Dictionary Definitions:

• The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats.
• The center of spiritual life; the soul.
• A demon or spirit.
• A returning or haunting memory or image.

Some classify ghosts into three categories:

• APPARITIONS - Conscious survival after death. Can be detected by any one sense or all of our senses. A true apparition is interactive and is aware of itself and it's surroundings.
• HAUNTINGS - Psychic imprint or repetitive "recording" of an emotionally charged past event.
• POLTERGEISTS - The "noisy" ghost. Associated with moving objects, shadowy figures , scratches/red marks on skin, fire (anger) and water (grief). Most cases are now thought to be a result of adolescent psychokinesis (movement of objects by the power of the mind) or an outward expression of epileptic seizures.

Interesting Ghost Quotes

"Ghosts are [people] who are stuck in their personal turmoil at the time of physical death. They don’t understand what is going on and they do not know that they are dead. They are stuck. They don’t know what they are or where they are or how they got there. All they know is that something is wrong. They are stuck between two worlds and that is no place to be." --- Dr. Hans Holzer, Ph.D. Parapsychologist, Author

"I think that one should accept ghosts very much as one accepts fire - a more common but equally mysterious phenomenon. What is fire? It is not really an element, not a principle of motion, not a living creature. It is an event rather than a thing or creature. Ghosts, similarly, seem to be events rather than things or creatures." --- Robert Graves, English Poet

"[Ghosts are] a manifestation of persistent personal energy...some residue of the force or energy which a person generated while yet alive" --- F.W.H. Myers, Parapsychologist


I 'aint afraid 'o no ghost!

Although it's difficult to convince most people not to fear ghosts, paranormal investigators with many years of experience, will tell you that there really is nothing to fear from the dead. A person's initial reaction to a ghostly experience is quite often fear and unease...most likely just due to a fear of the unknown or the fact that we've been programmed by viewing Hollywood's versions of ghosts too often. After the movie Jaws came out, most people didn't want to venture into the water any further than their knees!
Although there are the rare cases of a negative entity, the vast majority of ghosts are generally benign. If you think about that, it makes complete sense. Most living persons are generally good people. Some homeowners even feel comforted by the presence of their ghost, quite happy to share their home with them.
There is even a theory that suggests that some ghosts are not spirits of the dead, but are projections of living persons that are having an out-of-body experience!


Timely Ghosts

"One-night-only" ghosts: Some ghosts of the very recently dead appear to relatives and friends just to say goodbye. Other ghosts show up just once to warn of impending danger. Once the ghost's message has been delivered, they are never seen again. This type of haunting is quite common and many ghosts of this type are said to appear as a normal person...as solid as we are....often appearing at the foot of the bed of a loved one in the middle of the night. These ghosts often communicate non-visually as well. Some skeptics argue that these may result simply from vivid dreaming or sleep paralysis. However, there are many cases in which two or more people hear or see the same thing...so that explanation doesn't seem to fit for every case. These types of ghosts are also called "crisis apparitions".
Some ghosts appear repeatedly at a specific hour of the day or night. Others show up annually on the anniversary of their death.
Ghosts are often observed to haunt a location for a limited time frame - then slowly fading away, never to be seen or heard again. Perhaps they died suddenly and unexpectedly. Now they have finally come to grips with their fate, realizing that they have died, accepted it, and moved on.


Can'tcha Smell that Smell? - Ghosts and the 5 Senses

Ghosts can manifest themselves in many ways. Here are a few basic ways that they can communicate:

• AUDITORILY - Possibly the most commonly experienced. Includes audible knocks, tapping, footsteps, voices, etc. Also includes sounds and voices that are only heard when a tape recording is played back as in electronic voice phenomena or EVP. There are even numerous reports of telephone calls from beyond the grave, most occurring within 24 hours after the person's death.
• TACTILEY - Occasionally people have the sensation of being lightly touched. I corresponded with one paranormal investigator whose actually been forcefully pushed. I would also include cold spots and other physical sensations in this category.
• VISUALLY - A somewhat rare occurrence. Most apparitions appear to us as solid human beings or sometimes slightly transparent. They often appear as how they perceived themselves in life or as they prefer to be seen, usually as a young person...and yes...with clothes on. Often, ghosts are not seen with the naked eye but are later seen on film or a digital image, as is the case of the controversial small balls of light called 'spirit orbs' and 'ectoplasmic mists'.
• OLFACTION - Odors that are associated with specific entities have been reported, such as a particular brand of perfume, etc. The smell of roses is common, especially after an exorcism is successfully performed.
• GUSTATION - I haven't personally heard of any taste sensations when it comes to hauntings, but I've read at least one instance where a man could tell just by feel in complete darkness if he was touching brass (vs. any other metal) because it caused a peculiar taste in his mouth. Others claim to be able to taste colors. It's a real condition called synesthesia.

In general, the senses of modern humans are pretty weak, especially when you compare our abilities with the abilities of most animals. Many animals have senses that we do not possess. Sharks, for example, have the ability to sense electric fields and small vibrations. Some people seem to be better "antennas" when it comes to receiving the signals given off by ghosts. Perhaps their senses are just a lot better than average or perhaps they have an "extra sense".


The Sixth Sense - ESP and the Clairvoyant Caveman:

Do we have more than five senses? Many believe that we all have some amount of extra sensory perception or ESP ability, but only a few are able to really tap into it. I think that perhaps in our very distant past, we all had strong ESP. As early humans, ESP may have been as keen as our other senses...being used for non-verbal communication, finding direction, sensing danger, etc.
Over thousands of years of evolution, most of us have lost this ESP ability, no longer truly needing it for survival. In our bodies, we have organs that may have been useful thousands of years ago, but now seem to have no real function. They're called vestigial organs and include the appendix. There are also vestigial reflexes (goosebumps), so why wouldn't there be vestigial sections of the brain/mental ability as well?
"Our prehistoric ancestors sensed the atmosphere of good or hostile places, could orientate themselves without maps and had an empathy with each other's thoughts. Even today some cultures, such as the aborigines, retain these [ESP] skills." --- Craig Hamilton Parker, Psychic/Author
Anthropologist Helen Gould states, "The [Australian aborigines] are justly renowned for their extra-sensory powers." "ESP is simply paying attention to non-verbal information that we have learned to ignore."


A Scratch on the Record - Psychometry and "Recorded" or "Residual" Hauntings:

Dictionary definition of psychometry: "The ability or art of divining information about people or events associated with an object solely by touching or being near to it."
The history of Earth's geomagnetic variations are recorded in rock and stone. Humans are electromagnetic, so perhaps it's possible for highly charged emotional human events to be recorded onto specific locations or even onto specific objects. These recorded events could be replayed from time to time.
English physicist, Sir Oliver Lodge states: "On a psychometric hypothesis the original tragedy has been literally 'photographed' on it's material surroundings by reason of the intensity of emotion felt by those who enacted it; and thenceforth in certain persons an hallucinatory effect is experienced corresponding to such an impression."

Is there any real proof of this? Possibly, yes. Psychologist Robert Morris took a dog, a cat, a rat and a rattlesnake into a room where a murder had been committed. Even though the rat had no reaction, the dog snarled and refused to go in. The cat leapt onto it's owners shoulder. The rattlesnake immediately postured into attack position.
In this type of haunting, any entities are non-interative....supposedly unaware of their "self" or their surroundings. It is merely a repeating "playback" or "psychic imprint" of a highly charged event.There is also a theory that certain people have a sort of reverse-precognition, where instead of being able to foresee the future, they can "see" past events through ESP or clairvoyance.


Things That Go Bump in the Night - Poltergeists and Psychokinesis - Mind over Matter?

A poltergiest is defined as a "noisy" or "rumbling" ghost that manifests itself by noises, rappings, and the creation of disorder. The term "poltergeist" comes from the German poltern, "to knock," and geist, "spirit." This phenomenon has also been known to create small fires, pools of water and quite dramatic physical effects such as bruising and inflamed marks on the skin.
"The energy in poltergeist cases tends to be provided by adolescents. 'Personality fragments' express themselves best in poltergeist activity whilst experienceing puberty or adolescence. This is the time when life makes little sense, when resentment and confusion can control the mind. (an emotionally charged time of life) Such an adolescent does seem to exist in most poltergeist infestations." -- Anthony North, Author
Parapsychologists define poltergeist activity as a type of uncontrolled psychokinesis. Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) is a phrase suggested by parapsychologist William G. Roll to denote poltergeist phenomena. Poltergeist activity tends to occur around a single person called an agent or a focus (typically a prepubescent female). Almost seventy years of research by the Rhine Research Center (Raleigh-Durham, NC USA) has led to the hypothesis among parapsychologists that the "poltergeist effect" is a form of psychokinesis generated by a living human mind (that of the agent). According to researchers at the Rhine Center, the "poltergeist effect is the outward manifestation of psychological trauma." -- Wikipedia
In a third of the cases, agents who have undergone neurological examination exhibit some type of epilectic activity in the brain, suggesting that poltergeist activity is an outward, physical effect of an epilectic seizure.
Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson suggests, however, that there are many poltergeist cases that are truly caused by ghosts: "The phenomena in living agent cases was without purpose and often violent, while cases involving spirits of the dead featured intelligent communication, purposeful movement of objects, and little violence."


Non-Paranormal Explanations of Ghosts and Hauntings:

Emotions Running High:

"It is a natural expression of personal loss, wherein the memories of a loved one are expressed in such a vivid way, as to make the person experiencing [ghosts] believe that they are, in fact real. The emotion attached to the loss of a loved one is very real, even if the interpretation of such an experience is false." -- Troy Miller, Computer Tech

Power of Suggestion - Mass Hysteria:

A classic example of this would be the witch trials in Salem Massachusetts that occured in the late 1600's.
"People are not aware that they act almost entirely under suggestion. From our birth we are surrounded by those who suggest certain ideas to us as being true, and we follow these suggested ideas. There is very little original thought anywhere, and particularly is this true in those lines to which the public pays the most attention -- that is, politics, religion, science. Whatever system of thought is presented to us, that we adopt. We follow the suggestion given, with no attempt to reach to the basis of that which is suggested. The foundation upon which the suggestion rests is taken for granted, even in the most important things in life." -- THEOSOPHY, Vol. 10, No. 9, July, 1922

"When a thought or seed is planted into the human mind, the psyche responsively triggers a lingering product of that thought. For example, urban legends have been circulated throughout history; in doing so, a mindset is incorporated into the psyche, creating a deceitful illusion that cannot distinguish fact from fiction." -- C. Bailey-Lloyd, Author

"Mass hysteria is characterized by the rapid spread of conversion disorder, a condition involving the appearance of bodily complaints for which there is no organic basis. In such episodes, psychological distress is converted or channeled into physical symptoms. There are two common types: anxiety hysteria and motor hysteria. The former is of shorter duration, usually lasting a day, and is triggered by the sudden perception of a threatening agent, most commonly a strange odor. Symptoms typically include headache, dizziness, nausea, breathlessness, and general weakness. Motor hysteria is prevalent in intolerable social situations such as strict school and religious settings where discipline is excessive. Symptoms include trance-like states, melodramatic acts of rebellion known as histrionics, and what physicians term 'psychomotor agitation' (whereby pent-up anxiety built up over a long period results in disruptions to the nerves or neurons that send messages to the muscles, triggering temporary bouts of twitching, spasms, and shaking)." -- Sociologists Robert E. Bartholomew and Erich Goode

Waking Dream Hallucinations:

"The experience is a common type of hallucination, known as a 'waking dream', which takes place between being fully asleep and fully awake. Such experiences typically include bizzare imagery and or auditory hallucinations. 'Sleep paralysis' may also occur, whereby there is an inability to move because the body is still in the sleep mode". -- Joe Nickell, Commitee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal

An example experience found on the internet submitted by a woman from Massachusetts:

"I have been having re-occurring dreams over the past two years. The odd thing is, I could swear that I am awake when I have them! I have this dream 5 or 6 times in one night, about four times each month, consistently for the past two years. I'll go to bed and between 1/2 and 1 hour afterward, I'll open my eyes because I feel something strange. It's like I'm on a really fast carnival ride, going around in circles. Only, when I open my eyes, the feeling doesn't stop. Then I realize that I cannot move. My fiance is asleep next to me, I can hear him snoring, or just breathing. I try to move to wake him up, but I can't. I try to scream and realize I cannot breath! Then, things become really scary. I look over past my fiance, to the other side of the room. There is a dark figure there. It's a man, but all I see is his black outline. He is menacing, and means to do me harm. Sometimes, he talks. He has told me 'You are mine' 'There is no escape' 'I'm coming for you' and such. The whole time I am trying to scream, and move, and breath. I look around the room and I see the clock on the bureau, my fiance next to me. Finally, I am able to 'wake up' although I swear I'd never been asleep. Last night, the man was sitting on my chest and was tapping very hard on my head telling me to "shut up, shut up, shut up".


Persinger's Helmet and Electromagnetism:

Dr Michael Persinger, a neuropsychologist at the Laurentian University in Ontario,wanted to see if he could replicate [altered states] in his laboratory by stimulating subjects’ temporal lobes with magnetic impulses. He designed and built Room C002B, otherwise known as the 'Heaven and Hell' chamber, back in the mid-eighties , in which over 1,000 subjects have now been induced to experience ghostly presences. Many volunteers subjected to the experiment reported the strong feeling of a presence being in the room...of not being alone.
"What others have experienced in Room C002B depended on their cultural or religious beliefs. Some saw Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Muhammad, or the Sky Spirit. Others, with more than a passing faith in UFOs, tell of something that sounds more like a standard alien-abduction story." -- Jerome Burnes (timesonline.co.uk)

"The correlations between ghostly activity and magnetic variance were relatively large and tie in with laboratory findings that suggest varying magnetic fields have a measurable effect on human physiology." -- Dr Paul Stevens - Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University.

Electromagnetic fields also affect plants. Palm trees growing near power lines, for example, often have yellowed leaves - making them appear as if there is a pest problem or nutritional deficiency. The condition is actually called "power line decline".


Infrasound:

Infrasound is the opposite of ultrasound. They are sound waves at a frequency too low to be detected by the human ear. It can result naturally from storms, winds, ocean waves, avalanches, earthquakes, volcanoes, auroras, etc. Whales and elephants use it for communication, since it travels very long distances without degrading. People that have been experimentally exposed to infrasound have been known to elicit such emotions as fear, nervousness, anxiety, extreme sorrow, revulsion and chills.
"Some scientists have suggested that [infrasound] may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost -- our findings support these ideas," -- Professor Richard Wiseman, Psychologist, University of Hertfordshire

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The above explanations could account for some experiences. The problem with non-paranormal explanations is that they don't account for all cases, especially the many cases involving witnesses that provide historical details that they could not possibly have known, such as specific names, persons and events.

There was a case of a child, for example, that continually saw the ghost of a man around their home. Her parents even heard her having conversations with this invisible man, but initially wrote it off as an "imaginary friend", but the girl saw this man so much that the parents became concerned. The girl was able to describe the features of this man quite well. Some research was done and an old photo was discovered at a neighbor's house of a man that seemed to match her description. He had lived there, but had died long ago. The photo was shown to the girl. "That's him!", she said.