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Posted: 19-02-2013 02:41 Post subject: It happens to us all...

Odd things do happen to us all, if only we'd realise and take the chance to look. Here's some weird things that have happened to me over the 30 years of my life;

I can remember when I was a kid and I was falling asleep in bed, I can sort of subconsciously remember something stroking my hair. And I used to have a re-occuring dream of being in a dark room whilst sat on a bench, being told something by a huge light before me. Very strange looking back. I can also remember being on my street and feeling something run past me, only turning around to find nothing there.. I also saw the spirit of my first pet dog enter my parent's bedroom one night. It looked completely real to me. I've had many precognitive things too - thinking of something (usually really trivial, like a certain film) and then finding myself seeing it later.

I believe in Spirit, and it's a nice affirmation when I look at these "oddities" that have happened over the years. Very Happy

Posted: 19-02-2013 09:10 Post subject:

I do believe that as we grow up we develop filters that make us tend not to notice oddities around us that are irrelevant to getting our daily necessities done. In me these filters are not particularly strong, but then I had a fairly unusual upbringing.

I believe this is why extreme skeptics are so vehement - they are trying to conceal a subconscious or semi-conscious doubt that possibly all is not 100% a matter of scientifically explained fact. Rather like some people proclaim their extreme heterosexuality. After all, even a scientist ought to be open to the idea that as yet we have not explained _everything_.

Posted: 29-06-2013 01:52 Post subject:

Posted: 29-06-2013 09:11 Post subject:

Posted: 30-06-2013 08:12 Post subject:

That's interesting, spookdaddy. As you say, the results are almost the same as if they were being blanked.

If the 'alert - this isn't right' response does not kick in with most adults, does that tie in to the 'panic' (another thread) that hits when the oddness becomes too great to ignore? Although I still get that too, and yet I'm quite good at passively accepting things on a - 'hmm this is odd, wonder what happens next' basis.

Posted: 01-07-2013 08:36 Post subject:

An example:

When I was at university the room I occupied in a shared house was intermittently plagued by a knocking sound, just as if someone were gently tapping picture hooks into the other side of the party wall – which, at first, is what I thought it was, until it started moving around the room.

This went on the whole time I was there – not constantly, but regularly - and I never came up with a satisfactory explanation despite trying many for size: some kind of insect infestation; mice in the rubble fill; nutty neighbours who hung a lot of pictures, or just liked making tapping sounds at odd hours of the day and night; bored parrots (honestly, a mate of my dad inherited an insane parrot that used to hang upside down off the light fittings squawking abuse, tap his beak violently on the furniture to get attention, and occasionally hide behind things in order to ambush whoever came into the room next).

Anyway, none of the explanations I played with fitted the bill, and very soon I just stopped worrying about it. My housemates, after I'd introduced them excitedly to my tapper, were initially spooked but, like me, eventually just got used to it. (It didn't affect the rest of the house, but at least one of the girls I shared with told me that she used to hate walking past my room when she was alone in the place because she was convinced that on a couple of occasions the tapping started up in response to her presence.)

Once or twice I tried rapping back, following the sound as it appeared to move along the walls. I even had the odd drunken conversation with it - one-sided thankfully, I'm not sure I'd have been as sanguine about the affair if I'd actually got a response.

In fact when I think about it now I can’t help feeling I got rather attached to the oddness of it all. We had a party one night, during which about twenty people crammed into my bedroom in complete silence waiting for the tapping to start up - it actually did, and the resulting cheer appeared to instantly silence the noise, which left me considering the intriguing and oddly satisfying possibility that we may actually have managed to scare the shit out of a poltergeist.

My point is (sorry, got carried away a bit there) that this was an odd experience, witnessed by others and taking place over an extended period of time - but once I'd left the house I completely forgot about it for several years; it didn't enter my thoughts again until a night of drunken reminiscence not far off a decade after the fact. For a long time, if you'd asked me to relate any strange experiences that I'd had, I suspect that this one wouldn't have crossed my mind - because, in a way, it had become part of the furniture (I’ve been visiting this board for years and I think this is the first time I’ve thought of mentioning it); it was strange on a technicality (because I didn't know what was causing it) but in an everyday, pragmatic sense it was no longer strange, because it had become a familiar part of my accumulated experience.

As I said before, it was assimilation rather than repression – but the result was kind of the same.

Posted: 01-07-2013 19:47 Post subject:

Posted: 02-07-2013 00:07 Post subject:

Great story, Spookdaddy. Very Happy

And I understand what you mean, although I tend to see it in a slightly different way. I've noticed that people can be placed roughly (very roughly...I'm not too keen on generalizations) in two categories - those who value the strangeness that shows up in the course of ordinary life, and those who don't (because they don't care, don't notice or want nothing to do with it).

When I'm getting to know someone, one of the things I'll ask is "what's the strangest thing that ever happened to you?" The person will either come out with a fascinating story or wonder why on earth I'd ask such a thing. It seems rather like the results of that well known study on luck. http://www.richardwiseman.com/research/psychologyluck.html
The more a person is open to it, the more it happens.

I understand the willingness to discuss it, or even how someone feels about it may be culturally influenced, though. Ask a Texan about these things and they'll either exuberantly spill their stories or shut you down because they think you're foolish. I've rarely known anyone from the latter group to change their viewpoint on anomalous experience, so in my own culture, the acceptability of such experience may be more cut-and-dried.

Posted: 02-07-2013 17:46 Post subject:

I think one reason these experiences get pushed to the back of the mental closet is that you usually can’t draw any useful information or lesson from them. They happen, they’re bizarre, and that’s all you can say about them. You can’t understand how or why or what they mean. You can’t recreate them or cause them to happen – well, I can’t anyway.

Also, it’s not generally socially acceptable to talk about them, it marks you as weird. It’s only occasionally that circumstances are right and people feel safe sharing their strange experiences. And you tend not to think too much about things that you never have cause to talk about.

But you have to wonder how many millions of strange stories remain untold. A few months ago I was having a drink with two of my best friends for the past 15 years – two guys I’ve hung with and talked with a lot. Somehow the conversation drifted to strange experiences. I told my ghost story and mild UFO sightings. One friend volunteered that his father’s ghost had visited him a few weeks after death. The other friend (1) had a UFO hover over his car shining a light down and had missing time, and (2) saw a pterodactyl in flight. All these years I had no idea. And this guy is a cancer surgeon – you know, a ‘’credible, rational” person.

Posted: 03-07-2013 01:19 Post subject:

Posted: 16-07-2013 13:18 Post subject:

Spookdaddy's 'tapper' story just made me realise that we too have a tapper!
I never even thought about it before and always just assumed it was the neighbours (on both sides) tapping in nails... After three years surely both sides must have covered their walls in frames by now?!