Paranormal Experiences...Ever had one?

[Arab Nights (imported)]

Yes. Not often, but yes.

Hair standing up on the neck in a house that others felt weird things. Knowing precisely what to do in the instant of an extreme physical danger. Being absolutely miserable at 14,000 feet and suddenly feeling total love looking at the image of Christ standing in the rock hut and just being reassured that I would need him some time and he would be there (with no words spoken).

If I can extend it from just myself, my youngest brother years ago suddenly jumped up in bed, woke my Mom and said somebody in the family was in trouble. Turns out that at that instant I was 6,000 miles away on an offshore oil platform and a 6.5 earthquake hit 30 miles away. Since it was 90 feet tall, the motion would have scared the shit out of me had there not been a line at each stall.

I am not sure things stop with human beings. I took the kids to a Psychic Fair one Saturday for shits and grins. There was an animal communicator and out of curiousity I paid for a session. I had a question about the deaths of two dogs. There was a lot of Greek oracle-like bull shit and the odd gem where you know precisely what she was talking about and it was very specific to that dog. Like hearing a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about Festus and then an aside about Maglione's pepperoni and sausage pizza and you know he loved that pizza.

I now have kind of a hard time denying a link between us that transcends distance and probably death. If that is true, then I do not see why there cannot be other manifestations.

[Kortpeel (imported)]

I've had many experiences that might be classes as paranormal, even though I don't believe in that stuff. I can't explain these experiences, and they sometimes cause me great terror even to think about them.

There is so much anecdotal evidence for the paranormal that there may well be something in it. The trouble is that these incidents happen when they do and are completely beyond human control.

Notice that a lot of the reported incidents are about quite trivial things so whatever causes them to happen must be quite random.

However, those psychic communications that occur when a loved one is in trouble are significant and it could be they are caused by a build up of (dare I say?) psychic energy.

Perhaps one day science will get a handle on the paranormal and we will be able to control it as well as we control, say, electricity today. I wonder what the consequences of that would be.

My one incident of paranormal was in my student days when we wasted a lot of time playing pontoon. On one occasion my hand totalled twenty. Somehow I just knew that the next card on the deck was an ace. I twisted and got 21which beat the dealer's 20. The upshot of that was I ended the game eight shillings up. In a moment of largesse I bought a round of drinks which cost ten shillings.

I've never had a paranormal experience since.

Kortpeel

[gareth19 (imported)]

All of my experiences are perfectly normal. Mirages are refracted light, and I never met anyone who was dead, except intellectually.

[Arab Nights (imported)]

. I twisted and got 21which beat the dealer's 20. The upshot of that was I ended the game eight shillings up. In a moment of largesse I bought a round of drinks which cost ten shillings.

Kortpeel

When I finally got my degree and went out working, I and the guy working with me were poor as church mice. We ate little and all cheap. Finally our first paycheck was to arrive. We decided to go down to the casino with what little money we had and go down in flames because we could live without eating if necessary until the checks came. He started winning and I was slowly losing. He bought drinks. Then we reversed roles. I ended up winning enough to buy drinks, an event for both of us at the cat house and still have money for breakfast and lunch.

I propose that the universe has a wealth tranfer apparatus for us mortals who win at gambling which is completely separate from paranormal experiences.

[A-1 (imported)]

Oh hell I have admitted about everything else and yes I have had paranormal experiences. At one time in my life I was troubled by a vertical flying black butterfly looking object. Of course it was not of the physical world but visible to me. I saw it three different times.

The first I was in bed part way between a sleep state and being awake. It flew over and landed on my right arm. Scared the hell out of me. All of a sudden in my left ear was a calm voice telling me I was safe and it disappeared. The next time it was evening and I was walking out to the car. All of a sudden it flew past and swooped in close. I wondered if anyone saw me dodge it and wonder what I thought I saw. I was never sure if anyone else could see it. The next time I was watching tv with my mother in her house. It flew in from a corner of the family room and into the basement. After that time the electricity would not work in the front half of the house on either the first or second floors. Everything was fine in the family room and kitchen and two upstairs back bedrooms. An electrician came and spent about an hour and a half and had no idea why the electricity was not working. All of a sudden it came on again. He never charged my mother for his time because as he said he could not figure what was wrong and he did nothing to correct the problem. He was anxious to leave.

The next time was when I was spending nights with the gentleman with Alzheimer's disease. One morning I was brushing my teeth at 7:30 am when I saw a ghost of a lady walking down the hall. I stuck my head out of the bathroom in time to see her walk through a door. That was her only appearance but often I would hear a lady speaking. The gentleman's wife had also died from Alzheimer's so it could have been her. I hope together they found the light and crossed over.

Years ago, late teens, during a severe depression I was trying to will myself to die. I felt my body becoming extremely heavy and the next thing I knew was that my spirit rose out of my body. I was able to perceive myself in the bed below and the surroundings of my bedroom. This was quite a shock and I got back in my body. I have never forgotten that feeling. Both the feeling of leaving the body and the peace I felt for that brief time not being of the physical world.

Years later at that same gentleman's house something was pulling at me and it felt like something was trying to force my spirit out of my body. There was not a sense of peace but an ugly sounding noise associated with the experience. I would have to fight it and force myself awake to keep it from happening. This went on over a period of a few months for once or twice a week. One time when I awakened I saw a small spirit that looked like a leprechaun. I saw him and he was shocked I saw him and he ran out through the wall. I was never bothered again by those sensations. All paranormal activities stopped at that house afterwards.

These have been very real events in my life. I am sure some will have doubts or possible explanations. I could share more about dreams and ESP but I may have put my credibility at question.

Funny how those OOBE's leave you feeling calm and peaceful.

Last one I had was when I was between sleep and awake with the t.v. on sleep timer. The next thing I know I was not able to catch my breath and I rose up and hovered by the ceiling in the corner of the room looking down at the bed where my wife and I were sleeping. Then, I was sitting up in bed gasping for air, scared.

I woke her up when I sat up, then she asked me what was wrong. Then a real peaceful feeling came over me and I just said I had a bad dream. It was not really bad, though. Especially the peaceful feeling afterward.

OOBE = Out Of Body Experience

No ghosts or apparitions, at least not yet...

[Dave (imported)]

Nope, sorry. Never had an OOBE or a pranormal episode.

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

First, let me say that I myself am very skeptical of any "paranormal" stuff, I absolutely despise most people who are always going on and on about all the spiritual garbage they try to manipulate others with. (i.e. astrology, fortune telling, curse removal, omens, evil spirits, karma, negative energy, religion and "God's" approval or disapproval.) For the most part, I am dedicated to the scientific thinking track. That said...

Science pretty well makes it clear, "if it cannot be counted, weighed, or measured, it does not exist..." Well, I normally agree with that, but I believe there are in fact some things, that just do not register with the normally observed universe, but these things do exist, we might not be able to perceive them with our five senses, or even with the best scientific equipment available, but there are a few things out there that do exist in spite of modern science's inability to adequately perceive and record them.

One such thing, that no scientific observation can prove, that I have personally experienced... Oh my GOD, this is eeeeeerie for me to tell about it but I am quite sure this is a true and real thing.

On at least TWO separate occurences, BEFORE ANYONE TOLD ME OF THE DEATH OF SOMEONE NEAR TO ME, I KNEW OF IT. What really strikes me about this perceptive ability of mine... is that when it happens to me, it causes a feeling of inexplicable euphoria, a feeling like I just KNOW my life is OK, and everything that I worry about, is all going to be just fine. I do not know, if this is just the "spirit of the departed" paying me a visit on their way out, maybe letting me know that no matter what happens there is a better "life" once someone is dead... I do not know the logic or reason of it. I just know that it is, when someone close to me dies, I have this moment or two of euphoria, then maybe an hour or two later, the phone rings and I find out who it was.

There is not at this time any reasonable or scientific explanation for this, so even now, I feel like it may in truth be only a coincidence, but I just do not believe that it is a coincidence that at the time of the death, I get this very distinct feeling that I have never felt at any other time in my life. I believe that there in fact IS some as yet non-observed link between people, modern science just does not yet have the instruments to detect it, but I am sure it does exist. I could never scientifically prove it does exist, so please let's not try to prove or disprove anything, I feel this "death signature" feeling thing, and that is that.

By the way, on this very day, in 1963, (I was two years old at the time) my father was shot to death at a highway inspection station, odd coincidence huh? I cannot recall any of that day, so I cannot say that I got that death signature feeling or not for that event.

[houndstooth (imported)]

Several. In one house I owned, I kept having the feeling of being watched. My boyfriend at the time woke me up more than once saying that he had seen the silhouette of a classic Cherokee Indian against the hallway wall that the bedroom door opened toward. (Yes, that house *was* in an area well known for old Indian trails.)

Then there was the time that he said he heard a baby crying. This was just after midnight one night. No one with a baby or babies lived anywhere in the area, not even anyone *visiting* any neighbor. (Not to mention that my *closest* neighbor lived about 90 - 100 meters away.)

And this one I experienced myself: when I got back from work several times, Jon kept saying that the television was turning on and off by itself. I pshawed the entire thing until one night we were sitting on the couch with the remote control on the coffee table and I saw for myself the television go out, as if having had the power plug pulled.

Now, it couldn't have been any loose house wiring because there was a standard incandescent lamp that was plugged into the same outlet, and it was still on. And it couldn't have been any kind of transformer or circuit overheating in the tv because just a day or two later while we were sitting on the sofa and reading, the tv automatically came on. Again, the remote was on the coffee table. And, no, there was no second remote. And no, there was no mirror or window or glass door at any angle that could have allowed some Merry Prankster to turn it on and off from outdoors.

This was in the days before wireless internet and a decade-and-a-half after the portable CB radio and homebase CB craze, so I think RF interference can be ruled out (especially since only the roof of my neighbors' house could just be seen since their house sat partially obscured by a hill anyway). I mean, I can see a tv powering off due to a faulty/overheating part, but turning itself on?? Oh, and volume -- I almost forgot -- the volume would change on its own. Not the volume change of nationwide prime-time show volume vs. national commercial volume or local commercial volume, but Actual Volume Change.

Sufficiently creepy for Halloween, eh?

[Arab Nights (imported)]

I kept having the feeling of being watched.

I had that happen once. A really strong feeling of being watched. I looked around and looked around and finally saw the cause. A mountain sheep above me was standing there calmly watching me.

A deputy could not shake the feeling of being watched while he washed a patrol car. He looked around and finally spotted the giraffe from the wildlife park next door watching him over the fence.

[Rusty Dai (imported)]

Once I thought I saw something. But I didn't. :-\