Places of Suffering

GuanYin

Recently went to visit museum exhibit in an old jail.

This involved pretty much free access to walk around the cells and places the prisoners were mistreated, tortured and abused and where many ultimately died.

Now I'll preface the rest of this post by saying I've seen ALOT of death. I've seen more dead bodies than I remember and I watched many many people die, so I'm not easily spooked.

Anyway, I read the guidebook for the museum and was going through the tour and I must say I was wholey unimpressed at the time. I can't say I related or empathised much with the suffering or the plight portrayed.

But when I went into one of the cells, I was hit with a horrible feeling, immediately I had a flash back to feelings I had on visits to auswitz and cambodia. I then was overcome with a strong sense of deja vu. The hairs on the back of my neck were on end and I was noticably uncomfortable (it was commented on - I looked very "cold") This passed when I left the cell but I had a similar sensation in one other cell I visited.

Now, I'd normally put this down to psychological empathy, I certainly did in the other places, but why here, when I specifically noted that I didn't relate at all to the suffering in this place. Also, why the deja vu? I don't previously remember associating the feeling in the other two places but this third time, it was like they all fit in together in a puzzle.

Thoughts?

Zillah

psi wrote:

Now I'll preface the rest of this post by saying I've seen ALOT of death. I've seen more dead bodies than I remember and I watched many many people die, so I'm not easily spooked.

Christ, what do you do for a living?

(/Imagines scary answer "Oh no, its a hobby"...)

Now, I'd normally put this down to psychological empathy, I certainly did in the other places, but why here, when I specifically noted that I didn't relate at all to the suffering in this place. Also, why the deja vu? I don't previously remember associating the feeling in the other two places but this third time, it was like they all fit in together in a puzzle.

Thoughts?

Well, there's the obvious believer point of view that you were picking up on the "energy"... of the area and linked up with some terrible sensation that was ingrained. Its the "stone recording" theory.

A more traditional explanation might be infra sound. Click: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound

It has long been realized that infrasound may cause feelings of awe or fear. Since it is not consciously perceived, it can make people feel vaguely that supernatural events are taking place. In a controlled experiment published in September, 2003, people at a concert were asked to rate their responses to a variety of pieces of music, some of which were accompanied by infrasonic elements. The participants were not aware of which pieces included the infrasound. Many participants (22%) reported feelings of anxiety, uneasiness, extreme sorrow, nervous feelings of revulsion or fear and chills down the spine which correlated with the infrasonic events. In presenting the evidence to the British Association, the scientist responsible said "These results suggest that low frequency sound can cause people to have unusual experiences even though they cannot consciously detect infrasound. Some scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost—our findings support these ideas"

GuanYin

Zillah wrote:

Christ, what do you do for a living?

Medical - specifically experimental medicine.

Well, there's the obvious believer point of view that you were picking up on the "energy"... of the area and linked up with some terrible sensation that was ingrained. Its the "stone recording" theory.

Yup I came across this idea alright. I'm pretty sure I have the psychic ability of a hamster though.

A more traditional explanation might be infra sound. Click: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound

Now that is interesting, except - why would I be picking up infrasound at these three places and nowhere else? What are the odds that I'd get that feeling three times ever and that they would all be monuments to attrocities?

stevenmu

It's very hard to tell someone what their experience meant or could have been. Experiences like this are very subjective and really people just have to decide for themselves what they mean. With that said, here's what your experience means ....

The most interesting thing is that it only seemed to happen in two locations in the area. Presumably there was no particular story about those two rooms which would have triggered an emotional response where the others had not ?

It does sound like a classic case of stone tape theory, or some similar phenomon, whereby you were not aware of any particular entity, but seem to have been affected by some event that took place there. It's hard to say why you would have been affected by those particular rooms only, when most likely similar events took place in many of the other rooms. It's also hard to say why only you seemed to experience these sensations when others in your group did not. My own suspicion is that some peoples energies are more compatible with each other than other peoples. Just like in real life where sometimes we connect really well with some people, while taking a dislike to others for no apparant reason, I suspect that when a persons energy becomes embedded in an object that some people will be more sensitive to it than others. I want to try and say something about frequencies and resonance, but I'm not sure exactly what to say, except that it sounds like for some reason the energies in those particular rooms somehow suited you, or perhaps even your own personal energies were particularly suited to 'trigger' those particular 'recordings'.

As for infrasound, my understaning of it is that it travells over distance and through objects quite well, as lower frequency sounds tend to, it's hard to know without knowing the layout of the place and the insulation of the rooms, but I would have expected that if it was present in one room to be present in all nearby areas (especially if you take into account that any potential source of infrasound should be affecting those areas too). Also, while some people may be naturally more susceptible to it than others, if it was affecting someone quite strongly, would others not feel something too ?

flynnser19

i am going to be visiting long kesh h blocks this year sometime (if theyd ever write back with the date) with my dad and a few other sinn fein people and im ****tin it now dat im gonna get a feelin of death and misery!!!does dis always happen in places of suffering?because these men went thru an awful amount of suffering in different ways!!!

solas

just imo, if you do believe in such things... the general consensus dictates that we experience spirit in relative terms, or in plain engrish, we have a better chance of connecting with memories (spirit) we can relate to.
So, for instance, you being the non empathic type re death might might have a better chance of connecting with memories of the same mind frame.
not suggesting your a cold blooded killer, just noting a common denominator

In my experience with "spirit", I get to "see" from their perspective, like stepping into those memories. Could you apply this to your experience?

solas

steve wrote:

it sounds like for some reason the energies in those particular rooms somehow suited you, or perhaps even your own personal energies were particularly suited to 'trigger' those particular 'recordings'.

what he said.

Zillah

Hehe. Something just occured to me. Maybe they've got it backwards with infrasound.


Maybe ghosts cause infrasound in their location, and hence humanity has evolved to feel fear or unease in the presence of infrasound, and hence why people freak out when exposed to controlled infrasound

6th

Zillah wrote:

Hehe. Something just occured to me. Maybe they've got it backwards with infrasound.


Maybe ghosts cause infrasound in their location, and hence humanity has evolved to feel fear or unease in the presence of infrasound, and hence why people freak out when exposed to controlled infrasound

See this is were thinks get confusing for me. I think Zillah is on to something. Ok so infrasound causes a feeling of fear in people, but isnt it possible that the energies of some "Ghosts" hit this same frequency (or what ever it is)?

In saying that I dont think everyone feels fear around spirits, I take great comfort from them in many cases and its only in places like the basement of Charleville that anything really gets to me.

Zillah how much funding do you need to look into this? ... I could pay you in old 2000AD comics?

6th

I'm quoted this artile a few times since i've been here but it still doesnt sit with me, they are stating that they can create these feelings but just coz you can recreate something taht doesnt prove it cant and doesnt occur under different circumstances?

Ghosts are the mind's way of interpreting how the body reacts to certain surroundings, say UK psychologists.

A chill in the air, low-light conditions and even magnetic fields may trigger feelings that "a presence" is in a room - but that is all they are, feelings.

This explanation of ghosts is the result of a large study in which researchers led hundreds of volunteers around two of the UK's supposedly most haunted locations - Hampton Court Palace, England, and the South Bridge Vaults in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dr Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, and his colleagues say their work has thrown up some interesting data to suggest why so many people can be spooked in the same building but provides no evidence that ghosts are real.

Clustered experiences
In Hampton Court - alleged to contain the ghost of the executed Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry VIII - the volunteers were asked to face their fear.

They had to record any unusual experiences, such as hearing footsteps, feeling cold or a presence in the room, as well as marking the location and intensity of the experience on a floor plan.

Before this, candidates were also asked to reveal any prior knowledge of hauntings at the site.

The researchers then examined the distribution of unusual experiences.

In a "normal" setting, you would expect the ghostly encounters to be evenly spaced, but in classic haunting, they would be clustered around certain places.

The results were striking: participants did record a higher number of unusual experiences in the most classically haunted places of Hampton Court, areas such as the Georgian rooms and the Haunted Gallery.

And in the Edinburgh vaults, the result was the same - the vaults considered most haunted were the locations where the most unusual encounters occurred during the study.

Environmental cues
The researchers interpret this as evidence that hauntings are a real phenomenon because they are concentrated in specific places over time.

Indeed, it is known for people from different cultures to consistently report similar experiences over perhaps hundreds of years.

"Hauntings exist, in the sense that places exist where people reliably have unusual experiences," Dr Richard Wiseman told BBC News Online. "The existence of ghosts is a way of explaining these experiences."

But are the ghosts real? Dr Wiseman and his colleagues are not so sure.

They claim, somewhat paradoxically, that the hauntings exist but the ghosts do not.

"People do have consistent experiences in consistent places, but I think that this is driven by visual factors mainly, and perhaps some other environmental cues," he said.

Sensitive people
Making detailed measurements at each place, such as temperature, light intensity and room space, Dr Wiseman thinks that people are responding unconsciously to environmental cues and the general "spookiness" of their surroundings.

He cites examples of mediums successfully indicating haunted areas of buildings with no prior knowledge of them.

Spiritualists interpret this as evidence that the ghosts are there, but another explanation is that the mediums are simply more sensitive to the environmental cues that result in haunted feelings - not sensitivity to the ghosts themselves.

Sceptics have long maintained that ghostly encounters are influenced by a person's knowledge of the place and its history, the "prior knowledge hypothesis".

But this study refutes that explanation, as the statistics showed that prior knowledge did not affect the areas in which strange experiences were recorded.

"We found little if no evidence that people's prior knowledge mattered," said Dr Wiseman. "If anything, it made them veer away from having experiences in the known haunted sites."

Dr Wiseman and colleagues report their data in the British Journal of Psychology.

Nevyn

6th wrote:

Zillah how much funding do you need to look into this? ... I could pay you in old 2000AD comics?

oh my gods, what ones ? any red durnum ? what issues? what condition ?

/me watches her geek points soar.

It could be that the occupants of those cells had a inate ability to broadcast thier feelings or enough will to make themselves felt to the right persons.

6th

Thaedydal wrote:

.......It could be that the occupants of those cells had a inate ability to broadcast thier feelings or enough will to make themselves felt to the right persons.

See i've been thinking that is some people are more effective at receiving then surely there are those who are more effective at giving out these energies?

As for the comics, theres a big box full - plenty of the lovely Blood Queen - I had such a thing for her!

Zillah

6th wrote:

I take great comfort from them in many cases and its only in places like the basement of Charleville that anything really gets to me.

The basement near the toilets freaked me out completely. I just felt really really uncomfortable there. Doesn't neccessarily mean that there are ghosts there, but it certainly made me feel awful.

There was one thing that I found very interesting though. That corridor can be appraoched from three or four different directions, and over the course of the night I had reason to go down them all. And not once did I know where they led to. But every single time I got close to that area I felt the same creeping sensation.

Zillah how much funding do you need to look into this? ... I could pay you in old 2000AD comics?

Deal!

stevenmu

Zillah wrote:

Hehe. Something just occured to me. Maybe they've got it backwards with infrasound.


Maybe ghosts cause infrasound in their location, and hence humanity has evolved to feel fear or unease in the presence of infrasound, and hence why people freak out when exposed to controlled infrasound

That's quite possible, altough considering that "Infrasound sometimes results naturally from ocean waves, avalanches, earthquakes, volcanoes, and meteors." (from the wikipedia article) it seems more likely that man has developed a negative response to infrasound for more natural reasons.

Maybe you've been reading this forum too much

Nevyn

6th wrote:

As for the comics, theres a big box full - plenty of the lovely Blood Queen - I had such a thing for her!

/me tries not to drool
Who doesn't.

Zillah

stevenmu wrote:

Maybe you've been reading this forum too much

I see they got to you!

flynnser19

thanx for ur help ppl *sarcasm*

6th

flynnser19 wrote:

thanx for ur help ppl *sarcasm*

No need to get snotty, you're question didnt really stand out.

Though in answer to it, of course you could get a horrible feeling there but that doesnt mean its paranormal. Just knowing what happened there, especially if you feel strongly about it, can really affect you.

stevenmu

Sorry, missed your post in amongst all the others.

You may or may not "get a feelin of death and misery", there's no real way to know in advance. The only way to be certain you avoid it is to not go there, which would be a shame as the visit could be an interesting experience in it's own right. If something does happen you while you are there, then that too could be a worthwhile experience. Even though the emotions you might feel (and it's very very unlikely that anything paranormal will happen you) may be negative, that doesn't mean it has to be a negative experience for you, you can make it into an overall positive experience and try and learn something from it. There isn't anything to be afraid of if something 'bad' does happen, you won't be possessed or anything like that.

Nevyn

6th wrote:

No need to get snotty, you're question didnt really stand out.

And it was really hard to read and make sense of.

flynnser19

it wasnt that hard to understand!!dont start about the way i type!!people type in different ways ok??

thanx a million for your comments everyone i mean it this time!!!xxx

Zillah

flynnser19 wrote:

it wasnt that hard to understand!!dont start about the way i type!!people type in different ways ok??

I suppose you could argue that people type in different ways, yes.

Two ways; "well" and "badly". One is understandable and considerate, the other is not.

SkepticOne

6th wrote:

I'm quoted this artile a few times since i've been here but it still doesnt sit with me, they are stating that they can create these feelings but just coz you can recreate something taht doesnt prove it cant and doesnt occur under different circumstances?

The same man Richard Wiseman conducted an experiment with Jonathan Sykes, a computer games researcher, where they constructed virtual reality representation of one of the sites. They found that peopsle were freaked out in certain areas, some imagining ghosts and presences and such. It seems that the geometry of the architecture itself has an effect on the mind possibly evoking instictive dreads and fears from our ancestral past.

As you say, this does not prove that every case of haunting is simply in the mind. It does show that we need to be careful about subjective experience. Something can seem real but not be.

GuanYin

Zillah wrote:

I suppose you could argue that people type in different ways, yes.

Two ways; "well" and "badly". One is understandable and considerate, the other is not.

Zillah, do I really need to warn you about your conduct on this forum?

IF you found it hard to read, fair enough, don't have a go at the poster.

GuanYin

SkepticOne wrote:

The same man Richard Wiseman conducted an experiment with Jonathan Sykes, a computer games researcher, where they constructed virtual reality representation of one of the sites. They found that peopsle were freaked out in certain areas, some imagining ghosts and presences and such. It seems that the geometry of the architecture itself has an effect on the mind possibly evoking instictive dreads and fears from our ancestral past.

As you say, this does not prove that every case of haunting is simply in the mind. It does show that we need to be careful about subjective experience. Something can seem real but not be.

Now this is interesting.

Questions on the experiment:

Had the subjects previously been "freaked out" in similar buildings?

Did the subjects know the virtual representation was supposed to be scary?

Did the programmers mimic air movement, smell, sounds and humidity?