I was an atheist until my mother died. She died drunk and angry and it was terribly traumatic. A few weeks after she passed we began seeing things move on their own in the house and strange shadows lurking in places they didn't belong.
I try to remain pretty scientific about what I observe, but I feel like I'd be close minded and foolish to dismiss these things.
Any similar stories would be appreciated.
Sometimes I'd have waking physical nightmares, it happens when I fall asleep on my back, especially when I'm very tired. I'm a chronic insomniac. One night I woke up to my wife choking me out and squeezing my testicles as hard as she could. She was staring me in the eyes, like she was possessed. I was pinned and couldn't do anything. I realized I was going to die. I suddenly woke up and she was laying next to me, completely asleep. I could still feel my balls hurt, but my windpipe felt normal. I actually checked myself for bruises around my neck and throat because it felt so real. No bruises or anything, so I'm 100% sure none of it was real.
Maybe you had something similar happen, dream mind playing tricks or something.
Same happens to me if I sleep on my back. Typically I get sleep paralysis and nutty dreams like that. Usually I'm trying to wake myself up but it's extremely hard since I can't move. I'll remember I'm sleeping next to my girlfriend and I'll try to wake her up from inside my dream so that she can wake me up. It's actually worked a few times, but usually I just dream it. The last time it happened I thought she bit my finger. I woke up and checked it and there were no teeth marks, and when I asked her the following morning she said she didn't bite me. It was so real.
Sleep paralysis is super strange.
I don't know, man. I had a nightmare once that a demon like creature had grabbed me by the arm and yoked me up to where I was almost to the ceiling. I woke up and DROPPED onto my bed, hitting it so hard I snapped a board under it because it didn't have a box spring in those days. I figured there HAD to be some explanation, but the scratches on my arm kind of freaked me out. Later that day I realized there was significant bruising on my arm in the shape of a huge hand, and the scratches lined up perfectly with where the nails would have been. I still have the pictures on one of my old phones, I'm going to try digging it out.
I'm not saying a demon was holding me roughly by my arm a few feet above my bed, but I Am saying that something beyond my understanding happened that day. I tried to tell myself I must have laid on something, then removed the offending bruise causing implement while half asleep and just didn't remember doing so, so my mind caused the dream because the pain, but there was NOTHING in my house that could have caused it.
Edit to add- around that time in my life I didn't believe in intelligent design, a higher power, none of it, I wanted to, but I just couldn't suspend my disbelief. I died years later, though, and now I believe whole heatedly, though I don't identify with any organized religion because I feel like they ALL get some things right, but also wrong, and none of us will really know until we die because it isn't MEANT for us to know. We're so far from understanding existence, and religion feels like playing at knowing, though I do envy people their faith and there are beautiful aspects of different religions. When I died I understood, but it's so hard to try and explain the whole thing and I just don't have the words or frame of reference for what I KNEW. Dying changed my life, completely, ironically.
Ngl, that gave me chills. Similar story happened to someone I know. Shook it off as sleep paralasis and then their bed frame started falling apart, like it had been damaged by a large object or person thrashing it intentionally.
Fellow insomniac here and I’ve definitely had the choking/drowning ones and just shoot up clawing for air. Scary stuff.
Consider getting a sleep study, anecdotal evidence tells me this may be a sign of sleep apnea. I myself haven't gotten around to it, but it's been a long while since this has happened. The worst was during covid when I was the most dormant I've ever been in my life.
Dang I’m sorry to hear that. U sound like me tho, do this, this and this….(all solid advice 😜) but like, I mean, I haven’t done it but it’ll totally help u 🤣🤣 I’m the exact same way tho, so no hate here, just picking 🫣 Dr has been on me to do one but even with insurance it’s highly expensive (I don’t even remember the amount cuz I was immediately like, NOPE) but I know I need to at some point. I get tired of being tired. I’ll be up for a few days with an hour here or there and then crash and need to sleep for several hours. With chronic pain issues I can’t get more than a few at a time anyway but u get what I mean. I honestly don’t remember a time I could sleep/rest well… do u remember when urs began? Like from childhood or just a few years ago…? Curious to know what others have experienced…
You had a dream dude.
i'm just curious: why aren't you allowed to sleep or nap at 4pm in your bed? were you supposed to be working then?
Accountability, routine and sleep schedule. If people nap then it can throw the night schedule off.
Well you probably should think back to something you may have said.. maybe you asked for some kind of proof of something else besides the physical world at some point? idk I am just throwing ideas out there to maybe jog your memory.. sometimes things like this is just a sign of some kind..
Freaking hilarious 😂
You should read Thomas Ligotti, specifically his corporate horror short stories. Your life then would fit right in with his stories.
I posted about this before.
I was in college in the early 90s. I was at my then-boyfriend's house helping him with his algebra homework. His family was out of the house and we were alone.
We were at the dining room table facing the fireplace mantle and the back door.
I felt like I needed to look up at the mantle. I saw a white taper candle floating horizontally, pointing at my right eye. As soon as I looked at it, it dropped to the table.
No trickery, no strings. No one in front of us. My then-boyfriend became terrified and ran out the kitchen out the front door.
I picked up the candle and saw it had a twin on top of the fireplace mantle. I have no idea how any of that happened.
ETA: I wasn't an atheist at the time. I was agnostic. I was raised Methodist.
Did your boyfriend say if anything else unexplainable had happened there? His reaction suggests so..
So your boyfriend ghosted you?
i see what you did there.
My mum was an atheist. And a scientist (with a interest in quantum mechanics). When as a kid and I saw ‘ghosts’ and asked her about them (like our deceased neighbour sitting in the window just like he always had when he was alive) she’d say “Kiddo, it’s not a ghost. It’s time. Time is another dimension we don’t fully understand yet. Sometimes the timelines get muddled up and overlap. You’re not seeing Mr Jones next door. You’re seeing the past”. I’m now in my 40s and this is still the most plausible explanation I can think of.
Your mom sounds rad.
I like this interpretation but I mean that means this whole thing is fucked up.
She's right .. Time is the fourth dimension and we have only begun to scratch that surface. In the esoteric, we learn that all time exists at once. There's no past, no future, only the present because they exist in one space and observed in one space. Does it exist when not being observed.... One of the basics of quantum physics. There's much yet to be learned and much of the supernatural will eventually be explained by quantum theory. We have much to learn about time.
Do you have any esoteric reading you could suggest to interested parties?
I cannot get you there, but I can set you on the path. For me, it started like this, with a question.... The right question. I personally set out to learn more about shamanism, this may not be the mystical path for you. I would suggest starting with the simplest book that many seeking a mystical path choose The Secret Teachings of All Ages, by Manly P Hall. Or The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. Both will give you a foundation on which to build. From there I went with Carlos Castaneda books, because the shamanistic path was most interesting to me. The Hermetic teachings are always a good choice as well and there are numerous books on Hermetic philosophy. The Internet was not teeming with esoteric knowledge when I started my learning, but the Internet is now full of others posting knowledge. But to be well rounded, please start learning about metaphysics also. Even Aristotle has much to say about metaphysics. Einstein had much to say about relativity and the fourth dimension being time/space. Arcane knowledge is understanding spiritual teachings and how they apply to scientific fact.
Edit: you could also check out The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
Thanks! I appreciate your suggestions.
Time isn’t the fourth dimension. It makes no sense to have the first three dimensions to be space but the fourth one to arbitrarily switch to time.
I love your mom.
I said this on the Timeslips Facebook group a few days ago, too. I suspect there's more than one answer, but to me, at least, it seems that Timeslips provide one of them.
Yeah, Timeslips! Have you listed to the BBC podcast called Uncanny by Danny Robins? There’s a really interesting timeslip episode on there. Recommend
Question though, does this mean every person can see these ghosts at that time? Or just for that one person?
This is my thoughts on ghosts, too
SPOILER ALERT: It’s like The Others!!!!!!!!!! I love that movie and that explanation is amazing.
I have experienced ghostly activity that I can’t explain. But the strangest thing was when my dad was in a nursing home with dementia. It was 2020 and he really wanted to come home but there were no 24/7 nurses anywhere. I was staying at his house to take care of things. I was coming back from a walk with my dog and saw a dark gray figure walk in front of the windows inside the house. The gait was my dad’s and the posture as well. The house was locked and I checked every inch but no one was there. I think he came back home. Two weeks later he died.
This is interesting to me. My mom has stage 3 cancer and she said right before she fell asleep the other night she had a very clear vision of her mom (who is deceased) but then also of her dad, who is 90 and on dialysis.
I’m a hypnosis practitioner and am always talking about that brain wave state prior to falling asleep and prior to waking up as it’s a similar state I bring people to during hypnosis.
So, I have been wondering if he is not much longer for this world, along the lines of what you described. Time will tell. It’s like “the veil thins” weirdly as they approach the natural end of their lives?
I absolutely believe that the borders between alive and deceased dissapear for a bit when the time comes.
Me and my sister watched a video about what happens when we die some time after my father passed. In the video they mention that deceased family members come to you. It also says that people kinda know ~2 years prior to their passing that it’s nearing. My father would show us how to do something a lot of times “so we know how to do it when he’s dead” in the last 2 years of his life. He even called an insurance company he had his life insurance at a week prior his passing to see if both me and my sister are listed in it… Then one afternoon he suddenly collapsed, fell into a coma and died 2 days later.
The video link is here: What really happens when you die
I’m a Nurse & believe that this is absolutely true.
I believe that ppl can still have vital signs & very clearly be alive right next to us, but when the body & mind has broken down, (to the point that, although they may technically be viable, they certainly are not vital & likely never will be again) I believe that it is then that their soul, spirit, consciousness, or ghost, as it were, whatever you may choose to call it, is then able to, at the very least, slip in and out of the shell that is our body.
As a L&D/Pediatrics Nurse I haven’t had much experience with The Dying beyond Nursing School in the mid 90’s, but I was also a Vol. Firefighter/EMT, & I’ve had other Nurses & First Responders talk about witnessing paranormal events around some Patients who were actively in the End of Life, & I don’t believe everything that everyone says, but I 100% believe in what these people had to say as if they had been words spoken by my own Mother. They may be b.s.‘ers, but they are not liars.
One of them was a Nurse who was in the ER when a local hero, a mid-50’s woman who had adopted multiple children & animals, & had worked tirelessly with the homeless & abused women & children in our community passed away shockingly suddenly & unexpectedly. She said that she literally felt an electrically charged current go through the room, and also through her own body, when that woman’s soul left her body as they were frantically performing Lifesaving measures on her. I absolutely 100% believe her. I would literally be willing to stake my life on the fact that she was telling the truth about what she experienced.
I consider myself an Agnostic, meaning that I believe that there is something else on The Other Side, but I can’t say what that is. I will say that I believe that I had a Paranormal experience in which someone, something, a Spirit Guide, Guardian Angel, ghost, or Ancestor, Idk, but someone intervened to help me save a toddler’s life one day, & by that, I mean they intervened to prevent me from hitting & killing a toddler one day, when I was younger.
I’ve had several very unexplainable paranormal encounters in my 50 years, but that was the first one, & it was by far the most profound. But the second one, on my first date with my Husband, was the first time that I fully believed in an Afterlife, Heaven, Reincarnation, or whatever you may choose to call it.
The first time I ever heard anyone confirm what I actually already believed to be the truth about the After-Life was when I read “Talking to Heaven” by James Van Praagh, & my very favorite movie Robin Williams movie “What Dreams May Come”, is the closest to explaining what I believe the Other Side is like, & after that, the book by Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander “Proof of Heaven”, who was clinically dead & then in a coma for a few weeks (three, I think).
I’m still not entirely sure what “Heaven” is, or if it was in fact “Created” by any God/s. I just tend to believe that God, with one letter short, is the personification of “Good”, & the devil (with one letter more) is the personification of “evil”. Fortunately I’ve never experienced anything evil, that I know of… (at least not in the Paranormal Afterlife realm). But I digress…
However, I just don’t believe that we have enough information to make a definitive determination about God, or Heaven, or The Son of God, (although I do have my own personal theories, as I’m sure that many people do); thus I consider myself to be Agnostic, which translates to mean that “I don’t believe that it’s possible to know” &/or “There isn’t enough evidence/proof/information to make a determination”.
(Edited: omitted the words “hitting &” in the sentence about toddlers, leaving it to be a very confusing sentence for the readers, at best, & a potentially horrifying sentence for the readers, at worst. My apologies.)
Hol up. Stopped you killing a toddler?? Please explain!!
Right, way to just gloss over that part lol. “So this ghost prevented me from killing a toddler, but anyway this one time with my husband…” !! Really slacked on delivery in those two most interesting parts of their story lol
Read below, something prevented her hitting a toddler with her car, not any physical assault.
I am so sorry. That sounded awful. When I wrote that out it didn’t occur to me how that would come across to a reader, (probably b/c I knew what I meant, but wasn’t thinking about how it would sound to someone who didn’t) & I feel terrible about that. I omitted the words “hitting &” in that sentence. I’m usually a much better writer than that, but was trying to make my point without getting into my actual experience b/c I originally planned to write a second comment in response to OP explaining everything, but was short on time b/c I was watching our Grandson & he awoke from his nap. I just forgot to get back to it until I logged on today & saw your reply.
I was 16, it was a gorgeous sunny June day, & I was driving in a very rural area where the speed limit was 45. Houses were spread out with a lot of farm, pasture, or simply grassy fields between them. The weeds & grasses were tall in the ditches & I was cruising through a wide curve in the road at about 50 mph when I very, very clearly heard “Where there’s a ball there’s a boy” just as if it had been spoken by someone sitting in the passenger seat next to me, although I have no idea if it was just in my head vs. a disembodied voice, although it sounded like it filled the entire car up.
Suddenly I came upon an opening in the tall grasses lining the deep ditch in the curve of the road, & a red ball bounced out into the road in front of me, followed almost immediately by a small child maybe 3-4 years old running after it. At the same time I also noticed a car coming towards me in the opposite lane. I hit the brakes & the horn simultaneously in a horrible panic & began flashing my lights, trying desperately to warn the driver of the oncoming vehicle.
Thankfully they had also seen what was happening & hit their brakes, & all of the noise & commotion stopped the boy in his tracks right at the front of the driveway, & I caught sight of what I assume was the mother flying off of the front porch & down the driveway after the child (while probably also yelling for the child to stop).
That was the first time that anything like that ever happened to me, both as a driver, as well as having a truly unexplainable paranormal experience. It shook me up & to this day I remember it as the first time I experienced the awful feeling of a post-adrenaline dump.
I eventually became a L&D/Pediatrics Nurse & vol. Firefighter/EMT, & to this day I hate the after-effects of an adrenaline dump. Idk why anyone would enjoy being an adrenaline junkie. But I digress…
In the years afterwards I’ve wondered if it was the divine intervention of my spirit-guides warning me, or if it was the little boys spirit-guides that warned me. I’ve never heard anything like that again, although I have experienced many instances of paranormal experiences & premonitions since then.
The strongest premonition that I’ve experienced since then, & the one that immediately changed how I felt & absolutely informed my opinion of the Afterlife & what happens on the Other Side, was when I was a few weeks shy of my 18th birthday & I first kissed my Husband.
We had gone to see a movie & then drove down to the beach where we were stranded on a lifeguard stand for a couple of hours talking during high-tide. Then we drove around to see the full moon shining on the still waters of a “Back Bay”, & that was the first time he kissed me. I opened my eyes to see the moon shining through the trees, & I immediately felt in my soul that we had been kissing like that for a thousand years & would be kissing like that for a thousand more. He asked me to marry him that night & we were married a couple months later, shortly after I turned 18.
We also both witnessed what I genuinely believe was my Grandfather, (who passed away shortly after we were married), checking on our Daughter when she was a Baby.
We celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary in January (it was also our Grandson’s second birthday; he was born two months early on our 31st wedding anniversary two years ago), & over the years we have experienced many more paranormal events together, but that was the only time either of us have ever seen an apparition.
Again, sorry for the confusion. Cheers!
That's beautiful (re: your husband and the kiss 💞)
“Where there’s a ball, there’s a boy” what a chilling event
Read her comment below. Something inexplicable prevented her from hitting a toddler with her car, not physically hurting them!
Lol thanks, I know, she replied to my comment
What are those two stories that made you believe?!! You skipped over the best details lol
Ikr, huh????
I consider myself an atheist although I do believe that the only honest answer anyone can say about an afterlife is "I don't know." I don't think there's anything but I can't say that for sure until I'm dead.
I respect your decision to call yourself anything you want, but based on your comment it sounds like you might fit the agnostic criteria.
If you research it, atheist means that you don’t believe in the existence of god/gods, & some take it a step further to state that there is no god/gods.
An agnostic atheist is the same thing, that you don’t believe in the existence of god/gods, with the added caveat that you believe that there is no way to know that for certain.
Ok. Agnostic atheist it is.
I've heard that veil is pretty thin to begin with; so I'm inclined to believe you're right about that.
I think that it does, absolutely.
I once saw a little blond boy run across the doorway and vanish, but if ghosts are real I don’t think it has anything to do with religion
I’ve never been an atheist, but this reminds me of the time I saw a blonde-haired woman in a white gown look at me in shock and then quickly turn into an orb to move away from me. I think she was shocked I could see her. I remember making eye contact with her right before she changed into an orb and went through the door. If I had to guess, I’d say she was from the 1930s or 40s possibly based on her appearance.
Seeing her turn into an orb stunned me since I had never seen a spirit turn into one, I’ve usually only seen orbs in pictures or spotted an orb briefly before it disappeared. I had never seen the super fast process of a spirit turning into an orb before that moment. It happened super quickly and was both cool and weird.
My ex (the least spiritual person I ever knew) would drink wine with her friend and they’d play with a ouija board. She said they stopped when a child sized shape ran through the room and out a closed door. She would shiver when asked about it
My sister's got into ouija when they were teens. It was all a game for a few months, then something happened that NONE of them have ever talked about, and afterwards the room the used to do it in would just get randomly trashed sometimes in the middle of the night. Sometimes it was silent, one time I heard nothing at all through the night, but woke up to a very heavy armoire toppled over in that room. Other times it was a loud trashing, and the ONE time I heard it happen I left and refused to come back when the house was empty and/or dark.
Won’t have one if the damn things in my house ever
I’d say if ghosts are real, it pretty much confirms that religious views of the afterlife are wrong
iirc in Old Testament a prophet asked a woman to hold a seance summoning the spirit of a deceased prophet for asking him for advice. The called one then allegedly scolded the living one for disturbing his rest.
Sadly I cannot remember any name and which book of Old Testament it occurred in.
In what way?
How so?
To be fair; I don't think any of us have it all the way right nor do I think we ever will while we're alive. We're bound by human parameters of the physical world. I do however think some ppl have it all the way wrong.
Also, religious views vary quite drastically...
If anything, if ghosts are real, it pretty much proves atheists are wrong.
How would ghosts prove atheists wrong? The existence of ghosts wouldn’t prove the existence of any god or gods.
Yeah, I agree. Just something that we haven't discovered yet.
If ghosts are real, it confirms a spirit realm of some sort, which confirms many religious beliefs.
Maybe not confirm those beliefs entirely, but certainly evidence. I personally resonate with the Buddhist views of ghosts and spirits, but I'm also aware that it could be entirely wrong.
I used to believe in the paranormal big time. Then as I got older and hadn't seen or experienced anything, I became more and more sceptical. Then one day, about 10 weeks ago, I'm cooking dinner on a v ordinary, routine school night after work. Kids waiting for their food in the lounge with dad. I clearly see a pair of legs walk into the kitchen, male, v smart, roughly 1920s fashion. His legs were opaque but the rest of him was more transparent, becoming more transparent to his face which was almost invisible.
We live in a 1920s semi detached, v standard, and I've never seen anything before. I just smiled and said "hello" and carried on cooking. Weirdly I wasn't scared. He just disappeared. Then ten mins later a saw flash at the other end of the kitchen, like a diamond would glint in the sun. Just v quick then it was gone. I went over to the dryer to check if there was an electrical issue, but all seemed in order.
I turned round to walk back to the other side of the kitchen and plate up the food, and saw the same flash above the oven. I just smiled. It didn't feel threatening, almost felt like he was saying hello back. And that was it. I'm back believing now :)
Edit - typos
I saw an unexplained flash of light too, once. I’m agnostic, definitely not religious although I was raised Christian (Episcopal) and one time in church when I was in college (this was on campus and it was a student event) we were all holding hands in a prayer circle and I saw this bright green flash of light come from two students’ interlocked hands. Was the strangest thing. That chapel was haunted too, I would go play the organ at night sometimes and I would hear someone come up behind me and other noises, and no one was there.
Greenlantern was there
I also saw something akin to a white flash a few months after my aunt passed. Freaked me the hell out as a pair of tongs also kinsa just fell out of nowhere. I thought our stove shorted or something
This is how all my encounters have been. I was never really scared, even though I always thought I would be.
I think most "encounters" don't need to be frightening if you don't want it to be. I've talked to whatever has visited my house, too. Had it happen a couple of times now.
I’ve seen flashes of light before and haven’t known what they mean. I usually explain those away as my eyes acting strangely, but I remember one time after I said a prayer to Archangel Michael to protect me, I saw a stunningly bright flash of light at night and the room was dark.
It happened so fast I could have blinked and I would have missed it, so I know it wasn’t from a car outside or something. It was also too bright to be from headlights. It was like an explosion of light before my eyes, there one second and then gone the next.
I’m not really that religious (I prayed because I was scared), but I don’t think that was a coincidence.
What is V ordinary & V Smart?
Edit: How does it apply here, I’m getting old.
V = very. Am getting lazy with typing in my old age
Haha! Thank you.
Were they like small pinpoints of light?
Yes, but very very bright, floating mid-air, and then gone
I see those off and on every day and have for about the last 3-4 years. Asked my optometrist about it after my eye exam and he said he doesn’t know what it is but it’s not pathology and that he hears people tell him they see this all the time.
I was laying in bed with my wife and had something pull on my leg so hard I thought I was going to get pulled out of bed
Also had 3 knocks on the bathroom door while having a shower followed by “ that’s long enough “ No one was home
😖
Sorry it was me bro 😔 (I just wanted to see you )
Years ago, I also had knocks on the bathroom while in the shower, then jiggling of the handle. I was home alone but figured my bf got home . I simply responded, "Come in, it's not locked" then the jiggling just stopped. I didn't think anything of it until I got out and realized I was still home alone and the outer doors still locked. I had knocking happen to me another time later on in that same bathroom but the door was open (I got too afraid to close it when I was home alone), the knocking was then on the wall from bedroom beside the bathroom and much more aggressive. I had a lot of different unexplainable things happen to me in that house when I lived there. To the point I'd get so scared I'd go outside and wait for someone to come check the premises for an intruder.
That’s crazy. Def not a good feeling when you realise your home alone
Getting my leg pulled is my biggest fear. Did you go to sleep after that?
After a long while. It shook me good. Nothing usually does.
Man, the way it called you out, as if it was paying for the water bill! 😂😂
Happy for it to chip in ! We can make something work
If you take the scientific energy approach, we are all energy. And energy cannot be destroyed, it just changes form. We don't understand all the energies in the universe yet, so it's entirely plausible that our energy transforms once we die. I'm an atheist and can see a scientific approach to things such as the paranormal as well without believing in bs religions
But you’re kind of assuming that we have a spirit that survives our body decaying.
Read about the first law of thermodynamics
We had a poltergeist in the house I grew up in, and I only use the word poltergeist so you all understand what I mean, and not because I believe it was an actual ghost. I don't know what it was but we all witnessed seeing things move and get thrown about on their very own. Even our poor dog would suddenly get spooked before something happened. No idea what it was. But like a caveman looking at a rainbow there would have been a scientific reason behind it, we just didn't know what it was.
When I was a kid I saw the shadow of a person go into a room just before a relatives funeral. I followed it and no one was in there. I think about this often when I have doubts. But trying to keep an open mind I’m not sure if it was a glitch in reality, or something. But the fact it was after the death of a relative, makes me to think maybe it was a ghost. But it it showed me that we don’t understand everything about this world.
I think energy can remain when someone dies unexpectedly. I don't think it has anything to do with with religion or God tho
It's interesting that you're using the term atheist when I think you mean skeptic, although the two are certainly related. It's hard to believe in demons if you don't hold some kind of spiritual beliefs, for example. Hard to believe in angels if you don't believe in God. Biblical folks will say that there are no ghosts in the Bible, and that's mostly true. I've always thought it a little odd that religious fanatics refuse to believe in ghosts when the very nature of religion is supernatural.
I have only once ever seen anything I could not explain, but I still suspect it wasn't supernatural. Yet it hangs in my memory nevertheless.
Ha, ha, exactly! I’ve got a cousin who refutes anything related to ghost stories & such. But same cousin attends church every Sunday. What, or who does she think God & the Holy Ghost are supposed to be?😂 Makes me wanna slap her noggin!
I believe in God and the Holy Spirit.. but I also believe in ghost.. I don’t care what anyone says… I know what I seen lol.
Agreed. I don’t buy the demon stuff at all. Not when really awful people have existed. They make mean ghosts I am sure.
The cliff notes version of religion is what we have. The supernatural was exorcised from society and from religion by way of the canonization of the Bible, the attempted destruction of Gnosticism and Hermeticism by the early church.
I'd like to hear about your experience if you don't mind :)
It can also be different dimensions leaking in
That’s what I think paranormal activity is
I’ve seen and experienced some strange things that I call paranormal and I’m still an atheist. I don’t personally correlate our energy existing without a physical body to proof of any deity. It’s another form of science in my mind and I hope one day it can be explained.
My ex and I used to I guess you would say ghost hunt it just started out of the hobby I've seen this is fly out of a cupboard nothing dramatic it was just one piece but when it was so bad its way back out again. I've seen floating lights, I've seen lights go on and off with no explanation. I have heard voices on tape it's amazing everything just leads me to believe that there is something after death.
I don't know if anything the existence of ghosts would prove atheists right. If the dead stay here means no heaven or hell. A lack of ghosts would be more supportive religion.
Atheism nowadays seems to not believe in anything supernatural. Not sure if their is a better word for what a lot of people are.
Skeptics a lot of people are skeptics moreso than atheists. A lot of skeptics are atheists but it is not mutually inclusive. The core tenant of skepticism is that irrefutable proof must be presented. In the absence of irrefutable proof all theories remain theories and nothing more.
Atheists believe that once you're dead, that's it, there's nothing. Ghosts would imply there has to be something and that your spiritual being still exists. It doesnt mean there's no heaven or hell. In fact, many religions believe there is a realm in-between earth and heaven, and a realm in between earth and hell; and it's not until after judgment day that you definitively go to one or the other (heaven or hell). If you're a ghost, you still exist in some realm. If atheists were right, you would cease existing altogether once your physical life ended.
Atheists only have one thing in common, a lack of belief in any god or gods.
Being an atheist doesn’t mean one has any set beliefs about an afterlife or anything else.
That’s called purgatory. A place to atone for sins.
A spirit realm wouldn't exist if spirits didn't exist. To have a spirit beyond our physical bodies confirms a lot of religious beliefs. Also, purgatory is a concept in multiple religions.
No offense intended, but who are we to dictate how the metaphysical world works. The only ones who truly know at this time with no hard evidence are the dead. Perhaps the nature of spirits is scientific rather than spiritual. Like conservation of energy. Perhaps the spirit that bestows consciousness is just some form of quantum energy that persists after death. As far as I am aware purgatory itself is a spiritual realm not tied to Earth. In Greek it was the Asphodel Fields, but it was still Tartarus adjacent. Purgatory is the realm of the angel Pergamos and is actually a part of heaven that still holds the illusory trappings of a physical world.
I like your explanation of conservation of energy possibly being the scientific reason for spirits or ghosts. Reminds me of when you unplug a radio, and the sound lingers in the air for a split second even though there is no more power source. The energy of a deceased person still being around is what I’ve often read as the explanation for ghosts or spirits.
Perhaps it's both (scientific and spiritual). It baffles me how ppl always seem to separate the two; as if it must be one or the other. This is just my two cents, but I believe it's very much both. There's still so much about both that we havent discovered yet.
What is the connection between atheism and ghosts here?
A Ghost at the Waley House in San Diego grabbed my shoulder in the theater. I turned around thinking it was an usher. There was no one there. The whole room of tourists saw. I have never experienced anything else in my life.
A persons soul is pure unadulterated energy. And as you know, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Just transferred and/or manipulated. The body is simply a vessel. And when we shed that vessel, our energy moves to where it is supposed to go. I like to think some sort of afterlife. But who knows. There are so many different theories and possibilities. And personally I’m open to all of them. Sometimes the answer is simply… there is no answer right now. And thats okay. People who try to explain shit away with religion are so narrow minded and boxed in.
When I was a kid I was watching TV at my grandma's house. Everyone else was outside on the porch. My grandfather had passed away a few months prior.
Randomly I get a weird feeling from the hallway behind me. I turn around to see a full, classical white figure apparition of my grandfather looking at me. He turns, and walks through the door to his bedroom. Being a kid, I immediately booked it outside and didn't bring it up to anyone until we got home that night.
Not trying to be rude, but what does being an atheist have to do with ghosts? Asking honestly.
I’ve always seen the definition of an atheist as someone who believes in no creators (any gods from any religions) or afterlife. The belief that when someone died, they merely cease to exist. That belief would exclude, ghost, reincarnation, spirits, etc.
It’s just the first part, no belief in any gods or gods. Atheism doesn’t address an afterlife or anything else.
Just curious, what does being an atheist have to do with seeing ghost?
What does being an atheist have to do with ghosts?
What does being an atheist have to do with believing in ghosts.
Thank you. I was thinking the same thing
When I was 19, we moved houses after my dad died. We still had stuff to move even after we officially started living in the next house. One night I dreamt I was looking out the window of the apartment behind my old house and someone had broken into our house and was carrying stuff out. I’m not very easy to anger but I felt white hot rage at watching these people take our stuff, I even remembered them carrying my dads old stereo out. When I woke up the next morning, I told my mom about it. What was weird was that evening my sister got a call from the police station that the night before someone had broken into our old house. We drove over to see what had been taken (not much but the jackass stole money from a hidden 5 gallon jug that my dad left me as an inheritance that was too heavy to move. Outside the alleyway was my dads old stereo where they assumed they left it there to take later (which I also took home with me cause fuck them). I like to think my dad wanted me to make sure no one would steal the things he loved and wanted me to have and cherish like he did.
After that incident, my mom just looked at me and said, “sometimes you scare me”.
I have a pinecone I got on a hike, and after a year of having it, it inexplicably became a fresh, moist, spring pinecone. The next day, it looked the same again. It did it one more time. I can't explain except time is an ocean, not a garden hose. I have it in a jar and call it my time-traveling pinecone.
Perhaps you should see 'atheism' as a different subject from 'ghosts'?
I’m assuming OP means a “non-believer” as opposed to the dictionary meaning of atheist.
He probably meant he doesn't believe in God.
To me, a ghost makes it LESS likely that religion is correct, not more.
About everything supernatural I've seen has had some later explanation, and even if there was some proof of ghosts I wouldn't become any particular theist per say that's a big leap from general ghosts to some religion with certain afterlife's and rules.
It could be scientifically explained at some point.
Um well... We ARE "ghosts", spirits. The only difference is right now we have physical bodies, but these are only temporary. You know this, we all know this.
Nobody can actually have a solid absolute answer regarding these things. Opinion is what it is and nothing else. But what I am saying here is that there is literally so much evidence, over so many years, among millions of people, that proves death is only the end of the physical self.
The information forming our human beliefs is so miniscule and short lived, it is like a pebble of sand compared to the vast beaches and nature Earth is made of.
I (ex Catholic/atheist) had an experience when my grandmother (catholic) passed. I was laying in bed the night after her funeral/burial and had a sleep paralysis episode and saw my grandmother standing at my bedside wearing the exact same skirt suit she was buried in. I was home alone and sober at the time. Not sure if it was her spirit coming to visit me before she left earth.
Also, atheism doesn’t automatically mean that you don’t believe in paranormal, it just means you don’t believe in or worship any gods. I know there’s plenty of atheists who don’t believe in paranormal things, and that’s okay. I think to believe in paranormal (regardless of your religious opinions), you have to have an experience with it.
I’m not atheist but didn’t believe in ghost until I full on seen a shadow walk in front of me. I was awake.. watching tv. All of a sudden, I see a pair of grey/blackish legs walking. You could make out its stride ( if this makes sense). Two weeks prior to this in the middle of the day my husband seen them first. I was in the floor behind our couch with my youngest and seen him like turn his head a bit. He said my name very calm and said, “ I just seen a shadow walk from there to there (pointing). Fast forward a few months later, my mom moves in (she’s a Christian) and it did NOT WANT HER THERE. I never explained what I ever seen to her. She was at my house home alone while I was out of town. I called her the next morning.. she was at my grandmas.. it scared her away. She described exactly what I previously had seen.
I seen and experienced my first ever paranormal experiences in that house. We still own it but my father in law takes care of it and we’ve been renting it out to a family. I’ve never spoke to the family to ask if they’ve experienced anything. We did have the house blessed. My father in law said he never did, but he’s an alcoholic..so evenings he gets pretty wasted. He lives on the property still in a little house behind the house. However, my neighbor has told me stories prior to me ever letting her know of my experiences. What she has told me and what I’ve experienced has made me a believer absolutely. It gives me chills thinking about it.
After having the house blessed! I would hear three knocks always. The preacher who blessed my house told me it would try to “get back in” so never acknowledge the knocking.
im not atheist but i've had a few experiences. one of them involved my old high school. i attended a small, private military school overseas, total 200-300 students, about 10-15 students per class. it was a rainy, slow day. i was in my math class, at the back of the room, no students behind me, just a few feet of walking space and the walls. we were taking a test that day, and i finished early. i was laying my head down on top of my arms on my desk waiting for everyone else to finish, the position where you can see the floor beneath you and a bit behind you. well, i'm looking at the floor, when suddenly i see a pair of peculiar shoes walk behind me. they were black vintage oxford shoes. this confused me because nobody in my class wore shoes like this, the floors were tile, the shoes had a slight heel, yet the steps were silent. also there would be no reason to walk behind me, as there was nothing in the back of the room, except a few other desks. once the shoes walked behind me, i immediately brought my head up, looked to both sides behind me and there was nobody that i could see. all other students were seated, quietly finishing up their tests. and my teacher was a male, at his desk at the other corner of the room. i remember feeling very confused and slightly creeped out, because i couldn't explain it. i checked out everyones shoes and none of them matched the ones i saw. i can still see them so clearly in my memory. only later did i learn that my old high school was once was a hospital for the italian military..
Quite a huge leap from stuff moving to "gods are real".
Atheists can believe in the supernatural, too.
“strange shadows lurking in places they didn’t belong”. Is there somewhere they should be lurking?
Monday was the second anniversary of my grandad in laws death. I was close with him and I miss him so much. I was pottering about the kitchen on Monday and lit a candle for him and told him I missed him. About 5 minutes later a sign I have hanging on a door started swinging wildly. No open windows, no wind, there was nothing that could have disturbed the sign but it was swinging like someone had shoved it really hard and then it suddenly stopped dead about 10 seconds later. It freaked me out but I’m glad he paid me a visit
When my daughter was a baby in a crib, I was sleeping and I heard 3 women saying, "The baby, the baby..." It was SO REAL that I jumped out of bed and ran into the baby's room and she was choking.
One time, from the corner of my eye, I saw a man walk across my dining room and thought it was my husband but my husband was in the bedroom.
Another time, I was laying in bed with my daughter with my back to the door and I felt the bed depress next to me and seriously thought my mom had come in and sat down but I looked and there was no one there.
When I was kid I thought I saw three ghosts come out of my closet. I now think it was my imagination but I believed it back then.
In the same house with the ghosts in the closet, I would see someone walk past the study doorway from the corner of my eye. A woman.
I think it's probably all explainable now. I was always an atheist but I did believe in paranormal stuff well into my 20's. Eventually I just became fully cynical about it and I no longer really think that ghosts exist.
I need to post the photo I took in a nursing home. No weird experiences here, but my mom has seen a lot.
That picture scares me though. I'm just nervous about making an entire post on my own...
Oh I wish you would!! I'm very interested to see this
Funny thing is I believe in ghosts more than I believe in God.
I’ve lost two siblings and they have both come back in dreams to visit so I know there is some kind of “after”, but I doubt it’s “Jesus died for your signs” after.
I must say that I do not understand why the existence of some type of afterlife must be tied to some God. The two can be entirely separate things
I grew up having experiences since childhood. My grandmother saw spirits, my mother saw them, both my sisters and I see them. In 2011, my sister gave birth to her twins February 18th, on the 19th, our dad passed away in his sleep. On the 20th we found out one of the twins needed heart surgery so my mother and I drove to New York a few days later to be with them. When we go to New York, my mother disappeared in the middle of Manhattan in front of the hospital where my sister was with her kids. A few hours later, the hospital staff found us to let us know our mother had gone into the emergency room and collapsed, they put her in an induced coma. I returned to Florida by myself because we had animals that required our attention and I could not stay up there much longer. When I got back, the house felt different. The whole atmosphere had changed. I would hear full on conversations coming from my bedroom. I though it was the TV, but that was off. I saw a hand drop a cloth over my face while I laid in bed. Then one day I came home to smoke coming from my bedroom. I checked and there was no fire, it didn't smell like smoke. The cloud of smoke then travelled from my bedroom, down the hall and into the kitchen. It stood in front of where my dad would make his coffee and it expanded to make itself taller. I must admit, I freaked out and ran out of my house. At that time my mother had already woken up from the coma but was still at the hospital in New York. She had to be reminded of everything that happened the past 2 years, including the death of her mother and husband. I told her what happened at the house, she said calmly "that was your dad" and I broke down.
I try to always find another reason for what I saw, but sometimes, there is nothing else.
I absolutely love the rain but I moved to the desert to care for my father until his death. It rains here, seasonally, and usually in downpours/bursts.
When he passed it was not rainy season. It drizzled all day long and was cool and cloudy (my favorite kind of day) very out of place rain for this location and there had been no forecast for rain. Next day it was as dry and hot as ever.
in person:
there have been times where I've seen, like, shadows of farm animals (horse / goat / chicken) walk down hallways or doorways in my home. a psychiatrist said i have some branch of schizophrenia, so that might explain things. maybe. i also usually see them when I'm standing in an area where one of the previous owners died of a heart attack. probably not related, but some people here would argue it's worth mentioning.
also there have been 2 separate occasions where me and some friends walked about 2 miles into the woods (outside of our neighborhood) and there's a specific spot where we hear, like, a swing-set swinging and sometimes a child's giggle. there aren't any home's close by at all, not close enough to explain that noise. this was maybe 20 years ago since I've been there, and we were children when we went there.
not in person:
now, the average ghost video doesn't convince me often, but there are somethings that i can't explain without saying "it's staged" or "CGI" or some easy cop-out like that, so here are some video examples i can't explain myself:
this video (timestamped, but at 22:46) where these people pulled a old rotary phone off the wall of an abandoned building and hung it as decoration at their home. while not being wired up, it rang during a party. no one was on the other line when someone answered it. they returned the phone in the building where they got it and when they did another phone rang, but they dipped. it's strange to me, i think about it from time to time. maybe that type of phone doesn't need electricity to ring, maybe it's tensioned by a coil or something and could just go off.
this case of a security guard named "Symon Lockhart". idk he just sounded pretty genuine to me. he sounded pretty convincing. from what i remember, i think he said he eventually quit because of those happenings.
@jberari is an account on tiktok who i also get that feeling of genuine fear from. this video (timestamped at 6:06) (ignore the annoying commentary, maybe just look her up) goes over a compilation of things she's posted. she and her wife and daughter live on a large property with a beautiful colonial farm house. some things seems like it could be faked fairly easily, but idk, it's weird.
all in all, i still call myself an atheist. i leave a little wiggle room there to say that we also just may not know everything that happens in this world. the experiences i had aren't definitely "paranormal" to me. i 100% believe that what people perceive as ghosts ARN'T the souls or remnants of once-living people, but rather something a little more nebulous. like, im sooner to believe that a 4th-demensional being is interacting with our 3rd dimensional world, slipping in and out of our reality, than someone from the 1900s is just sticking around an old home. i believe that thoughts and memories and personalities are stored in the brain and when it dies, so does the person with it. it doesn't make sense to me that someone who died is somehow still conscience and "haunting" somebody or something.
I don’t think those types of phones need electricity
That's some spooky stuff! Can't explain it either.
Post is duplicated of another, so has been removed.
Thanks
I'm mostly an empiricist/ non-theist and have experienced a few weird events that I haven't made up my mind about. Even if they weren't mere tricks of my brain I don't think that they'd point definitively to a "spirit realm" or theistic system.
Someone in another comment said religion plays at knowing things we aren't meant to know; and that resonates with me. The mystery of death is said to be why humans invented religion, and unlike the mystery of an eclipse or a lightening strike we haven't solved it, and may never.
Scientific theory may point to answers eventually for our ghostly experiences. Personally, I think about the multiverse and the possibility of crossed paths, like perhaps there are times and spaces where we glimpse another thread.
In the meantime, ghostly encounters are fun to read about, especially the ones that don't seem to have any rational explanations.
One time, my friend who worked at a nursing home, witnessed a woman have a stroke in this chair at work. He decided he wanted to bring that chair home the very same day. I was sitting in this chair, playing NES. Now, if you know how those work, things dont override or automatically delete unless you go in there yourself and delete the saved game. Anyways, I'm playing nintendo, and he's talking about this lady who died in the chair im sitting in, we're kinda joking having a good time just kind of making light of the situation. Then he starts talking about how she lived through both the great depression and ww2. Shortly after he says this, theres a loud SMACK coming from what sounded like the nintendo, and when the smack happened, the stand up lamp light went out as well as the lights in the house. We both look at eachother freaking out. When we get the lights back on, his dog is freaking the fuck out, barking at the corners of the ceiling, going back and forth between corners, whole time looking at the ceiling. The nintendo gets turned back on, and every single saved file on the game was deleted. Shit was crazy.
Another experience I had, I moved into this house once. First night I was there, I kept hearing stuff drop, or something slide around like someone was moving one of our packed boxes. Going to bed, I saw a shadow person moving around in the dining room crouching behind a chair peeking at me. Now, granted, I was doing meth at the time, but you dont start to hallucinate until you're up for a good 3 or 4 days, and I didn't stay up for days at a time back then, I never went that hard. Was only awake for less than 24 hrs. So that was always weird to me.. We would always hear foot steps when we were by ourselves in the house, or things drop, or doors shut. I always attributed it to having an overactive imagination. One morning, my ex wives kids are at school, so we know 100 percent for a fact nobody is at the house except her and myself. Her sons room is an attic turned bedroom, above our room. Then, we hear toys start to move around and foot steps coming down the stairs like her sons. It was creepy af. I ran up there with a hockey stick expecting to find a squatter or something but nobody was there. Still can't explain it. Im no longer atheist, though. Not because of that, but i digress.
Question doesn't make any sense. You can have an absence of belief in a deity while still believing that people have paranormal experiences.
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Is there evidence beyond anecdote?
There's video and audio that I find to be sufficient, and while I understand that religious persons would say that their evidence is sufficient, what I mean by evidence is that there's video of apparitions interacting with the environment around them in the ways that ghosts are described to do, and bountiful audio of inexplicable disembodied voices. Evidence of ghosts doing things that ghosts are described as doing. Similar evidence to a religion would be video or audio of someone creating a world or universe or something else that gods of religion are described as doing. But even the notion of evidence is antithetical to, at least, the Abrahamic religions, so, for someone to even present something as evidence of one of these religions being true should be treated as suspect. IMO. That's why I'm an atheist whole feels perfectly comfortable accepting ghosts and an extended consciousness beyond this reality while also dismissing the notion of some omniscient creator. They say that energy is neither created nor destroyed and theres a theory that the universe is constantly springing towards and away from the big bang. We could all just be endlessly recycling along with it, waiting in the aether for the restart after death.
Nothing that would prove a god exists
People try really hard to lump every single atheist into the same group. For example, my mother is Christian and believes in the Christian God. But she doesn’t believe in any of the other gods that have existed or will exist to people so she’s technically an atheist for those specific religions. I just happened to believe in one less God than she does, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in supernatural things happening or in ghosts or spirits or other things.
Atheism isn't lack of a belief in anything. You can believe in the paranormal without believing in god
im not atheist by any means but my FILS passing confirmed an afterlife especially when he told me i was pregnant with my 5th child, i laughed in his face cos in my mind we were done with 3 girls and a boy .....but 2 weeks later i was by his bedside and by now he could'nt speak anymore but i told him he was right, indeed i was pregnant. A week after that he passed away. My youngest is now 4 lol
As a kid, sure.
Then I moved into an old house and realized houses creak and sway, my eyes suck so it looks like shadows move sometimes, the wind pressure from my window throws my bedroom door open and the “ghost cats” I kept seeing in my yard were just really fast cats that could dart before I could see them well enough because again my eyes suck.
I noticed all of the unexplainable stuff went away when I just took the time to, you know, explain them rather than freak out and assume a dead person is in my house.
I grew up believing in ghosts as a fact but as I moved around to different houses it got harder and harder.
I mean, even in ghost lore generally most people just pass on… are you living exclusively in murder victims homes?
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Glad he’s living in your head so much that you would comment that on a post that is not the least bit political. lol
😂😂😂
I was never able to explain the knocking I would hear on my bedroom door at my parents house multiple times after my mom died. The issue is my step mom heard it too so there is no way I was just having a really specific hallucination. Idk only thing that would have to be true for some sort of afterlife is our consciousness can exist outside of our bodies and other dimensions both of which could easily be possible....
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I had weird things happen when my roommate died. I'd have calls on my cell from my home phone late at night. But I think it was because of medication I was taking for depression and alcohol. I'm sure I was the one making those calls. But was I? Weird things happen, to everyone. It didn't make me believe in the supernatural.
This happened at my old house after my sister left for university and was staying at a student residencey. We shared a room so it was a few nights sleeping alone so I was scared and slept with the lights on at all times.
One night, I was in a deep sleep and I felt someone roughly pull my blankets off me and my bed by my feet. I thought it was my sister and I was like, nah she's not here lol. And then I thought it was my father's mother who lived with us, who had snuck into my room. I dont referer to her as grandma because she's not a good person, and she always did sneak into our rooms to snoop around to the point we had to lock them; its a long story. So, I open my eyes, expecting to see her staring back down at me but nobody was there. No one at all. I was too tired to address it so I just went back to sleep. I still think about it often and how differently I would've handled it now that I'm years older lmao.
You can still be an atheist… or be agnostic and believe there is something else. I don’t believe in the Bible but I believe in energy and we are all energy.
Yes, but still not going to jump into religion boat. Maybe it's explainable, but not in our time. Maybe in distant future.
I saw what we commonly refer to as a ghost in Terre Haute, Indiana. No doubt about it. However I think these things have an explanation we simply don’t understand just yet.
The explanation is pretty simple you saw the little girl who is a ghost, her spirit is trapped here. As a non believer you can deny the existence of ghosts all you want, but you witnessed one for yourself.
I'm not an atheist, but I am curious to hear what you would respond to the atheist dismissal I typically hear when they are confronted with testimonies like this. They often are as follows:
What would you say, as an atheist, to these common atheist challenges?
Those aren’t atheists’ views. There is no set of beliefs for being atheist.
All atheism means is that one doesn’t hold a belief in any god or gods.
That’s it. That’s all of it. That is the one and only thing all atheists have in common.
Those aren’t atheists’ views.
I didn't list those things as atheist views or beliefs; I listed these as the dismissals I typically hear from atheists when they come across people's testimonies of supernatural or paranormal encounters. Such dismissals are a consequence of an atheistic worldview.
There is another thing I find that atheists seem to have in common; I have never come across an atheist who didn't also have a materialist/physicalist worldview, which denies the existence of anything that isn't matter/energy/fields/waves. This world view then denies the existence of any ghosts or spirits, which are immaterial. Even if materialism is not technically the same as atheism, materialism implies atheism. I guess in theory there could be spiritual atheists, but that combination doesn't make sense to me.
Faith.