Season of Shadows Blog

Question: My husband and I used to live in a home where many strange paranormal events took place, including a lot of ghostly activity. The most striking of these events included seeing my husband in essentially two places at once, on two separate occasions.

One evening, as I was headed for bed, he passed right in front of me on his way to the living room. I turned the corner to our bedroom and there he was, again, making the bed. The only problem with this was he would have had to pass by me a second time to get back to our bedroom and he never did.

On another occasion, I was talking to him for several minutes in bed and never received any response. He was just lying there, staring in my direction with a strange, empty look on his face. I got up and went to the bathroom to find him standing at the sink, fully dressed for work and brushing his teeth! It was a straight shot from our bed to the bathroom and he would have had to pass by me again to beat me there.

Each time this occurred I was visually aware of his features and mannerisms, so there was no way I was seeing shifty shapes that I mistook for his presence. Do you have any idea what could cause these events or what their meaning could be? Do you believe they are connected to the haunting in any way?

Answer: Thanks for the great question. Now, I can’t be one hundred percent positive on an explanation about your circumstances. But I do have an idea based on some of the clues you gave and on my own personal encounters with homes that appear to be haunted.

In my experience, there always seems to be an increase in overall psi type phenomena (not just ghosts) in a location that’s believed to be haunted. Whether one is responsible for the other remains to be seen, but I do believe they are connected. However, I don’t believe every strange event at these locations can be attributed to a ghost or what’s believed to be a conscious spectral entity that’s separate from our own point of awareness.

There appears to be something unique about the mixture of energy, from both the location and its occupants which brings out these psi events. If one is not in the presence of the other, then the recipe could be lacking the proper ingredients. Yet, when both are in the same vicinity, interesting things begin occurring. This may also explain why some people can encounter phenomena at a home and others do not. It takes the proper mixture to elicit a response.

I believe the type of phenomenon, specific to your question, had something to do with a breakdown in the normal perceptional flow of reality. Whenever I write or speak about ghosts or apparent haunted locations, I can’t get away from the knowledge that we are reality affecting and reality making “machines.”

Every time we peer out upon the world we are bringing the existence of our lives and everything around us into sharper focus and further being (including that which is deemed paranormal). We don’t always realize this, let alone see it develop in front of us, but when everything is lined up properly, as it was in your home, the potential is there to see how reality is not the solid, chronological construct; independent of our interaction and observation that we’ve been taught.

Based on your description, I believe you perceived multiple interpretations of reality overlaying on top of one another. The reason your husband appeared to be in more locations than he possibly could have been, simultaneously, was because you were witnessing multiple events involving his behavior. These events could have been from the “past” or from the “future,” yet they were being perceived in your present, all simultaneously. It’s like multiple realities colliding at once.

You mentioned that he was not responding when you tried talking to him in bed and he stared right through you as if you weren’t there. Your description shares much in common with the description of people that believe they’ve encountered a residual haunting. A residual haunt is one that’s characterized by repetitive behavior and a lack of acknowledgment by the entity towards the home owners. And often times the entities involved look solid, real and lifelike; not at all ghostly or spectral. Now, I’m not saying one of your husband’s images was a ghost, but neither are a lot of the “ghosts” that appear to be residually occupying a location.

They too are constructs from another place in time that is colliding with our chronological version of the present unfolding moment. This is why they (along with your husband) don’t interact with those that witness them. It’s because the witnesses may not have been present when that actual event was/is unfolding in space and time. But it doesn’t mean the event is of a ghostly nature and it definitely doesn’t mean that specific version of reality is ceasing to be, just because it’s perceived as past history. All events that have ever occurred or that are ever going to occur continue to unfold in a setting that we would call real (if we were submersed in them). It’s simply a matter of finding the way to consciously access the events.

Your husband may have been acting like you weren’t there in that moment because you actually weren’t, not from his point of awareness anyway. From his perspective that event in your bedroom may have taken place while you were not even in the bed. He may have been staring at something else that just happened to be in your direction. Yet, from your perspective he was seemingly staring at you.

A friend of mine, in El Paso, Texas, encountered a similar situation many years ago. One minute he was looking through his clothes, in the closet, and the next he was witnessing an event from the town of El Paso, over a century before. He said it was like the wall to his room just faded away and he became aware of a street scene that was straight out of the 19th century. The people were real and lifelike, yet none of them even noticed he was watching them.

I believe he too was tapping into the true nature of reality and its timelessness. His present experience and something that we believe to be from a bygone era merged together. The key in these experiences appears to lie with the witness. Whoever is seeing the unexplainable events unfold is usually a bystander, but nothing more. This comes back to our ability to collapse multiple potentials and possibilities into one construct that we call reality. Even though some individuals have peered into these other forms of reality, it doesn’t mean the participants contained therein can peer back and see the original witness.

I know your experiences were unsettling, but I don’t feel you were encountering anything to be frightened of. I believe you were actually witnessing the abilities we each have for affecting and interpreting reality, in an extremely acute, conscious way. As Clarence, from It’s a Wonderful Life, told George Bailey, “You’ve been given a great gift- a chance to see what the world would be like without you.”

Only you were seeing the truly timeless, non-sequential nature of reality and its limitless potentials; based on your incredible power for observing them into being. The only reason I would assume this hasn’t continued happening to you, has something to do with the fact you are no longer living in that location. There is definitely something a foot regarding certain locations and our abilities for experiencing more pronounced psi phenomena when we are occupying them.

And that does it for this question and answer installment. I would like to thank the individual that sent in the above question and everyone that took the time to read this post. If you have any questions you’d like to see addressed, please contact me. As always, your name will be kept private unless you request otherwise.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with others. Thanks for your support.

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For the last few months, I’ve been writing quite heavily about ways for spiritually empowering ourselves. The majority of my recent entries have been aimed at exploring alternative ways for viewing our reality. When we can shift our perspective, we may find ourselves no longer bogged down in the quagmire of our old limiting points of view. It’s a lot like hiking up a mountaintop and leaving behind the smog and pollution which lies in the city below. We breathe better, feel better, and are able to see a new horizon, far beyond the one we perceived from our previous location.

There’s no question we can have a more exhilarating, rewarding life experience when we shift our outlook and attitude away from limiting concepts. But how might these same techniques also be beneficial to us once we move beyond this plane of existence?

If you’re a regular reader of the Season of Shadows Blog, you know I don’t believe in a heaven and hell in the strictest sense of those terms. And I definitely don’t believe anyone or thing sits around just waiting to reward or condemn us. Both heaven and hell are of our own making and they can just as easily be found in our physical lives as they can be after we make our death transition. Each one of us is completely in charge of our specific program. If we are capable of fully absorbing that knowledge, then we will have a much easier time than those that believe they have one shot to get it correct or else.

The or else is what leads to the feelings of guilt, embarrassment, shame, regret, lack, worry, fear, etc. We already know the types of effects these emotions have on our physical life experiences. They tighten us up, close us off, and shut us down; preventing us from recognizing our abilities. If these states of being limit our experiences in this physical life and we each are responsible for every bit of what’s coming to us, then what’s this say about possible occurrences after we pass on?

I believe those that spend the majority of their time in fear based states have great potential for encountering more fragmented and confusing experiences once they cross over. I’ve discussed the idea that we can reconnect to the full awareness of our greatness after we pass on, yet I also believe there are other options in front of us. We can still choose to limit our power in the afterlife just the same as we do in this physical world.

If we’ve already spent a lifetime in physical awareness deeming ourselves unworthy, then the transition beyond this environment may have more of the same in store for us, until we choose to see otherwise. I believe it’s these circumstances of shunning our greatness for the likes of fearful, limiting concepts that may be one explanation for the phenomena of ghosts.

The concept of ghosts and what they might be is a topic I’ve pursued quite often. I’ve presented a variety of ideas and possibilities for their presence in posts like How Conscious Are Ghosts? and Specters, Spirits & Time. However, one area I’ve never touched on is what a haunting might look like from their perspective. Today’s entry has been a long time coming. I really intended for it to be the second half to Trapped: Ghostly Destiny or Choice, but was so busy around last Halloween, I never got around to writing it.

Now, if we follow the evidence that some hauntings do seem to possess a form of consciousness, then perhaps ghosts are operating with a degree of lucidity. But if this is the case, I believe it’s so fragmented it bares little resemblance to our waking state of consciousness. It probably has more in common with our dream sequences than it does with the aspect of our awareness that functions on a daily basis within our reality.

I know my own dreams primarily hinge on a handful of themes (containing many varieties and plays on those themes) that have cycled throughout my lifetime. The way my dreams unfold around these themes depends upon my state of mind throughout the day and night, prior to falling asleep. I never really become lucid in my dreams for more than a few seconds and then I’m once again swallowed up by the unfolding sequences, forgetting my conscious abilities, as I trail off, losing myself in the dreamscape.

I believe ghosts may be having a similar experience. They continue to interact in a handful of themes that were taken from their most recent physical life. This is why it appears they want to hang around certain locations; not because they are hell bent on bothering people, but because they are reliving past experiences in their present moment. The way they behave in their “dream” sequences depends upon the emotions they primarily fed off of during their lives, combined with the way they felt when they crossed over.

I don’t believe they are even occupying the same spatial locations we are. They are connecting with our environment through their thoughts. In their current form they basically are nothing more than thought. It’s thought and emotion that makes up the soul.

We primarily exist in their “minds” and vice versa. Their dream like world easily coincides with our physical environment, even when we’re not aware of them. We can end up as a portion of their reality, but we are nothing more than players in their fractured, scattered sequences of thought. If they express hostility towards us, then it’s probably an emotional imprint from their personality in their previous life. Of course, there’s always the potential for misinterpreting their primary intentions, simply from our own fear of the unknown.

I believe ghosts may also have moments of lucid awareness during their experiences, just as we do during our dreams. These lucid moments may bring them to the realization that they have passed on, but then they forget their conscious powers and trail right back into the dreamy quality of their existence. The only way they can eventually pull themselves out of these cyclical murky experiences is to become fully lucid and retain the awareness of where they truly are. When I said they have to make a conscious decision to be capable of moving on, in my post Trapped: Ghostly Destiny or Choice, this was the decision I was talking about.

The problem with obtaining this lucidity is, once we’ve managed to convince ourselves of the illusion that we lack power and control over our experiences, we primarily retain that belief, both here and wherever else we shift our focus of attention. We typically act and react from the same old locations of disempowering emotions, instead of reaching the top of the mountain and finding that the horizon is only as limited as our perspective tells us.

A fascinating thing about saying ghosts are constantly being swallowed up by their circumstances is that they’re not the only ones. I used the theory of dreaming as an analogy for their experience because it seems to best describe what I believe they are going through. Yet, most of us among the “living”, even when awake, are operating in a murky experience. Our dreams are not the only place we refuse to become lucid.

There’s a theory in metaphysical and new age circles called “dying consciously.” It basically states we must consciously make the decision to move toward the infamous tunnel of light or we risk missing our opportunity to reconnect to our full source awareness. While I don’t agree with most of the implications surrounding the theory, I do believe there’s something to be said for the concepts evoked by the term.

However, I definitely don’t believe we have to rendezvous with a tunnel as our only means for reconnecting to our source awareness. But, if we don’t expand enough to begin living consciously while we’re physically focused, then we may carry our unconscious lack of awareness right into the afterlife with us.

Living consciously isn’t about repenting, being baptized, attending services, receiving the last rites, or any other dogmatic act that’s carried out to appease a supposed vengeful deity awaiting our arrival. It’s about exploring your true personal nature, reclaiming your power and becoming the architect of your entire experience, both here and when you make your transition into other aspects and focuses of consciousness.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with others. Thanks for your support.

Related Posts

How Conscious Are Ghosts?
Specters, Spirits & Time
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