What made you finally believe in the paranormal/spirit realm?

Most people have a tipping point in life that makes them come to the conclusion that there is more out there than what our eyes can behold. Either you believe by just 'hearsay', or you have an experience that tips the pot. I will share mine, I hope to hear from others...

My first spiritual (most precious experience) was when I was about 5. My mom had taught me how to pray. I asked her, 'how do you do that?' She said, "It's like talking to God'. So she closed the door, I bowed my knees and prayed. Nothing happened, at least I thought.
Maybe a couple weeks later I saw Jesus 'appear' in my room. There was no fear, and I couldn't figure out how he got in my room, and I honestly didn't know He was the Son of God. I just saw how majestic He was and awesome. Then He disappeared. I later figured out who He was, by my grandparents probably hanging up Catholic pictures of Jesus and Mary.

From then until about 7 I thought there was only angels that watched over us, but really no such things as 'ghosts'.
Until my dad moved us to Mexico. My mom had passed away, I didn't know how to speak Spanish, and my dad would drive us back and forth across the Tijuana border everyday just to go to an English speaking school! As if that wasn't enough, there was something terribly bad with this house.

Because I convinced myself there were no ghosts, time after time, event after event, I would find logical explanations to explain everything. I believe that's partly how I kept from freaking out from all the chaos that would ensue.

The story behind the house:
My dad's sister owned the house. At the time the house was being built a security guard was put there to guard the materials. Supposedly the mexican mofia had robbed someone and were counting the money next to the building materials, when they saw the security guard had seen them, they cut his head off. Part of his body was thrown into the street. And the other part built into the house. My dad's sister rented it to us without telling us this.

Me and my sister shared a room, after cleaning the room and going out to play with my sister my dad would scream at us for not 'cleaning the room'. It looked like someone flipped the toy box upside down! There were times our shoes would go missing. While playing in a field across the street, we found our missing shoes. What the heck?

My dog, a sweet black lab that loved almost everyone. Would run up to our windows and growl and bark, his hair would stand up and we couldn't see anything. We would hear footsteps up and down our staircase in the middle of the night. We heard dishes rattling when no one was in the kitchen. We would see cats that would just 'disappear'. One time the heater cord was severed and it started shaking, almost caught fire. The tv would change to Spanish channels by itself. It was one of the ones you have to turn the knob.

Yes, I explained it all away. Then, it was Christmas, family had come for a week and left after a day, wouldn't tell us why. My dad brought a priest to bless the house and didn't tell us why, just go far away to play....

We moved right after

. When the spiritual world said hi on a level of synchronicity that could not be explained away.

For me the spiritual world can be quantified by logic and science if souls wanted to create a perfect objective truth of all things. Human religions can sometimes be used as a map to gain insight but the maps are very different in quality from my point of view. Some religions are in fact so flawed they point away from the golden rule missing the whole point.

i started believing when i had an especially interesting out of body experience. when you wake up looking down at yourself from your ceiling and assume you are dead and then you go flying about the earth you start to question things pretty heavily.

a reply to: shinethelight


When I saw an apparition standing by my bed 35 years ago.

a reply to: shinethelight

I was four. A particular "demon" would attack me relentlessly in dreams night after night. Even when I would wake up it would put movie screens on the walls of my room and make me watch, or if I closed my eyes (awake) it would scream into my ears so it was less scary watching. It would only go away if another person could get into contact with me. One night I woke my cousin up, and it stopped. One I ran into my parents room, and it stopped.

Later still 4 I left my body by accident.

I sort of put it away and tried to not pay attention.

Before I joined the Army synchonicity and OBE/Astral travel was getting so intense..

There is no way I can deny it, though one of my brothers who experienced a lot of the same as me just runs from it at all costs causing himself some cognitive dissonance..

originally posted by: Reverbs
a reply to: shinethelight

[...] though one of my brothers who experienced a lot of the same as me just runs from it at all costs causing himself some cognitive dissonance..

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The trick is to realize there's nothing to run from only to accept your own demons and overactive imagination.

Guess some people have more luck with that than others.

this is really hard to explain to make a long story short i have always been aware of it and been told i was half there and half here.

a reply to: shinethelight

What happened to me when I was little (Click the link entitled #1 on my signature if you want to read about it).

And the fact that I have always been able to see energy and feel things (like...the mood of the environment. sometimes it can color the rest of my day, it's really odd to describe. My family on my mother's side is very sensitive and this type of thing just comes with the territory from what I've heard). I've -skimmed- Tesla and Einstein's writings on aether and have seen what quantum physics says the particles look like--and I'm most in agreement with how Tesla describes radiant aether streams.

Good thread idea, mVIII

a reply to: rukia

oh dirty laundry hungry spirits will do anything and everything so as to make you feed them.

originally posted by: ringdingdong


Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The trick is to realize there's nothing to run from only to accept your own demons and overactive imagination.

Guess some people have more luck with that than others.

You imagine the world.. that's overactive.

See a black triangle "UFO" up close, I dare you.
do it in real life cause imagination is that powerful?

my own demons are a different world. The "Other" that comes in is not mine. I do not own it nor can I control it's free will to ef with my life. At least back then when I was young. You know imagination doesn't lock doors or blow out candles or light up an entire beach..

In any case these things feed on you so it's best to not notice them.
So we sort of agree.

a reply to: shinethelight

At the age of 25 I had a near death experience. Prior to that moment, death scared the living day lights out of me. After resuscitation that fear is gone, replaced with a feeling of peace about death and the knowledge that there is more to life after physical death.

A side effect of the NDE has been lots and lots of OBE's. Those experiences have opened my eyes and mind to a deeper spiritual belief.

originally posted by: shinethelight
Most people have a tipping point in life that makes them come to the conclusion that there is more out there than what our eyes can behold. Either you believe by just 'hearsay', or you have an experience that tips the pot. I will share mine, I hope to hear from others...

My first spiritual (most precious experience) was when I was about 5. My mom had taught me how to pray. I asked her, 'how do you do that?' She said, "It's like talking to God'. So she closed the door, I bowed my knees and prayed. Nothing happened, at least I thought.
Maybe a couple weeks later I saw Jesus 'appear' in my room. There was no fear, and I couldn't figure out how he got in my room, and I honestly didn't know He was the Son of God. I just saw how majestic He was and awesome. Then He disappeared. I later figured out who He was, by my grandparents probably hanging up Catholic pictures of Jesus and Mary.

From then until about 7 I thought there was only angels that watched over us, but really no such things as 'ghosts'.
Until my dad moved us to Mexico. My mom had passed away, I didn't know how to speak Spanish, and my dad would drive us back and forth across the Tijuana border everyday just to go to an English speaking school! As if that wasn't enough, there was something terribly bad with this house.

Because I convinced myself there were no ghosts, time after time, event after event, I would find logical explanations to explain everything. I believe that's partly how I kept from freaking out from all the chaos that would ensue.

The story behind the house:
My dad's sister owned the house. At the time the house was being built a security guard was put there to guard the materials. Supposedly the mexican mofia had robbed someone and were counting the money next to the building materials, when they saw the security guard had seen them, they cut his head off. Part of his body was thrown into the street. And the other part built into the house. My dad's sister rented it to us without telling us this.

Me and my sister shared a room, after cleaning the room and going out to play with my sister my dad would scream at us for not 'cleaning the room'. It looked like someone flipped the toy box upside down! There were times our shoes would go missing. While playing in a field across the street, we found our missing shoes. What the heck?

My dog, a sweet black lab that loved almost everyone. Would run up to our windows and growl and bark, his hair would stand up and we couldn't see anything. We would hear footsteps up and down our staircase in the middle of the night. We heard dishes rattling when no one was in the kitchen. We would see cats that would just 'disappear'. One time the heater cord was severed and it started shaking, almost caught fire. The tv would change to Spanish channels by itself. It was one of the ones you have to turn the knob.

Yes, I explained it all away. Then, it was Christmas, family had come for a week and left after a day, wouldn't tell us why. My dad brought a priest to bless the house and didn't tell us why, just go far away to play....

We moved right after

it will always be sufficient evidence for me .. not personal experiences .. I exclude my own experiences for that reason...

a reply to: shinethelight
I never believed in "ghosts" until I bought a building in northeast Pennsylvania. It was a bar with 4 apartments above it. I moved into one of the apartments above the bar. I was the only person living in the building as the other apartments were condemned.

The first night I stayed there, I clearly heard someone walking around in the apartment above mine, and my dogs were going nuts. I had changed the locks and had the only keys. I ended up calling the police...there was nobody upstairs.

Shortly after that, I was in my living room and saw a flash of light or something in my peripheral vision, behind me in the corner, quick turned, nothing there, but both of my dogs, who were very mild mannered, were staring at the spot, teeth bared, hackles raised and growling. Same thing happened the next day in a different corner, then in the backyard the next night, and then never again (three years I lived there) never saw the dogs act like that before or after.

Then, almost every day, the front porch door on the third floor (where I had heard the footsteps) would be open. I would go up the back steps (only entrance to apt) unlock and enter the apartment, close and lock the porch door, lock up and leave. Next day ... open. It was winter and I was loaded (heat bill) . One of the former tenets had left an entertainment stand behind. So, I wedged that stand at a 45 degree angle against the locked door. A few days later, I was down in the bar and the whole building shook. I thought that a car had hit the building. I grabbed my keys and a flashlight and went to investigate. I found that front porch door open again, and the entertainment stand across the room. ( no wind, and apt was locked)

In the apartment next door, there were crank Windows that opened vertically (slant out to 45 degrees) and they would always be open. Again, I was pissed about the heat bill, so, as soon as I would notice it, I would immediately run up the back stairs, unlock the door, go into the bedroom, and the Windows would be closed. After a few months of that, I finally just screwed them all shut.

Lastly, there was a shadow figure that resided in the bar. Almost every night at 3:30am. The shadow of a figure (6'3" tall wearing a fedora type hat) could be seen walking down the hallway from the bathrooms to the bar. At first I thought it was a shadow cast from a car going by...but shortly realized that there were no cars. One night a police officer friend of mine was hanging out after hours. It was about 3:30, and he jumped out of his seat all freaked out and said "there is somebody in here" I said "a tall guy with a hat" he said yes.

So that's pretty much it. There is no way a person could have been doing those things. A lot of the times with the doors and windows, it had just snowed, and the only entrance to the third floor (stairway) had fresh snow....no footprints. Finally, the bar burned down with me in it. Me and th dogs were ok thanks to some brave neighbors.

When i was 8 i was in my backyard with my brother. We were playing in our sandbox. I looked up and this gymnast ring that was on our jungle gym and it swung and wrapped around the support beam like someone threw it. We both saw it and ran.

Then when i was 18, my brother and i came home from a friends house. My parents were asleep upstairs and we both heard music coming from somewhere. I walked around the house and checked my parents room to see if they were up. They were sleeping and the music was still playing. I went in my room and the music stopped immediately.

In that same house we also had faucets turn on in the middle of the night for no reason.

Then when I was 18 or 19 i started practicing astral projection. That took things to a whole other level.

a reply to: Reverbs

I saw a black triangle about 60 feet away once when I was around 10 years old. Shot off horizontally so fast that we couldn't see it move....just sort of sensed that it went that direction.....

Saw things, witnessed events and personal experiences made me realize one thing : our material senses are greatly limited.
Having a keen interest in many things, I also understood that nothing is impossible, just improbable.

I was originally a skeptic about just about everything. Accepting the various things on this thread actually took time. But in every case it just came because reality had it. I mean, you can be an objective person, a critical thinker, skeptical as you want to be. But reality is reality. And you can doubt it, but when things recur, repeat, enough, you eventually have two choices: either you are completely deluded and in denial and continue that way, because by then that's what it amounts to; or you accept that this is what reality now holds for you. You can work on the 'why' later, but it is what it is. If humans were not able to learn from what reality holds, usually with vastly less effort than that, mind you, we'd have been eaten by all the predators long ago. ("But not ALL tigers are bad! And sometimes they're not even hungry! And...")

I have sometimes thought that it was my cosmic punishment for being such a cynic about everything, that eventually I actually GOT everything up close and personal, maybe as a lesson in not mocking others (when young) or never-say-never.

Bright side: makes me realize what an arrogant, patronizing, scoffer jerk I was before, and now that I have fabulous true-stories such people would never believe, does a wonderful job at improving my peer group. :-)

personal stuff: spontaneous psi eventually proves itself, not always in happy ways. paranormal like pk, ghosts: some weird stuff I wish I still didn't believe in.

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First you're a scoffer, now you're enlightened? Can't make up your mind about what kind of troll you want to be? You've been incredibly rude to that guy twice for no good reason that I can see. If you think anybody posting on these topics is a moron why don't you find other topics to post on? This is a very big forum. Lots of room in other threads.

I was an ardent denier of paranormal phenomena for a very long time.

I changed my mind real quick when I was confronted with an absurdly large black pyramid floating outside my parents house. Basically it was a UFO and it scared the absolute sheet out of me.
I have seen UFO's on three other occasions also. Only one other 'stood out' though. I reported them here on ATS was basically just told I was seeing things. You know 'cos we're all so open minded, some people even tried telling me my OCD factored in. I guess people will deny it until they experience it.

I have also experienced astral projection, though it wasn't nice like everyone else is saying. I flew up and could see the Earth below me (I was doing this as an experiment of it's validity) and I was speaking to a guy from Canada *when MSN was a big thing) I focused solely on him, I knew where Canada was and suddenly just started flying forwards, I entered someone's house and flew right through their chest - the SECOND I did that the ding went on MSN, it was the guy from Canada (also not a believer) he said something had just hit him in the chest area and knocked him over. I never EVER did that again. I didn't tell him what I was doing either, or what it was that hit him, I just logged off and never spoke again. I've also experienced some very very scary things during meditation, things I wont go into here as they're deeply disturbing.

Ever since these things I've utterly denounced the occult and converted to Christ, nothing has happened to me since. I have missing time also, but don't want to go into that, it was a while ago.