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Oh S**t, shadow person alert.


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itsthenoise

itsthenoise

Neophyte Paranormålé
Ok, I live in a 300+ year old house in south east england, been here for 2.5 years and none of us have seen anything up to now but just recently my 13 year old daughter has seen stuff.

A shadow figure walked 12 ft from her, realised it had been seen and then stepped backwards from where it came from.

A few days later, sitting at the same computer a small 'white' shadow figure walked right up to her and then disappeared.

Most recently [ and this scared her ], she looked out of a gap in her duvet to see the midrift/torso of a shadowperson standing over her. she hurriedly turned on the light and but it was gone.

She's pretty level headed so I don't think she'd make things up, I think I'm more freaked out by than she is.
 
Jose Collado said:
Not to say this didn't happen but I'm not sold on the whole shadow person thing.
Click to expand...

I can appreciate your position Jose but as a teen I used to see shadow "cats" all the time around my house. I call them cats but I have no real idea what they were...just little shadows about 10 inches in height, and about the same or a bit longer length. Until you've seen something unexplainable like that, it's easy to say nay. In fact, even if you've seen something like that, it's pretty easy to call it all imagination or hallucination.
 
Chuckleberryfinn said:
What does that mean? You've seen so-called shadow people and yet maintain that the phenomenon doesn't exist? How do you justify that? Perhaps you'll describe these experiences for us?
Click to expand...

I never said I saw "shadow people". I said I have experienced what people term "shadow people." A phenomenon that has very logical explanations. To ignore those and instantly proclaim a supernatural encounter would be unwise.
 
Jose Collado said:
I never said I saw "shadow people". I said I have experienced what people term "shadow people." A phenomenon that has very logical explanations. To ignore those and instantly proclaim a supernatural encounter would be unwise.
Click to expand...

I certainly am not implying that the phenomenon is supernatural, ghostly, or anything like that, although it certainly may be such. What disturbs me here, however, is your proclamation that the phenomenon has very logical explanations. It seems as though you merely tout the opposite view as though it were the truth, without giving any kind of reason for doing so. This really isn't any different from the people who attribute supernatural sourcing to the phenomenon: two fanatical parties professing diametrically opposite views.

Still, I'd like to hear the logical side, because I too have seen what people describe as a shadow person and, to this day, it has me mystified. I've described it on these forums:

https://www.theparacast.com/forum/appartion-t2999.html?t=2999&highlight=apparition

What logical explanation do you have for me? I'd very much like to know so that I can forget about this experience.
 
Chuckleberryfinn said:
What disturbs me here, however, is your proclamation that the phenomenon has very logical explanations.
Click to expand...

That's because it does. How about hypnogogic hallucinations, hypnopompia, mild sleep depravation which effect your perception and cognition in combination with enhanced response to persuasive stimulii, interpretations of hallucinations based on a belief or idealism, your brain playing tricks on you or an error of perception, protien spots or remnants of blood vessles which atrophied and are floating in the fluid within your eye, SEP fields, an interpretation of the nerve impulses reaching the brain thus your brain fills in the blanks...also known as association which in turn results in making an inaccurate assessment of some stimuli, your periferal vision which registers motion, light and dark as a warning system more effectively than registering coherent images, people seeing what they expect to see and preconceived beliefs. Just to name a few.

Or...?
 
Jose Collado said:
That's because it does. How about hypnogogic hallucinations, hypnopompia, mild sleep depravation which effect your perception and cognition in combination with enhanced response to persuasive stimulii, interpretations of hallucinations based on a belief or idealism, your brain playing tricks on you or an error of perception, protien spots or remnants of blood vessles which atrophied and are floating in the fluid within your eye, SEP fields, an interpretation of the nerve impulses reaching the brain thus your brain fills in the blanks...also known as association which in turn results in making an inaccurate assessment of some stimuli, your periferal vision which registers motion, light and dark as a warning system more effectively than registering coherent images, people seeing what they expect to see and preconceived beliefs. Just to name a few.

Or...?
Click to expand...
I have to agree with Jose, we have to be open and be willing to explore other reasons to why people see things.
 
Irishseekers said:
I have to agree with Jose, we have to be open and be willing to explore other reasons to why people see things.
Click to expand...

Of course we ought to explore any possible explanation, but this doesn't mean that we can just name drop 20 eye or perception problems and say that "well, these things exist; therefore, the phenomenon cannot be taken seriously." For one, all of these explanations ignore multiple witness sightings of apparitions (nevermind the term "shadow person," which I try to avoid).

"How about hypnogogic hallucinations, hypnopompia, mild sleep depravation which effect your perception and cognition in combination with enhanced response to persuasive stimulii."

It was not these.

"interpretations of hallucinations based on a belief or idealism,"

I have never had any prior or post experiences of visual hallucination, so this seems unlikely.

"your brain playing tricks on you or an error of perception,"

You would need to elaborate on this, Mr. Neurologist. You may be correct, however. Perhaps what I really saw in broad daylight in the middle of a cloudless day in south Texas was an ice cream truck which I mistook for an apparition. There you go, problem solved, "error of perception," second cousin to the more common "misperception," which I do every time I enter the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, percieving that I have just arrived in heaven. Of course, I have not; in heaven, you wouldn't have to pay.

Just to be thorough, however, let's continue through your other explanations.

"protien spots or remnants of blood vessles which atrophied and are floating in the fluid within your eye"

What I saw did not drift like an eye floater or a blood vessel would through my field of vision. What I saw moved with commitment; it had shape, forward motion on the ground in a continued direction, breadth, depth, and so forth.

"SEP fields"

I see no reason to bring Doug Adams' Hitchhikers' guide series into this.

In short, Collado, let's be clear, because I tire of going through your blanket list of explanations. It is certainly worthwhile to investigate mundane explanations to these experiences, but that mundane explanations can and do explain some apparition sightings does not lead logically, as you would have it, to the assertion that all apparition sightings fall under one of more of your blanket list.

Are you a neurologist? Do you know anything about the problems you describe?
 
Chuckleberryfinn said:
Of course we ought to explore any possible explanation, but this doesn't mean that we can just name drop 20 eye or perception problems and say that "well, these things exist; therefore, the phenomenon cannot be taken seriously." For one, all of these explanations ignore multiple witness sightings of apparitions (nevermind the term "shadow person," which I try to avoid).

"How about hypnogogic hallucinations, hypnopompia, mild sleep depravation which effect your perception and cognition in combination with enhanced response to persuasive stimulii."

It was not these.

"interpretations of hallucinations based on a belief or idealism,"

I have never had any prior or post experiences of visual hallucination, so this seems unlikely.

"your brain playing tricks on you or an error of perception,"

You would need to elaborate on this, Mr. Neurologist. You may be correct, however. Perhaps what I really saw in broad daylight in the middle of a cloudless day in south Texas was an ice cream truck which I mistook for an apparition. There you go, problem solved, "error of perception," second cousin to the more common "misperception," which I do every time I enter the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, percieving that I have just arrived in heaven. Of course, I have not; in heaven, you wouldn't have to pay.

Just to be thorough, however, let's continue through your other explanations.

"protien spots or remnants of blood vessles which atrophied and are floating in the fluid within your eye"

What I saw did not drift like an eye floater or a blood vessel would through my field of vision. What I saw moved with commitment; it had shape, forward motion on the ground in a continued direction, breadth, depth, and so forth.

"SEP fields"

I see no reason to bring Doug Adams' Hitchhikers' guide series into this.

In short, Collado, let's be clear, because I tire of going through your blanket list of explanations. It is certainly worthwhile to investigate mundane explanations to these experiences, but that mundane explanations can and do explain some apparition sightings does not lead logically, as you would have it, to the assertion that all apparition sightings fall under one of more of your blanket list.

Are you a neurologist? Do you know anything about the problems you describe?
Click to expand...

Look if you read my post' i said we should look at all reasons there is for 'why people see things. I never said you, did i mention you? I had a friend tell me once, that he saw shadows in his house all the time. I was unsure to what he was telling me back then, even for me i found the whole shadows of people on the walls to be a little out there.This was no reflection on my friend may i add. Well since and it was my first real exposure to this subject as something real was during a recent episode when this whole subject was discussed. It was about a week after that show, that i remembered my friend telling me about it. It was not my experience, so it was not something i thought about since, it just slipped from my mind. I am open to all avenues that we have to explain what people are seeing, but not every case is the same' i agree ' like you, but some people might be indeed be seeing things due to some underlining medical condition and we can not just dismiss that as not a possibility.
 
Chuckleberryfinn said:
In short, Collado, let's be clear, because I tire of going through your blanket list of explanations. It is certainly worthwhile to investigate mundane explanations to these experiences, but that mundane explanations can and do explain some apparition sightings does not lead logically, as you would have it, to the assertion that all apparition sightings fall under one of more of your blanket list.

Are you a neurologist? Do you know anything about the problems you describe?
Click to expand...

You asked for logical explanations. You got them. I put more faith in logical explanations than I do with supernatural ones. Shadow people aren't proven to exist and I'm certain if you bothered you'd find plenty more explanations. If there's logical explanations, then there's reasonable doubt. Now, nowhere have I said they didn't exist. I have also stated that I've experienced what people describe as "shadow people." I'll file "shadow people" with elves and fairies. They're also yet to be proven exist but people are also experiencing encounters with them as well.

Am I a neurologist? No. I never stated I was. Are you? You seem to have dismissed the logical explanations pretty quickly. The explanations aren't mundane. They're logical. Sure they're not spectacular but I trust them more than the theories floating around about what "shadow people" actually are.

SEP field was a joke by the way. Take a pill.
 
Nobody knows what the " Shadow People/Person" phenomena is. Chuckleberry, who had the experience, can vivdly remember and describe it as a real experience. Jose, who was not there, can offer several logical reasons as to why there may be quite normal physiological and neurological causes for such. It seems that this phenomena is quite common with many, many reports of them worldwide every day and while many can be Jose'd off as normal and natural functions of the human mind or body, there are just far too many instances of the Shadow Person enigma to do that.
The person experiencing the event is, in my mind, the best person to describe the happening as they were actually there at the time and experienced the full range of the emotional and physical experience, in other words they know what they saw. But just because of the personal aspect does not mean that the phenomena is legitimate. It is just as easy Chuckleberry them into the "for real" basket as it is to Jose them into the "it's just your mind or body playing tricks with you" department.
In other words it's easy for Jose to lump them into his "case solved" basket in spite of him having an "experience" of such (although his experience may have been totally different to Chuckleberry's) as his mind is already made up, at least until someone provides him with irrefutable proof that the phenomena truly exists.
It's also easy for Chuckleberry to claim the phenomena "real" as he has experienced an intense and incredible event and as he was there at the time it cannot be explained away by someone like Jose who is trying to explain away someone else's personal experience with logic.
Both offer proof to their respective sides of the argument and at this stage the "Shadow Person" phenomena is just that, an argument.
 
You assume my mind was already made up but the experiences have been somehing I've been confronted with when I was very much the believer and advocate for anything paranormal. My mindset has changed but the experiences remained the same. Which is why I'm skeptical about shadow people. To ignore plausable explanations and just to conclusions of the supernatural is to rob yourself of an opportunity to understand how complex our minds are and how easily we can be fooled by our own eyes.
 
OK, so you've changed your mind from believer to skeptical, maybe it's not true, mind playing tricks, possible non believer. And that's ok. You must have been convinced by the logical explanations on offer to do that and that's cool.
It's still just an argument. Your opinion holds no greater weight than Chuckleberry's or any other believer.
You can no more provide irrefutable proof for nay as anyone else can for yay, at the moment.
I suppose you can either choose to believe the person recounting the experience or choose not.
 
The Pair of Cats said:
OK, so you've changed your mind from believer to skeptical, maybe it's not true, mind playing tricks, possible non believer. And that's ok. You must have been convinced by the logical explanations on offer to do that and that's cool.
It's still just an argument. Your opinion holds no greater weight than Chuckleberry's or any other believer.
You can no more provide irrefutable proof for nay as anyone else can for yay, at the moment.
I suppose you can either choose to believe the person recounting the experience or choose not.
Click to expand...

I haven't hinted on providing proof. All I did was deliver rational and logical explanations upon request. Someone's personal accounts is not something I will claim as false. We all experience things we can't explain and I've come across several people who've had some rather strange encounters in their time. Even I have had experiences I can't explain. The problem is, people are too quick to jump on supernatural explanations rather than accept that there are possible and very logical explanations. It seems I'm almost being attacked by Chuckleberry for providing an answer to a question put forward to me. People can't be skeptical when it comes to topics like these.

The list of possible explanations was relevant and it was met with "It's none of the above" by Chuckleberry. Explain why not. Then I'm asked if I'm a neurologist as if credentials are playing a role. If so, is Chuckleberry certified in the study of Shadow People to disqualify logical explanations put forward?

Belief is one thing. Proof is another. If people believe then that's great. I've not said it was wrong to believe. There are many theories of what shadow people are in the paranormal scene. None have any basis in fact and to simply refute any logical explanations is frustrating.

My last "encounter" was last week. Right next to my bed. I can easily jump to spectacular conclusions or I can accept my logical, mundane explanations. I prefer logic.
 
Jose Collado said:
I haven't hinted on providing proof. All I did was deliver rational and logical explanations upon request. Someone's personal accounts is not something I will claim as false. We all experience things we can't explain and I've come across several people who've had some rather strange encounters in their time. Even I have had experiences I can't explain. The problem is, people are too quick to jump on supernatural explanations rather than accept that there are possible and very logical explanations. It seems I'm almost being attacked by Chuckleberry for providing an answer to a question put forward to me. People can't be skeptical when it comes to topics like these.

The list of possible explanations was relevant and it was met with "It's none of the above" by Chuckleberry. Explain why not. Then I'm asked if I'm a neurologist as if credentials are playing a role. If so, is Chuckleberry certified in the study of Shadow People to disqualify logical explanations put forward?

Belief is one thing. Proof is another. If people believe then that's great. I've not said it was wrong to believe. There are many theories of what shadow people are in the paranormal scene. None have any basis in fact and to simply refute any logical explanations is frustrating.

My last "encounter" was last week. Right next to my bed. I can easily jump to spectacular conclusions or I can accept my logical, mundane explanations. I prefer logic.
Click to expand...

Jose, you often imply a rational and logical point of view when looking at things, and for this to be happening to you" being who you are, it too strange to be believable. That is a honest response and people come on give him a break. He is not saying it not something supernatural, he is just saying there could be other alternatives or some other logical explanations. Jose, might be wrong/ who knows?but it is his experience and his journey.
 
Jose Collado said:
I haven't hinted on providing proof. All I did was deliver rational and logical explanations upon request. Someone's personal accounts is not something I will claim as false. We all experience things we can't explain and I've come across several people who've had some rather strange encounters in their time. Even I have had experiences I can't explain. The problem is, people are too quick to jump on supernatural explanations rather than accept that there are possible and very logical explanations. It seems I'm almost being attacked by Chuckleberry for providing an answer to a question put forward to me. People can't be skeptical when it comes to topics like these.

The list of possible explanations was relevant and it was met with "It's none of the above" by Chuckleberry. Explain why not. Then I'm asked if I'm a neurologist as if credentials are playing a role. If so, is Chuckleberry certified in the study of Shadow People to disqualify logical explanations put forward?

Belief is one thing. Proof is another. If people believe then that's great. I've not said it was wrong to believe. There are many theories of what shadow people are in the paranormal scene. None have any basis in fact and to simply refute any logical explanations is frustrating.

My last "encounter" was last week. Right next to my bed. I can easily jump to spectacular conclusions or I can accept my logical, mundane explanations. I prefer logic.
Click to expand...
As I said before the person having the experience is in the best position to describe it, i don't dispute that. In fact I don't dispute any of your posts on this matter.I agree with almost everything you say!
I know that a lot of people jump onto the supernatural bandwagon when confronted with these experiences, quite naturally too, I suppose and who's to say that it isn't a "supernatural" experience?
It is just as credible/incredible to say that the experience is/was:

  • hypnogogic hallucinations

  • hypnopompia

  • mild sleep depravation

  • cognition in combination with enhanced response to persuasive stimulii

  • interpretations of hallucinations based on a belief or idealism

  • your brain playing tricks on you

  • an error of perception

  • protein spots or remnants of blood vessels which atrophied and are floating in the fluid within your eye

  • let's not forget the chances of a brain tumor or indeed schizophrenia
  • etc.,etc.
I would be interested to know which of the above reasons you have chosen as the most logical one for what you've experienced.

I'm sure people having the experience will readily rush out to the friendly local neurologist to get a diagnosis or slip down to the nearest Psychologist/Psychiatrist for some diazapam and then to the Emergency Department of their local hospital to arrange for an MRI.
Whilst every one of your given examples has a credible and logical application to the "shadow person" experience, the supernatural explanation cannot be left out.
In short your vulcan-like, logical analysis of your experiences is the antithesis of other experiencer's McCoy-like, emotional interpretations.
By the way, i neither believe or disbelieve in the phenomena.
 

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