Ghosts, mediums, fortune tellers

Petra, I saw the ghost of our neighbours dog. I was hanging out the washing and Trixie was snuffling in the garden next door, in the bean rows, digging up the beans which was a very naughty thing that she always used to do. I laughed at her and she woofed.
That afternoon I learned that she had died two days earlier.

I once went to one of those mind, body and soul events. I had an open mind but was quite prepared for my reading to churn out the usual going on a holiday etc comments. I chose a lady who did the Egyptian tarot cards, primarily because she had the shortest queue and I was pushed for time. The second I sat down she made a comment about me which she couldn't possibly have known. I gave her no clues after her initial comment and she made one or two other comments which were completely accurate and not the sort of thing you would have said to a stranger. The rest of the time she filled in with the usual rubbish but I have to say, she was good

my great granny told a story of how she turned up to clerk mass,unusual for a girl in those days but she wasn't allowed ON the altar ,the church had only about 2 dozen people as it was a 7am mass and the priest came in and celebrated the mass as usual,when he had just left the altar the younger priest came in and apologised for the lack of a priest as Father had died suddenly during the night ...there were two dozen people who were sure they had seen and heard him say mass ,and Great gran swore until her dying day she had seen him.Her daughet my lovely granny also had quite a repertoire of ghost stories ,when I was wee my three sisters and me would all pile into the same bed as her to hear her tales and when we squealed with horror mum would come up and threaten to smack us all ...granny included .LOL loved my granny ,

Corncob, if you want a sign, go to your nearest spiritualist church. You'll find it via Google. Take a friend. Services always include mediumship. You might have to attend a few times before your husband plucks up courage to make contact.

When my Mum was alive I asked her what sign she'd give me from the 'other side' when she got there. She said doughnuts. At her wake, catered by friends who didn't consult me or my family, the first plate I spotted was a huge pile of doughnuts! When I asked the organiser why he'd chosen such an unusual thing he said "I don't know; it was as though my hand was dragged to them."

One of my daughters used to talk about seeing ghosts frequently when she was about 7. In particular she came to find me when we were visiting the church of St Madeleine in Paris and asked 'did I see the man downstairs (in the crypt ) lit up from inside and with light shining out of his eyes'! I asked what he was doing and she replied 'watching the people '. Years later I asked her to describe those ghosts she used to see and her considered reply was 'like people with no colour in them'.

I've read somewhere that children have an ability to see other dimensions but lose it at about age 7. Maybe being told they're imagining things pushes them in this direction.

I believe in ghosts although I have no idea what they are. I just know that I have lived in several houses where strange things have happened. Like a previous poster my current house welcomed me the moment I walked through the door and I have caught sight of shadows moving. However mainly whatever it is manifests itself as the smell of baccy. Only the other day DH called me to come upstairs because our bedroom smelt of baccy. Neither of us smoke and the windows were closed. whatever it is it doesn't feel threatening.

DD1 once saw to nuns in penguin costume walk through a bricked up opening in a wall of a convent.

When DG1 was 3 she kept asking to go and see her friend Anne. DD2 thought it was someone at nursery so she asked about her thinking they'd maybe invite her to play but there was no one called Anne there. One day they were in town passing what had been some large Georgian houses (now offices). DGD1 desperately wanted to go into one of the houses as she said it was Anne's house. Evidence of a past life....who knows?

Most mediums are cold reading con artists. You can read about cold reading online then watch famous mediums do it on TV.

I have always been pretty sceptical about this sort of thing. My sister lived in an old house and said she had once seen an old lady on the stairs, and a friend of hers who had "a gift" said that she could feel a presence. The strangest thing I ever experienced was when a friend and I were walking through a village going back to our barracks early one Sunday evening in the 1960's and, at a distance from the main road across a green, was a pond where five nuns appeared to be standing in the water. We both saw it, but were in too much of a hurry to investigate any closer so I took a photograph. When the pictures were developed, it was just a pond. No nuns. Since the advent of the internet, I have tried to research the village to find out if there was any kind of female religious order in the area, but there doesn't appear to have been one.

My in laws did not believe in life after death. After my FIL died suddenly my MIL saw him standing at the end of the bed one morning, he just looked at her and then disappeared. She then looked forward to their being together again after she passed on.

In the months leading up to her death, my mum would often say she had seen her own mum, and her sister, both of whom are passed on.
I'm not sure if it was because she was on a lot of strong medication, or if she really did see them.

When my nephew died, aged 16 from leukemia, he was in his hospital bed surrounded by medical staff and his family, in a desperate state. He suddenly lifted his head off the pillow, gave a thumbs up sign and died.

Oh that gave me a shiver, Katek.
It must have been a tiny shred of comfort though, at such a terrible time.
I've been told of someone's mum who said "I won't be long" to someone unseen before passing away.

MissAdventure It was very strange indeed. The poor lad had been through so much as you can imagine. We always wonder what he saw.

The house I lived in as a child, a tall Victorian house, was certainly haunted. Often when you walked into a room, it would be filled with the scent of perfume/flowers which would then vanish. There were places which were definitely ' cold'. Our dog once frightened the life out of me by snarling hackles raised at something outside of my bedroom door which only he could see. We all had strange experiences, I was once sitting with my mother by the fire and we both, separately, saw a shadow passing across the bottom of the door but there was no one else in the house. My mother woke in the night and saw orbs of light floating at the end of her bed for several nights in succession.
I could go on. I don't understand it and I don't know if I 'believe' in ghosts but there is more to existence than we can see with our everyday senses.

KatyK your story about your nephew reminded me of my husband's cousin who was looking after her 95 year old mother who was frail and ill and not expected to last much longer. She came into the room and her mother asked her 'who are all those people at the end of the bed?' There were of course no others in the room. Her mother died peacefully not long after.

I've also talked to a hospice nurse who told me that nearly all nurses have tales to tell of the dying seeing relatives by their beds or of themselves having seen ghostly figures appearing and disappearing at the time of death.

Years ago, when I was working in a residential home, I watched a tiny little old lady, painstakingly going sideways down the stairs, holding on to the banister with both hands
I remember thinking how fast she was moving as I watched her
It was only once I really thought about it that I realised she wasn't one of the residents, nor a visitor.
To this day, I have no idea how she came to be there, or where she went. She didn't look 'ghostly' at all.

Azie It certainly makes you think doesn't it? People have said to us that it couldd have been the drugs my nephew was on or that he was delerious (sp?). No, he wasn't - he was wide awake and talking to us minutes before. My brother (his dad) was saying to him 'come on son, you can do this' and he was replying 'I'm trying dad'. I'm not in any way religous but some things make me wonder.

we had a lady rep who visited our office regularly ,her daughter sadly had cancer and they talked about her death and thet she would come back to let them know she was ok ,,She said she would come back as a butterfly.She died in January and at her funeral on a snowy day in Scotland a butterfly followed her coffin into the church....in the february her mum took the two grandchildern on holiday and they were met on the plane agin in a cold scottish winter by a butterfly.It still brings tears to my eyes ,but it gave her and her daughters children a lot of comfort

DH and I lived in a 400 year old house for several years with 2 young children and a dog. Not one of us saw, heard or felt anything in all that time although I'm sure people had suffered and died in it during all those years. Lovely stories GNers but there's a complete non-believer here

Well Badenkate who is to say what any of these experiences 'mean', why some places might seem spooky or offer up sightings that can't be explained or why some people see things that others don't. Your 'non-belief' is fine with me but I wouldn't call myself a 'believer', nor am I religious or a follower of any kind of cult or alternative-type group. I have felt and seen things in my life and heard others say the same, I am interested, not rejecting. None of us really knows the answer to existence (even the brightest of scientists or the most learned of priests), and thank goodness for that!

I have never experienced anything personally, but I know others who have.
Among others, a couple I know moved into a property, part of which was older than the rest, They were planning to turn a big unused attic into bedrooms, but thought it odd that their dog would never set foot (paw) in that part of the house. It would just stop on the threshold and refuse to go any further. None of the family had ever sensed or felt anything and were not all nervous about it.
They themselves were very practical and level headed, not remotely into the supernatural, but they did happen to know of someone who did sometimes act as an (unpaid) medium. Just out of interest, they asked her to take a look.

Once she entered the attic she told them that it had once been used for illicit purposes, someone had been accidentally killed there, and the person responsible was still there, hoping he could somehow make amends.

At any rate, she asked him to leave, and presumably he did, since after that their dog was perfectly happy to go into that attic.

Being something of a cynic myself, I can well understand people being fooled or taken in, and I'm sure it happens, but a dog? How do you explain that? It couldn't be that it was picking up their nervousness, since when the the refusal started they had not had the slightest notion of anything spooky - were just thinking of e.g. how best to divide it, where to put new windows, etc.

When I was 16 my family move to another house and when I was shown my bedroom I said "I don't like this room as someone has died in here". I really don't know what made me say it. Then after I moved my bed to under the window, I used to wake up and see a man standing beside my bed. As I looked at him he would disappear........... Naturally I was terrified and my mum said take the dog up to bed with you - he will frighten off anything scary. This satisfied me until years later when mum admitted that the dog had got to the door and refused to go in - she had had to give him a shove to make him move. Luckily I hadn't noticed. I must say when I found this out I was pretty horrified

just recently about 10 days ago..my daughter (34) awoke during the night and said she saw a figure standing at the side of her bed,then it dissapeared, she thought it was one of the children one age 2n half the other is 10 n half yrs...she shouted both their names and got up to check on them, the door was only partly open so no one had come in the bedroom..she said it was a figure didn't say what size of figure and I didn't want to persue her.but it frightened her, I convinced her that she was prob in a dream /sleep etc but she says she was awake. Her dad died almost 2 n half yrs ago now and she is still grieving as we all are, she is of sound mind works at the hospital.She has woken up on one occasion and said "dad" convinced he was there.

Which brings me to did anyone watch Piers Morgan and Barry Gibb last week. Barry Gibb said he saw his brother Robin Gibb who had died, he said he saw him walk from the front door to the bar, and his wife said she saw the younger brother who had died Andy.
Barry Gibb said, maybe it is a memory producing itself outside your conscious mind or maybe its real, we don't know

Seeing departed relatives is part of grieving. Ask yourself why it is always by the bed during the night. All of my female relatives have mentioned this but not one male has claimed to see theor wife or mother. If it was possible to return my MIL would have, she died in her 50s foghting to the end.

When our DC were babies we used a small cosy downstairs bedroom as a nursery. It had a nice feel. Our dog, a protective spaniel would always accompany me during night feeds and when he came into the room he always looked to the corner behind the door and wagged his tail in greeting - at nothing. I sat on a cushion with my back against the radiator and the cot was on the other side. There was nothing on that side of the room but he obviously knew and liked something/someone there. Then our neighbour told me that the lovely old gentleman who used to live there had died in that room after a long illness and when she visited him he would receive her sitting up in his bed - behind the door.

GS2 went through a spell of talking about the family he used to live with before he came to Mummy and Daddy. It seems to have worn off now, but it was a bit spooky at the time.