Have you ever met a ghost?

[KrazyKoen]

Do you think you've ever met a ghost, or do you believe in them in general?

I'm open to the idea of ghosts. I wouldn't say I believe in them super strongly, but I think they're possible, I do believe in the soul after all. I'm more inclined to believe that certain places grow a sort of 'spirit' based on their history. I openly admit my belief in these sorts of things is irrational and I certainly don't place alot of faith in these things.

Despite not being religious, I've always had a very spiritual perception of the world. I've had alot of experiences that I feel were to some extent spiritual. But I'll give my most ghostly one, even though I'm incredibly skeptical that it's anything other than a weird dream along with a bunch of mixed up memories.

When I was young - very very young - no older than four years old, I slept on a tall bed, not a bunk bed just a tall one (there was a slide on one end to get down, it was awesome). I remember waking up late at night and seeing a translucent white woman floating beside me. I felt more curious than scared, I just stayed still and looked at her. I think I remember her saying something but I don't remember what it was. She scooped me into her arms and gently carried me off my bed and to the floor before disappearing. I went back to sleep again, and the next morning - I woke up exactly where she set me down.

The strangest thing about this memory is that my parents (especially my mom) were very wary about letting me watch anything too scary. I shouldn't have had any frame of reference to dream up a classic ghost encounter like that.

[Nikodile]

I feel like most people have one "unexplainable" occurrence in their life at least.

To preface this, I was a middle schooler and we moved, I missed my friends, I had other kids joke about the new house being haunted as we bought the home from an older lady who died at a hospice. I was probably already on edge with all that going on.

REGARDLESS, I still think something uhhh WEIRD happened.

I remember one afternoon having to go to the bathroom, as many humans do, popped a squat, did the deed. I got up, turned around to wash my hands in the sink, turned the faucet on, looked at myself in the mirror and right behind me I see a VIVID vision of a bald headed man with black makeup, hook nose, little bit heavier set, white robes, pale skin smiling at me... I just did not process that at the split second, I looked back down to finish washing my hands. Few seconds later, I had the realization of what I saw, I look back up and in true ghost story fashion, he wasn't there. I remember his face to this day, decades later. He almost looked like Danny DeVito as The Penguin in that 90s Batman movie. I still think about that day sometimes, my only "ghost story".

[gregmoondancer]

Ok this may be a long one but here we go So I will preface this by saying that when it comes to religious and spiritual beliefs and all that stuff I'm pretty much strictly atheist/agnostic and honestly I'm not sure whether I think ghosts are real or not, I mainly lean more towards skepticism, but idk. With that being said, this is Tina, shes a porcelain doll I've owned for several years now, and I'm like 97% sure she's haunted
So like I said I got her a few years ago when I went to my grandmas house and for whatever reason she asked if I wanted this porcelain doll she had. Normally I'm not the kinda person to want a 2-foot tall angel porcelian doll, especially back then, but I have always had an interest in weird decor and also I didn't want to hurt my grandmas feelings so I said yes. (I also decided to name her Tina cuz I felt like it idk) It was a little before I left to bring Tina home and during that time, my uncle and I noticed that Tina's back was covered in plaster and crap with a screw drilled in. Obviously this is rly weird so my uncle asks my grandma where she even founded this thing to which respons that she has no idea where she got it so thats fun
Anyways so I take Tina home and nothing happens until I go to sleep which I will admit I was very on edge that night cuz sleeping in the same room as a creepy porcelain doll u just got will do that too u. So it's very possible that what happened that night was just a result of me paranoid, but that same night that I brought Tina home I had sleep paralysis for the first time ever. Basically I woke up and couldn't move but I could see that standing in the middle of my room was a cloaked figure that had two white circles where its eyes would be and one red circle where its mouth would be. It just stared at me for like a few seconds before I woke up for real and that was that. From that point forward I have had many other instances of sleep paralysis, the creepiest instance would be when I woke up to see my door being opened and a tall, slenderman-esque guy with long arms and legs and a pale gray face started waddling in my room before I forced myself to wake up because I was not having that. Another time I had a dream that I was babysitting my little cousin and she came to me in the middle of the night in the dream and told me that she quote "didn't like the man in the corner of her room". And for whatever reason right after she said this I went into a weird sleep paralysis thing where I could feel my body laying in bed but I couldn't move, the only thing was I couldn't see anything but I did hear what sounded like wind blowing and like a bunch of different voices talking over each other, the only thing being said that I could make out was someone saying "turn off the phone" over and over, and then I woke up. I've also had two instances of hypnagogic hallucinations after bringing Tina home(I have never had a hypnagogic hallucination before I got Tina) Both times it was right after I woke up that I saw what could only be described as a stereotypical ghost bride, standing in my room big white dress and all before disappearing. Now obviously none of these things directly tie to Tina but the fact that not once in my entire life had I ever had sleep paralysis or anything like this before I got her, and now suddenly all of this is happening, I can't help but wonder.

There's also been a handful of weird things that have happened in the real world since I got her. The main thing being that small things of mine, sewing needles, pins, hairclips, etc, would just go missing in my room. I'm not exactly how but eventually one day for whatever reason I had looked at the ground under Tina's dress to find a needle that I had lost just sitting there. Another time I looked and found a pin, this has happened many times where stuff will just disappear and I'll find it later under Tina's dress. It's gotten to the point where pretty much any time I lose something one of the first places I look is under her dress. There's also been a handful of minor things that have happened since Tina's been here that did not happen prior, such as doors closing on there own, lights randomly turning on or off, and stuff falling over just cuz, y'know the standard ghost stuff . On a few occasions my dog has also just randomly started to bark and growl at Tina for seemingly no reason so yeah that's fun. One of the weirdest things thats happened with her is a few months back when I noticed that there was a weird, orange subtance on the wall behind her, it was also on her dress a little. I have no idea how long it had been there since I hadn't noticed prior. I also dont know what it was like at all, it didn't have smell anything and it cleaned off pretty easily and it hasn't appeared since. Here's some pictures I took from then I don't know if its like a common thing for old dolls to just leak sludge but if anyone has a geniune explanation as to what this could have been that would be cool.

Anyway that's pretty much the jist of it I think, it kinda sucks that most of the stuff thats happened I either wasn't able to get on camera or just straight up was in my head so I probably sound like a madman but whatever. Sorry if this has like any grammatical errors or anything its late rn and I'm too tired to proofread this

[akyra00]

It was around the time i was 14.

I took a shower, my parents werent home, neither my siblings. I got out, closed the window from the Bathroom (like i always do) and went to my room and layed down on my bed a little, naked, exhausted from the Schoolday.

WHEN SUDDENLY LITERALLY A WHITE HUGE SOMETHING RAN PAST MY DOOR FRAME WITH EXTREME SPEED AND REALLY LOUD STOMPING NOISES

I was shook, i was shaking, i couldn't believe what i just saw. I got up after a minute of just staring into the hallway, thinking to myself if it was a dream or reality. I went into the bathroom, and the Showers curtains were waving like CRAZY, and the window, which i closed, was wide open.

To this day, no one believes me this, i swear to god this happened. I even told a friend right after it happened, we went outside later and played yu-gi-oh.

[Scootarooni]

Part of me at least believes in the spirit/soul of a person but ghosts? Naw, I'm very skeptical.

I've been to a lot of historically significant "haunted" civil war era places and been around "haunted" people and objects but have yet to have a ghostly experience of my own ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think most paranormal encounters have logical explanations. The average person is just not equip to logic out the answer, especially if they're in a frightened state of mind or are already predisposed because someone told them the place/object is haunted. Our memories aren't really reliable either.

I'm a bit of a party pooper about this stuff u_u

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

@gregmoondancer Get rid of that doll dude!

I grew up in a ghost house. It was a so called Ausdinghaus, a house used by farmers to put their elderly in when these couldn't handle the farm life anymore - but it wasn't used as such, but rented out by the owner for a long time already when I lived there. The building is located in a village that is so small that it ain't even listed on Google Maps up to now, and can't be found by its name - you have to search for the next village and scroll there manually. 5 or 6 families do live there, and to my knowledge all of them dwell there for generations - (except of a villa that is a little bit remote - and also at least a bit dubious. When we lived nearby, it was used by a fighting dog-breeder, who was often visited by rather shady people, and eventually shot himself in the cellar while we lived there).

My grandmother, who was the only family member that grew up in a village nearby remembered that two ladies with giant teeth, who were shunned by the rest of the village, and of whom she was warned back then, had lived in there when she was a young girl. In the 50s it was used as a holiday home by some rich guy, who used it to party there from time to time. Either he, or another guy who lived there after him eventually hanged himself at the attic - but this might be a rumor. My father rented the thing two times; he told me that he had noticed strange things, and an eerie atmosphere, when he had lived there the first time, and had also the impression that the people from the village knew something about it -  this might be true, might be not, but fact is that nobody of the "native village community" ever moved into this building - it was always only rented out to strangers, or stood empty. After my father moved out, an acquaintance of him took the contract - she left fast, as she had terrible problems with strangers (stalkers? peeping toms?) creeping around the house at night. When my father was searching for a new place, he ended up taking the renting contract again - and eventually, my mother joined him. She swears that she started to have dreams (or visions?) of people eying her while she slept - one time she felt the touch of one of them, and he told her that he'd lie on the graveyard of the next village - and these occurrences increased, when a very old door that was stored at the attic was used to replace a newer, but broken one in the living room (I remember that door - it was painted with white, flaking color, and had a curved handle) - my father (who ain't the superstitious type, btw.) also noticed again both a general sinister aura, and the increase of it after the door was set, but it was less explicit for him than to my mother.
My family lived there until I turned 7 - they didn't tell us children that they thought the house was sinister until much, much later - and what I remember of it is probably influenced by the stories I heard later - but I absolutely had vivid "imaginations" in there- most often of lights, sometimes of voices, but sometimes also of strangers in there. I'd troubles with anxiety as a kid - it turned much better after we left there. I don't believe in ghosts as entities - but I do believe that something, one or more factors, was off in there, or at the whole village, and that people noticed this and were stressed out when living there.

There was another thing many years later: I sad with a friend in an old site caravan out in the fields that we used as a party location back then; it was deep in the night, at the height of the winter, and we had a fire burning in the stove. We were both rather drunk, and had a hot political debate - and in the midst of an argument, a small thing that looked like a very little smoke cloud, but was very compact, and fully opaque, entered the room through a crack under the door. It flew in between us (this thing was very, very fast), raised a few times up and down, and then just disappeared into thin air. We had both fallen silent, tracking the thing with our eyes, and couldn't explain what it was. I guess something really queer with the thermic, maybe caused by the fire? But I absolutely can't explain what it was, and never saw such a phenomenon before or afterwards - this was the closest thing to a Poltergeist phenomena I ever saw with my own eyes.

Attachement: The building. The windows are new, the extension was built while we lived there - iirc, it was during the works on it that the door was replaced.

[Ducky]

I flip-flop between believing in spirits and not believing in them. Deep down, I like to learn more towards yes, even when the logical side of my brain wants to think otherwise.

There was one instance where I like to believe it was a spirit. (Warning for mention of family death in the paragraph below):

Sometime in 6th grade, my grandpa passed away. Several weeks after his passing, I was in the apartment he used to live in with my grandma, drawing in the kitchen. In the kitchen, there's a door that leads to the back staircase. As I was drawing, one of my family cats started staring intensely at said door. I looked over, but nothing was there. Perhaps she had heard something outside? I sure didn't. Not too long after she did that, I felt a moderately cold breeze on my neck. It wasn't a chill that folks sometimes get randomly. It felt as if someone was literally blowing their cold breath on me. Neither the door nor the window was opened, and it wasn't particularly cold. No fan or AC was on either. My cat was still staring at the door as this was happening too, by the way. I didn't think too much of it at the time. Sometime later that week I told my mom about my experience. She believed that maybe it was my late grandpa, saying hi to me. Perhaps he was kissing my neck or putting his hand on my shoulder? Who knows.

There was also another instance that I sometimes think could have been a spiritual encounter, but it was much more likely to be sleep paralysis. If anyone is interested in that story, let me know and I'll post it too.

All and all, I think there's a possibility of spirits. At least late loved ones visiting or entering a place with a potentially haunted history.