/linen closet part of our bathroom have all gone out, the lights in the bedroom have blown, the one in the kitchen, and last night the one that's out on the balcony.

lulz... My Friend Pobz said it wasn't the apartment, just me. I must be a demon.

Araciel
07-08-2013, 04:21 PM
My momm thought my parents' house was haunted and she told the ghost he was dead and since then no issues.

But she does take many chemicals to stop her having manic hallucination-like episodes.

Raistlin
07-08-2013, 05:22 PM
Let’s imagine, for the sake of argument, a universe where ghosts exist. “Ghosts” being loosely defined as substanceless apparitions or things that cannot be seen or touched but can manipulate the world around them if they choose to some extent. Treat it as a thought experiment: if ghosts exist, what else must be true?

We should start with a simple, yet fundamental, question: do ghosts have matter? If the answer is “yes,” then ghosts are tangible beings. Then why can’t we touch them? Perhaps their molecules are so far apart that our hands pass right through them, like with air molecules or water vapor. But in that case, like water vapor, a stiff breeze would send ghosts soaring. They would never be able to be still, as mere breath would cause them to fly in the other direction.

So what if ghosts simply don’t have matter? Well then, they would not interact with the fundamental forces of the universe, including the electromagnetic field and, most significantly, gravity. Despite our perception of it, the Earth is rotating at a speed of roughly 1,000 miles per hour and hurtling through space around the sun at the same time (and the sun, in turn, is also hurtling through space relative to the other solar clusters in our galaxy, which is in turn hurtling through space relative to other galaxies, dragging us with it). A ghost would be around for only a fraction of a second before it sank through the Earth and was left in the dust, so to so speak. Depending on how many ghosts there are, there would be a constant stream of ghosts left in the Earth’s wake.

I suppose you could say that ghosts are neither matter or non-matter, but some indeterminate and unexplainable third option. Or maybe they’re non-matter yet can hold themselves onto Earth by using some heretofore undiscovered and unidentified force. The more you “explain” ghosts, though, the more explanations are required that have no basis in reality. And then you run square into Occam’s Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor), a basic principle of logic that states, roughly, that the more assumptions required in a hypothesis, the more unreliable the hypothesis is. And ghosts require an overwhelming number of disproven, or at least unproven and baseless, assumptions to believe that it is even possible for them to exist in the first place. If ghosts exist, virtually everything we know about physics and chemistry is wrong. It is an astonishingly extraordinary claim, which should require extraordinary evidence.

We have cameras and sensors detecting every possible type of energy, not only on Earth, but throughout the galaxy. We can distinguish from every other form of energy around us the miniscule amount of background radiation that remains from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, a tiny bit of energy that measures only slightly above absolute zero. And yet in all that time, not a single piece of remotely scientific evidence has been discovered to favor even the hypothetical possibility of ghosts’ existence.

The only “evidence” in favor of ghosts, like evidence of alien invasions or Bigfoot or crab people, is purely anecdotal. Not that all of these people are lying; many people sincerely believe that they have had ghostly experiences. But psychology is a powerful thing. Our brains are so powerful that thought alone can make us sick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_disorder) (including many documented incidents on a large scale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria)). And confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) is a well-documented psychological effect where people who believe in something or expect to experience something will interpret reality around them to confirm to their underlying belief (whether that belief is born from desire or fear or any other motivation).

So, you must ask yourself: for any individual “ghostly experience,” is it more likely to actually be ghosts, or any other possible explanation that has even the slightest basis in reality? Why are ghosts more likely than imagination, or carbon monoxide poisoning, or pipes rusting, or a trick of the light, or some error in vision, or hell, random delusions/hallucinations – or literally any of infinite possible explanations which, while not all very plausible, at least have the benefit of being definitively possible? Why isn’t it more likely that someone who experiences ghosts has had a random stalker tailing them throughout their entire life just to smurf with them than it is that unperceived and unperceivable ghosts was actually the cause? Do you think people would be so quick to leap to “ghosts” as an explanation for unexplained phenomenon if they weren’t culturally exposed to the belief in the first place?

No, I don’t believe in ghosts. :p

EDIT: Though I will say that growing up I desperately wanted to believe in ghosts, because I thought ghosts and stories about haunted places were so damn cool. Even into my teens I fought against the lack of evidence with desire, and part of me hoped with every haunted house I visited or ghost tour I was on that I would experience something for myself, or at least find the slightest reason to believe that ghosts were even possible. Alas.

Parker
07-08-2013, 05:29 PM
lmao no.


guys it is 2013 and we're allowed to be smart now

Sephex
07-08-2013, 05:30 PM
While it was an experimental album, I still enjoyed Ghosts I-IV. To the average listener, it seems like it's just a bunch of weird audio samples for the sake of being weird. However, for a long time Nine Inch Nails fan, it's the audio equivalent of watching someone take apart an automobile that you really love just to see how it works, yet still being able to drive it.

Plus, Trent and Atticus were still able to convey a wide array of emotions though this enormous 36 track instrumental album, which really impressed me.

8/10

Pumpkin
07-08-2013, 05:30 PM
Majora's Mask Creepypasta (BEN DROWNED) | Know Your Meme (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/majoras-mask-creepypasta-ben-drowned)

I know it was fake but my goodness I couldn't sleep for days.

theundeadhero
07-08-2013, 05:33 PM
GHOSTS DON'T EXIST!

Pike
07-08-2013, 06:00 PM
You guys DO know who we have to thank for ghosts not existing, right?

KvkKX035484

Psychotic
07-08-2013, 06:27 PM
44643

44645

44644

Bunny
07-08-2013, 06:47 PM
I do not believe in ghosts but I am fascinated by the supernatural.

Scotty_ffgamer
07-08-2013, 08:05 PM
Just as a bad rebuttal to some of Raistlin's stuff (not necessarily with ghosts specifically), but what about dark energy? If I'm remembering right, its not really understood what dark energy is exactly, and it accounts for something like 60% of our universe. It's something that astronomer's think has to exist to account for the accelerated expansion of the universe and such. Not that that has to do with ghosts, but there is a lot we don't fully understand about the universe and some of its properties.

Again, I don't believe in ghosts either, it is just fun to pretend I do sometimes.

Raistlin
07-09-2013, 02:40 AM
Dark energy is really just another example of science over unproven anecdotes (and actually involves scientists asking the same sort of question I posed in my last post: "if X is true, what else must be true?"); just because it's not yet fully understood does not mean that belief in it is throwing up our hands and ignoring known possibilities in favor of baseless superstition. True, we don't know everything -- but that does not give us license to believe in anything. The model of dark energy involves the best explanation we currently have for how the universe operates (including the accelerated expansion and how it's shaped); it does not involve ignoring an infinite number of realistic possibilities of lieu of undefined and undefinable nonsense.

Slothy
07-09-2013, 02:54 AM
We have cameras and sensors detecting every possible type of energy, not only on Earth, but throughout the galaxy.

Relevant:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/settled.png

Shiny
07-09-2013, 02:55 AM
I don't believe in ghosts, but I am interested in the back stories of haunted places.

Quindiana Jones
07-09-2013, 12:51 PM
I heard that if you don't pay your exorcists on time, they'll repossess your house :monster:

Aulayna
07-09-2013, 02:09 PM
Boring diatribe about why he's a boring old fart

I dunno, have you looked in a mirror lately. You're ghostly white!

Faris
07-09-2013, 02:47 PM
One time I stayed for a few nights the haunted hostel jail in downtown Ottawa. It was eerie.

I don't 100% believe or disbelieve in them. If something odd happens in the house my first instinct is to accuse something logical like I'm hallucinating or it's one of the pets moving around.