A ghost in the house you say?

Shouldn't be happening. Don't know why it would. Nobody has died in the house. I think a dog died there, but that shouldn't have produced what I experienced.

So the story is that I am sitting in my office on a really busy day. The wife just called to say that she's leaving her sister's house and is just stopping by for a couple of minutes before going on to work. She's bringing food, so I am kind of expecting to hear when she arrives.

So I hear what I thought was the door closing and a voice downstairs. Mind you it was not very loud, but my door was open. I can pretty much hear what's going on in the house.

Anyway, a couple of minutes go by and the dogs upstairs with me aren't doing a thing. They're just laying in the bedroom sleeping.

As I got up to see who is/was downstairs the dogs perk up and wonder what I'm doing. Obviously they didn't hear anything.

So they follow me down the stairs to which I find nothing. There's nobody here. The wife's not home yet and it's just quiet as can be. So being the nice dog owner I am, I let the dogs out.

I go into the living room and when I do, I smell this strong flower smell. Kind of like someone sprayed some air freshener or just cut some flowers. It was a bit overwhelming. Anyway, I don't know my flowers, but I try to figure out where that smell is coming from.

It wasn't any of the plants. It sure wasn't the fabric softener solution we use on the microfiber couches to reduce static. It wasn't even the candles. The smell continued around the corner into the dining room and that was it. Very localized.

I looked at the thermostat as that is right there, and it was just as I left it.

I let one of the dogs back in and go back to work for a bit.

The other dog finally barks to come in much later and when I go down to let him in, I see that my wife finally has arrived.

And the smell is gone. No trace or similar odor to be found.

I tell my wife about it and we wonder what that is all about.

If there is a ghost in the house then we don't know why it's there. I would highly doubt there is, but I will be sure to keep my eyes and ears open.

What would really be a mind scramble is that it's the same as the female voice that speaks to me during the middle of the night in my head. I don't know where that is coming from either... and I wear earplugs to bed!

Do still born babies have souls?

I don't know for sure, but I have been posting (mainly for my sanity) the various occurrences that have happened during my dreams or whatever.

Lately, I have been hearing voices that aren't my own. I have tasked my ego voice to monitor and report when a voice in my head isn't really mine.

It's an interesting aspect, because the ego is generally that voice in your head to begin with. It takes credit for a lot of stuff and fluffs you up or tears you down.

Echardt Tolle made an entire series of books where he details an existence without the ego. That only works if you're able to kill your ego/inner voice.

Well, I made a deal with my ego in that it reports when something doesn't belong to it. It works with the ego rather than against it. Somewhere the ego is responsible for prodding me to place these items on the blog.

Anyway, I had a dream that was going really well, then I had a voice start talking saying stuff about the dream. The ego alerted me to the voice, to which I mentally asked "who are you?". The reply was: "I am your sister".

I wasn't mentally acute at the time, so I was like "what's your name?". I couldn't remember who from what, so I was surprised when I was given the image of a store that has the same name as my still-born sister!

The voice is one that wasn't something I could come up with. It was a very smooth mid-range female voice. My voice is low or nasally. Definitely not mine. When I am sleeping I am usually wearing earplugs to assist my sleep. This doesn't stop any voices like that as they enter my head whether I want them to or not.

The way I compare to hearing a voice like that is to imagine a tv or radio is on in the same room and occasionally some words are spoken. In my awake state, this doesn't happen much, if at all. It's more of high pitched ringing when I am alert.

The whole incident brings up a series of impossible to answer questions. Like, how do you confirm that you're contacted by a deceased relative you've never met, OR do still-born babies have souls?

I don't expect most people to have an answer. The fundamentalist view would be to say that it's in my head and it wasn't real, or that I am going mental, or even that it's some kind of "demon" talking to me.

My experience would suggest none of those are possible. If it's just in my head, why does it wake me? If I was going mental, why pose that as a possibility. Insanity is like true evil, it never really considers itself as such. Then there's the idea of demons, which if you really study your demonology, you know that there's certain characteristics about demons that allow you to tell when you're dealing with one or not.

Anyway, I am not completely insane. Until I figure it all out, I am just observing and reporting, which is what I have asked my ego to do as well.

Shadows over Indianola Iowa

Visiting family in Indianola for the holidays, I did not sleep well both nights I was there.

The first night I woke up to what I perceived was a large shadowy figure looking over me. Perhaps it was just watching, perhaps it was praying.

I was just waking, so I don't know for sure if it was really there or not. In any event, if I am waken up suddenly, it's usually for something affecting me externally. By nature I don't wake up suddenly.

The second night I was waken by a dream. I perceive this was a direct attack by the shadow from the previous night. There was no facial forms that I could tell, but it happens so quickly, that I could get a bearing first. If I did, then I could have responded and dealt with whatever it was.

The dream was that I was working with bruce wayne. This was DEFINITELY just a dream, however, I found myself in the living room of my parents house (where I was staying) when I heard knocking on the front door. Someone opened the door and bursting through the door was the shadow. It shot directly toward me and stated "what are you doing here!"

I perceive this as a psychic attack due to the fact that I woke up immediately.

I don't think this was a being that resided in my parents house. On the other hand, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that would suggest there is a dark presence that exists over the whole town.

If there is such a presence and that it would want to maintain its foothold over a town like Indianola, then it would confront and try to remove anyone who would be capable of removing the presence. It's possible I could do it, but I would have to be lucky more than anything.

I consider myself only to be slightly psychic. That is that I have a fairly good intuitive sense, I sometimes know things before they happen, and I have what some people consider as a rudimentary clairaudient skill. (i.e. I have an intelligent ringing in my ears.)

I would say that I am unrefined in any mental skill. My life has dwelt on the logic and scientific. To advance any mental skill would be to toss aside logic in favor of a more esoteric view. Unfortunately a logical approach is all I am capable of at this time.

I know there are many stories that come from the town, but my understanding is that someone opened a portal to the spirit world on the south side of town and never closed it. Such a portal would have to be open for a very long time to affect the town in the manner that it currently does. The town is much too small for the pure quantity of coincidences that suggest an evil presence. One could blame the lack of response by the churches in the area, but there are so many, one begins to wonder.

Indianola was once known as the "holy city" because of it's stance at one time where alcohol was not allowed where everywhere else did allow it. If the presence is one of a truly evil nature, this reputation only encourages such behavior.

Indianola is not without its share of ghosts and ghost stories. The most famous is the ghost in one of the buildings on simpson college's campus.

Another story is that a ghost hunting group did an investigation and one of the investigators had a heart attack.

Is it for real? I am pretty sure that it is.

Pray for Indianola. It needs it.

You're professionals! Fix it!!!

Just lashing out for a second. Ghost Lab really irritates me at times. Maybe it's how it is edited so that brad is always provoking with a strong voice, or maybe it's their use of tech.

Don't get me started about how ridiculous the video display is just flaunting the fact that they have too much money. What really burns me is the "head cam".

The head camera is a small lipstick camera that is infrared enabled and fits on the ear. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but with any piece of technology it is how you use it and that you know how to set it up.

OMG! They do not know how to set that camera up for brad's head. Does that guy always stare at the ceiling? Probably not. If anything he looks down his nose with his head slightly back. That means that the camera needs to come DOWN.

Every time you see that fricking camera shot, it's ALWAYS showing the ceiling.

You want to be on TV and not be considered a hack, then FIX IT NOW!!!

I do have a little issue with the use of infrared cameras. Actually, I don't get it. The only reason why you'd need to use infrared is to see the world around you when it's all completely dark. In some cases you can actually see a spirit, but if you see the results of other technology, then you'd know that infrared is about as useful as a regular camera. When you get into full spectrum, ultraviolet or even thermal, you run a better chance of catching something.

Maybe I am playing percentages, but usually the best evidence is not from an IR camera.

I suppose that if you're on TV then you want to show your face, but about half of the ghost hunters on tv aren't people that I want to know about.

Now I've probably said this a million times, but what's the point of ghost hunting if after all is said and done that all you got is "yes, you got ghosts" or "no, we didn't find your ghosts". What's the point? What's the goal? What comes next?

Do creepy people become ghosts?

I was thinking about this.

Take your pedophile or peeping tom or sexual pervert. These are an example of the scum of life. Now imagine that they die and instead of going to heaven or hell that they just get stuck. Basically that they are a ghost.

So they're running around doing what they did before without having anyone stop them or notice that they're doing really sick stuff?

Supposedly ghosts watch you all the time. They watch what you're doing when you're seemingly all alone.

Does anyone else find this a little more than just creepy?

What about the uncle or grandparent that was a closet perv? Is that now available to them without a check and balance in the "in-between"?

Supposedly loved ones want to visit us, but in the world we currently live in, there are expectations and rules which we live by, because there's a taboo or line that we just don't cross.

Apparently this is not the case in the spirit world. They visit at all times, hang around for very long periods, and don't let us know that they are there.

Well, that's assuming that we're unable to tell when a spirit is near. I am not altogether convinced that we're not able to detect spirits. That goes back to what I was saying about the "filter".

Lifeless Chicago

Lifeless Chicago is the name of a twitter book I am writing.

I am just getting started in the real time twitter adventure/horror. I am partially inspired by the AMC show "The Walking Dead", but also I am wanting to put a new spin on the traditional interpretations of the bible. The book of matthew has one of my favorite moments in the time just after jesus dies. The dead rise up out of their graves and go into the town.

Are the dead the zombie types? Are they a sign of something to come? Well, you'll just have to follow and find out!

The filter still persists

There is a filter in a brain. Most everyone has it. There are some people that do not.

The veil is definitely in the brain. It's the veil that separates what is easily seen and what isn't seen. It's also in regards to pattern recognition.

When it comes to pattern recognition, you see something, recognize it and your brain just throws it out as being already seen. If you have ever said "that person looks like...", then you're doing pattern recognition.

Autism has a problem with the filter when it comes to stuff like recognition and other things. It's said that when it comes to the puzzle where two pictures look exactly alike and that there are subtle differences, most people find it a bit of a challenge. The autistic person will have those difference come immediately out and see those items instantly.

So when you see these autistic people (and not being an expert on autism, I will defer if this is incorrect) and they are unable to function, there must be some level of the filter that isn't working for them. To them there is no filter. That means every noise comes across as being equally important. Meaning the more sources the noise, the more confusion exists.

Everyone that's normal wouldn't see that as a problem. They filter out things and can concentrate only on one source.

I have some kind of auditory processing problem myself, so in crowded rooms, it sounds like just a bunch of discordant noise. I have trouble isolating a voice due to the overwhelming noise. In a way, I have a bit of a problem with filtering those things out. I know how it feels.

Now, take it to the other end. There's a story where a native was looking at columbus' ships and couldn't see them. Eventually, he noticed the way the waves hit something in the water and saw the ripples emanating from the location. Eventually deduced that there was something there in the water.

Only after then did the native see the ships.

In that case the filter threw that information out even though it was completely new and unknown.

Take natural psychic mediums as a contrast. Here are people who can see the unknown as if it's completely known. So what's going on with their filter? Is it like the autistic who can't filter at all? Or is it a selected filter?

It is like my auditory processing? I don't easily recognize visual differences.

There's a point that I am leading to and it's in regard to an open mind. The older you are the more likely you are to be more and more rigid in your mental processing. So when it comes to being like the native and seeing something new, your filter gets in the way.

And as you try harder and harder to see the truth of what's really there...
The filter still persists.