# Ever have anything supernatural happen to you?



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Something you find difficult or impossible to explain?

:tiphat:


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Something you find difficult or impossible to explain?


I do not accept this as the definition of "supernatural".


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Yes. When I was about 16, I took my bicycle from the shed to go to school, and found that a shelf had come loose, dropping a bunch of flower pots on the floor, breaking them all. When I got home in the late afternoon, the shelf was in its place, and all the flower pots were fine, making me wonder whether I had been hallucinating. The next morning, the same thing, but this time they stayed broken.

More easily explainable perhaps are the many instances where one predicts the future rightly (if you do it often enough, you will be right some time, after all). But still... two examples.

[1] We were watching the Dutch version of wheel of fortune, and the clue for an 8 letter word was bird. Without any letters shown, my mother said houtduif (wood dove). She was right.

[2] My brother and I were watching the FIFA world cup final of 1994, Brazil versus Italy. Before kick-off, I said to him: "it will stay 0-0, go to a penalties shootout and Baggio will miss the deciding penalty". Exactly what happened.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I've had certain semi-psychic experiences, most of them just mild intuitions that turned out to be true but the strongest I remember was one morning I woke up and knew a certain specific event was going to happen later in that day when I was going to visit an old friend. This event had never happened before and it involved a friend I hadn't seen or talked to in a long time and there were no clues or things that could have tipped me off that this event would take place, it involved him being in possession of something (marijuana) and I knew the item as soon as I woke up in the morning. We had never even discussed pot before together in the past and sure enough when I went over there later that day he had marijuana on him. 

Strange things happened around my ex girlfriend - lights would sometimes go on and off around her inexplicably and when she got angry weird things would happen, we were fighting once in my car and the electronics in my car went haywire and then the lock on my back door seized up as I was trying to open it - it remained messed up and I never got it fixed. She also had some stories that would be pretty hard for most to believe but since I wasn't a witness to those I won't go into them.

There are others but those ones stand out to me right now the most.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

This was my post from last year's shortlived 'ghost stories/experiences' thread started by Burroughs...

_'I remember about 30 years ago taking my brother's Old English Sheepdog for a walk up a nearby canal towpath which leads to the rear of a village church about two and a half miles out of town. Lovely sunny day and the dog more than happy to get a spot of unexpected exercise. I'd done this same walk numerous times before and always enjoyed it so I thought nothing of doing it again.

Anyway, we eventually approached the back of the church. I felt weird and so did the dog judging by the sudden yelps and general agitation. The trees on the other bank suddenly looked denser and almost seemed to be pointing their branches accusingly - and even the water to our left seemed darker and more turbulent than before. The whole scene was becoming almost claustrophobic and I also had an overriding feeling that somehow we were being watched even though we appeared to be very much alone. This must have lasted maybe only a few seconds but it was almost like time itself was standing still.

A little later we crossed the small bridge to the path that took us to the churchyard and everything - even the trees and water - seemed normal again. It was only a few days later that I was told by a friend who lives near the village that the day in question happened to be the anniversary of the death/possible suicide of a young local woman who had been found in that part of the water many years before, and subsequently it was a local tradition that on the anniversary of her death anyone who passes the spot where she died throws a flower, a coin or some other token of remembrance into the water. The fact that I hadn't done so had apparently made her a bit cross. I thought he was winding me up but the date and the item-throwing turned out to be true, even though both were by then largely forgotten by all apart from a few villagers. I still don't believe in ghosts but that was without doubt one of the more unnerving experiences I can recall.

And yes - I have forgotten what the date was.'_


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I started a thread called Serendipity - http://www.talkclassical.com/25025-serendipity.html?highlight= - which covered some of the same ground, of inexplicable occurrences - though 'strange coincidences' rather than something supernatural, necessarily.

When Taggart and I had been married for about a year, we went back to the student Catholic Retreat camp in a disused seminary for a weekend trip. The dormitories were full so the old caretaker let us have a room downstairs which had formerly been used by a priest of that order who was also parish priest for the village after the order shut the seminary.

I just could not get to sleep in that room. It was poky, so a bit claustrophobic, and it was hung with pictures of the Virgin Mary. Far from these being comforting to me, I found them disturbing. It was as if a malevolent electric cloud hung between the pictures and I felt very frightened.

We spent one night there, and the next day, mingled with the students, and in the evening we all went to the village pub, and Taggart got chatting to the people who rented the bungalow next door to the disused seminary.

That night I had the same experience of feeling there was a cloud of antipathy hanging over me, telling me I shouldn't be there. This time, I woke Taggart up and told him, and said could we go to the dorms upstairs instead, as the place had emptied out a bit and some of the students gone home.

He agreed immediately, so we decamped upstairs in the small hours and I finally got to sleep.

Next day he explained why he'd agreed at once. The man who lived in the bungalow next door - which had also been lived in by the priest mentioned earlier - said that the priest's old room was used as their guest room, but they had to be careful only to let their male friends sleep in it, as female guests found it very disturbing and unsettling.

The priest was well known for having had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was as if he did not like any other women and found them a threat.


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

A lot! Can't go into details really because one thing will lead to another and I will have to explain my whole life, which is very interesting and strange, but incomprehensible even to those who might understand the details.

Anyway, one thing I can say is that I realized very early on that "supernatural" is a totally meaningless term. There is a reason for everything that happens (though not necessarily always good or expected), and everything is explainable (but not reducible to what we think we know about nature).

Shakespeare spoke of many truths, this among them:
_
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
_


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Giordano said:


> A lot! Can't go into details really because one thing will lead to another and I will have to explain my whole life, which is very interesting and strange, but incomprehensible even to those who might understand the details.
> 
> Anyway, one thing I can say is that I realized very early on that "supernatural" is a totally meaningless term. There is a reason for everything that happens (though not necessarily always good or expected), and everything is explainable (but not reducible to what we think we know about nature).
> 
> ...


Well, it's your call, of course. But we are very curious!

I agree with you about the definition of 'supernatural'. I think we all have had experiences which subjectively feel 'supernatural': the sense of being watched, deja vu, premonitions, thoughts or sensations which seem to have been transmitted telepathically but cannot have been, etc. I am no longer feel threatened by such experiences, but I don't incline towards paranormal explanations of them either!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I agree; I never incline towards paranormal explanations myself, but prefer to keep an open mind. Very often a rational or scientific explanation will cover it. Nonetheless, my belief is that we are all connected, and I think that sometimes our connectedness manifests itself more obviously than others.

At Taggart's Aunt Kate's funeral, we met a friend of hers who was in hospital at the time Aunt Kate died. She told us that she had seen Aunt Kate walking down the ward towards her for a moment at the time that she died - though she did not know Aunt Kate was ill or had died till afterwards.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> I agree; I never incline towards paranormal explanations myself, but prefer to keep an open mind. Very often a rational or scientific explanation will cover it. Nonetheless, my belief is that we are all connected, and I think that sometimes our connectedness manifests itself more obviously than others.
> 
> At Taggart's Aunt Kate's funeral, we met a friend of hers who was in hospital at the time Aunt Kate died. She told us that she had seen Aunt Kate walking down the ward towards her for a moment at the time that she died - though she did not know Aunt Kate was ill or had died till afterwards.


That's a good one. I think that supernatural experiences often happen when a loved one is close to death, or has recently died- perhaps it reflects the subconscious mind trying to make sense of the loss? When I was 18 a close family friend died, and for years afterwards I would see her in crowds. Of course, it would always turn out to be someone else of similar stature with the same curly dark hair, but it was quite unsettling.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Supernatural or not, this (in 2003) was quite a haunting experience. This is a short summary that I posted elsewhere after it happened.

*NIGHTMARE IN THE LUBERON*

Waking up to the sound of a screaming wife is not the best way to start the day. I should have seen it coming. At the best of times she can have nightmares, and after yesterday afternoon...

It had been a lovely day. We were really enjoying our spring holiday in the Provence, lots of sunshine and not too hot. During the day, we had already seen a number of typical Provence villages in the gorgeous Luberon, and I had one more on the list before returning to the hotel. This one turned out to be quite different however. No peaceful collection of houses perched on a hilltop, visible from a far, with art galleries and locals enjoying their game of petanque. Instead, we had to park our car outside and walk up a hill through a park with trees obscuring the view. Our dog liked the exercise, but we already got a strange feeling. "The flowers are too beautiful", my wife whispered. I nodded, and tried to ignore that my stomach was starting to ache. When we finally arrived in the town, we were confronted by a huge entry gate, which would not have been out of place in a grim medieval castle. We looked at eachother and though we did not say a word, we knew that we both felt a reluctance to enter. Fortunately, there was a little bar nearby, where we could sit for a while.

For some time, we sat quietly drinking a glass of wine. Gradually, I noticed something strange. Even in May, all the other towns had been lively with scores of tourists. Here I saw no-one, except for our waitress and an old man sitting with his dog in front of the gate. Weird. Finally, we decided to take the plunge, paid and went to the gate. The old man did not look at us. Neither did his dog. Never mind, in we go. We were not quite prepared for what we found behind the gate. No cute little houses - just ruins. Trees growing inside rooms through the windows which had not seen glass for ages. Baffled, we walked on, and just around a corner, we suddenly saw the House. Not in ruins, except for the fact that there was no glass in the windows, offering an unobstructed view of a strange spiral staircase in a little tower. Aside from that, it looked perfectly normal. Normal? There was something about it which defied that word. We just could not figure out what. My wife stared at me. I stared at my wife. And then, on a side wall, I suddenly saw the face. I knew it was just a sculpture, but who in God's name had come up with the bright idea to make a sculpture of a face looking as if it was someone inside trying to get out of the wall? To make things worse, our dog, normally joyful and well-behaved, suddenly started to whine and to pull on his lease like a raving lunatic, wanting to get away from this place as fast as possible. We decided to oblige him.

During dinner that evening, we tried to laugh the whole experience off, but we did not quite succeed. Back in the hotel, we briefly discussed our experience with our elderly landlady. She told us that she simply could not go into this town, because the sun never shines there. Not very helpful. Before we went back to our hotel room, I managed to pick up a book with the history of the Luberon. It turned out that this town had been deserted and repopulated a number of times throughout the centuries. The plague had once decimated the population. Battles had been fought there. The most recent abandoning was a century ago, when the inhabitants had decided to build a new town in the valley for unknown reasons. It did not help very much to put our minds at ease.

The nightmare was practically unavoidable in the circumstances. Quivering in my arms, my wife told me all about it. It was the House of course. She was walking around the empty house, with white shadows around her. Slowly the shadows focused, and they turned out to be white bicycles running around without anyone on them. Then suddenly, a lady, dressed in white, with a grey face appeared in front of her, with a shadowy figure behind her. "Please leave my husband and me alone" she whispered, and then she turned around and walked up the spiral stair case, slowly disappearing into thin air. My wife could not utter a single word, as the shadows slowly returned, this time with a taint of black. The bicycles suddenly fell on the floor, wheels spinning aimlessly in the air. A dark face with a wet nose appeared in front of my wife's face and she started to scream - to find our dog looking at her with an astonished look on his face.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Difficult to explain? Sure. I can't explain how my cell phone works, but that doesn't make it supernatural. 

As I child, I used to suffer from Sleep Paralysis, which for many is an excuse to believe in supernatural presence. Even as a child, I never bought that. I guess I just assumed that my "wiring" gets a little screwy now and then, which is pretty much what happens.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

No........................................


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> That's a good one. I think that supernatural experiences often happen when a loved one is close to death, or has recently died- perhaps it reflects the subconscious mind trying to make sense of the loss? When I was 18 a close family friend died, and for years afterwards I would see her in crowds. Of course, it would always turn out to be someone else of similar stature with the same curly dark hair, but it was quite unsettling.


Yes, there are quite a few instances of people appearing to friends or relations as they are on the point of death. It happens in Scotland quite a lot, where they have the tradition of some people having 'second sight'. I see it more as some sort of telepathic link than as a ghost. But the most curious of these stories is the experience of Arthur Grimble, a colonial administrator in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands before WWII, and I discovered a link to this story. I hope it will be of interest, and is certainly of relevance to the thread:
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-GriPatt-t1-body1-d8-d3.html


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I'm expecting it pretty soon. I've worked hard for a long time. Any day now. I've only been waiting for ten years.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

brotagonist said:


> I'm expecting it pretty soon. I've worked hard for a long time. Any day now. I've only been waiting for ten years.


Take care - you may get what you wish for!


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

tdc said:


> Strange things happened around my ex girlfriend - lights would sometimes go on and off around her inexplicably and when she got angry weird things would happen, we were fighting once in my car and the electronics in my car went haywire and then the lock on my back door seized up as I was trying to open it - it remained messed up and I never got it fixed. She also had some stories that would be pretty hard for most to believe but since I wasn't a witness to those I won't go into them.


Do you know if she was like that from birth, or did she suddenly become "abnormal" at some time in her teens or 20s? Has she ever mentioned being a "walk-in" or something similar?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

No. But I've been in one of those holy roller churches when people started speaking in tongues. I'm not sure what that's really all about? But I definitely didn't fit in with those folks!


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Giordano said:


> Do you know if she was like that from birth, or did she suddenly become "abnormal" at some time in her teens or 20s? Has she ever mentioned being a "walk-in" or something similar?


The strange stories/memories for her start at a very young age - some of the hardest to believe are about her mother.

Now that I think about it there are a couple other strange things about her I remember - firstly she was born at the exact time as month/days ie - 12/28 at 12:28, another one is she has a brother both of them are blind in one eye - they have a medical condition that causes this (I forget the name) the weird thing is the condition is only supposed to be found in twins, yet they were born two years apart. She is an abnormally compassionate and positive person and her brother is exactly opposite - a sociopath who manipulates people with no remorse and actually does messed up stuff like demonic chanting. They are polar opposites. Weird as this stuff sounds, it only scratches the surface, but the other things I know are mostly just stories so I don't have evidence therefore not really comfortable posting it on this thread. Feel free to pm me if you'd like to know more.


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## spokanedaniel (Dec 23, 2014)

Peculiar experiences are real. Our brain's interpretation of them are often not. There is no such thing as "impossible" to explain. "I cannot explain this" does not mean there is no explanation. It means that I lack sufficient information or analytical tools to explain it. I have had things happen to me that I cannot explain, but since I am not inclined towards belief in supernatural explanations, they don't seem supernatural to me. They just seem like experiences for which I lack information. 

I have "seen with my own eyes" things that I would say were impossible. A woman crushed into an impossibly small box, and then emerge unharmed; a man disappear in one place and appear seemingly instantaneously in another. All as part of a stage show by a talented illusionist. Our brain plays tricks on us, sometimes in predicable ways, which allows for enjoyable entertainment when a performer (i.e stage magician) understands how to manipulate our perceptions, or can lead us into belief in the unreal.

Add to this the known fact that memories are selective and unreliable, and some witnesses have reasons to exaggerate, and that the brain evolved to search for and create explanations for everything, and you have a perfect recipe for the misinterpretation of events.

The first time I listened to Hilary Hahn's recording of the Bach partitas numbers 2 and 3 for solo violin, I had the most powerful feeling that such a performance was literally supernatural. And yet I know that it actually resulted from several tens of thousands of hours of practice, unusual dedication from a very young age, a supportive family, and perhaps other entirely natural, if unusual, circumstances.

Stage magicians from Houdini to James Randi have been investigating reports and claims of the paranormal for a hundred years, and every single one has turned out to be either a hoax or a misinterpretation. There is presently a one-million-dollar prize offered by the James Randi Foundation for anyone who can demonstrate any paranormal ability or event. It's still waiting.

Weird things happen. All of them, if properly looked into, have natural explanations. And those explanations invariably turn out to be more interesting than the ones that we invent when we have incomplete information, or when our brain plays tricks on us through flawed observation or defective memory.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

One time, I managed to get through a phone call with one of Verizon's customer service reps without shouting and swearing.


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## Il_Penseroso (Nov 20, 2010)

Itullian said:


> Something you find difficult or impossible to explain?
> 
> :tiphat:





ahammel said:


> I do not accept this as the definition of "supernatural".


I'm pretty sure in the future there will be some scientific explanations for most (even not all) of the things we'd take as 'supernatural' today.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> This was my post from last year's shortlived 'ghost stories/experiences' thread started by Burroughs...
> 
> _'I remember about 30 years ago taking my brother's Old English Sheepdog for a walk up a nearby canal towpath which leads to the rear of a village church about two and a half miles out of town. *Lovely sunny day* and the dog more than happy...._


Wow, a sunny day in England!? Yes you are correct, it IS almost supernatural!

V


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## spokanedaniel (Dec 23, 2014)

Il_Penseroso said:


> I'm pretty sure in the future there will be some scientific explanations for most (even not all) of the things we'd take as 'supernatural' today.


There already is: Tricks of the mind.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

I'm sure there are logical explanations for a great many "odd" or "supernatural" seeming things. But I highly doubt that is the case for everything. Like the Shakespeare quote above that Giordano posted, _"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."_

Many people say things like, "I'll believe it when I see it." To which I retort, "Some things need to be believed before they can be seen."

V


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

I really can't convey how excited I was when I got an _ultra-rare _Burberry down jacket at the South Coast Plaza up the coast from San Diego in Newport Beach-- and how I was so happy that I felt sexier than Jesus Christ. . . and had an out-of-body experience where I felt like the most beautiful person in the world wearing it.

After coming back to reality, I bought one of my friend's some Jimmy Choo heals and treated my group of friends to lunch at the Seasons 52-- because I was feeling so mystical.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I really can't convey how excited I was when I got an _ultra-rare _Burberry down jacket at the South Coast Plaza up the coast from San Diego in Newport Beach-- and how I was so happy that I felt sexier than Jesus Christ. . . and had an out-of-body experience where I felt like the most beautiful person in the world wearing it.
> 
> After coming back to reality, I bought one of my friend's some Jimmy Choo heals and treated my group of friends to lunch at the Seasons 52-- because I was feeling so mystical.


LMAO! Because who doesn't need a down jacket in Newport Beach???

V


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Varick said:


> LMAO! Because who doesn't need a down jacket in Newport Beach???
> 
> V


Well right: It was _cold_. . . in the fifties, if I recall.

_;D_


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

spokanedaniel said:


> Peculiar experiences are real. Our brain's interpretation of them are often not. There is no such thing as "impossible" to explain. "I cannot explain this" does not mean there is no explanation. It means that I lack sufficient information or analytical tools to explain it. I have had things happen to me that I cannot explain, but since I am not inclined towards belief in supernatural explanations, they don't seem supernatural to me. They just seem like experiences for which I lack information.
> 
> I have "seen with my own eyes" things that I would say were impossible. A woman crushed into an impossibly small box, and then emerge unharmed; a man disappear in one place and appear seemingly instantaneously in another. All as part of a stage show by a talented illusionist. Our brain plays tricks on us, sometimes in predicable ways, which allows for enjoyable entertainment when a performer (i.e stage magician) understands how to manipulate our perceptions, or can lead us into belief in the unreal.
> 
> ...


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Varick said:


> I'm sure there are logical explanations for a great many "odd" or "supernatural" seeming things. But I highly doubt that is the case for everything. Like the Shakespeare quote above that Giordano posted, _"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
> Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."_
> 
> Many people say things like, "I'll believe it when I see it." To which I retort, "Some things need to be believed before they can be seen."
> ...


_Amen._

. . . its called the 'art of illusion.'






_;D_


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Morimur said:


> One time, I managed to get through a phone call with one of Verizon's customer service reps without shouting and swearing.


That's an 'alternate universe,' not necessarily an out of body experience.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

starthrower said:


> No. But I've been in one of those holy roller churches when people started speaking in tongues. I'm not sure what that's really all about? But I definitely didn't fit in with those folks!







Well, I for one found this utterly convincing.


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

Il_Penseroso said:


> I'm pretty sure in the future there will be some scientific explanations for most (even not all) of the things we'd take as 'supernatural' today.


Only after science is dragged, kicking and screaming, to an expanded and more coherent and correct understanding of nature.



spokanedaniel said:


> There already is: Tricks of the mind.


Are you aware that your whole life is a trick? Within that trick, are you _completely_ aware _at all times_ of the further tricks your own mind is playing on you?

You do not and cannot know of any tricks on another's mind. You can know of your own only, if you stop chortling at others and _look at yourself_.


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## Yoshi (Jul 15, 2009)

Some weird things happened to me over the years but I never believed it was supernatural no matter how difficult it was to understand. I guess they can be explained by some random brain malfunctions or by the fact that any electronic device is prone to fail.

One thing that I do find really confusing is sleep paralysis, which I had many episodes over the years. My boyfriend also suffers from sleep paralysis and I always get creeped out when he describes the same thing I have seen nights before but didn't tell him about. 
There's also this episode that happened during the only surgery I had. I was asleep but started to have an out of body experience where I was watching the doctors operating me from above. I couldn't believe that thing that so many people describe on paranormal tv shows actually happened to me too. No matter how rational I am it makes me feel very unconfortable to hear people having the same experiences or see the same creatures as me during sleep paralysis. Maybe there's an easy explanation and I'm just not well informed about it yet.


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## sabrina (Apr 26, 2011)

I was visiting my city during holiday (I was studying in a place hundreds of km away), and while walking in the centre of the town I just remembered a high school colleague I have not seen since high-school graduation, around 5 years before. Even more, she was not on my mind at all since we parted. The strange thing is the way I walked, as I went up and down a street twice for no particular reason and, as expected, I met her there in the street...I was so shocked, I had no words...other than hello.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

I've had numerous experiences that I can't simply dismiss as happenstance. The first happened in 2000 when my wife was still my fiancé. We were in the process of moving from Tennessee to New York and planned to spend a few weeks at a friend's apartment in Kentucky. While there, my wife started seeing furniture that didn't exist and people who weren't there. Even to the point of having conversations with them. She would transition in and out of a trancelike state during this time, and while under the "spell" is when she'd see three people in particular. Two of them frightened her and the third comforted her with his presence. She was able to explain, with great detail, the things and people she was seeing. I'll skip some of the longer and more intimate details but we decided to leave and stay with another friend. While packing the car, she suddenly decided she wouldn't leave and refused to leave the bedroom. I eventually got her from the apartment to the car but she was insistent on staying. We pulled out and drove behind another building, leaving his apartment out of sight. When this happened, she instantly calmed. When my car turned a corner, and the apartment returned to view, she opened her door and attempted to jump from the moving vehicle. I had one hand on the steering wheel and one holding her inside the car. When the apartment left our view again she instantly fell asleep. Two weeks later we were in New York and we went to my Aunt and Uncle's for dinner. She pulled me into a room, as her face had turned white with shock. She had seen my cousin's picture on the mantle. She'd never seen him before but was well aware that he'd died when he and I were both 17 years old. She then informed me he was the third person in the apartment. The one who didn't frighten her. 

In summary, those who don't believe are simply one experience away from converting.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

scratchgolf said:


> I've had numerous experiences that I can't simply dismiss as happenstance. The first happened in 2000 when my wife was still my fiancé. We were in the process of moving from Tennessee to New York and planned to spend a few weeks at a friend's apartment in Kentucky. While there, my wife started seeing furniture that didn't exist and people who weren't there. Even to the point of having conversations with them. She would transition in and out of a trancelike state during this time, and while under the "spell" is when she'd see three people in particular. Two of them frightened her and the third comforted her with his presence. She was able to explain, with great detail, the things and people she was seeing. I'll skip some of the longer and more intimate details but we decided to leave and stay with another friend. While packing the car, she suddenly decided she wouldn't leave and refused to leave the bedroom. I eventually got her from the apartment to the car but she was insistent on staying. We pulled out and drove behind another building, leaving his apartment out of sight. When this happened, she instantly calmed. When my car turned a corner, and the apartment returned to view, she opened her door and attempted to jump from the moving vehicle. I had one hand on the steering wheel and one holding her inside the car. When the apartment left our view again she instantly fell asleep. Two weeks later we were in New York and we went to my Aunt and Uncle's for dinner. She pulled me into a room, as her face had turned white with shock. She had seen my cousin's picture on the mantle. She'd never seen him before but was well aware that he'd died when he and I were both 17 years old. She then informed me he was the third person in the apartment. The one who didn't frighten her.
> 
> In summary, those who don't believe are simply one experience away from converting.


Wow, great story Scratch! Freaky too! My wife is a big believer in "visitors" and things like that. I don't have quite the sense that she has, nor the belief that everything she has experienced was supernatural. I'm more skeptical and I do believe in coincidences and non-supernatural explanations in some cases whereas she does not.

She doesn't talk to many people about this stuff, because she doesn't like talking to non believers. I've had a few experiences. The latest one was about a year ago. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and suddenly I felt a presence. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and felt something around me (not scary, just there) and then suddenly a HUGE, strong smell of chocolate as if I just stuck my nose in a freshly opened box of chocolates. About a minute later, my wife gets a call from her sister & niece. They were returning from the cemetery (My Sister-in-law's other daughter had died two years prior) and were eating Godiva Chocolates on the way home.

I have never smelled chocolate in the bathroom prior or since that moment, nor did we have any chocolates anywhere in the house (I checked and asked my wife) that night. The smell came and went in about 10 seconds, and it was STRONG!

V


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

While in college I lived in an upstairs/downstairs duplex with two roommates. We lived in the upstairs portion of the duplex. The house was very old for the city in which we lived, builti in the 1920's I believe (some of the bricks had dates stamped onto them and none of the dates were later than the 1920's). That house had a very eerie feel about it and I never liked being alone there. Many people who came over to visit commented on how spooky the house looked from the outside. 
To get to the upstairs part where we lived you entered a door on the ground level at the front of the house and walked up a flight of stairs that led up to the living room. There was another door at the top of the stairs which we normally kept closed.

One night, both my roommates were out of town and I knew that they wouldn't be back until sometime the next afternoon. In the middle of the night I woke up and heard the sound of our front door opening, footsteps very clearly coming up the steps and then the door at the top of the stairway opening and then closing again. As I was hearing the footsteps I could also hear the voices of two people having a conversation that got louder as the footsteps got closer. I was in my bedroom, which was off of the living room, but my bedroom door was closed. I continued to hear conversation that sounded like it was coming from the living room, but the voices were very faint so I couldn't hear what was being said. 

At first I had assumed my roommates had come home earlier than expected, but as I heard the voices, they didn't sound familiar to me. At this point I was seriously freaked out, thinking that someone was in the house that shouldn't be. However, everything stopped after a few seconds and I didn't hear any more sounds. If anyone had actually come into the apartment, I would have expected to hear them walk out again down the stairs, but I never did. I was too afraid to get up and go see what was going on, so I just laid in bed and listened for more sounds but nothing else happened, and eventually I calmed down enough so that I could go back to sleep. 
When my roommates came back the next day I asked them if they had come home at any point the previous night and they told me they had not. I explained the experience I had had to them. They thought that I had heard our downstairs neighbors moving around in their part of the duplex. But in the 3 years we lived in that duplex I can't recall ever hearing the downstairs neighbors that clearly. The sound of someone walking up the steps and opening and closing the door in the living room was very clear to me.

There were a few other odd experiences that I and my roommates had in that duplex, but we were always able to come up with plausible explanations to explain them away. This is one experience though that really shook me and makes me think I may have experienced something unusual.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

This is a nice story, but not obviously supernatural, unless one's thoughts can influence fate. 
(As a Christian, I do think it Providential.)

In the autumn of 1997 we had two puppies to look after - Airedale and border terrier - but I still missed having a cat. We had had cats for twenty years, but the last had died eighteen months previously, and Taggart said we had enough on our plate without getting another. I sort of agreed with him, but we were watching Pet Rescue and I said suddenly, 'So we can't have a cat? I suppose the only way round that is if we find a stray.'

The next day I was walking the puppies, and I saw a black kitten rush out and miaow at some passers by that I assumed were the kitten's family. On the way back, though, I saw the kitten again, miaowing at someone else. As I approached, the kitten saw my two dogs and shot up a tree. I began to wonder if it was lost, so I took the puppies home, left them with Taggart, and went out again. It was just getting dark, and I could see the kitten still up the tree. I called to it, and it came down the tree, and let me pick it up. It snuggled into my arms and made no attempt to get away.

I took it home to Taggart, thrust it into his arms, and said, 'I'm going out to see if I can find the kitten's owners.'

I went round knocking at doors, but nobody owned the kitten or knew who it belonged to. One neighbour said she'd seen it in the morning trying to attract passers-by.

I went home, and found Taggart in an armchair with the cat on his knee. He said, 'We have to keep this - it has not stopped purring since you left.'

But now I had cold feet. I rang up a cat shelter - but they refused to take it in, and told me to put the kitten back where I'd found it. Hungry, and on a cold night? How could I? So we went to the shop and bought some cat-litter and a tin of kitten food, fed the kitty, and kept it overnight in a dog-crate with its litter tray. It kept miawing for attention and periodically we took it out and stroked it.

Over the next week, I leafleted two hundred homes, and we put an ad in the paper too. Nobody came forward, so to Taggart's delight, we kept the little black he-kitten and called him Bramble.

He was with us for fifteen years and was the nicest cat we had ever had.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Not really, sometimes I see people just as I'm in the stage between sleep and being fully awake; but that can be explained. I also had a really nice conversation with a hobo at the park next to my high school after I asked him to buy me a pack of cigarettes from the liquor store(i told him he could keep the change), we talked and I remember asking him just before he left "Are you going in the right direction?" as he was trying to find his way to i can't remember what, but he looked wistfully in the same direction and said "Probably not..." and then continued walking down the same path anyways. It was comic and oddly spiritual. I also had someone I didn't know, a self-proclaimed psychic, send me a private message online saying that he "must get to know me," that he must have me as a friend. I never wrote anything back, and I felt embarrassed, uneasy, but also secretly wished he really could see something good about me, deep down, and that's why he said it. 

Finally, and though it can be explained as well, I include it because it reminded me of a McCammon story I'd read years later. When my parents and i lived in this very lower middle class house just next to the train tracks near Seal Beach, every day my dad would take me on his morning and late afternoon walks next to the railroad tracks to the park and we'd always start from our backyard--there was a wooden door in the fence that led to the train tracks. Anyway, he was careful about shutting it and locking it each time, and since I was 2, i wasn't tall enough to reach the lock in the first place. When we got back from one of our walks, after he made sure to close it, he said he lost me several minutes later and started panicking, looking all over the house for me. He looks all over the backyard, then finally unlocks the backyard gate and finds me just sitting on one of the railroad tracks not really doing anything else. It scared him badly, though, because that railroad was always busy with trains. I'm sure there's some element of truth to the story because none of the details change every time my dad tells it, even after all these years, unlike some of his other stories. It reminded me of the McCammon novel where a boy, who's mildly psychic, hears his 'dad' ask him if he wants to go out on a walk--and it looks like his dad, too- though it ends up taking him to the middle of a highway just as a speeding truck is rounding the corner, then whatever looked like his dad briefly changes into its real form and quickly disappears. Obviously, its intent was to kill him(the protagonist). i just thought it sounded oddly similar to my story as in maybe got 'help' opening that locked gate.:lol:


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## Yoshi (Jul 15, 2009)

sabrina said:


> I was visiting my city during holiday (I was studying in a place hundreds of km away), and while walking in the centre of the town I just remembered a high school colleague I have not seen since high-school graduation, around 5 years before. Even more, she was not on my mind at all since we parted. The strange thing is the way I walked, as I went up and down a street twice for no particular reason and, as expected, I met her there in the street...I was so shocked, I had no words...other than hello.


You wouldn't believe me but this same thing happened to me a few months ago. I was on the bus in my town and I suddenly remembered a highschool colleague I used to hang out with but haven't seen since graduation 4 years ago. I didn't think about her all those years too. Then suddenly this random question popped in my mind "I wonder where she is now" because I haven't heard of her since. At the exact moment I had that thought, the bus stopped on a red light and I looked out of the window. The only person right there on the street was her, waiting for the green light. I was 100% sure it was her because she looked exactly the same. The coincidence was just so freaky that I remember being paranoid for a minute that someone or something was hearing my thoughts and messing with my mind :lol:


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Do not stare at my avatar for too long, otherwise you'll get nightmares or worse.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

GreenMamba said:


> As I child, I used to suffer from Sleep Paralysis, which for many is an excuse to believe in supernatural presence. Even as a child, I never bought that. I guess I just assumed that my "wiring" gets a little screwy now and then, which is pretty much what happens.


That still happens to me... it's pretty wild. Being aware that my body is completely paralyzed. It used to freak me out, but I find it amusing now.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

So many supernatural occurrences have happened to me I don't quite know where to begin!

The night my mother died, my electric alarm clock froze at a time between 2 and 3 AM. No other electrical appliances in the house were affected. That day my brother called and told me my mom died during the previous night. This was in 2003. My clock has run flawlessly before and since.

A few years ago my car started surging forward on its own when I was driving it and then stopped doing that after two or three days. I made an appointment for my mechanic to look at it and he couldn't account for the surging (couldn't duplicate it), but told me one of my tires was about to explode which could have killed me on the highway going my usual 75 mph. "Someone" watching over me?

A good friend of my wife died and without explanation all the clothing hung to dry on hangers inside the house in my laundry room started violently vibrating for a minute or so and then stopped as if a door opened and closed. No reports of anything unusual at that time happening to anybody else in my community.
A spiritual visit?

A few hours after I learned of my mother's death, I myself started violently shaking, just like the hangers and clothes, reported from the previous incident. Within a couple of minutes that too stopped mysteriously. Was my mom's spirit embracing me and saying goodbye?

From my sister-in-law: Her grandmother died and her family had a cake decorated with her first name as remembrance. My sister-in-law noticed her name was misspelled. The family went into another room for conversation and when they came back to the cake, the name was spelled correctly.

I have heard of other people experiencing the mysterious and unaccountable shaking that happened to me.

We are not alone. There is another dimension. I completely believe it. I have definitely experienced encounters, believe it or not.


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## spokanedaniel (Dec 23, 2014)

Varick said:


> I'm sure there are logical explanations for a great many "odd" or "supernatural" seeming things. But I highly doubt that is the case for everything. Like the Shakespeare quote above that Giordano posted, _"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
> Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."_
> 
> Many people say things like, "I'll believe it when I see it." To which I retort, "Some things need to be believed before they can be seen."
> ...


Shakespeare was the most brilliant poet in the history of the English language. He was far less adept when it came to understanding the physical world. The line quoted above is marvelous poetry, but is hardly evidence of the supernatural.

The brain is a most unreliable organ. If you believe something, you will see it, because the brain will construct the sight. Memory itself is unreliable and it's a well-established principle in criminology that eye-witness testimony is the most unreliable form of evidence. Studies abound wherein multiple witnesses to an event give wildly different and incompatible versions of the event; and memories can be manipulated so easily that a skilled interrogator can make people believe they saw or experienced things that never happened.

People who believe in the supernatural will see evidence of it every day in mundane experiences and random coincidences, just as people who subscribe to a religion will find in their daily lives constant confirmation of their own particular religion. Just as the brain constructs "sense" out of optical illusions, so too it shuffles its own perceptions and memories to provide confirmation of its beliefs. This is why subjective experiences cannot be trusted, and why we gained enough understanding of the real world to build such things as computers and cell phones only after we left religion and belief in the supernatural behind in favor of double-bling studies, replication, and peer review.

Edited for punctuation.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

spokanedaniel said:


> Just as the brain constructs "sense" out of optical illusions, so too it shuffles its own perceptions and memories to provide confirmation of its beliefs. This is why subjective experiences cannot be trusted, and why we gained enough understanding of the real world to build such things as computers and cell phones only after we left religion and belief in the supernatural behind in favor of *double-bling* studies, replication, and peer review.
> 
> Edited for punctuation.


Really well said and you make some great points, all of which I agree with; but that last part gave me an amusing mental image of scientists and their participants bedecked with gaudy, golden chain necklaces.


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