An atheist's ghost story

[RedYellow]

When I was a kid, I had a friend who had a pretty expansive backyard for a typical semi urban neighborhood. His parents had built a little playground swingset/jungle gym, and one summer evening we were out there just talking about whatever kids were into back then. I was on the swingset, and my friend was up on a platform to my left. About ten feet or so in front of me and a bit off to the left was an apple tree, and from it hung a rope. As we were talking, a strange and eerie sensation came over me, and I realized that I was looking at something I didnt understand, something that didnt make sense. Out from behind the tree, I thought I could see a pale human arm, reaching for the rope. The impression was so distinct, and even now through the cloud of my memory I can still see the motion that it made as it reached out. I froze, and said quickly with some urgency to my friend that we should go inside. He seemed to sense my alarm and followed without a word.

At the time, and for much of my youth I was pretty inclined to believe in ghosts, though I was never very religious. I only had a vague belief in God left over from my parents, who were believers but were not strict in teaching me to believe, they encouraged me to think for myself. Since then I have become a skeptic, having found concepts of God and afterlife to be incompatable with the reality I observed, but, this one distinct memory still stands out as something I cannot fully explain. I'm pretty sure of what I percieved, but I have no evidence that it was any kind of spirit being that I was actually seeing. Or dont I?

Going back to the incident, I had later told my friend's parents about what I had seen, and they seemed surprised, informing me that a previous owner of the house had in fact died of a heart attack in that very backyard. Wow, right? I mean, come on, that's too much to be coincidental, right? Well, I still have to go with no.

What would I really be saying, if my own personal experience and a funny bit of coincidental history(which I have not ever fully verified anyway) was enough for me to make a statement about reality, that there was an afterlife and souls, and things like that? Having thought it over, I felt that to say so would be saying that my personal experience dictates what is true about reality, not the other way around. And while I only have personal experience to engage reality, I know that there is a difference between perception and what is being percieved. I percieved something that seemed very real, if out of place and unnerving, to me, and for which I have no complete or verifiable explaination. A hallucination? A living person who somehow snuck into the yard without us noticing? A strange lapse in the time/space continuum? Who knows, yet all of those are still more likely explainations for what I saw, even the wacky time warp one because we at least know there is such a thing as time/space, at least as we are capable of percieving it.

So to this day I will say I have seen a ghost, but to me it is a ghost in the sense that it is beyind my own ability to verify or disprove with absolute certainty. So has anyone else seen a ghost?

 

[Nashy19]

Remember how your memory works, especially if you were already inclined to believe in ghosts and assumed it was some sort of ghost straight away. It's possible to create the strongest detailed memories of what you think happened, you can even start to believe your own lies or give a memory to somebody else (I think they hold those memories stronger than real one's).

 

[RedYellow]

That's true as well, though my friend was at least able to confirm my immediate reaction to what I 'saw,' my point is that I'm only certain that I percieved something and physically reacted to it, but it was most likely entirely in my mind at the time.

I guess should have mentioned that this story is somewhat in response to the way people like William Lane Craig fall back on their supposed personal experience of god to say that it could never be ultimately disproven to them. They are basically saying that they dont accept the fallability of their own perception.

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Talking about the fallibility of perception, what are the psychology-based answers one can give as possible explanations for seeing, clearly and constantly, insignificant supernatural beings around oneself, such as the perception of being surrounded by fairies?

I want to ask here, because such answers could serve the OP as well.

I couldn't find a good enough picture, so I created a crude picture to illustrate (click for bigger picture):


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Pennies for Thoughts]

I think the best way to explain this is to subtract it from personal experience and add it to collective experience. If you think of it in terms of your rational life, it's clearly irrational and the temptation to plug the supernatural into it is no greater or less than anyone else might do in similar circumstances.

But if you view it in the light of collective experience, namely that billions of people on this Earth have had experiences that defy explanation: seeing fairies, dreams that come true, eyewitness accounts, or talking directly to some god or another; then you can gain perspective that your experience is not unique. You, and I, and I'd guess 99% of those in this forum have an inexplicable story to tell, which, rather than being unique, is actually a minor part of a panoply of our inexplicable collective human experiences.

Eyewitness accounts are particularly easy to single out. The history of critical thinking behind these accounts is grim: from that of flying saucer abductees to false positive identifications in open court. Seeing is absolutely, unequivocally not worthy of believing, as collective experience has demonstrated time and again.

 

[simonecuttlefish]

So to this day I will say I have seen a ghost, but to me it is a ghost in the sense that it is beyind my own ability to verify or disprove with absolute certainty. So has anyone else seen a ghost?

If only it was possible to "go back" and check it out. In my cases (I'm about to talk about) I don't mean "time travel", although that would be way cool, but to go back to the house I used to live in, so long ago, in another town, and do some "tests". I was more of an agnostic then. I thought I was atheist, as I did not believe in god or magic jesus the super-zombie actually being the "son of god", or miracles etc.. I really didn't believe in ghosts or daemons or witches (with real powers) either, but I had not entirely dismissed everything we might describe as super or para normal. If my memory is not failing me, or becoming even more distorted with time, I had objects move about, or flying off a mantelpiece, the sound of someone wandering about the house, particularly up and down the main corridor, thumping and banging, etc. Never a sighting of an apparition though. These events were so over the top that guests would comment on it. A shared delusion perhaps? I'd love to go back and "test" it, search for things in the house that make noises, or unstable foundations. The house WAS built directly over the top of an old filled in well, but that only added to the "EWWWWW" ding-dong-dell imaginings

Another example is more difficult to explain. Myself and a group of friends went to visit a mate. It was late an night, and when we got there he said, look guys, I got the early shift and have to go to bed, but you can hang here if you want. It was freezing cold outside so we took him up on it. Now this is where it gets really weird.

We were sitting in the lounge room, sharing a wine cask and talking crap and the most remarkable thing happened. We all heard it, we all were startled by it; WTF was THAT!, and JESUS! sort of comments were made, so it was nothing subtle. We all agreed what we had heard.

'Someone' ran straight past us, thumping really loudly with their feet, right next to us, from behind us (near the kitchen), past us in the lounge room (within about 4 feet of the closest of us) and toward the front door. Then there was a slam of the security screen, and a thump. It was so concerning I got up and a friend joined me to check the front door. It was closed, I opened it and checked the security screen. It was locked, from the inside, as it had been locked earlier when Brad went to bed. It was additionally alarming, as it 'ran' through the room we were sitting in, and none of us saw anything.

I went back the next day to chat with Brad (who was renting the place) and told him about it. He said, 'Oh yeah. About 3:15 am was it?'. I told him yes actually that was the approximate time. He said it happens all the time. He took me to a room next to the kitchen - I had seen it from walking past before. It was just used as a storage room, full of boxes and other stuff you don't bother unpacking each time you move rented houses. He said go in a take a look. There were bible passages written on the wall, and crucifixes drawn in marking pen on the walls, door, and door frame. Brad said they were there when he rented the place, done presumably by some previous tenant.

He also said he mentioned it to the real estate agent (and we joked about how exactly you do that in casual conversation), and Brad claims the agent was cool and open about it. The agent said that previous renters had 'mentioned' it, and gave him a story about a girl who had an asthma attack in the room he was using as storage, who was found dead on the front veranda.

Now there is a "I wish I could go back" house. A supposedly regular, repeatable event. I'm happy to accept it as "me being fucked up as a young bloke who partied harder than many (including his doctor) could accept as possible ". Young and silly, so full of life it overflows mentally sometimes, whatever.

I refuse to believe these events were caused by a "ghost", or a "tortured spirit lost between realms", or any silly guff like that. I'm happy to accept these were strange mental constructs of a situation, rather than accurate descriptions of real world events. I'm happy to accept my perceptions may have been warped. I know I'm throwing away any chance of ever being taken seriously, if there ever was one, on these forums again. I know I've just trashed my chances at credibility, but I am not going to lie to pretend this is not what I perceived at the time as happening, and I'm not going to be gutless, crawl away and hide from admitting it.

I'm fascinated by these perception of events, not philosophically driven, or ideologically justified by them.

PS I've not seen or heard from 'ghosts' for almost two decades now. I do not believe in them. Check my sig. I mean it.

 

[simonecuttlefish]

Considering my previous post yesterday - I thought I'd have a look around.
Psychology of Belief, Part 4: Misinformation Effect

So cool. Perhaps we were all just a little wound up over ghost stories. The seances and level of alcohol consumption and sleep deprivation from all the parties we had around the time surely didn't affect my thoughts at all