In the center of our consciousness, there lies something that is too powerful to control which can command every part of our physiological faculty to obedience. This “something” here is nothing other than the human mind.

Most ghostly encounters are not visual, but rather consist of noises, smells, sensations, voices, cold spots, electrical disturbances such as lights switching off or on, and displacement or movement of objects. While there are several theories about ghosts (electromagnetic theory, parallelism,etc.), I would just like to shed light on some medical concepts.

Stimulation of some parts of brain leads to disturbance in various perceptions like vision, hearing, etc. leading to hallucinations. Some of the medical reasons for ghostly encounters are:

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder (or a group of disorders) marked by severely impaired thinking, emotions, and behaviors. Schizophrenic patients are typically unable to filter sensory stimuli and may have enhanced perceptions of sounds, colors, and other features of their environment.

Country/Region         Extrapolated Prevalence           Population Estimated Used
USA                                               2,375,154                                        293,655,405
Britain (UK)                                  487,483                                         60,270,708
China                                           10,505,385                                     1,298,847,624
India                                              8,614,541                                      1,065,070,607
Japan                                            1,029,899                                        127,333,002

Schizophrenia have relatively high prevalence compared to other mental disorders.

Sleep paralysis

Medically, sleep paralysis is a neurology flaccid paralysis at sleep onset or on waking and in otherwise healthy person characterized by an inability to ‘kickstart’ the voluntary muscles, resulting in a transient ‘locked-in’ syndrome. It is associated with narcolepsy, Pickwick syndrome, sleep apnea, cataplexia and hypnagogic hallucinations. There is a high prevalence of sleep paralysis of about 40%.

Mass hysteria

Hysteria is when someone has a very strong emotion that is unmanageable. Often, this means a very strong sense of fear.

All of these conditions above have relatively high prevalence and are characterized by hallucinations and delusions. Also, most of the ghost reports are also the results of pranks. Besides, people have largely sold the idea of existence of ghost.

source form: medchrome

If we adhere to theory — ghosts are deceased humans, while demons and angels are not of earthly origin. Both are known to have stronger powers than your average ghost. You’ll find a demon more apt to move objects and possess the human body, just as you’ll find an angel more awe inspiring and willing to help the suffering human condition than a ghost.

Why would a demon be stronger than a ghost, or deceased human? Depending on our beliefs, we can understand why angels, blessed with powers from higher dimensions are maybe stronger than deceased humans, but why a demon? In fact, why either entity since we too are of the same cosmic fabric? If I had an answer it would be “experience” or that they have been in that realm for so much longer. When we cross over, that is relatively new territory for many souls. For demons and angels, this is their long endured habitat and home. The demon is cunning and the angel enlightened. Really, you can think of it as a good/bad adult (demon/angel) dealing with an inexperienced child (ghost). They hold the experience we lack and are full of tricks (demons), or miracles (angels) of which either inspire or frighten us. Ị also think miracles and tricks are inherent in us too, but they are more readily accessible and producible by these beings because this is what they have been doing for many life-times. I think our abilities and faults are a microcosm of theirs.

With this said, it doesn’t mean that ghosts cannot be the very thing angels and demons are. An entity, once human, can descend or ascend into either characteristic. A child, once loved on earth, can come back and lift the spirits (literally) of those most dear to it and be called an angel. A person who has crossed over from irreparably painful circumstances can spiral into negativity and do demonic things.

We can surmise that to be demonic or angelic, versus ghostly, is an advanced stage of positive or negative, while a ghost is more inexperienced and neutral. In time, we too will be angelic or demonic, depending on the path our soul takes

source from: yourghoststories

We used to live in a double wide trailer, and I remember I would get up in the middle of the night screaming. I would walk down the hall to my mom and dad’s room and just lay in front of the door, screaming and crying for them to help me. I remember feeling like I was being watched or followed. It got so bad that I used to hate sleeping in my room, because my closet always seemed to have light in it, when in fact there was no light in my closet. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night, finding your son sleeping in front of your bed room door. It got to the point where my mom and dad would let me sleep with them, this went on, sad to say, up until I was about 6 1/2 years old. They finally got me a water bed, which is what they had. They felt that if they got me a water bed that I would sleep in my own room. It worked! But that was just the start of it, that was the start of something that would last for the next 20 years.

Things really didn’t happen after that, because half the reason that my parents bought me a bed was because my mom at the time was pregnant with my little brother. She said that it was time that I started to act like a big boy, and just sleep in my own bed.

Finally in 1994 my little brother was born and I think he kept the bad things, or ghosts away because he would cry all night, real late at night. I remember I used to lay in my bed, and just say to myself, “please cry, please just until I fall asleep.”

Then in 1997 we moved out of the trailer, and into a big house just a few blocks away. Up to this point nothing had been happening. I liked the idea of getting out of that trailer, because a few years later my father told me things that happened to him there too, but that is for another time. We had moved into this new house, it was owned by a lady who’s husband just died. He didn’t die in the house, but the fact that he had just died scared me.

Things were pretty good for a few years, then in 2000 my grandmother died of lung cancer. I would have to say that this is where things really took off. After she died I started to have horrible dreams that she was chasing me. It was grandmother, but at the same time it wasn’t my grandmother. Something had been different. The whole family would smell her brand of cigarettes in the house in certain places. I saw her one night standing in the doorway to my house, and she looked so evil. I told my uncle about all of this, the smell, the dreams and seeing her as well. He told me to go to her grave and tell her about these things and tell her that I wanted them to stop. I thought that this was insane, and he told me that if I did it, it would work. The next day he took me to her grave, I sat down and told her about everything. Ever since then, the dreams, visions, and smells stopped.

When I was in 8th grade I dated this girl. I fell in love with her, and trust me young love sucks so much. Because it turns out horrible, and trust me, what happened to me, no one wants to go through. When she broke up with me, I was devastated. I locked my self in my room all the time, I wrote horrible stories about people that had been shunned away. I can tell you right now, I lived in darkness for 3 months. I was not myself, and my family noticed this as well. I would come home from school, and go straight to my room. I hung a black curtain in my window to keep out sunlight. I am telling you now, if you ever slip into depression this deep seek help immediately. I would come home, go to my room, do my homework in my room, come out and eat dinner, and go straight back to my room. This went on for three months. I would only come out to go the bath room and to take a shower.

By the second month, I had started to hear voices. They weren’t really anything audible, but every once in a while I would hear someone say my name. It was more or less gibberish that I couldn’t understand. It got so bad in that second month that I was walking to pick up my brother at the bus stop, and I literally screamed out loud for them to stop. After I did that, they stopped for about a week, and then picked up again ten times stronger then before. I was really nasty, and mean to everyone. I listened to nothing but sad music, and watched nothing but sad movies.

Finally my mom and dad tricked me one night, they told me we were going out to dinner. When we were in the car and driving, she turned around and said that they were getting me help. I can tell you this right now, that I knew I wasn’t myself because of what I said to my mom and dad. I love them very much and I would never say to them that I hated them. But when she told me that, my response was, “I hate you both!” I knew it wasn’t me talking, and that I had something terribly after me.

After a month of help, I was back to myself. I removed the black curtain from my window, and everything changed.

The next 3 years of high school, I had seen more paranormal things that I had ever seen up to that point. One summer, my family from Florida was up to visit us. We were all sitting in the down stairs family room watching TV, and I swear to this day that a ghost of a women walked right into the room, in front of the TV, and then down the hall only to disappear. No one in the room saw it, I had been the only one. That same night, I was taking my dog outside, and I saw an outline of an angel in the sky.

The next summer we were having a bon fire outside, and I came back into the house to get something. No one was in the house, and everyone was in the back yard where the fire was. All the windows were open in the house, and I was standing in the kitchen, and I looked and saw someone standing outside the window. Then I heard them say, “Hey, Josh, come here I want to show you something!” It was such a creepy voice, and plus I knew it wasn’t anyone I knew because the person didn’t look like anyone and it sure as hell didn’t sound like anyone I knew.

My last and most frightening thing to happen to me when I was in high school was on a night that I will never forget. It was the first, and not the last time I saw this. It was my first encounter with a demon, or elemental as a lot of my friends seem to think it was.

I was laying in bed one night, and my room is with out a doubt the hottest room in the house, it was in the winter time so I had the heat on pretty high. I was laying in bed, just about to fall asleep when the temperature in my room went from 70 degrees, to a dropping temp of 30 degrees. I could see my breath in the room, and I couldn’t move.

All of a sudden I heard something outside my room, so I closed my eyes. This was a bad idea because I couldn’t open them after I had did this. I tried to scream for my parents but nothing was coming out of my mouth but my breath. I tried so hard to open my eyes, and just when I finally did, I heard something run through the kitchen, through my wall, and into my room. It slid on my bed facing me, finally as it did this I was able to open my eyes. What I saw was simply freakin terrifying. It was a demon or elemental. It was only about 3 foot tall and it was all gray, with red eyes, and glass shard teeth, with pointy ears. It looked at me, smiled, and then said, “Hey Josh, what’s going on?” I freaked out and I started praying my hardest, and when I said, “The Lord Jesus Christ…” it freaked out, screamed and then vanished. My room went back to 70 degrees real fast, and I had been able to move again. That was my tenth grade year in high school.

That same year I had worked at a local restaurant. I hated the basement, it always felt like something was down there watching me. We had a big walk in freezer and every once and a while it would slam shut on me. All you had to do was push it open, but it still scared the crap out of me.

One night I was working, just about to get off work and they sent me down to the basement to do some things. This was the worst it had ever been. I felt like I was being followed everywhere I was in the basement. I finished what I had to do quick and then punched out and got the hell out of there. By the time I got home I was telling my parents about this, and I noticed that my back was burning real bad. It started from the middle of my back to my left shoulder. I went to the bathroom to take a shower, and I took off my shirt. I looked at my back and I noticed that I had 4 big scratches from the middle of my back to my shoulder. It looked like someone had dug their nails in my skin and scraped my back. I ran to show my parents, they thought this was weird. They asked me if I had bumped up against something at work, and I told them I didn’t because I hadn’t.

Nothing after that happened to me… until now. In 2005 my grandfather died of a blood disorder. I loved him very much, he was the rock of our family. I took his death very hard. Three weeks before he died he gave me one of his guitars, he loved to play guitar and seeing as how I was the only grandchild out of many that showed interest in playing guitar, he gave me the one he played all the time. Three weeks later he died….I knew that very day that he was going to go sometime soon.

The day he died, I had to work at crappy McDonalds… and I was in the back room washing things in the dishwasher. I remember feeling his presence next to me, but as quick as it came it left.

A few months later I was downstairs on our family computer. Our computer was up against the stairs so you could look up and see the very top of the steps. One night I heard someone walking through the house upstairs. I thought that it was someone just getting up to get something to drink and then going back to bed. But I know my mom, dad, and brothers footsteps… and trust me it wasn’t either of them. As I listened it sounded a lot like my grandfather, but I knew that he was gone. Then I looked up at the top of the steps and saw him standing there, just his feet and his pants. But I knew it was his because he was the only person that wore leather penny loafers and dress pants. This went on for many weeks, it got so bad that it would last for 15 mins, and I got scared. So I would shut the door at night, well one night I forgot to do this, and it happened again. I just told him to rest, and that everyone was fine. I heard and saw him back away, and I heard him walk through the kitchen, and then his footsteps lightly vanished.

In 2006, my friend and I wanted to start our own little paranormal investigations, and so far they have proven to work. But I was doing research on equipment one night, and I was the only one down stairs, everyone was upstairs. I heard a voice say my name in my ear, and it felt like someone was right beside me. I screamed and my mom thought something happened, I told her what it was and she just let it go like always.

Now brings me to this year, I go to Youngstown State University. I go home on the weekends cause I don’t live that far from home. So far up here I have had two experiences in the guys bath room up here. The first one I had a cold chill, and I got the hell out of there quick. The second happened just the other day, I heard someone from the cleaning staff walk into the bath room. I was in one of the stalls with the door shut, and I knew it was one of them because I heard the keys, and the boots. When I opened the stall door the footsteps stopped mid step, and there was no one in the bath room. I freaked out and got the hell out of there again.

My dog just got put to sleep 2 weeks ago, and he was my pal. I miss him so much, but I had not been there the week they did it. He had bone cancer and he couldn’t walk anymore, so they had to put him down on such quick notice. I couldn’t make it home in time, I was busy as hell here at school.

I went home last weekend, and the house is different. It is very quiet, not that he made much noise but you can tell that he isn’t there anymore. I was doing my laundry real late, it was around 2:30 am and everyone was sleeping. We have hard wood floors in our basement, it is a finished basement. But when I would be home from school, late at night my dog and I would chill downstairs and watch TV. He was also a big part of all the paranormal things that went on in my life, cause anytime something was about to happen, he would look at something that I couldn’t see, he would growl and bark at things that weren’t there. His hair would stand on end… so anytime something was about to happen I knew because of his reaction. Well I was doing my laundry, and I heard his nails all of a sudden clicking on the floor. I just closed my eyes and was like, “This is not happening.” As soon as I said that, I felt him walk up and rub himself against my leg. I started to cry and told him that I was sorry that I couldn’t see him one last time. I told him that I loved him and I missed him so much. After that his feeling went away.

So now that leaves me to my future. What will continue to happen? I know that the paranormal activities that happen to me will still continue. Sometimes it goes, sometimes it’s around for a while. For some reason spirits feel drawn to me, good and bad ones. I help the good ones as best I can and shun away the bad ones. Things will continue to happen, I just have to be ready.

I can tell you now, if you ever encounter anything, the first experience will be terrifying. It will be something that you will remember for the rest of your life. I don’t wish this kind of “Curse” or what ever you wanna call it on anyone. It can be very, very frightening at times.

I have gone through a lot of dark times in my life, and without the help of family and friends I would be lost. What my family did for me when I went through that whole depression state in my 8th grade year was the best thing that could have ever done. At the time as I was angry, and said things to them that I would never say because they aren’t true. But you have to remember something… I was not myself for three months.

If you ever come across a spirit, help it find its course. Tell it that it isn’t welcomed, even good or bad. If you ever shun away a spirit good or bad, and you feel bad for doing so… never and I MEAN NEVER EVER tell it to come back. Because it will come back and bring more with it, and trust me it won’t be nice even if it was before.

With that said, I hope you enjoyed my stories. As you can tell I have a lot, and I have been meaning to write these all down, so this gave me a chance to do so. I still have stories that I would like to write, they are more about what has happened to my family with paranormal activity. But that is for another time. I hope you gain some knowledge from my stories, and remember spirits are lost souls just looking for their home.

Source:trueghosttales.com