I've always wanted to know

[Rich1987]

I know some people can see/hear spirits , but why can't some of us who really want to not see them?, my dad passed over 2 year ago and from time to time I sence he is near by - would be nice if I seen him even if it was for few seconds.
But I also hear spirits won't come near you if they know you would be scare 'ect'

What d'ya think? :D:D

[daisy]

Hi Rich, I think sometimes people really believe they are ready to see spirit, I know I did for a long long time but it just never happened, I realise now that this was because I was still fearful of seeing them deep down, I wasn't rready but I refused to acknowledge that.

IMO spirit knows what you truly feel and will not show you until you are ready, I think this is why we sometimes may see mists or orbs or spirit lights and shadows for a time, they are breaking us in gently. I was told very firmly by spirit to be patient and I was and I do see them now.

There are of course always exceptions to the rule and some will see them long before they are ready and get scared and turn their back on the whole thing. Some will just see and embrace it.

[Rich1987]

Hey thanks for answering my question - I guess you're right : I suppose deep down I can't be ready , I am I jump at people jumping out on tv and stuff so how would I manage to see a spirit?
but I guess as I said I have sence people around me so I guess that is better than nothing and fingers crossed I will see them one day :D

[Jules]

Hi Rich,
Welcome to SF. I don't think we've met before, so it's nice to meet you :)

I can only tell you from my own experience and learnings whilst being on my own journey.

Everybody is born psychic and I was originally told not everyone has mediumistic tendancies. However, I'm not 100% in agreement with that.
I do think people can try too hard. It's all so simple but we make it so hard. Learn to meditate and go into the silence from within. Turn off your mind and start to concentrate on listening to your inner voice, trusting yourself that what you see, hear or feel is not from your own thoughts. Take notice of your dreams. Write them down, remembering as much detail as you can, not forgetting any emotion you felt with it. This is all about YOU. Each and every one of us develop at different paces. Find a spiritualist church nearby that does psychic/spiritual development groups, read, come on here, develop your own intuition,, use what tools you already have available to you and work with those. You've already started to do that by posing this question alone. You've opened up to the possiblity now. So my friend, enjoy the ride :). Look around the boards, ask questions, and most of all, have fun
Love light and laughter
Jules x

[Rich1987]

Hi Rich,
Welcome to SF. I don't think we've met before, so it's nice to meet you :)

I can only tell you from my own experience and learnings whilst being on my own journey.

Everybody is born psychic and I was originally told not everyone has mediumistic tendancies. However, I'm not 100% in agreement with that.
I do think people can try too hard. It's all so simple but we make it so hard. Learn to meditate and go into the silence from within. Turn off your mind and start to concentrate on listening to your inner voice, trusting yourself that what you see, hear or feel is not from your own thoughts. Take notice of your dreams. Write them down, remembering as much detail as you can, not forgetting any emotion you felt with it. This is all about YOU. Each and every one of us develop at different paces. Find a spiritualist church nearby that does psychic/spiritual development groups, read, come on here, develop your own intuition,, use what tools you already have available to you and work with those. You've already started to do that by posing this question alone. You've opened up to the possiblity now. So my friend, enjoy the ride :). Look around the boards, ask questions, and most of all, have fun
Love light and laughter
Jules x

Nice to meet you too jules.

I get what you mean , maybe I have never been in the right state of mind to do what you decribed , I keep meaning to do it but I am always worrying about something and as for the spiritalist church 'ect' I have been meaning to go to one of them as well just never had the courage to go but hopefully some day soon.

[daisy]

Hi Rich, that's just my opinion, so please do read any further opinions people may post :)

Just to add what you say about jumping at people jumping out on tv etc, in my experience seeing a spirit for the first time was so subtle and gentle I didn't realise I had seen one until they were gone, then the surprise kicked in, in a pleasant way, but I wasn't scared.

I think the thought of seeing one, (as you say things jumping out, paranormal tv has a lot to answer for!!!) is the frightening bit, seeing one isn't scary at all, it's quite amazing once you get over the initial surprise (NOT fear.)

I've never known a single one to jump out to deliberately scare me, that is not their intention 99 times out of a hundred (as there is a darker side)

But your dad, he loved you in this world and he will love you where he is now, and would never dream of wanting to frighten you.

All I can do is advise you as I was advised, be patient :)

[Rich1987]

Hi Rich, that's just my opinion, so please do read any further opinions people may post :)

Just to add what you say about jumping at people jumping out on tv etc, in my experience seeing a spirit for the first time was so subtle and gentle I didn't realise I had seen one until they were gone, then the surprise kicked in, in a pleasant way, but I wasn't scared.

I think the thought of seeing one, (as you say things jumping out, paranormal tv has a lot to answer for!!!) is the frightening bit, seeing one isn't scary at all, it's quite amazing once you get over the initial surprise (NOT fear.)

I've never known a single one to jump out to deliberately scare me, that is not their intention 99 times out of a hundred (as there is a darker side)

But your dad, he loved you in this world and he will love you where he is now, and would never dream of wanting to frighten you.

All I can do is advise you as I was advised, be patient :)

Well thanks for the advice , I meant to come on to a site like that before but just never got around to it.

Off subject of what we were talking about , sometimes I am sit in the living room or bedroom and I sometimes just sit there and talk out to who I think maybe there then sometimes I just feel stupid but I do sometimes feel something is close by ie: coldness or smells, my dad was a whisky drinker so I always seem to smell that smell a lot so who knows

But I am going to get myself along to one of they spiritalist churches just to sit and listen and maybe learn more about things.

[daisy]

Off subject of what we were talking about , sometimes I am sit in the living room or bedroom and I sometimes just sit there and talk out to who I think maybe there then sometimes I just feel stupid but I do sometimes feel something is close by ie: coldness or smells, my dad was a whisky drinker so I always seem to smell that smell a lot so who knows

HI Rich well that's excellent because that tells me you are well on your way because you must be sensitive to pick that much up :)

The Church is a good idea because even if it turns out it's not your cup of tea (the church side of it,) they often run development groups etc and you will be able to talk with the mediums there, please let us know how things go for you.

[Adrienne]

hi Rich,

I am sorry to hear about your dad :hug:

If you sense his presence and notice certain scents that remind you of him, I would say you are doing quite well. Not everyone can notice scents, and not everyone senses a presence.

As regards seeing your dad, from what I have heard it takes a lot for them to manifest themselves to us, and of course there is the idea of one not being too overexcited at the event, because then * poof ! they disappear immediately !

If you are already talking to your dad, how about asking him to give you signs that he is with you. You can ask him to rap on the wall, to send you feathers, pennies, things like that... or you can ask him to be creative, then be open to any and all possibilities. I know this is possible because I have done so, I have requested and I have received my requests... but you must also be patient, sometimes it does take awhile and with each person it is different. I am just speaking from my own experiences.

blessings,
Dream Angel xx

[ThinkingAloud]

I know some people can see/hear spirits , but why can't some of us who really want to not see them?, my dad passed over 2 year ago and from time to time I sence he is near by - would be nice if I seen him even if it was for few seconds.
But I also hear spirits won't come near you if they know you would be scare 'ect'

What d'ya think? :D:D

Hi Rich.

Yes, you are absolutely right! apparently, if the spirit people think you'll be scared, they wont show themselves.

I don't know if you've heard of medium Mia Dolan? Anyway, I read her book and in it she describes how she asked her spirit guide to show himself.

He told her she wasn't ready but she insisted she was. So, after seeing him forming in the doorway and eventually showing himself in full, she ran out of the house to her Mum's out of fear!

We do sometimes think we're ready but deep down would be pretty terrified if a spirit appeared.

Maybe ask for smaller signs. Just ask your Dad to give you a sign he's around. Something may happen, not immediately, but at some stage.

It may be that you'll get a whiff of his favourite aftershave. You may even see small lights.

All the best.

[Rich1987]

Hi Rich.

Yes, you are absolutely right! apparently, if the spirit people think you'll be scared, they wont show themselves.

I don't know if you've heard of medium Mia Dolan? Anyway, I read her book and in it she describes how she asked her spirit guide to show himself.

He told her she wasn't ready but she insisted she was. So, after seeing him forming in the doorway and eventually showing himself in full, she ran out of the house to her Mum's out of fear!

We do sometimes think we're ready but deep down would be pretty terrified if a spirit appeared.

Maybe ask for smaller signs. Just ask your Dad to give you a sign he's around. Something may happen, not immediately, but at some stage.

It may be that you'll get a whiff of his favourite aftershave. You may even see small lights.

All the best.

Hey thanks for the advice guy , I will keep it in mind :hug3::hug3::tongue:

[Greenslade]

I know some people can see/hear spirits , but why can't some of us who really want to not see them?, my dad passed over 2 year ago and from time to time I sence he is near by - would be nice if I seen him even if it was for few seconds.
But I also hear spirits won't come near you if they know you would be scare 'ect'

What d'ya think? :D:D


Rich,

You're not entirely blind/deaf to Spirit. If you can sense your father I would think you have something there that says you are psychic somewhere along the line. If you weren't you wouldn't be able to sense him. You're clairesentient, perhaps? That means sensing. Most people look everywhere else for their answers except in the place where I believe we get the best ones from - inside ourselves. I would think there's still a strong connection with your dad, if not you wouldn't feel him around you. Start from there.

I'd go along with what Jules has said, perhaps going to a Spiritualist church or development classes might give you a better understanding or be with people who can help him come through. But remember that yes, you can try too hard or want it too much. The other thing I would say is that you hold him in your Heart, so isn't that a good place to start? I'm not saying you should build an alter to him or anything, but even if you light a single tealight candle for him and sit down, sometime when it's quiet. Just sit there and let it all go, remember the good times and see what happens from there. It might be worth talking to him if you can risk being called a nutter lol. He'll hear your voice.

[SandybytheSea]

Rich, are you aware that you do see your Dad often, in your dreams? I'm sure you've had many dreams about him, and you've shrugged them off as "just being dreams", but when we sleep we are totally in our right brain. The brain has 2 hemispheres, and the left one is our survival brain so it needs to be dominant during waking hours. The right hemisphere is our intuitive, even psychic brain, so it takes over when we sleep, and that makes it so much easier for our loved ones to appear to us and converse with us.

While we all have psychic or clairvoyant abilities, we don't all know how to access our right hemisphere. It's also our creative hemisphere, so often very creative people have psychic experiences, as do those who meditate regularly.

Be happy that your Dad is healthy and happy where he is, and that he visits you regularly. You only have to think of him and he is at your side, so seeing him in waking life isn't so important. You know he's there by the scents and other little things he does from time to time that you don't always place too much importance on - the flicker of the tv, his favourite song on the radio when you turn it on, things like that.

Our loved ones always stay close, they never leave us because they love us and want to watch over us. Seeing him as he was while here is really not so important other than to convince you that he is ok, but there is an expression we all need to remember :

It's not that you'll believe it when you see it ....
it's more that you'll see it when you believe it.

The spirit world doesn't give us proof, it encourages us to have faith. If they provided proof it would go against free will, because then we would have no choice but to believe. When we have sufficient faith that life does go on, then proof can be provided because it cannot alter our belief system. That's why sceptics will always be sceptics and will never have experiences to convince them, because they have free will to believe as they do and that must not be interferred with.

[LightFilledHeart]

It's not that you'll believe it when you see it ....
it's more that you'll see it when you believe it.

The spirit world doesn't give us proof, it encourages us to have faith. If they provided proof it would go against free will, because then we would have no choice but to believe. When we have sufficient faith that life does go on, then proof can be provided because it cannot alter our belief system. That's why sceptics will always be sceptics and will never have experiences to convince them, because they have free will to believe as they do and that must not be interferred with.

That statement "It's not that you'll believe it when you see it, it's more you'll see it when you believe it" has always bothered me as being just too pat an answer. Faith is indeed a powerful tool, but people had faith that the earth was flat too, accepting the belief of the time and never having experienced (or witnessed!) falling off the edges (!), and they were wrong. Faith can be a wonderful thing...it can also lead one down a purely fictional, fantasy path.

In my case it's not so much that I'm a skeptic, for I am not. But I also don't want to fool myself into accepting a belief merely because it "feels good" and comforts me. I am a true seeker in that regard...I want to KNOW! The fact of the matter is that whatever individual beliefs different ones of us may hold, they are exactly that...beliefs. No one has the market cornered on ultimate truth, and until such time as we experience something for ourselves, any ideas we might have about the way things are are pure speculation. Calling lack of "proof" free will is a bit of a circuitous argument. Naturally I want to believe in an afterlife in the spirit realms... we ALL do! I would say I am even inclined towards and leaning that way :D BUT... I don't KNOW of a certainty, and neither does anyone else still living.

[Greenslade]

BUT... I don't KNOW of a certainty, and neither does anyone else still living.

To some of us, Past Lives are much more than a belief - they're a memory. When I talk about Past Lives I talk about what I can remember from them, and I've spoken to people whose recall means they can only have been there. Call it mass psychosis if you like, but when people can tell you exactly what you have in your head about a Past Life before you even mention it - that's proof enough for me. Maybe I can't tell the difference between fantasy and memory, but if that's the case then neither can a lot of the people I've talked to. There are also people on these boards that share those same memories.

[Rumar]

There are also beings out there who are unable to present themselves, usually you'll hear them "when you're almost asleep" because of the state of mind you're in and just about astral projecting, by APing you can not only hear them but also see them.Some beings from past lives are known to hunt you down and hang out with you as well, my best friend in GA is actually one of the missionary troops back when I was a CDR missionary back in my Greek life. My name was Datleco then and if you google that name, you'll find an old archived article with his name in it (probably stating all of the military members).I learned something from him when he was doing some deep meditation, he then told me something that was long forgotten (or at least staying in the past life's memories) where the ship was jumped, we lost two comrads in the initial attack. Our ship long lost, we had to go and get help from a nearby town to get us home.Another past life twin brother AND younger sister are both in the same military branch as me, one worked in the building next to mine while the other on a ship on a separate base but we would hang out almost every day. I have more family members in the military as well from past lives but will need to get into that at another time.

[Spiritlite]

Usually I see spirits and such when I am not even trying. I find that if I try I won't see or feel them, if I don't try then it naturally occurs.
Spiritlite

[SandybytheSea]

LightFilledHeart :smile:
Don't get me wrong, knowledge is a powerful thing and something I have put a lot of effort into gaining for more years than I care to reveal!
And yes, I agree with you that we can have faith in things that are not true, simply because we have been programmed to have such faith. History is full of examples, as is the present. TV commercials are sufficient to convince us of that! Blind faith is a very dangerous thing.
But I also recognise that we have free will (well, to a certain extent, perhaps that is even open to debate, but not on this thread, lol) and those on the other side do not have the right to deny us that.
For example, someone does not believe in the existence of life on other planets. They rage against what they call ignorance of the masses who believe such nonsense, and then a ufo lands in their back yard and an et walked up to the door and says "hey, got the jug on, I could do with a coffee!" What is this sceptic to do now, stick to his belief that et doesn't exist, or be FORCED into acknowledging that it does? His free will to believe or not believe has been violated.
That's not to say that sceptics don't change their minds sometimes when something occurs that makes them re-think, but for that to happen, there must have been a shadow of doubt to begin with, and the process of changing their mind might be painful and lengthy, but they come to it in their own time and own way and not because the opposite belief was forced upon them.

[Greenslade]

We're living in the Allegory of Plato's Cave. Basically, what happens in Plato's Cave is that prisoners are shackled so they can only see in front of them. Behind them is a platform with a fire, in front of which their captors parade items whose shadows fall on the wall in front of the prisoners. The prisoners see only the shadows, never the item itself. If the captors put a chair in front of the fire, the prisoners see only the shadow of the chair and never the chair itself.

As humans will will never see the true form of anything - if indeed it has any kind of true form. What colour is a thought? How wide/deep/long is consciousness? As humans all we can do is do the best we can with what we've got. If we believe in something because we think we should we do ourselves a disservice, while we may only see the shadow of the chair there's no reason why we can't at least try and turn our heads so we can see a little more - or believe that shadow had to be cast by something.

Everything we believe in is based on belief, there are few facts in Spirituality. The only 'real' proof we're going to get is what we believe is the proof - never hard evidence that would stand up in court.

[SandybytheSea]

Well said, Greenslade :smile:
I heard something today that deserves to be repeated ....
Science is now beginning to understand that if the electromagnetic spectrum - which allows us to see what we see - was 2,000 miles long, we are seeing about 6 inches of it!!!!!
And many people think that if science hasn't proven it, it doesn't exist? Ha! We have sooooo much to learn about our so-called reality!

[Summerkat]

I would like to add something to this... "seeing" spirits is the psychic sense that gets all the attention it seems. But there are actually 4 ways to pick up this information. One is seeing which is called clairvoyant, one is hearing which is clairaudient, another is just knowing which is claircognizent and finally one is through feeling (which can include) scent which is clairsentient. Another name for clairsentient is Empath. It sounds to me like you are more of an Empath. An Empath would feel a spirit, feel a touch, or even a familiar energy like a fingerprint that belonged to that person who passed (everyone has a certain energy different from everyone else). Its explained sort of like when you are in the house and you just know someone has entered it from your family by the energy you feel before you even see them in the room. Or you smell say roses which Grandma always had in her home when she was alive. Like that, thats the way an Empath could pick up someone who passed. Someone strong in clairaudience would hear them speaking to them. Someone who is strongest in claircognizance (my spelling may be a little off, sorry) would just "know" they were there. It would be a certainty within them.

When we talk about picking up people who passed its no different than picking up any other psychic type energy. We do it through the one sense (sometimes two can overlap or more) that we are strongest in. If you look back on times when you feel you were picking something up psychically and you examine it to see which of the 4 clairs you were using..thats probably the same one you would pick up a deceased spirit's presence with also.

Its the "seeing" spirits that gets the most media attention and we're used to hearing about. But actually there are 4 ways.

Just wanted to add that to the discussion.