Supernatural experiences?

[Boozy]

This post prompted me to start this thread:

As one that likes to think scientifically, I really wish I had an undeniable supernatural experience. My girlfriend believes she did, and so do many of my relatives. Sadly, I have never witnessed anything that cannot be explained more easily by normal means. If there really is weird stuff happening, then why does it never hit us skeptics? Seems rather odd.

I'm a definite skeptic myself, but that was not always the case. It used to be that I believed in god, angels, miracles, etc. And I was always so envious of those who claimed to have experienced these things first hand.

It took me a while to realize that I just wasn't built that way. Which is to say, I've had the same sort of "weird" experiences as anyone else, but I'd immediately write them off as tricks of the eye, being over-tired, or just me dreaming. For example, many people who experience sleep paralysis (also known as "the Hag" or "the Devil sitting on your chest") think they've had a supernatural experience. But I know better, so when it happened to me, I couldn't see it as a magical experience.

Skeptics don't have supernatural experiences because their minds immediately explain things using science. Believers explain things using their faith, so the funny little things our minds and bodies do to us all take on a greater significance in their minds.

[Cats]

There's more than one defintion of skeptic...are we talking in terms of someone who is in doubt, or someone merely questioning the validity?

No one ever likes to admit they might be wrong, which is why I personally think that a questioning skeptic won't tend to admit the possibility of a supernatural experience. I'm not sure about my dad, but I know my immediate family, which is largely non-religious and very much into science, believes in the supernatual to some extent. I don't believe they HAVE to be mutually exclusive.

People believe things based on where they put their faith...be is science, religious beliefs, or a combination of both. If you are DEAD SET on believing something, expecially if it cannot be 100% without doubt proven one way or the other, chances are, you are going to stick with your believes even if they evidence may not be in your favor.

For example, You could deny Tigers exist and the belief they that do is some kind of consiracy or whatever. I could show you a picture...you could come back and say it's been photoshop'd. I could take you to see one, you could claim it's either incredible animatronics or there's some other large cat species made to LOOK like tigers. If you're dead set on the fact they aren't real, you'll find every excuse in the book to explain to back up your belief before admitting that you might be wrong. (and I'm using the plural you here, I'm not targeting you or anything Boozy)

I think it's important to be a little openminded. It's okay to question and okay to have doubts. Somethings can be explained, others can't, and maybe they're not meant to be, and maybe that's the entire point. I think life would be a bit boring if we were all-knowing and all-seeing.

Just because a skeptic writes some potential supernatural event as something scientific, doesn't mean they're right, and the same goes for the believers not seeing something as potential something that has a simple explaination. Everyone sees the world in a different light.

[BroomJockey]

Skeptics don't have supernatural experiences because their minds immediately explain things using science. Believers explain things using their faith, so the funny little things our minds and bodies do to us all take on a greater significance in their minds.

I kinda resent the implication that belief in supernatural = religious, but I'll leave that alone as a quirk of language.

I'm a skeptic. Yet I also believe in supernatural experiences. Why? Because I've had things happen to me that science cannot explain. A few examples.

1. The tamest is the breeze in a closed room. Doors closed, no windows, no fans, central heating is turned off (it was the middle of July!). Yet a breeze strong enough to ruffle my hair hits my face. And I was alone in the room. Can't think of any way to explain that one.

2. A bit stronger, though slightly more explainable - I was walking down the street, when I felt a tug at my belt loop on the back strong enough to pause me in my step, and someone said my name in my ear. I turn around, and there's no one within 20 feet of me. Possible explanation: strange acoustics bring some word that sounds like my name to my ear, and warp it so it sounds close, and my shirt bunched in such a fashion so that it hooked my belt loop and pulled it. After all, my shirt was untucked. Possible, but not exactly likely.

3. Alone in the house, upstairs. Hear radio come on downstairs. Figure roommate has come home. Needed to talk to roommate. Ran down stairs. Radio gets louder. Call for roommate. No answer. No one in living room. Figure he's in the kitchen. Radio sounds like it's in kitchen too. Very clear. Turn corner from living room to be able to see in to kitchen. No one there, and radio noise disappears. And I mean the exact second. Clarity of radio makes it unlikely that it was someone in the adjoining townhouse, or outside. Timing of cessation of noise is unlikely. Is it possible? Yeah. But it's a piss poor excuse.

Oh, and there was no radio in the kitchen, so it didn't just lose power or anything. Events like these keep my mind open to the existence of the supernatural outside the realm of religion.

[DesignFox]

I had a similar experience with a radio in college. Scared the ever loving crap out of me and my room mate. Radio just turned on in the middle of the night and neither one of us could turn it off. I had to un-plug it and take the batteries out. It only did that once, and not again. So. No clue what was up with that. I suppose it could have been an electrical thing...

This happened at the same time our door would start mysteriously getting "stuck." Nothing we could do would open the door. I had one of the nuns come down and she got the door opened with little trouble. *shrug* Don't know what that was about either.

Separately, I think we would have thought nothing of it. Both events together, faked us out a bit.

I think better examples would be when my friends and I would play around with the Ouija board.

To this day I can't explain some of the shit we experienced with that. (answering questions only the person asking would know the answers to, finding people in random rooms in the house when not a single person touching the board knew where that person was hiding, feeling strange spots of "cold" in random places even in the summer...etc.)

Then there was the time we floated someone above our heads doing that "light as a feather stiff as a board" game....that was weird.

[Flyndaran]

Part of me says that you guys should get help for your halucinations/delusions. The other part says, "Lucky fucks!"

I've never witnessed anything that cannot be explained more easily by natural phenomena. I look for the odd. I just haven't seen any, at all, nada, zip, jack squat. Why am I an anti-supernatural vortex?
My experiences would make me a fool to believe in it, just like if someone else had experienced it they would be a fool not to believe.

[Lachrymose]

1. The tamest is the breeze in a closed room. Doors closed, no windows, no fans, central heating is turned off (it was the middle of July!). Yet a breeze strong enough to ruffle my hair hits my face. And I was alone in the room. Can't think of any way to explain that one.

Isn't that kind of a God of the Gaps argument? I can't explain it, therefore it's supernatural?

[BroomJockey]

Isn't that kind of a God of the Gaps argument? I can't explain it, therefore it's supernatural?

No, Occam's Razor. The impossible has been eliminated. Therefore, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

And if you can come up with a natural explanation, I'd love to hear it. I'm fully accepting that there might be an explanation I've not considered. As I said, I'm a skeptic, though "scientific" might be a better choice of word.

[Dreamstalker]

There's a ghost in my grandmother's house. We've all seen her (the first time I saw her, I waved and said hi), and given matching descriptions without knowing what the others said (or even knowing they had seen her at all).

When my grandparents first moved into that house, my mom heard heavy footsteps upstairs one night...nobody else was home (all the bedrooms were on the ground floor). There was nothing up there that could have made the sound (door, shutter, etc...mom says it was definitely "someone" wearing heavy boots). It was definitely male. That presence vanished when we found an Ouija board in the attic and sold it to a suitably creepy-looking guy.

I had what could be called a precognitive flash one summer on Nantucket--clear blue sky, for no good reason I did not want to get on the ferry to go home that morning (highly unusual as I would typically be the first one out on deck watching everything). We do anyway, get a few miles out and BAM, stuck in the middle of a hurricane that seemed to just drop on top of us--we were still close enough to the island that we were able to turn back. A few windows broke and I saw a trawler not too far away from us getting tossed around like a bathtub toy in a washing machine How could I know under a clear sky without looking at any weather reports that it would be a bad idea to go out?

A radio in the house dying at random, the wiring is fine (although other appliances in that same area have suffered the same problem) and the radio is also fine if moved. This only seems to happen sporadically, I have yet to pin down a specific set of circumstances.

Another radio will only come in clearly if I'm in the room when I'm standing in a specific spot. Mom can be moving all over the place, as soon as I come through the doorway the radio starts to fuzz out and only when I'm in a specific spot will it get good reception (if I leave the room it's fine again).

I've tried and failed to give scientific explanations for some supernatural/paranormal stuff that I've either witnessed or been a part of. When usually conducting an impromptu investigation for someone, I try to rule out mundane causes first (cold spots, EM radiation, etc).

Am I "religious"? Not really.
Do I believe there's something else out there? Yes.
Do I think that science has explained everything? No.

[Flyndaran]

I hate the idea that such important outside of modern science things can be so common for others yet never once have happened to me.
Does everyone "blessed" with experiencing the supernatural believe that some like me can somehow have the ability to shortcircuit the spooky?
Probabilities seem to suggest that my just being unlucky is quite unlikely.
Both my parents, all of my grandparents that I've talked to about it, the brother that I've talked to about it, and my girlfriend have all experienced what they see as the supernatural. Why not me?

[IDrinkaRum]

Mr. Rum & I took a ghost walk in Leesburg (VA) one year. The gentleman who was giving the tour was part of a ghost hunters group. (Can't remember the exact name of the group, but if you google Lessburg and ghost tours, I think the name will pop up).

He explained it like this: Those who have had supernatural experiences also have a larger "aura" than most people. There have been instances where Family #1 has had a haunting in a house, they sell it to Family #2. Family #2 never ever sees/experiences any of the hauntings that Family #1 has had. Family #2 sells the house to Family #3. Out of the members of Family #3, only 1 experiences the hauntings and all others are oblivious to them.

Also, the gentleman said that those who can't use most "modern" technology are more susceptible(sp?) to seeing/experiencing ghosts/otherwordly things. He interviewed one young lady who couldn't use battery operated watches (they always stopped). Another person he talked to, had problems with computers either stopping and re-starting or happenings. Both of these people had experienced hauntings.

Again, he said it was because of the "aura" or energy fields of certain people. The larger your energy field, the more sensitive you are to certain things.

I've experienced odd happenings.

One was at the George Mason house in Northern Virginia. It's very haunted. Mainly the bathrooms (sometimes people have reported seeing a vision of George Mason himself in the mirrors of the bathrooms with his throat cut - possibly while shaving).

I had nothing that dramatic. I just heard footsteps on a brick walk way behind me when there was on one else behind me and the only other walk way was a dirt road up to the house. Yeah, it was disconcerting.

[Flyndaran]

My family used to joke that I was a bad influence on electronics.
I've had a television remote control work without any batteries twice.
The second time happened after the batteries had been removed for many hours.
Interesting, but doesn't really require anything magical, just residual charge.

[Savannah]

Does everyone "blessed" with experiencing the supernatural believe that some like me can somehow have the ability to shortcircuit the spooky?

Can't say I've had any particular supernatural experiences, but one explanation sprang to mind. You simply do not accept or do not see anything supernatural that you do experience. (I think this is fairly likely if supernatural events do happen*---humans can rationalize or ignore a LOT).

*Yeah, I'm a bit of a skeptic as well. Still, it could happen...I don't want to rule anything out.

[Flyndaran]

Can't say I've had any particular supernatural experiences, but one explanation sprang to mind. You simply do not accept or do not see anything supernatural that you do experience. (I think this is fairly likely if supernatural events do happen*---humans can rationalize or ignore a LOT).

*Yeah, I'm a bit of a skeptic as well. Still, it could happen...I don't want to rule anything out.

But darn it I look for it, and really want to experience it if it exists. I just haven't seen anything that can't be explained rationally much more easily.
My girlfriend admits to experiencing quite a number of overt supernatural phenomena, so I try not to dismiss her feelings or memories. Either I'm a statistical anomaly for never being present when strange stuff happens, or I am a negative psychic always pushing it away unconsciously.
Can there really be any other explanation... other than your prosposed head in the sand mentality?

[Cats]

Everyone has different tastes, annoyances, sensitivity to certain things, etc. Who says experiences with the supernatural can't be similar? Maybe some people are just more sensitive to it than others are. With the exeption of identical twins (and even that can be disputed), no two people are alike. Some people notice things others don't, even in the same setting.

[BroomJockey]

Can there really be any other explanation... other than your prosposed head in the sand mentality?

Sure. Rather than head-in-the-sand, you simply just don't notice. Take my breeze example. If I was more focused on what I was doing, I wouldn't have noticed. It's possible that minor things have happened, but you're simply focused on something close to hand to the exclusion of what's going on around you.