I find it fascinating that, in Residual Hauntings, the events being played out are not necessarily acted out by people who are no longer living. I always thought that any type of haunting was caused by death or by a "doorway" to the spirit world being opened. However, I've been reading articles about how people report seeing residual hauntings consisting of events that have occurred between persons still living (i.e. former tenants/occupants who have moved away). I never realized this.
It leads me to wonder if me or my family have left such negative energy behind during the tough years that may be replaying themselves somehow. How much trauma does it take to imprint an event in the atmosphere or into a place and cause residual hauntings? I wonder if, when we walk into a place that we feel uncomfortable in or "just don't like to be in", we are feeling negative energies left by previous occupants that are imprinted?? Just a thought and major curiosity of mine.....Is there even any way to measure this or prove it??
Wait... are you saying that an imprint can be left, possibly causing a residual haunting, by people who may still be living? That's a very interesting prospect...by that logic an imprint of an event could possibly be left in a location causing a residual haunting and the people involved in that event could still be living in that location. I wonder if someone could experience the residual haunting of an event that they were a part of??? :o Whoah!
With free time this summer and horrible headaches lately, I've sequestered myself to a darkened room to catch up on my science and paranormal shows. I've been watching the usual suspects, Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman and Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking. (What's next? Across the Galactic Plane With Conan O'Brien?)
One of the topics that has really caught my attention is the nature of time, considered to be the fourth dimension by some (though, the physics of the fourth dimension are a little something different). There are physicists who claim that we exist in all four of these dimensions. They also claim that the dimension of time exists independently of the other three. I don't have nearly enough knowledge on the topic to make any bold conclusions, but extrapolating for a moment from this idea, if the claim is true that we are creatures of time, then it follows that we exist in all time, but that our biology is made up of three dimensions. I'm drawing a distinction here between ontology and physiology, but doing it under the constraints of phenomenology. To exist ontologically--to "be"--would mean that we "are" in time in its entirety, or that we exist for all time; this would be the scientific explanation for the soul or the ka. To exist physiologically means that we experience an awareness of that time by way of the biological processes that mark the increments of decay and disintegration.
This underlines a possible theory for some paranormal activity: that they are phantoms of time. In that sense, they are genuinely supernatural in the literal meaning of the word, because nature is determined by the three hard dimensions of height, width, and length, and whatever exists in the fourth dimension of time does so above and beyond those dimensions. Ghosts could simply be the temporal fingerprint of living or non-living entities that "exist" in the past and in the now. EVPs could be a matter of those living in the past talking to us in the now, or even us talking to ourselves in a slightly temporally displaced way.
I watched an episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories this week that put me in mind of a paranormal experience I think I had at the end of May in 2004. I've been mulling this story around in my head for years, and this is the first time I'm telling it. On Celebrity Ghost Stories, an actress was talking about her ghost experience in a dormitory where she went to college; the dormitory was an old hotel in decades past where people died in fires, drowned in the basement, were victims of violent crimes or suicide (you know, the usual stuff; there's probably and Indian burial ground there somewhere, too). In May 2004, I was attending a statewide conference and reading of Basic Skills essay exams that high school students submit to enter the U.C. system. There are tens of thousands of these essays to be read, each a minimum of three times, in a span of forty-eight hours, and Educational Testing Services enlists hundreds of college English teachers each year to do the dirty work. In fact, they pay for our travel expenses and put us up for the weekend at UC Berkley's Clark Kerr campus. Up until 2005, I had been attending these conferences every year, and every year I've stayed in one of the Clark Kerr dormitories, sometimes sharing a room with other people.
One year, I shared a room in a dormitory suite; it had a small hallway connecting the bedrooms and the main bathroom, and my bed was just within clearance distance from the bedroom door. I awoke in the night to an intensely bright light coming through the doorway from the hallway and the silhouette of a person with long hair. This person proceeded to stumble and grope his or her way into my room and right over to my bed, where I now recognized the features of a real human being, possibly wearing nothing more than white undergarments. The groping seemed as if they were walking with their eyes closed or in the dark, even though the light was obviously very bright. They didn't just pat the bed; he or she groped my body and patted me down, from chest to crotch to feet, and then turned around and stumbled out of the room in the same fashion they came in. During this, I was paralyzed to do anything; yep, classic sleep paralysis symptoms. But the vision of this person coming out of the brightly lit hallway was extremely detailed and didn't have any of the dream-like qualities I associate with other episodes I've had of hypnagogia over the years. The next morning, I tried to put the episode into perspective. One of our suite mates in the next room over was a young guy, still in grad school at the time I think, who had long hair, so I simply fingered him as the culprit. I spoke with my roommate about it and joked about it, telling him one of our suite mates barged into our room in the night in an episode of sleepwalking and then stumbled off. My roommate said he didn't awake to see anything or hear anything like that. In fact, he was totally incredulous about the matter.
Okay, so far, it's all classic sleep paralysis. I agree. Even the fact that it was the first night sleeping in a strange bed and in a different climate Except that . . . Clark Kerr campus has an interesting history. It used to be a school for the blind. And the dormitory that I stayed in was at one time a place where sight-impaired teenagers lived. The more I analyze the memory of that event, the more I realize that, in height and physique, the person who came into my room that night was not the long-haired grad student. Even the length of their hair differed. Furthermore, the groping actions were exactly what I've seen blind people do to get their bearings.
Was it a ghost? Why would the spirit of a dead person, whether or not that person was blind when alive, continue to dwell at a dormitory? Of all the places to which you could tie yourself after death, why I dormitory? On the other hand, if I experienced a crease in time and in those thirty seconds occupied the same time that a blind person experienced coming into that room, I might have encountered what Lillie described, but as a temporal fingerprint.
Or, I might have had a vivid hallucination that coincidentally incorporated elements of environment and turned them into a very lucid waking dream. Once again, it comes down to my subjective, gut instinct: I feel like this was more than a waking dream. And, if it isn't, I'd still be fascinated to find out why it happened and how my mind came to shape it.
Anyway, there it is. Just some food for thought. :)
Quote from: PPI Karl on June 25, 2010, 02:59:50 PM
With free time this summer and horrible headaches lately, I've sequestered myself to a darkened room to catch up on my science and paranormal shows. I've been watching the usual suspects, Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman and Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking. (What's next? Across the Galactic Plane With Conan O'Brien?)
One of the topics that has really caught my attention is the nature of time, considered to be the fourth dimension by some (though, the physics of the fourth dimension are a little something different). There are physicists who claim that we exist in all four of these dimensions. They also claim that the dimension of time exists independently of the other three. I don't have nearly enough knowledge on the topic to make any bold conclusions, but extrapolating for a moment from this idea, if the claim is true that we are creatures of time, then it follows that we exist in all time, but that our biology is made up of three dimensions. I'm drawing a distinction here between ontology and physiology, but doing it under the constraints of phenomenology. To exist ontologically--to "be"--would mean that we "are" in time in its entirety, or that we exist for all time; this would be the scientific explanation for the soul or the ka. To exist physiologically means that we experience an awareness of that time by way of the biological processes that mark the increments of decay and disintegration.
This underlines a possible theory for some paranormal activity: that they are phantoms of time. In that sense, they are genuinely supernatural in the literal meaning of the word, because nature is determined by the three hard dimensions of height, width, and length, and whatever exists in the fourth dimension of time does so above and beyond those dimensions. Ghosts could simply be the temporal fingerprint of living or non-living entities that "exist" in the past and in the now. EVPs could be a matter of those living in the past talking to us in the now, or even us talking to ourselves in a slightly temporally displaced way.
I watched an episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories this week that put me in mind of a paranormal experience I think I had at the end of May in 2004. I've been mulling this story around in my head for years, and this is the first time I'm telling it. On Celebrity Ghost Stories, an actress was talking about her ghost experience in a dormitory where she went to college; the dormitory was an old hotel in decades past where people died in fires, drowned in the basement, were victims of violent crimes or suicide (you know, the usual stuff; there's probably and Indian burial ground there somewhere, too). In May 2004, I was attending a statewide conference and reading of Basic Skills essay exams that high school students submit to enter the U.C. system. There are tens of thousands of these essays to be read, each a minimum of three times, in a span of forty-eight hours, and Educational Testing Services enlists hundreds of college English teachers each year to do the dirty work. In fact, they pay for our travel expenses and put us up for the weekend at UC Berkley's Clark Kerr campus. Up until 2005, I had been attending these conferences every year, and every year I've stayed in one of the Clark Kerr dormitories, sometimes sharing a room with other people.
One year, I shared a room in a dormitory suite; it had a small hallway connecting the bedrooms and the main bathroom, and my bed was just within clearance distance from the bedroom door. I awoke in the night to an intensely bright light coming through the doorway from the hallway and the silhouette of a person with long hair. This person proceeded to stumble and grope his or her way into my room and right over to my bed, where I now recognized the features of a real human being, possibly wearing nothing more than white undergarments. The groping seemed as if they were walking with their eyes closed or in the dark, even though the light was obviously very bright. They didn't just pat the bed; he or she groped my body and patted me down, from chest to crotch to feet, and then turned around and stumbled out of the room in the same fashion they came in. During this, I was paralyzed to do anything; yep, classic sleep paralysis symptoms. But the vision of this person coming out of the brightly lit hallway was extremely detailed and didn't have any of the dream-like qualities I associate with other episodes I've had of hypnagogia over the years. The next morning, I tried to put the episode into perspective. One of our suite mates in the next room over was a young guy, still in grad school at the time I think, who had long hair, so I simply fingered him as the culprit. I spoke with my roommate about it and joked about it, telling him one of our suite mates barged into our room in the night in an episode of sleepwalking and then stumbled off. My roommate said he didn't awake to see anything or hear anything like that. In fact, he was totally incredulous about the matter.
Okay, so far, it's all classic sleep paralysis. I agree. Even the fact that it was the first night sleeping in a strange bed and in a different climate Except that . . . Clark Kerr campus has an interesting history. It used to be a school for the blind. And the dormitory that I stayed in was at one time a place where sight-impaired teenagers lived. The more I analyze the memory of that event, the more I realize that, in height and physique, the person who came into my room that night was not the long-haired grad student. Even the length of their hair differed. Furthermore, the groping actions were exactly what I've seen blind people do to get their bearings.
Was it a ghost? Why would the spirit of a dead person, whether or not that person was blind when alive, continue to dwell at a dormitory? Of all the places to which you could tie yourself after death, why I dormitory? On the other hand, if I experienced a crease in time and in those thirty seconds occupied the same time that a blind person experienced coming into that room, I might have encountered what Lillie described, but as a temporal fingerprint.
Or, I might have had a vivid hallucination that coincidentally incorporated elements of environment and turned them into a very lucid waking dream. Once again, it comes down to my subjective, gut instinct: I feel like this was more than a waking dream. And, if it isn't, I'd still be fascinated to find out why it happened and how my mind came to shape it.
Anyway, there it is. Just some food for thought. :)
An interesting story!
I have always been fascinated with concepts of space, time, and dimension.
I've even had an experience of being in the future, in a body, aware that I was also Debra Page back in 2005. (It's so detailed I thought it would make an interesting sci-fi novel.)
The Dzog-chen (Tibetan Nyingma school) masters talk about themselves as if they are living in more than one time period at a time. They are very casual about it all.
There is also speculation that some phantasms are living people that are traveling out of body.
Of course, any of the above are hard to prove in a concrete way
Wow Karl. I remember watching that same episode and hearing the actress talk about her own experience. I have also heard of similar occurrences happening to other individuals. It's never happened to me (that I can recall) however it may be more common than we think. A while back, I got an email into my taps in box regarding a similar thing. It was one of those "Questions from the Public" thing that went onto the taps/tfm site. I bunch of people collaborated on it and I wound up compiling everyone's answers into one email response. I will see if I can dig it up and post it back here.
I have gotten emails from people who swear they see themselves as apparitions. In fact, we have a case in July that the daughter of the homeowner claims she saw herself standing at the end of the hallway, smiling back at her. She said it scared her to death. Residual hauntings are very interesting. I have thought that I have both residual yet intelligent going on in my home. I wonder if they can somehow be connected or working in conjunction with one another. That probably makes no sense, huh.
Quote from: PPI Tracy on June 25, 2010, 05:17:39 PM
I have gotten emails from people who swear they see themselves as apparitions. In fact, we have a case in July that the daughter of the homeowner claims she saw herself standing at the end of the hallway, smiling back at her. She said it scared her to death. Residual hauntings are very interesting. I have thought that I have both residual yet intelligent going on in my home. I wonder if they can somehow be connected or working in conjunction with one another. That probably makes no sense, huh.
Actually, If you get into the case files on "High Strangeness", then what you are suggesting is so nonsensical.
Really Deb? Wow. That IS truly amazing. I'm going to have to check it out. I've got some interesting reading to do.
So here is a warped thought: I wonder if you have a residual haunting and an intelligent one, is it there because the intelligent had some sort of relationship with the residual (or are ONE in the same.....that blows your mind, aye?)
Quote from: PPI Tracy on June 25, 2010, 05:25:44 PM
Really Deb? Wow. That IS truly amazing. I'm going to have to check it out. I've got some interesting reading to do.
So here is a warped thought: I wonder if you have a residual haunting and an intelligent one, is it there because the intelligent had some sort of relationship with the residual (or are ONE in the same.....that blows your mind, aye?)
I would expect the Tower of London to be rife with both, and the intelligent haunting having something to do with the residual event that are. imprinted on the place. (purely speculating here)
In terms of "High Strangeness", 2 works stand out:
The Mothman Prophecies, and
Hunt for the Skinwalker. I'm sure Colin Wilson has written about it in some of his works, too.
Didn't TAPS have one episode about a woman being haunted by herself as a girl? She had suffered childhood trauma, and had forgotten it. As an adult she was living in her childhood home (where the trauma happened),and she was seeing this crying girl...
Deb - It wasn't an episode of GH......I believe it was in one of their books. Either "Ghost Hunting" or "Seeking Spirits". Can't remember which one.
Quote from: PPI Tracy on June 25, 2010, 06:17:07 PM
Deb - It wasn't an episode of GH......I believe it was in one of their books. Either "Ghost Hunting" or "Seeking Spirits". Can't remember which one.
Thanks for clarifying... I only remembered the case.
old age.