Q & A: Seeing Body Doubles in a Haunted Location
March 31st, 2008 by John WolfeQuestion: 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.
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