Ghosts exist
but only in the mind of the person seeing them. They aren't a physical construct as such, merely an imagined artefact.

If anyone is telling about their 'paranormal' experiences and the story starts, "I just woke up", or "I was in my bed about to go asleep when...", or "It was the middle of the night and I woke up"....WRONG, you were asleep, whether you think you were or not. I dismiss them at that point.

The only credible story I have ever heard was from a froend who was up beside a river on a sunny Summers day. Admittedly he was having a spliff. However, he turns round and sees a very solid loking monk standing about 50ft away, full robe, the works. He turned away and looked back to see the monk still there. Turned away for a second time, now shitting himself, and looked back to see the apparition gone. He got the fear and fled.

Fast forward 10 years and he is giving a lift to some work colleagues who start talking about sppoky things and they mention 'the mad monk of duchal woods', his mind snaps back to the Summers day 10 years previous....and of course that is exactly where he was, at Duchal Woods. Legend has it, that Mons Meg, the huge cannon that now resides in Edinbro Castle, was taken down to Kilmacolm and used to destroy Duchal Castle, everyone fled except for the Monk who stayed and was killed.

www.paranormaldatabase.com/highlands/Invedata.php

When he saw the Monk, he had no knowledge of this 'legend' whatsoever, so it wasn't as if it was some sort of self fulfilling prophecy. I believed him, for what it counts.
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:18, 3 replies, latest was 15 years ago)

I've only got 40 minutes
so I'll just say "shut up"
(PsychoChomp, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:21, Reply)

Sook ma tits!

(Cancer Joy was short lived, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:23, Reply)

Things that are in your mind and exclusively in your mind
don't "exist" by any definition I have ever heard.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:24, Reply)

You are opening a massive can of philosophical worms with this.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:26, Reply)

Yes if you totally ignore any psychological reasearch since about 1970.
I'm not going to though so, boom headshot.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:29, Reply)

I know nothing of any philosphical theory newer then about 1850
and practically nothing about any older than that that's not Socratic, to be honest.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:33, Reply)

*sighs*
I firmly believe that we are creating reality, on the fly, in our own individual minds. The mind is the most complicated machine that we know of in the entire universe and is capable of some pretty amazing feats. Therefore,'seeing' a ghost is a pretty easy thing for it to achieve.
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:52, Reply)

We are not creating reality,
We are percieving reality from the sensations we recieve. the mind is incredibly complicated but it also takes a shit load of short cuts and is easily fooled.
I don't really get your argument, are you saying that ghosts "exist" only in the mind? In which case I would say they're no more real than any of the optical illusions you can see, like the face on mars.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:57, Reply)

I am saying that
the mind decodes 'a reality' from the fog of information we are constantly surrounded by. Some of this 'fog' is widely accepted as real...eg, chips and boobehs. Some of it is classed as paranormal, our mind still perceives this although in this day and age we try to dismiss it as hogwash etc etc. We all have a 'sixth sense', our instincts if you will, this is merely our mind detecting this so called paranormal information. Ghosts and visions are merely a more condensed form of these energies.
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:09, Reply)

I've got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.
Are you saying my money is not real?
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:27, Reply)

Bitches ain't shit.
Are you saying bitches ARE shit?
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:28, Reply)

Snakes with tits.

(PsychoChomp, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:30, Reply)

^ bitter single man is bitter and single ^

(lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:34, Reply)

I've never pretended to be anything else.
I hate all women, hate them.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:41, Reply)

Really?
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:46, Reply)

O_O

( Maximinimus you stick around I'll make it worth your while, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:55, Reply)

The impossible is merely something we as yet have no rational explanation for
where as the improbable is exceptionally unlikely within the rules we accept our universe runs by. Therefore Holmes has it the wrong way round.

/Gentleys
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:34, Reply)

go on then, as you've challenged it, explain this
after my mum died, i had quite a lot of really distressing dreams where she was there but i couldn't speak to her, or she was there and then she disappeared, or she was horribly ill, lather rinse repeat, all part of the fun of bereavement.

then one night about two years after she died, i dreamed that she was calling me over and over and i couldn't make her hear me however loudly i shouted back. i woke up at about 5.30am, pretty disturbed, usual stuff. calmed down, went back to sleep. when i got up for work, i had a missed call on my mobile from a number i sort of recognised but wasn't in my phonebook. the call was made at about 5am.

when i rang it back, it was my mum's school.

i literally can't explain this. not one person at the school would have had my mobile number, and anyway, who would be in a primary school at 5am?

any ideas, mr sceptic??
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:25, Reply)

Dodgy caretaker?
serious answer, no clue sounds horrid though.
( SteveFrench Cardio is for homo's. do you even lift bro?, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:30, Reply)

I understand why you feel the need to find an explanation
but the answer is odd coincidence which your subconscious twists to fit a narrative of an episode that is obviously distressing for you.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:31, Reply)

but how can that possibly be right?
i woke up from a very vivid dream. a few hours AFTER the dream, i found the phone with the missed call. and i simply cannot think how my mobile can have received a call from that number, at that time! it's not as if i got the call, then fell asleep...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:34, Reply)

coincidence is how you got a call from that number.
It would be quite complicated to work out the odds of you recieving that call at that time but it'll be lower than you'd imagine. Certainly within the territory of, say, winning Euromillions, but no-one claims there is a paranormal explanation for that.

I'm sure there are many, many occasions in that period where you woke up from a vivid dream involving your mum but hadn't recieved any phone call, too.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:39, Reply)

well of course! unfortunately.
i don't believe there is a paranormal explanation, but i'd like to hear a practical one that would make me understand it.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:48, Reply)

This was kind of the point of my short rant above.
We (as a species) are intelligent enough to know we should search for an explanation but sometimes we aren't quite rational enough to accept that explanation when we find it, because the explanation isn't "enough" for us.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:01, Reply)

but this doesn't explain how
someone could have called me.

it would mean someone at the school had to be in there at 5am and to stumble across my mobile number out of the blue and call it. i mean, seriously. HOW?!

it's really not that i imagined it as dream-aftermath, although that is the natural assumption. i showed my flatmate the missed call just to prove this to myself!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:09, Reply)

wrong number?
it's possible. Don't underestimate the power of coincidence.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:15, Reply)

hmmmm
i just don't know. unless someone got locked in the school office overnight and was slowly dialling their way through every 11 digit combination, it is a mahoosive coincidence!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:17, Reply)

you are totally sure it was the school's number?

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:21, Reply)

yeah
it wasn't in my phonebook, although i did recognise it. so i returned the call by pressing the "call" button on my phone. and the school answered.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:44, Reply)

This is the point.
It's only a massive coincidence because you aren't comfortable with it. Things of that level of statistical likelihood happen all the time and we ignore them because they don't phase us.

Someone being in a school at 5am isn't unlikely. Teachers get drunk, stay out half the night, go into their work at random times just like the rest of us. Perhaps they are pissed and drunkenly decide to phone an ex and get the number wrong. Coincidentally they dial your number. I mean, you don't think "blimey, that's immpossibly unlikely" every time you get a wrong number, yet the odds of that alone are pretty unlikely.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:34, Reply)

i suppose
but it doesn't satisfy my burning need to put this to bed!

besides, my mother's colleagues were on average 50, not sexy young single teachers!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:44, Reply)

There are many explanations
but to talk about this specific circumstance is insensitive.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:40, Reply)

It was God
telling you to come round mine later with an 8th of premium bugle and very little in the way of clothing.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:41, Reply)

I got that call too....

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:45, Reply)

Listen, I'm flattered and all that...
OK bring the 8th, but keep your kit on and leave by 9, alright?

After that I'm going to be 'busy', ya get me blud?
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:00, Reply)

holla

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:08, Reply)

only an 8th?
and what would you be taking?!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:46, Reply)

Ha!
You know you can only goad Monty for so long with this MASSIVE drug talk before he does actually arrive at your house. Like a long haired manifestation, replete with cognac, Colombian flake and an obvious hard-on
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:55, Reply)

won't be that obvious if he samples his own stuff on the way round
speed dick is not a good look.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:07, Reply)

I much prefer sex not on cocaine.
This was not always the case.

Ideally:

1. Few drinks
2. sexual marathon
3. drugs and drink marathon
4. sleep marathon
5. slightly less marathonic sex
6. food marathon
7. rinse and repeat
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:12, Reply)

I really fancy eating a
Marathon Snickers now.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:14, Reply)

define "marathon" in the context of sex
men and women often differ here!!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:16, Reply)

A few hours, with a break or two in there....

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:17, Reply)

oh
oh ok. i can get on board with that.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:17, Reply)

Any longer than that and people start getting injured, I've found.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:19, Reply)

A few hours, with a break or two in there.... Until I say I'm done, bitch.
( Labia Majora You keep on talking but it makes no sense at all, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:20, Reply)

I'm far too charming to say anything like that.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:21, Reply)

You were somewhat charming
So I can believe this.
( Labia Majora You keep on talking but it makes no sense at all, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:22, Reply)

Is that a half marathon, or the 'full monty'?

(Cancer Joy was short lived, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:17, Reply)

hahaha

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:19, Reply)

What was I thinking?
An 8th each it is.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:01, Reply)

actually
see my reply above.

you can have yours after the event.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:09, Reply)

I'm not so sure
given that the mind fills in so many details for us automatically, it seems very odd that it would deliberately put in anomalous constructs that do not fit with what we are expecting
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:26, Reply)