 WHAT IF WEDNESDAY:
What if you were a ghost and were given the choice to haunt any place, anywhere in the world — where would it be? Would you choose a famous location already occupied by spirits of the past, a castle you've toured in Europe, a house you've lived in, or a hidden gem known by few (especially unknown to hordes of paranormal investigators asking you the same questions over and over)? With all the research we've completed there is still no answer to why a spirit haunts a specific place. In most cases it seems there's an attachment to the building or a person, but there are many cases involving a ghost with no link to the location. What if these spirits had a choice where others had none. I hope after I die I am able to travel to all the fantastic places I've been and the locations I never was able to visit in life, because when I look around me now, I don't want to haunt this apartment, and if I pass in a hospital or old age hope I definitely DO NOT want to haunt those places! Give me a castle in Ireland or a cabin deep in the woods (that would be some fun, haunting lost hikers). So, what if. What if you could haunt the house of your choice. Where would it be? Share your location. It might give some wandering spirits an idea of were to visit next in the afterlife.  WHAT IF WEDNESDAY:
What if reoccurring dreams are actually paranormal encounters our mind has suppressed? Recently I was filming a new paranormal web series with a group of seasoned investigators, and as a group of people passionate about the unknown would do, we got to talking about personal experiences and scary stories. I was telling a story about a dream that I've had over a dozen times, which started at a very young age (maybe age 13 or so). When I finished I had a thought. What if this reoccurring dream – a dream that always starts the same way and always ends at the same moment in the dream – is in fact an encounter I had at an age before I can remember? There's a phenomenon called "Childhood Amnesia" and studies have shown that the majority of adults cannot remember anything about their life before the age of seven.* Personally, the first memory I have about my life is from when I was six years old. Everything before that is lost in the deepest parts of my brain. But what if I had an encounter with a spirit during those forgotten years. An event so traumatic that it invades my sleeping mind twenty, thirty or even forty years later. Before I go any further, here's the dream: I'm climbing a set of steps covered in red carpet. I'm not walking up them, but crawling on my hands and knees. I peek over the top step and look down what seems like an endless hallway. From the decorations, wallpaper and furniture it looks like I'm in an old hotel or castle. Standing in the distance in the middle of the hallway is a tall shadowy figure. He's looking the other way, so he doesn't see me. I run from the steps into the hall and hide behind a table or desk that's against the wall on the right hand side of the hall. I'm scared. I lean forward and peek around the edge of the desk. The shadow man sees me. He starts to walk towards me. I duck back and curl into a ball. I'm terrified. I wait. I listen. He has to be close now. But then I wake up. The dream always plays out just like that. Nothing has ever been added or taken away. This brings up the question: Is this dream actually a memory? Did I have an encounter with a shadow person at a very young age? Is my unconscious mind reminding me of this memory, and if so, why? Is it possible reoccurring dreams are memories from our early childhood? I ask in order to get a discussion started. Maybe you or someone you know has had a disturbing dream that has haunted them for years. Share your stories or thoughts in the comments. Maybe these thoughts and ideas will lead us to new discoveries or answers to the unknown. That is why I always ask the question "what if," even if the question seems to be completely insane. Answers to great mysteries don't come easy and they are never simple. The more outlandish and "insane" our thoughts are about the subject, the sooner we'll stumble on an idea leading to the answer. Have a "WHAT IF?" you'd like to share? Send me an email. I'd love to hear it. Click on the Contact link to get in touch with me. * Here's an article about Childhood Amnesia: LINK  WHAT IF WEDNESDAY:
What if you're unknowingly seeing ghosts while going about your day? There you are, walking down a crowded city street. You see a businessman sitting patiently at the bus stop, a young mother staring off into the distance at the park, or a teen in 60's garb minding their own business at the other end of the subway car. But are they really there? Does anyone else see them, or just you? You will never know because you're not going to approach every person on the street and ask them, "Are you a ghost?" Think about it, when you walk, ride, or drive to wherever you're focused on getting to, you're not paying attention to each and every other person around you. Especially those in the distance. We simply accept that if we see someone in a crowd, that someone is a living, breathing person. As we're walking our eyes deliver the trillion bits of information to our brain, but our brain is focused on the path directly in front of us and all senses dedicated to reaching our goal. Everything else in the background becomes mute. People become moving shapes without detail. We don't really "see" them, only their form. This creates a perfect environment for ghost to exist — Hiding in plain site, and never being seen. It's possible only you are seeing the ghosts you see while other people are seeing ghosts only they can see. The reasons being the images of the "people" are entering your eye at a certain angle or your brain is in tune with the energies you are sensing. But those are two topics for another "What if." Think about this idea next time you're walking down a busy street. How many people are you really seeing in full detail and how many are just a blur in the background? Are some of those blurs in the background really even there, or are they something else? What if. On a side note: I’ve had people ask me, “Why do you investigate the paranormal in the wild?” Answer: Because I believe spirits are everywhere! Sadly, I’ve discovered that there’s a small percentage of paranormal fans who believe spirits or ghost only haunt select houses, abandoned hospitals, prisons and asylums — places where tragic events transpired and created a powerful emotional scar on the location. Well, given the history of the world, going all the way back to caveman days, tragic deaths and events have happened everywhere! If every dead person suddenly appeared as a ghost in the exact spot they died, we would find ourselves in a sea of spirits — Not only in cities and towns, but in the forested mountains, across the deserts, and over the crashing waves of the oceans.  WHAT IF WEDNESDAY:
I’ve discussed Higher Dimensional Beings in the past, and have recently given the idea additional thought and continued the conversation with friends in the paranormal field. These have led to a new idea. What if the entities we’re encountering during investigations are not the dead, but the messengers for the dead — An afterlife middleman between us and those we’re hoping to contact? Think of it this way: (1) We’re here in the world of the living conducting an investigation. We’re in a haunted location asking questions, hoping is to make contact with the dead. (2) The dead are in their realm — a heaven-like world or dimension that is too complex for us to understand. These two worlds do not touch and there is no way for the living (us) to speak directly, one-on-one with the dead. (3) But, (here’s the big “What if”) in-between us and them is an undiscovered race of beings who exist in a world of energy. These living beings made of fluctuating energy waves live in this world overlapping ours and that of the dead. They can hear our questions and see our devices. They can hear the responses from the dead trying to answer. The energy beings would be invisible to us since we can’t see energy waves with our eyes or they may be Higher Dimensional Beings as I described in the past, but maybe they are seen and heard by the dead. If so, the energy beings, existing in the world between the two could hear our question, ask it of the spirit, get the answer, and finally give us that response either as an EVP or my manipulating one of the devices we asked it to light up. That would make the “Ghost” at the haunted location the messenger of energy not the spirit of the dead. This could be an answer to the long-standing argument: “How do ghosts know how to use modern devices to answer our questions?” If these energy lifeforms do exist, and they are the messengers between our worlds, it could explain the fragmented responses through spirit boxes and voice recorders; and being energy-based they would be able to set off EMF detectors and similar devices. The question to ask then would be: Then how is it ghosts only seem to “haunt” certain locations? That’s a question we’ll address in the next “What if.” Again, “Messengers for the Dead” is a big what if, but these “What if’s” — these possibly completely fantasy, bordering on insanity and science fiction — are valuable questions to ask and entertain in our field because we have zero answers. So the old saying, “There are no stupid questions,” couldn’t be more true! And it’s important to remember: There will not be one answer to everything we are experiencing with the paranormal. There will be multiple explanations to what Ghosts are. Keep asking and keep exploring no matter how weird it may seem! Recent “WHAT IF” posts: It’s All in Your Head Time Traveling Ghosts  WHAT IF WEDNESDAY:
How many times has this happened to you? You're in a haunted location and you hear voice so clear it could be from someone standing right next to you, or you see a person, not just a shadow or light, standing directly in front of you? Good thing you had a voice recorder rolling and your camera pointed straight ahead. But when you do your review the voice and figure aren't there! This has happened to me more times than I can remember, and it's probably the most frustrating encounter during an investigation. I know, without a doubt, I've seen that person standing there. I know, without question, I heard someone who wasn't there speaking directly to me, but I have no proof of the interaction. If I'm sure that it happened, what could be making it so I see and hear the entity, but my devices don't capture them? Thought #1: Our brains have the amazing ability to show us and let us hear exactly what we want to see and hear. The hallucinations our brains create can be so real to us that we can see, hear and even touch a person that isn't there. A complete conversation can be had with a past relative or even a rainbow-scaled dragon if the right chemicals are dumped into our brains. And the most powerful hallucinogenic drugs on the planet are created by our bodies. These super drugs are stored in the brain and just waiting to be released when needed (see my blog post on DMT or if you have my book "GHOSTS FROM THE GROUND UP, " see chapter four, page 57). But these don't explain what I've seen and heard. Thought #2: I think about the movie The Matrix and it's not very far off from the truth when it comes to the world our brain can create if the right areas are stimulated with electrical impulses. If you take a step back for a second and think about it, nothing in the world around us is real. Everything is a complete rebuild in our brains. It's taking the light waves that enter our eyes and constructing a world we understand, and taking in the sound waves entering our ears to create the soundtrack. Most of the time it's creating shortcuts by leaving out details, ignoring the everyday (Example: Your nose is always in view of your eyes, but the brain doesn't show it to you because you don't need to see it every second of every day) and if there's a blank spot, like when you blink or move your eyes (look up Saccadic Masking) it simply makes up what it thinks you should see and fills in the gap. With these amazing superpowers our brains have in mind, we can now apply the, "WHAT IF." What if ghosts are able to tap directly into our heads and "show us" what they want us to see, hear, and feel? The idea is that ghosts are energy. Our every thought, emotion, and sensation (touch, taste, sight, sound and smell) are created by electrical energy in our brains. So, is it possible for ghosts to use their energy to stimulate those areas in our brains that make us see, hear and feel their presence? I have to think that it would take a lot less energy for them to do this than to actually manifest or make their voice heard on recorders. This ability to create sensations would explain many encounters during investigations. The ghosts could be able to effect one in a group, or if strong enough, let two or more experience something. For me it could explain the burning sensation I felt on my arm in Ireland that left no mark, the responses I've received during questioning that only I heard, and the numerous shadow figures that seemed to go unnoticed by everyone in the room except me. In any case, it's an idea to explore and consider when only one member of your group hears or sees something. Maybe at that moment you should focus your investigation on that relationship and personal interaction. It could lead to some answers. What if? If you have a "What if..." You'd like to share, email me and I might post it. Send to: patrickhtdoyle@gmail.com |
Patrick H.T. DoyleBeing out in the middle of nowhere for an extended amount of time gives me time to think. My mind wanders, jumping from thoughts about current theories in the paranormal to new ideas in the hopes of discovering the truth about what we're encountering. These are some of those ideas. Archives
September 2018
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