Do You Believe in Ghosts?

[wren.]

ghost stories

Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever had a weird experience that could be evidence for ghosts existing?

I wouldn't say I believe in ghosts, but I find the idea fascinating, and I admit that I follow a lot of ghost-hunting content. I have had some strange things happen to me over my life, some of which are easier to explain than others.

1) When I was ghost hunting around the house with my cousin as a kid, I had my name whispered into my ear with no one standing next to me. At the same time, my cousin headed into a downstairs that was meant to become mine. Later, he told me that he heard whispers of my name coming from it, which is why he went to check it out. Now, I figure this was just a relative messing with me, hiding in the supply closet that I was a bit in front of, and my cousin was just going along with it. Still, I don't remember ever telling any of the older kids or the adults what we were doing, and I don't remember any of them being gone from their spot in the living room to the right. Also, the whisper was right by my ear and didn't sound muffled at all. When I mentioned it to my dad years later, he couldn't recall any of them playing such a prank. Additionally, I had set down a notepad and pen in the lower level to encourage a ghost to write on it, and later, there were nonsensical scribbles on it. Once again, it could have been a relative messing with me. Still, I thought about it one day years later while hanging out with a friend that claimed she could see ghosts. I asked her if she recognized the symbol and tried to replicate it. She hurriedly crossed it out and told me it was a portal symbol.

2) Many people hated our bathroom in my childhood home, especially the shower area. It had a heavy atmosphere, to the point where my cousin refused to ever take a shower there without one of us accompanying her. It always felt like you were being watched there. I remember taking a shower at one point and, out of nowhere, feeling incredibly lightheaded, but the sensation disappeared as soon as it had come. My friend (the same one from the last point) suggested a ghost might have walked through me. I think it was probably just the steam from the shower. I found out years later that the previous tenants had died on the property and that the man had died in the downstairs bedroom that had become my room by the time we left the house (which had also given me weird vibes). The bathroom and that bedroom share a wall. What's more, the shower is against that wall.

3) When I was around 16 or 17, I was chilling in my bed late at night with my ceramic wax warmer on the corner of my dresser across from it. My sister came in, walked through the small space between my bed and the dresser, and stood to my right. We talked for a while, and out of nowhere, my wax burner suddenly fell off my dresser and shattered on the carpet. I have cats, but none had been in the room to my knowledge, and I didn't hear or see any run out afterward. The cord to the wax warmer was short, so it hugged the wall, making it hard for anything to tug it accidentally, and my sister had already been standing there for a while before it happened. She was nowhere near it. I'd also had the wax warmer for several months by that point, so it doesn't seem like it would be an issue with the dresser not being level or any vibrations. You can sometimes hear a train from the house, but faintly, and it's not close enough to shake anything. My stepdad even measured the dresser and found that it was perfectly level. Coincidentally, I always felt like there was some presence watching me from that area of the room, and I had this weird feeling that it hated the wax warmer since I got it. This is the one experience I have no reliable way to explain.

4) This happened recently. About two years ago now, I think? I was lying in bed, typing away on my laptop, when I heard footsteps come up the stairs around (if not precisely) midnight. My bedroom is right at the top of the stairs, slightly off-center, so I can't see people as they come up, but I'll see them as they pass to their rooms. Curious, I looked to see who it was and there was no one. I didn't hear footsteps proceed into the hallway, either, and I felt like something was standing in the doorway watching me. I called to my mom and sister, asking if they had just come upstairs. Both said no and that they had been in their rooms for a while now. I do have cats, but the footsteps were distinctly human. I tried to ignore the whole thing but felt that same watched sensation, and after a few minutes, it felt like it moved to stand right next to me. The side of my body facing it was cold. Eventually, the feelings receded. The next night, I was still thinking about it, so I decided to keep my light on until after midnight. Around the same time, lying on my bed again with my laptop, but this time I was on my side facing the wall. Now, it's essential to explain that I have a canopy bed that reaches underneath the ceiling fan/light, so the cords drape over the frame. I suddenly heard the distinct clinking of the cords against the metal frame, but I didn't think anything of it because I was used to my mother coming in with folded laundry and turning the light on to set it on my dresser. When it dawned on me that the light was already on so she had no need to do that, I turned over and looked at my nightstand. There was no laundry. I called to my mom to ask if she had just been in my room and she said no. I got up and looked at the cords and they were suddenly crossed over each other when I am very particular about keeping them parallel.

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[iridescent]

I believe in ghosts to a certain extent, honestly. I also find them quite fascinating. I only have one story to tell from when I was younger, like 1 year of age. Can't remember anything else happening.

Okay, so. My father had passed away and we had the funeral and everything. A couple of days passed and there were footprints in our backyard, so my mother got one of my father's shoes and place them on the footprint and it was an exact match. I still believe that he's watching over us to this very day, to be honest.

 

[Foxes81_of_Anime]

honestly, my views on ghosts are kinda.. eh? Like, I'm actually starting to believe in them a slight bit, because some stuff involving that kind of thing(?) has happened in my house, but I don't actively believe in them even though literally all my ocs are ghosts.
The things that happened:
(1): My house is literally brand new, nobody has lived in it before my family. But I keep seeing these weird shadows in the corner of my eye (haven't told my parents), and they move, and they literally look like human silhouettes.
(2): me and my dad both hear footsteps upstairs when there's nobody up there, but my mom can't hear them (she does kinda have hearing issues though so maybe?) and once, something huge crashed upstairs, and we went up there, and there was nothing. we thought maybe a box, but nothing had fallen.
(3): adding on to the first one, the weirdest one. so basically, our house (the living room, dining, and family rooms), tried to do something but it didn't work, so nvm.
so I was there, sitting on the couch, and in the living room there is a couch on the wall, where my computer was at the time. out of the corner of my eye, I saw a human looking shadow go over there and bend down to pick up my computer. ofc, I thought it was my mom, so I looked over to ask her something. nobody was there. it freaked me out, so i went upstairs where my mom was to ask her. she hadn't moved from upstairs. my dad wasn't home. idk what the heck i saw, but i'm not gonna look for it.

 

[wren.]

(2): me and my dad both hear footsteps upstairs when there's nobody up there, but my mom can't hear them (she does kinda have hearing issues though so maybe?) and once, something huge crashed upstairs, and we went up there, and there was nothing. we thought maybe a box, but nothing had fallen.

Omg, this reminds me. In the apartment I just moved out of today, I kept hearing noises upstairs. Thing is, there is no floor above us. I suspect it's an animal in an attic space, maybe? I've heard all kinds of tapping and quiet thumping. But one time, I had a crashing incident. I was sitting at my desk when I heard a huge thud right outside my window. It was so heavy I thought someone threw something or fell out of a window above us (which once again, would be odd since we're the top floor). There was nothing on the ground. My other roommate was in his room right next to mine, and he came to check on me 'cause he thought my TV had fallen off the wall or something. Neither of us found anything amiss.

 

[Nemopedia]

I don't really believe in ghosts, but I also don't want to tempt any in case they do exist. That's the extent of it for me. I do have a few ghosty stories, however!

1) The previous house my parents lived in turned out to be build on top of a graveyard. Now, this always had bothered me a little, since it was also a monumental building and everything, so whatever it was had to be ancient. We didn't pay it too much attention (or tried to) and also kept skeptical. However we kept on losing items and finding them in completely different AND weird places, or just lose it entirely! For example; the microwave completely disappeared without a trace. Small items downstairs would suddenly turn up upstairs. Succulent plants died on the spot even with plenty of sun and water. It was just weird and the closest I got to believing in ghosts.

2) My parents have told me several stories about hauntings in my childhood right before a big thing happening in my family. The day of my brother's first big asthma attack a plant flew across the room inexplicably and the same thing happened with an orchid right before my parents wanted to sign a new contract for their business. Needless to say my mom was convinced that contract was gonna ruin us, because her favourite orchid fell and it turned out to be indeed a contract that was out there to ruin them.

3) This is more of a funny story, but I was mischievous as a kid and also a chronic insomniac. I still am. Anyway, as a child this would express itself as waking up in the middle of the nights wanting to play. Which meant sneaking around the house instead of staying in my room. Naturally, that also involved checking in on my siblings to see if they were awake (they weren't). My brother's door always got stuck, so one had to slam it a little to open and close, never woke him up but it scared my parents so good they asked the carpenter to look at the frames and at the door and also invited the priest to pray for them.

I never told them the truth.

 

[FenFren]

Not to say I don't believe in ghosts, they may be real, they might not, but I have a few things to tell.

(1) I stay home alone sometimes, and fold laundry through most of it, right? I have my music playing, and it's pretty loud so I don't have to hear the neighbors fixing their roof. Every time I stayed home by myself, I'd hear a music box snippet at exactly 7:59 PM. Me, being a minor and having very bad combination of anxiety + imagination, I instantly thought a ghost was in the house. We soon found out later it was just my sister's phone, which brought me a huge relief. Now, this may not be scary, or related to the belief of ghosts or anything, I just think it's kinda funny.

(2) I used to have a carpet floor on my room, and I think this was last year, and my parents were removing it. Y'all wanna know what they found? A solid black floor right under it with a pentagram in the middle painted in red. It's still there, and I'm currently in my bunk bed, laying over it right now. There hasn't been suspicious activity, yet.

Edit: Ooh, I just remembered another one.

(3) I was just wondering on through the library with my friend, when I suddenly felt cold, anxious, and smelled something burning, specifically something chocolate. I stopped dead where I was and tried to find where the smell was coming from, the feelings continued and I asked my friend if they could smell chocolate burning, they said no. I left the area I'd been standing in and the feelings all went away. It was pretty weird.

I told my mom about it this week and she told me that those exact feelings were said to be only felt when a spirit and/or ghost walks through you.

If it really was a ghost/spirit, explain to me why they'd been standing there for so long. Like, I get it, they could've been getting a book, but did ya' really have to follow me to get it?

 

[PavellumPendulum]

I definitely believe in ghosts. It's something that's big in my culture (my cousin who was sick for a long time and wasn't getting better from going to the hospital went to an exorcist instead lmao) and it's always just been a personal belief of mine that there is something more than death. I can't say that I've experienced anything I'd consider to be a ghost encounter, but I believe it is more because I don't have the "sight". It's supposedly something you're born with. I get that lots of skeptics go, 'blehhhhh it's all mumbo jumbo' and I get that to an extent, but this is a cultural thing for some people man. Let me chill out with the ghost of my lolo in peace.

 

[Spammy]

When I was in high school staying up to watch anime on Adult Swim I saw a shadow move across one of the doors to the living room. It didn't really scare me because I thought it was just my dad getting up in the middle of the night, and by the time I realized "Wait there would've been enough light to see him" the moment passed. I also got my sleeve tugged while on a haunted locations tour of New Orleans.

In general for the supernatural I don't know how much I truly believe in ghosts, cryptids, UFOs, et cetera. But I enjoy hearing people's stories of their experiences, and if I was given the chance I'd participate in investigations because I'm open the idea and interested in having real experiences.