Bumps in the Night

Hello to all of you at EVC!I made a very brief appearance here a couple of years ago, but sunk very quickly back into lurker mode. But I have continued to follow and learn from the debates enthusiastically. Thank you all again for a great site.Science is not a strong point for me in the same way that some of you have been active scientists for many years, so in many ways I feel unqualified to reply in many of the threads. But there is an area that I have not seen discussed too much here (With good reason), and I would love to throw it out there and see what sort of responses I get from you. I will try and be brief and to the point here to begin with, and will attempt to expand on the details later, if any of you show interest in hashing through it with me.Although I come from a conservative Christian background, through much reading of my own I have left that behind me. I appreciate that the scientific method is superior to what I have come to see as random babblings that constitute the majority of religious methodologies. I am not particularly religious, and most certainly not superstitious. But there was a period of time in my life, that I have not been able to explain in any logical way.My wife is from Spain; we married there 8 years ago, and lived in the same house for about four years. I lived there alone for a year, while we were getting our things in order for the wedding, she moved in after the honeymoon. There is no other way to state it than by saying the house was classically "Haunted." I am not by nature a fearful or irrational person, but I spent many a night alone -truly alone- there in the dark listening to footsteps and voices swirl around me. Not a week went by, in fact; sometimes for days on end, I would be awakened by sharp repeated rappings on the headboard next to my ears. Bed moving; lights turning on and off, the whole haunted thing.This continued even after my wife moved in, and it was not just limited to us, sometimes entire groups of friends at a time would be left looking around wondering what was going on.I want to keep this opening brief, so I won't give any more details now, but I will be glad to elaborate or explain any questions I can as they are offered. I know this may be difficult in the sense that you don’t know me, and are not able to evaluate my psychology, but assuming I am not a basketcase, could there be some explanation for these experiences that do not involve the paranormal or the supernatural?To be clear, I DO NOT believe in ghosts or demons, or the disembodied spirits of dead things roaming the Earth; I DO believe there must be a rational explanation for these experiences, and would love to hear from any of you, religious or otherwise, to hear what your thoughts are on such things.Mods..please feel free to pick the most appropriate forum, I have no idea where this one should go. Edited by Aussie, : Forum selection request. Edited by Aussie, : No reason given.

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"...heck is a small price to pay for the truth"

Hi Theodoric,Thanks for the response. Of course I agree that our brain is a pretty unobjective participant in our experiences. And I understand that it cannot always be relied on to give a balanced perspective in events we participate in/are subjected to, so no argument there.In no way am I implying that these things could not have been hallucinatory in some sense; in fact, I will ASSUME that before blaming interdimensional apparitions. There are some things that seem a little harder for me to explain. We were a group of about five families living in a beautiful little orange orchard. Our home shared a building with two other apartments below ours, including my in-laws. There were several other homes spread around the orchard, most of them with children. All of us had some experiences with these unsettling events, even the children, who were constanly asking their parents what they were hearing. Of course the parents were making excuses trying to explain away the noises and voices the kids were hearing.The houses were block/concrete, so there was no creaking or settling of floorboards to make that kind of noise. Two of the men there were professional builders and the three of us spent hours scouring the attics, and around the buildings trying to determine the sources of the various noises to no avail.This is not too easy for me to type, knowing well how ridiculous it must sound to someone who has never gone through that before. Very, VERY easy to write off as a trick of the mind, but it is not so easy to tell this to yourself when you are in your room and the door starts opening and closing, and the lights turning off and on without apparent help.Try not to laugh at me guys. I am being sincere, this happened to me. No one has accused me of lunacy, and I rarely think back on these times, except occasionally to think, "What the hell was that?"We moved from that house about five years ago, and never once has either one of us thought our new place had personality issues. The first weeks in our new place was a luxury, and we kept talking about how nice it was to sleep through an entire night.

Hi Theodoric,Let me reiterate in case you misunderstood me: I do not believe in ghosts. But I really like the explanation of low-frequency sound, and I appreciate your response and links. This is right along the lines of what I am looking for in terms of rational explanation.I have made it a point several times to explain to my wife that almost EVERY time humanity has been faced with something "inexplicable", it has directly implicated the supernatural; be it lightning, thunder, viloent storms, earthquakes, or bumps in the night. Until of course, they were ACTUALLY explained.I don't think it explains everything, but it's a great start.

Hi Stile,Thanks for your well thought-out post. Okay, we're on the same page here. I agree that it was some sort of hallucinatory experience, except it was a long sequence of experiences over four years. But the result is the same. I would say that these were no more real than the "experiences" of alien abductees who truly believe that advanced extraterrestrial beings blazed across countless light years in order sample the rectal temperature of a large cross-section of humanity. Despite their sincerity, I doubt that it truly happened. Good question, and I actually have an answer for it. The conclusion I immediately jumped to was not ghosts. This was a time in which I had not entirely let go of my christian belief system. So my initial reaction was not to blame ghosts, but rather demons/evil spirits. *blushing furiously* Looking back, I see this as no less superstition that a belief in the paranormal, but there you have it. I have since generalized it out to the collective "Ghosts".In terms of sensory interaction, I never SAW anything.We constantly heard a variety of sounds, that we ended up giving names to. One was the "Bowling ball". We would be in the bedroom, and it sounded like someone was rolling a bowling ball around the living room. When we would investigate, of course there would be nothing. Many times, while visiting her parents in the apartment below, we would listen to it roll around above. Her father had helped build that building and couldn't decide what it might be. It would sometimes roll the length of the apartment, bumping against the floor tiles, not stopping where there should be walls.Another favorite was the "Moving Furniture". We would be in one room, and it would sound as it the furniture were being re-arranged in the rest of the house. These could happen anytime of the day, but of course tended to be a little more unsettling at night with the lights off. Other things we heard were voices and footsteps imitating other friends/relatives who were not there. Many times a child (there were a few, 7-14 years old) would ask their parents, "Hey, why was Mrs. so-and-so walking in her high heels on our roof last night?" Yes, kinda funny, but I hope I make the point. Many thought it was a spirit imitating the real world.As for temperature, it didn't matter, except the frequency and intensity tended to increase toward the end of the year, when it was very cold. Hmmm... Yes, my point is not to convince you they were real, but rather to find better explanations that what I have come up with alone. And so far so good. Thanks.

Hi, Mr. Jack. Thanks for the great video. I'll watch more his over the weekend. But hmmm...I AM being clear here, right? Of course I don't expect anyone here to think they actually WERE supernatural events. *blushing furiously* I don't believe they were; I can't bring myself to believe in the supernatural anymore. But I am thoroughly enjoying the feed back in that all I'm asking for are some good alternate explanations that don't rely on childhood fantasy.

Hi Dwise1,Good to chat with you. I have a question for you: Are you the same Dwise that has posted a fair amount of writings concerning Creationism on the internet? If so I would like to say a very sincere "Thank you". In the last ten or so years I have made a painful yet worthwhile exit from the dungeon that is fundamentalism. Four or more years ago, I came across your writings, and they, as well as a host of other sources, (such as EvC) helped make that transition much smoother than it might have been otherwise. So good work, and thank you.A little more back on topic, I really like the infrasound explanation. It explains quite a lot I think. I'll keep looking this up, and maybe try to piece together a rational explanation for my wife and family.Funny you should mention Irreversible...I saw the unedited version in the theater while I was living in Spain. The staff warned us 4 or 5 times before the movie started that it was offensively violent. Have you seen it? It is to date the Only movie I have ever walked out on half way through. A rape scene that was just too real for me. But a VERY effective movie, and I wasn't aware of the use of infrasound until you told me. I'm liking this explanation more and more.

Hi Petrophysics1, My point is that I don't think I IMAGINED anything at all. I believe there was an underlying cause of what I and a number of otherwise normal, sane people experienced. At the time I truly believed its origins to be supernatural, but as time and distance passed, and learning occurred I began to feel there must be alternate explanations.As has been discussed earlier in this thread, to say "I don't believe you, you never heard/felt such things" and dismiss it out of hand, is both thoughtless and shallow. This would most likely only be appropriate after a thorough psychological profile of the subject/s. Perhaps if someone has been identified as as being a pathological liar, hungry for attention, well..they might not be taken too seriously with good reason. We don't have that luxury with each other though. This is why I was hoping to assume for the sake of this thread that insanity/dishonesty etc, might be overlooked. So I want to assume that no one is telling me that I am a fool or liar...just because. I don't think that has happened yet. *so far*Also, without knowing you, I am compelled to give you the benefit of the doubt. So of course I believe the experience you related. Now for you (AND) for me, we both attributed an otherwise strange occurrence to the realm of the supernatural, which is almost by definition, unseeable and unmeasurable. But what if in our cases, it was not that the experience was INTRINSICALLY unknowable or unmeasurable, but rather it was just US that didn't see what the natural cause was, in that moment.I have seen a pattern that many of these events occur at or during moments of great duress, many involving emotional/psychological trauma, or moments of heightened fear. Our brain plays off these emotions with great delight.In my case I am only assuming there was a simpler cause than having to deal with ressurected spirits of the dead interfering with the laws of physics. To me there HAS to be something simpler than this. In your case, you were both torn with the sadness of a deceased loved one, approaching the place where his body was lying. Can you really say that your brain could not possibly have been perfectly primed to interpret whatever happened in the light of the paranormal? I'm just thinking about it, not questioning your sanity OR mine. I don't think it's unlikely that I know any of the members personally, so the term "Friends" (with or without quotation marks) applies. However, they have been a consistent sounding board for as long as I've been lurking. Of course, it is very hard for anyone to KNOW a spirit exists, isn't it?Thanks for your input, I appreciate it. I'd love to hear more from you!