Nephew Seeing Ghosts

[Mbyte]

My nephew might be seeing ghosts. I'm not getting paranoid or anything or that I fully believe he is I am just wondering if you could pass on any advice to help with such a problem just in case he is seeing ghosts.

Thanks

[Darryl]

Hi Mbyte,

My main advice is that I wouldn't describe it as a problem . If your nephew is comfortable with their experience(s), then that's the most important part.

There were some previous threads about seeing spirits, a quick search should find them.

All the best,

[Mbyte]

I forgot to mention that my nephew is 4. He says he see's ghosts and he says he is scarred. So convetional solutions have to be tweaked I suppose but I don't know what to do. I'd have some Idea if he was older but not now.

[barrys]

Hi,

My son Callum, from about 4 onwards, used to sometimes stare off into the distance when people talked to him at home. I never really thought anything of it. When he was about 7 I asked him what he was looking at. He replied "The people who walk across our garden".

I asked him just now if he still saw them ...
"Yes, not very often but actually one walked across the room 2 days ago. You were there".
"Really? I didn't see him".
"I didn't think you had. He had ginger spiky hair and a white shirt".

It doesn't seem to be a problem for him. Although it would have worried me a few years ago, now I just don't know and don't worry about who/what he is seeing.

I have all kinds of thoughts/ghosts wander through my mind. If I worried about where they all came from or what they were I would spend a lot of time in my own head.

I was given a lovely piece of advice when my kids were very young and were worried about things like "wolves climbing down the chimney" etc. The suggestion was to listen to their concerns and respond with something like "Oh, that sounds like you are scared but just to let you know I am not worried about that happening or anyone getting hurt". Seemed to work very well. Of course, it was true, I wasn't worried about it.

Best,

Barry

[parrapiti]

In my very personal opinion the only problem is that we lose the capacity to see "ghosts" ourselves as we overexcercise our rational part loosing vital energy to excercise our perception in the same way. I have tried to help my son maintain his capacity to "see" with what he calls his "bonus eye" and to share his experiences with me as often as possible, keeping it at a casual, informal conversational level. The result has been that he doesn´t percieve any of that as strange or bad, but as an added capacity to get in contact with his surrounding in ways that he can learn more.

And the learning experience has been especially wonderful for me!

Piti

[Irina]

children see more

Thank you for sharing this experiene Mbyte. I have twin sons and from the age of about two they kept looking around them with astonishment and pointing at air and saying "there, look there again". They were not scared but rather curious. For them it was very surprising to find out that I did not see "them". Now it has stopped. They do not even remember anymore. And I sometimes believe that these skills are still with all of us. However, because we do not require them to perform in daily life we leave them "undeveloped" whereas shamans, for instance, deliberately develop and train them.
So the best solution would be just to talk to your nephew and to listen with attention to what he says and but also to explain that ghosts are not part of the material world around us and that they usually do no harm.

[Mbyte]

I would have disagreed with the idea that we lose the ability when we grow up but if two of you said it must have some truth. I suppose it's like seeing auras. Most people I have heard that see ghosts when they are child always see them and doesn't really go away. Usually there is a shadow ghost involved and it scares the bejesus out of them. I actually came a cross a girl who said she see's ghosts and still does. A monk in her room and other such intresting stories she didn't want to share.

My sister (newphews mother) and I went to a psychic convetion and we were informend that the child was very psychic and might have a problem with ghosts. They said he has been reincarnated a lot of times and has a lot of spiritual history and brightness and this brightness attracts ghosts. I wasn't around but I hope my sister hasn't put thoughts into his head. I said to my fiend jokingly that my nephew is like Anakin Skywalker (i suppose that actually was luke) from star wars. He was like a jedi prophecy.

The child said he saw a ghost in the bathroom and I stopped him and questioned him about it. I'm still unsure about his ability. I suppose I'll know when he's older. I told him that he has to show me wear he is because I can not see him (not yet anyway!!!! ) I asked him does he appear or come into your bedroom and stuff I couldn't tell what he was trying to say or if he understood. My sister, the boys mother has had a few ghostly experiences. She had one in the very room I sleep in in fact and that story is one scary one too. I am almost certain that if you freeze up with fear that ghosts can harm you but if don't worry and smile they can't. Sifu Wong said human energy is like electrcity to a ghost. It probably is when your smiling not too sure about when you overly worried and scared. I actually concluded some similar to what Sifu Wong said about human energy. I didn't think of it like electricity but that ghost feel insecure around people who shine love and they just have to leave it's unbarable unless they embrace it.

[Mbyte]

I remember when I started school I can only a few incidents in detail but I am fully sure that seeing ghosts was not something I experienced. When I was young it was my duty to remember my child hood because I constantly heard adults saying how they have forgotton even my sisters when they were teenagers.

[Charles David]

Please note that I have amended the title of this thread to help people who might be searching for ghost-related discussions.



Dutifully,

Charles

[Mbyte]

Well thanks for all the replies very intresting indeed. What was the topic orgionally called again. Just nephew i think.

[Charles David]

The original title was "Nephew."


Yours,

Charles

[Ahsun]

its natural seeing ghosts.

[ANegin]

I would like to add that although ghosts may be real, this does not mean that our minds do not sometimes play tricks on us. Mbyte, this may be worth mentioning to your nephew. I vividly remember having some very frightening ghost sightings when I was about his age, which wouldn't have been as frightening if I had been able to provide alternate interpretations for them. In my case, I doubt my sightings were legitimate.

I genuinely believe that many of the "ghosts" I saw in the past were hypnagogic hallucinations--imaginings sensed when entering or leaving the realm of sleep--since I am still susceptible to such hallucinations. They definitely are hallucinations. Some of my favorite examples involve me sleepily sensing my cat, confusing him for something else, and realizing it later. In the past, I've heard my cat approach me and felt him hop on the bed, only to think he was a demon, a beautiful woman, a fox, and just a few months ago, an axe-wielding goblin. I was preparing to smash my instep into the goblin's chest as he jumped onto my bed, and only when I started to move my leg did I wake up in time to realize what was really happening! To this day, my cat surely has no idea how close he came to sailing out of my room like a football. Such experiences are actually fairly common around the world, and they don't have to end with a realization of their relative fiction. Here is a related Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

A while ago, we had an interesting thread on this forum about astral projection, which went on a tangeant and turned into a discussion about thoughtforms, children who can truly see their imaginary friends, and the like. That discussion could be relevant to this one. It may be possible for a child's fear of ghosts, and expectations of seeing them, to become manifest in some way. There are many ways in which this could be true, even discounting explanations related to thoughtforms. Staring into the darkness with a relaxed or meditative mind could result in Closed-Eye Visualization perception. Again, here are related Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtform

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination

I hope I managed to be helpful or at least interesting. So far, the people writing have mostly talked about how your nephew could be 100% right about what he sees, and I figured another perspective might be useful. He could be half-dreaming. He could be manifesting what he sees in some way, even unintentionally. I guess it's possible. You should let him decide how to interpret his experiences, in any case. I'm sure you'll let him know that he has a respectful audience, whom he can talk to about anything.

- Andrew

[Mbyte]

Never thought such vivid hillucinations were possible.

browsing through the list of diffrent Hypnagogia I came across this.

Insight
This process can even lead to genuine insight into a problem, a well known example being the story of August Kekulé’s discovery of the structure of benzene. Similarly, the teenaged Karl Gauss obtained an insight during a hypnagogic reverie into how to construct a 17-sided polygon. Many other artists, writers, scientists and inventors – including Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Walter Scott, Thomas Edison and Isaac Newton – have credited hypnagogia and related states with enhancing their creativity.[44] A widely cited instance of what could well be this phenomenon is the story of the composition of the Devil's Trill violin sonata by Giuseppe Tartini. Tartini dreamt that the devil appeared at the end of his bed and played the violin with otherwordly mastery. Tartini woke and immediately began writing the virtuoso music down, though managed only to transcribe what he painfully felt to be a massively inferior version of what he had heard in his sleep; incidentally, such loss of memory of the dreamt events is a common circumstance of dreams.

Sifu Wong talks about something very similar. It's a meditation to connect with the higher consciousness. I can't remember the proper title but this description is similar.

I don't think he's seeing ghosts in his bed and any stories or experiences about or with the child he was awake.

Has Chi Kung not helped you with your hillucinations?

It's intresting info but believe it or not I'm a tad bit septical about such hillucinations!! It just feels like to me that these phenomenon are exagerated sceptic talk. exageratted to such an extent they are stretched to explain some paranormal phenomenon which is other wise unexplainable. It's probably real. I'm not saying it's fabricated. There is probably problems like this which are hillucinations. Then some parts which are exageratted. I could be totally wrong. there are some people who think hypnosis is not possible. Well in a way hynosis isen't real. It mainly works because people thinks it works. Hynosis starts at advertising. I don't want to come across as being an ass and not appreciating your post but Information about delsuions of the mind make me insecure about my existance. If one thing is a delusion then it's all a delusion. I prefer to think that there are no delusions just problems we have. I'm sure you meant the same thing but that wasn't my mind frame when I read it first.

Thanks

[ANegin]

Hey Mbyte, thanks for your reply. Don't worry if you didn't find much to appreciate about my post. I was just tossing out alternative explanations that I thought might--or might not--apply. I didn't even mean to suggest that they are more likely to be correct.

As for whether or not chi kung has helped me with my hallucinations, I can honestly say this is the first time I've ever thought of them as a problem that I'd want help with. I haven't noticed any change, which makes sense, since they didn't happen often or regularly in the first place. I simply remember some when they do happen. They don't last for more than a few seconds.

Haven't you ever been jolted awake from a dream, only to hear a dream-character call out your name as you raise your head from your pillow? Have you ever had a roommate who suddenly rose from sleep, asked you where your laser gun went, and apologized, suddenly remembering you never had one? We don't always transition perfectly from deep sleep to wakefulness. I only learned recently that people discuss these things in the context of "hypnagogia."

I agree that it's sad how many so-called "objective men of science" jump to explain away any experience that seems incompatible with the view of the world they'd like to hold. If I have an experience that I'm not sure how to interpret, I do my best to remember it as it is, and am not too eager to write it off. I know that the world is bigger and grander than my personal philosophy. I'm simply not quick to label many of my childhood experiences as genuine ghost sightings.

I remember my toddler years extremely well, and I know I've seen a lot of strange things. Now I entertain the idea that I may have even generated some of the imagery that I saw. Did you read about thoughtforms?

I have a very vivid memory from when I was about four years old. I was chasing a teleporting cat around my living room for about five minutes. I would always see his butt and tail sticking out from behind a piece of furniture, but when I approached him, he would be gone. Then I'd look around and see him behind another piece of furniture, although he would move again. I gave up on him after a while; I didn't appreciate his B.S.! This was in broad daylight and I wasn't sleepy or in a meditative state. I don't count cat-butt sightings among ghost sightings, though. I may always think of this experience as "The Great Cat-Butt Mystery."

Mbyte, if your nephew's ghost sightings are more like my cat-butt sighting example, that's very interesting. I wouldn't say he was delusional. Still, it might be fair to say that the world we see is a delusion, eh? One that chi kung practice helps show the limits of?

- Andrew