Hello everyone, I'm new to the board. I do believe that Occam's Razor is a good ruler to measure so-called paranormal experiences by. But when I was much younger I had a couple of experiences that I have yet to find rational explanations for. I was hoping someone here might help me.

These took place at my grandmother's old house. Everyone I know of who ever lived there or visited there overnight was convinced it was haunted. When I was a kid my mother, father, younger sister, and I lived there for a few years. I remember on more than one occasion waking up in the middle of the night and hearing what sounded like party sounds in the living room; people laughing and talking and glasses clinking, etc. At first I assumed that the grownups were having a party without me, but when I got out of bed and looked in the living room the noises suddenly stopped, the lights were off, and nobody was there. Many years later when I was a grown up I recounted this to my mom and sister who were both dumbfounded because they had experienced the same thing. Some form of waking dream? If so, how come more than one of us had the same dream and how come they only happened to us at that house? Deflected noise from somewhere else? But we all slept in different rooms from each other and we all heard it as originating in the living room.

The second one didn't happen to me, but apparently happened to numerous house guests. In the middle of the night, while they lay in bed, a scary looking woman appeared floating at the foot of the bed and told them to leave the house. At least one person who this happened to left the house screaming and never came back. My grandma said the people's description of the woman sounded like her own mother, but her mother had never been to that house or even that city in her lifetime. Many of the people that this happened to didn't know each other and didn't know about each other's experiences.

There are many more things that happened at that house, but at least to begin with I'll focus on these two types of incidents. Again, I am very skeptical about the existence of ghosts, but I don't know how to explain these events. Anyone?

You experienced an empty room with the lights out. You imagined a room with a party. That is by your own testimony. Why should I disbelieve it? And you keep the company of folks with vivid imaginations. Do you have any reason to think there is more to it?

Hi, Steve. As far as imagining a room with a party, that may be the case, but I wonder why. I wasn't on any drugs. I don't think I was sick and running a high fever. I realize that the rest could be explained away by simply saying that everyone else was lying about what they had supposedly experienced, but I guess I'd rather not believe that about my close family members. And maybe the lady that ran out screaming had other mental issues that I don't know about. That's a lot of weird circumstances piled up on one another, but I suppose it's more believable than g-g-g-ghosts.

Other things that happened in that house include toilets apparently flushing by themselves and heavy footstep-like sounds when nobody else was in the house. When we moved out the house was moved to a new lot about five miles from the original location. I don't know if any of the abnormal occurrences continued, but when we were cleaning the house out before we left it, there was an area in the ceiling crawl-space that had a small rocking chair, table, and portable TV set up as if someone was living in there. The thought that somebody else was living in the house with us the whole time and making these noises and such without us realizing it has been tossed around, but members of my family owned and lived in that house for over 25 years. Could anyone hideout and live in someone else's house for that long without them knowing it? Maybe, but again, it stretches credulity ALMOST as much as paranormal explanations.

>You experienced an empty room with the lights out. You imagined a room with a party. That is by your own testimony. Why should I disbelieve it? And you keep the company of folks with vivid imaginations. Do you have any reason to think there is more to it?

Look up some Derren Brown youtubes and see just how gullible our minds are.

Though his performances of mind-reading and other feats of mentalism may appear to be the result of psychic or paranormal practices, he claims no such abilities and frequently denounces those who do. Brown states at the beginning of his Trick of the Mind programmes that he achieves his results using a combination of "magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship".

Folks with active imaginations love all that suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship and they do it to themselves because it is fun. Or scary. If it were anything else there would be evidence other than imaginings. See how that works?

I just use Biff's Butter knife. Gets the job done if you hack at it enough.

So, you woke up in the middle of the night and heard something that you couldn't identify that sounded vaguely like it might have been a party, and you were told stories.

Isn't it possible that the stories were a bit of an old family joke that the "oldsters" played on the kids? "Oh, yeah. Grandma's house is haunted. There was even one woman that left the house screaming and never returned!" My uncles would have been all over something like that.

As for the "party", who knows? Maybe there were a couple of crickets or frogs in the living room.

Wait you say that the toilets flushed and there were heavy footstep when NO ONE WAS IN THE HOUSE. So who said this if no one was there to see this.