13 Possible Ways the Deceased Might Signal or Communicate With the Living

The history of the paranormal and psychic phenomena include many reports of experiences in which someone got the impression that there may have been communication or a signaling effect between the deceased and the living. Based on such reports and various types of seemingly inexplicable phenomena, I can make a list of twelve possible ways that the deceased might signal or communicate with the living. By a signal I mean what might be some non-verbal indication in which a deceased person merely gives a sign that he or she still exists. 

1. Mysterious Raps

The occurrence of inexplicable rap sounds was massively reported in the nineteenth century, with a host of witnesses (many of them very trustworthy people) reporting such an effect.  I have been describing in great detail many of these reports in my "Spookiest Years" series of  posts  (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, here, here, here, here and here).  The evidence for this phenomenon was very good even at the very beginning of the phenomenon, for reasons I explain in my post here.   It was not merely that great numbers of reliable witnesses reported mysterious rap sounds they could not explain. It was also that the sounds corresponded to intelligible communication. Very early in the phenomenon, witnesses developed a habit of reciting the alphabet while attempting to get intelligible communication from mysterious raps.  The tedious technique involved calling out the letters of the alphabet in sequential order, and writing down whenever a mysterious rap occurred just after a letter was recited.  Very many witnesses reported that intelligible communication would result from such a technique, with the letters written down after a rap forming into intelligible sentences and paragraphs. 

2. A Mysterious Sense of Presence or Mysterious Figures, Voices, or Touches

In the past fifty years it has been very widely reported by some people that they experience a "sense of presence" that the person may feel comes from some deceased person. For example, at some random time or significant event, a widow may report a feeling that her deceased husband is there with her for a while, even though there is no corresponding vision or image matching such a feeling.  Other times a person may report a mysterious figure, voice or touch identified as arising from a deceased person. 

Some relevant studies are below (I extracted all the numbers below from the original source materials):

• In Arcangel's study of 827 people, 596 (72%)  responded that they had had an "afterlife encounter." We read, "69% of respondents listed some form of visual encounter (Question 4), 19% were Visual only, 13% were a combination of Visual/Auditory, 8% Visual/Sense of Presence and 8% Visual/Auditory/Sense of Presence."
• Erlendur Haraldsson surveyed 902 people in Iceland in 1974, finding that 31% reported seeing an apparition or having an encounter with a dead person.  He did another survey in Iceland  in 2007 with a similar sample size, finding that 42% reported seeing an apparition or having an encounter with a dead person, with 21% reporting a "visual experience of a dead person,"  along with 21% reporting an out-of-body experience. 
• A large survey included some questions about paranormal experience, such as asking whether they had ever "felt as though you were really in touch with someone who had died."  According to Table 1 of the paper here, the number answering "Yes" to this question was 24% in France, 34% in Italy, 30% in the United States, and 25% in Europe overall. 54% of those in the US reported having an experience with telepathy. 
• A 1973 survey of 434 persons in Los Angeles, USA found that 44% reported encounters with the deceased, and that 25% of those 44% (in other words, 11% of the 434) said that a dead person "actually visited or was seen at a seance."
• As reported in the 1894 edition of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (Volume X, Part XXVI), an 1890's "Census of Hallucinations" conducted by the Society for Psychical Research asked, "Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, lad a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice ; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?"  As reported in Table 1 here (page 39), the number answering "Yes" was about 10%.  Because the question did not specifically refer to the dead, ghosts or apparitions, the wording of the question may have greatly reduced the number of "yes" answers from people experiencing what seemed to be an apparition of the dead or a sense of the presence of the dead. 
• In the March-April 1948 edition of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, page 187, there appeared the result of a survey asking the same question asked in 1894: "Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice ; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?"  According to page 191, 217 out of 1519 answered "Yes." This was a 14% "yes" rate higher than the rate of about 10% reported in 1894. 
• A 1980 telephone survey of 368 participants found that 29% reported "post-death communication." 
• The British Medical Journal published in 1971 a study by Rees that involved almost 300 subjects, one entitled "The Hallucinations of Widowhood."  Rees reported that 39% in his survey reported a sense of presence from a deceased person and 14% reported seeing the deceased, along with 13% hearing the deceased.
• A project entitled "Investigation of the phenomenology and impact of perceived spontaneous and direct After-Death Communications (ADCs)" was conducted from February 2018 to January 2020, with results described here and here.  About 1000 people were surveyed. In addition to a large fraction (46%) who reported seeing apparitions, with details reported below, 34% reported feeling a sense of presence, and 44% reported hearing the deceased. 
• A 2015 Pew Research poll found that 18% of Americans said they've seen or been in the presence of a ghost, and that 29% said that they've felt in touch with someone who died. 
• A Groupon survey of 2000 people found that more than 60% claim to have seen a ghost.
• A year 2023 Pew Research survey of 5079 adults in the USA found that "46% of Americans report that they’ve been visited by a dead family member in a dream, while 31% report having been visited by dead relatives in some other form," with 53% reporting either or both of these experiences. 34% said that in the past 12 months they have "felt the presence of a family member who is dead." This wasn't just churchgoers. The survey found that "Roughly half (48%) of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – atheists, agnostics, and those who report their religion is “nothing in particular” – say they have ever been visited by a dead relative in a dream or other form."
• On the page here, we read this about an October, 2025 poll: " A new YouGov poll asked Americans about their paranormal experiences. Most Americans say they’ve had at least one paranormal experience, and many believe that they personally have a paranormal ability." The poll was a survey of 1136 American adults.  50% of the Americans polled believe that some people have paranormal abilities, much higher than the 28% who said they do not believe people have paranormal abilities. 18% of the Americans polled reported "seeing unexplained orbs of light." 16% of the Americans polled reported "seeing a spirit or ghost." Of these, the majority said they had seen such a thing more than once. 23% of the Americans polled reported "seeing lights or other devices turn on or off without explanation."17% of the Americans polled reported "seeing an object move without explanation" and 16% of the Americans polled reported "seeing a door open or close without explanation."
• A 1976 survey of 1467 people in the US asked people if they had ever "felt as though you were really in touch with someone who had died?" 27% answered "Yes."  The same survey found that large percentages of the population reported experiences such as ESP or clairvoyance, as you can see in the answers below. 

From the work here

 A 2021 study surveyed about 1000 widows or widowers. The 2021 study found 34% reported a sense of presence from a deceased person  and a higher percentage (46%) reporting a visual experience involving the deceased, along with 43% reporting an auditory experience. The 2021 study has this interesting quote, using the term "ADC" for "after-death communication":

"Surprisingly, 36.4% of our respondents reported that they were not alone at the time of their ADC, and of these, 21.0% asserted that the ADC was witnessed by their companions. Also related to the perceived evidentiality of the experiences, 24.4% of respondents stated that they had received information that was previously unknown to them (often concerning circumstances of the deceased's passing.)"

Below is a quote from the abstract of a paper entitled "Alleged Encounters With the Dead: The Importance Of Violent Death In 337 New Cases" by Haraldsson: 

"Personal encounters with the dead are reported by 25% of Western Europeans and 30% of Americans. Three hundred thirty-seven Icelanders reporting such experiences were interviewed at length. Ninety percent of them reported sensory experiences (apparitions) of a deceased person; 69% were visual, 28% auditory, 13% tactile, and 4% olfactory. Fewer than half of the experiences occurred in twilight or darkness. In half of the cases the experiencer was actively engaged or working. Disproportionately prominent were apparitions of those who died violently and crisis apparitions observed close to the time of death of the person who was perceived, although in the majority of cases, the percipient did not know that the person had died."

There is a strong reason for suspecting that all of the survey numbers above underestimate the occurrence of such observations. The reason is that self-censorship by survey respondents probably reduces the reported occurrences very substantially. We must remember that authorities in our culture have a long history of shaming, abusing, misrepresenting, gaslighting and attempting to pathologize people who report experiences of the paranormal. For many decades and centuries such authorities (including professors, skeptics and clergy) have attempted to portray people reporting paranormal experiences as deluded, psychotic, liars, fakes, or fools. Consequently we should assume that there is a significant degree of self-censorship in which people who had paranormal experiences do not report them, for fear of "getting in trouble" or being embarrassed, shamed, slandered, criticized or gaslighted.  

3. Communication Via Mental Mediums

Following the beginning of the mysterious rap phenomena that began in 1848, there arose different types of persons calling themselves mediums.  There were mediums such as Daniel Dunglas Home, who were classified as physical mediums, because the mysterious effects reported around them were mainly physical effects such as musical instruments playing by themselves, and levitations of tables (or perhaps even a levitation of the medium himself). There were also mediums classified as mental mediums, who were involved with mysterious mental effects. A mental medium might claim to be able to contact the deceased by means of mental techniques long practiced by the medium, or by means of entering into a trance. Many of the mental mediums have used methods similar to methods that have been called "channeling" in recent decades. 

Some mental mediums held up very well to prolonged examination by scientists. The most successful mental medium was the American medium Leonora Piper. A long account of her case is given in my post here. Leonora Piper held up very well to many years of very close and careful examination by members of the Society for Psychical Research. The main person examining her case was a person (Richard Hodgson) who was very skeptical at first, but later became convinced that Piper was actually communicating with the deceased.  Innumerable times Leonora Piper seemed to display detailed knowledge of things that were known to her visitors, but should have been unknown to her, with the most impressive cases coming when Leonora did not even know the identity of her visitor.  Such knowledge often seemed to include knowing about obscure events or little-known persons known to her visitors, which she should have known nothing about.  This occurred around years such as 1897, where it was impossible to easily gather obscure information by techniques such as using the Internet. 

A British medium of the early twentieth century (Gladys Osborne Leonard) seemed to produce equally impressive results, results so impressive she was often called "the British Leonora Piper." The most impressive existing record of the results of Gladys Osborne Leonard is the 1916 book Raymond, or Life After Death by Sir Oliver Lodge, which can be read online for free here. The book is a meticulous account of interactions Lodge had with mediums after the death of his son Raymond. The book has transcripts of quite a few sessions Lodge had with mediums such as Leonard.  The results seem impressive, although very careful readership is required. 

In more recent times scientists such as Gary Schwartz PhD and Julie Beischel PhD have done controlled scientific studies of mediums in which they scored far better than non-mediums when trying to gather information about the deceased relatives of unidentified individuals. Julie Beischel seems to have some good experimental results, but unfortunately she is not very skillful at communicating such results in a way that the average person will find easy to understand, and she has a tendency to write results in a jargon-heavy professorial style that is hard for the non-scientist to penetrate.  

4. Apparitions of Those Who Recently Died

 A wraith is defined as "a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially one seen shortly before or after their death." In a large fraction of these cases, the person reporting the apparition did not even know that the person corresponding to the apparition was very sick or near death. I have cited many of those cases in the series of posts you can read below:

An Apparition Was Their Death Notice

25 Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death

25 More Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death

Yet Another 25 Who Were “Ghost-Told” of a Death

Scientific American's Very Lame "Ghost Explanations"

They Also Were "Ghost Told" of a Death

More Accounts of Veridical Apparitions

Even More Cases of Veridical Apparitions

When Apparitions Serve as Announcements

Still More Cases of Veridical Apparitions

When Apparitions Act as News Bulletins

They Too Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death

They Seemed to Ghost-Learn of Someone's Death

A project entitled "Investigation of the phenomenology and impact of perceived spontaneous and direct After-Death Communications (ADCs)" was conducted from February 2018 to January 2020, with results described here.  About 1000 people were surveyed. 460 of these people reported a "visual ADC" which often corresponded to an apparition of the dead. We read, "For 61.6% of our sample, the deceased seemed solid like a living being, for 12.5% the apparition was semitransparent, and 11.3% perceived a foggy silhouette." We also read, "For 59.8% the apparitions were already there when they perceived them and for 28.5% they were materializing right before their eyes. After a few seconds or a few minutes, they were fading away gradually (14.4%), dissolving instantly (28.1%), or not there anymore when respondents  blinked (18.0%). 79.8% claimed that the apparition conveyed a message, either in words, telepathically, or by expression of the face." 

In an article in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research , on page 427, we have the interesting diagram below, one suggesting apparition sightings occur most frequently about the time of someone's death, but with quite a few sightings occurring well after someone dies:

5. Deathbed Apparitions

Some examples can be found here and here and here.  The first major reference to this phenomenon that I can find in the literature of parapsychology is the fascinating 1906 paper "Apparitions of Deceased Persons at Death-Beds" in pages 67-100 of the February 1906 Annals of Psychical Research, (Volume 3), which can be read here. The main work on this topic (one finding a strong effect) is the work "At The Hour of Death" by Osis and Haraldsson, which can be read here.  A survey of family members of deceased Japanese found that 21% reported deathbed visions. A study of 103 subjects in India reports this: "Thirty of these dying persons displayed behavior consistent with deathbed visions-interacting or speaking with deceased relatives, mostly their dead parents." A study of 102 families in the Republic of Moldava found that "37 cases demonstrated classic features of deathbed visions--reports of seeing dead relatives or friends communicating to the dying person."  We read the following on a page of the Psi Encylopedia:

"In 2017, Una MacConville carried out a study with Irish health care professionals. The carers reported that 45% of their patients spoke of visions of deceased relatives, often joyful experiences that bring a sense of peace and comfort."

 A 1949 book states this: 

"It is a commonplace truth, observed by many physicians and clergymen, that a dying person, when conscious near the moment of death, acts or speaks as if he saw standing near loved ones who have already died. Dr. Russell Conwell told Bruce Barton in the interview quoted earlier in another connection, that he had witnessed this phenomenon 'literally hundreds of times.' "

6. Apparitions of Those Who Died Long Ago 

Apparitions of the dead seem to occur most commonly close to the death of the person corresponding to the apparition. But it is not all that rare for someone to see an apparition of someone who died long ago. I discussed some cases of this type in these previous posts:

When Apparitions Are Seen of Those Who Died Long Ago (Part 1)

When Apparitions Are Seen of Those Who Died Long Ago (Part 2)

When Apparitions Are Seen of Those Who Died Long Ago (Part 3)

When Apparitions Are Seen of Those Who Died Long Ago (Part 4)

There is no credibility in attempts to explain the more dramatic of such accounts as hallucinations that occur for the sake of comfort. While there can occur a kind of "see what you want to see" effect called pareidolia in which people interpret vague random fluctuating data in comforting but biased ways, there is no robust evidence that people have complex hallucinations to comfort themselves. For example:

1. As shown on the TV show American Greed, there are very many people who have been swindled out of their life savings, losing decades of their savings. But none of these people ever had a “comforting hallucination” in which they saw something like a stack of cash on their dining room table to make themselves feel better.
2. We have many historical experiences of people who put their hearts and souls into a war, only to be bitterly disappointed when their country lost the war, and was occupied by a foreign power. There are no cases of any such people having a “comforting hallucination” in which they learned that it was a mistake, and their side really won the war.
3. There are many people who learn they have cancer, and begin to suffer from it. None of them have “comforting hallucinations” in which they see a doctor telling them their cancer has been cured.

7. Visions of the Deceased During Near-Death Experiences

It is very common during near-death experiences for people to report going to some strange mystical environment and encountering deceased loved ones. Often the report will be that a deceased person told the person having the near-death encounter that he or she must "go back" and continue with his or her earthly life.  The Greyson Scale listing features of near-death experiences includes "saw deceased or religious spirits" as one of the characteristics of the near-death experiences, and surveys find an occurrence of such encounters in reported near-death experiences ranging from about 25% to as high as about 40%, with the number varying quite a bit from survey to survey. 

8. Dream Appearances of the Deceased

Dream appearances of the deceased are extremely common. In some cases such appearances might occur because of telepathic communication between the deceased and the living. Since November 2020 I have been logging all of my dreams during the night and early morning, as soon as I could recall them.  The result is an extremely long post first published in early 2021 but updated almost daily since then: my post "I Keep Dreaming of Danger, Death and Life After Death."  I log every single case of a dream involving a deceased person, and also many dreams that do not involve such people.  The two people who have appeared most often in my dreams are my father and my mother, one appearing more than 170 times, and the other appearing more than 150 times.   In the case of the dreams of my father there has been a recurrent theme that makes me suspect that something more than mere chance is involved. 

More vivid examples of such dreams are sometimes called "visitation dreams." I seemed to have a recent example of such a dream. In the dream I walked up to the second floor of the house I live in, and someone announced that my deceased eldest sister was here, with a tone of voice suggesting that this was something spooky or supernatural. I saw my deceased sister on the other side of a living room. I walked up to her and hugged her. In the dream I seemed to have an understanding that she had previously died, and in the dream I was thinking thoughts such as "It's so amazing that you were able to visit us." 

9. Inexplicable Physical Signs

People often report inexplicable or extremely improbable events that they think may be signs from some deceased person. Such events are often interpreted as some kind of vague indication from some deceased person of his continued existence after death.  The response of skeptics to such claims is very lame. A skeptic will typically evoke the claim that there is zero evidence that physical events on Earth can be caused by spiritual intelligences outside of Earth. But in the nineteenth century there seemed to be a very great abundance of evidence suggesting that physical events on Earth can be caused by spiritual intelligences from beyond this Earth.  I am in the process of summarizing such evidence in my long series of "Spookiest Years" posts on another blog, the  posts  here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, here, here, here, here and here.  I myself have experienced quite a few seemingly inexplicable physical events that seemed to suggest (with varying levels of strength)  mysterious signs from beyond the grave.  You can read about some of them in my posts here, here, here, here, here and here. 

10. Sudden Hard-to-Explain Very Old Recollections of the Deceased 

Normally recollections appear through a process of association. You may be thinking about topic x, which may you lead you to recall related topic y, which may lead you to recall related topic z.  But sometimes a person may recall some very distant recollection of the deceased, in a way that seems so hard to explain that the person may wonder whether some ESP is occurring. 

I will give a very recent example. I awoke this week after having a dream of sitting on a sofa with an unknown woman, while using some magical-seeming newspaper that seemed to have a built-in video player. While pondering this dream, I suddenly "out of nowhere" had an unrelated memory of an incident that had occurred nearly sixty years earlier, an incident I had not recalled in many years. The incident involved me as a young boy pushing a shopping cart too fast and accidentally cracking a display case in a supermarket. Seeing what happened, my mother paid a store clerk $20 to cover the damage (then worth about $50), and we kept on shopping. She did not get angry or even scold me. It was a wonderful memory of my late mother at her best. But why would a memory so distant suddenly have appeared? There seem to have occurred nothing in my thoughts that could explain the recall of a memory so very distant. When such things occur, we may wonder whether some deceased relative is telepathically communicating with us.

11. Voice Manifestations

I have no direct experience with ever hearing any mysterious voice sounding like the voice of a deceased person. But it seems quite a few people of normal sound mind report such a thing. The famous astronomer Carl Sagan said this: “Probably a dozen times since their deaths I've heard my mother or father, in an ordinary, conversational tone of voice,  call my name.”  Did Sagan accept this as evidence of the paranormal? No, he created a ridiculous hypothesis to explain it away, the hypothesis that he was spontaneously re-experiencing a previous sensation. He said, “I still miss them so much that it doesn't seem strange to me that my brain occasionally will retrieve a kind of lucid recollection of their voices.” This is a good example of the seemingly boundless ability of professors of physical science to invent absurd excuses for not paying attention to important evidence they should be paying attention to.  

There are quite a few accounts of warning voices from a deceased relative.  In some, a person will report something like this:  while driving a car, the person heard the voice of a deceased relative urging that the person pull off the road or switch lanes. After doing that, the person reportedly found that  the quick action caused him or her to avert some doom that lay ahead on the road, such as a crashed truck. 

12. Paranormal Luminosities, Including Mysterious Orbs

In my post "Paranormal Luminosities" I cite quite a few cases of people reporting mysterious lights, often ones that seem to be connected with someone's death.  In a similar vein, there are numerous reports of people seeing mysterious orbs with the naked eye. You can read some of these reports here:

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 1 of 4)

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 2 of 4)

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 3 of 4)

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 4 of 4)

Naked Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 5)

Naked Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 6)

Naked Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 7)

Naked Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 8)

And what about all of the photos of mysterious orbs, with thousands showing orbs with colors such as blue, pink, orange, yellow, purple and green, and more than 800 photos showing mysterious orbs with strange stripes? You can see such photos using the links in the previous sentence, and the link here (and continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom right), or by using the link here (for those who prefer continuous finger swiping). Are such manifestations signs from the deceased? We may never know in this mortal life. 

13. Dreams Symbolizing the Idea of Life After Death

Since I started recording my dreams in 2021, I have had more than 500 dreams that seemed to symbolize life after death. A full numbered list of these dreams (including a description of each of them) is found in my long post "I Keep Dreaming of Danger, Death and Life After Death," which you can read here. What is the source of such dreams? A reasonable guess is that they come telepathically from one or more deceased persons. Imagine you had died, and found yourself in an afterlife, where you had a weak power to telepathically communicate with your family members still living on Earth, with the communication occurring best during dreams. You might use that power to cause such persons to have dreams that seemed to symbolize life after death. That would be a way that you could provide hints of the good news that the soul survives death. 

Ghost-Warned of the Ship That Vanished With 500?

The book Real Ghost Stories by W. T. Stead is a quite interesting book that can be read online for free using the link here. On pages 85-87 we have a very interesting story that is told about the ship City of Glasgow that mysteriously vanished:

"Taking him into a private room, I said, ' Angus, Captain Morrison leaves the day after to-morrow. You had better get his things packed at once. And, by the way, what a lucky fellow you are ! If you did so well on the City of Manchester, you will in a year or two make quite a fortune in the City of Glasgow.' To my astonishment Angus replied, ' I am not going in the City of Glasgow — at least, not on this voyage — and I wish you could persuade Captain Morrison — the best and kindest master ever man had — not to go either.' 'Not going? What in the world do you mean, Angus ? ' was my very natural exclamation of surprise. ' Well, sir,' said Angus (the reader will please understand that our talk was in Gaelic). ' Well, sir,' said Angus, 'You must not be angry with me if I tell you that on the last three nights my father, who has been dead nine years, as you know, has appeared to me and warned me not to go on this voyage, for that it will prove disastrous. Whether in dream or waking vision of the night, I cannot say; but I saw him, sir, as distinctly as I now see you ; clothed exactly as I remember him in life ; and he stood by my bedside, and with up lifted hand and warning finger, and with a most solemn and earnest expression of countenance, he said, "Angus, my beloved son, don't go on this voyage. It will not be a prosperous one." On three nights running has my father appeared to me in this form, and with the same words of warning; and although much against my will, I have made up my mind that in the face of such warning, thrice repeated, it would be wrong in me to go on this voyage.' "

We are told that the ship soon sailed without the reluctant Angus: "Early in March of that year, the City of Glasgow, with a valuable cargo and upwards of five hundred passengers on board, sailed under Morrison's command for Philadelphia ; and all that was good and prosperous was confidently predicted of the voyage of so fine a ship under charge of so capable a commander."  The ship never reached Philadelphia. It was never heard from again. No one ever learned what happened to the vanished ship. You can read about its loss in the Wikipedia.org article here. Ironically the first person to publish the above story (W. T. Stead) himself died in an Atlantic crossing, being a passenger on the Titanic. 

For some equally spooky stories involving ships lost at sea, read my account here of a medium seeming to foretell exactly how the steamship Pacific would be lost at sea, and my account here of some very spooky occurrences surrounding the loss of the ship Lady Elgin. 

The vanished ship City of Glasgow

On pate 225 the author laments the lack of study of dreams, saying this:

"A generation which finds itself repaid in the study— close, minute, and elaborate — of the habits of earthworms, and the genealogy of the marine ascidian, may some day discover that Dreamland lies vacant and unexplored. In all the voluminous literature of scientific psychology is there one authentic human document wherein there is due note and observation made of the dreams of a single student for a year, for a month, or for even a week ? "

I am happy to report that such a document does now exist. It is my post here, which I have been updating for years. It now logs three years of my dreams, and it has some very interesting philosophical relevance.  

First an Orb, Then a Talking Ghost?

 The long and very fascinating work Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World by former US congressman Robert Dale Owen (which can be read online for free here) is a classic of literature about the paranormal. The 1872 book The Debatable Land Between This World and the Next by the same author is a worthy successor volume of equal length.  In that book on page 468 Owen reports on what we saw at a seance on October 26, 1860. To prevent any trickery, Owen was careful to make sure all the doors to the room were locked, and also made sure that throughout the session all of the four persons present joined each other's hands in the center of the table where they sat. Under such conditions, Owen reported seeing this: 

"After a few minutes, there appeared a luminous body of an irregularly circular form, about four inches in diameter, floating between us and the door which was back of Mrs. Underhill. It was somewhat brighter than when it first appeared on the previous occasion ; that is, on the twenty-first of October."

On the next page, Owen reports that at this session there appeared an illuminated mysterious figure, a kind of grayish cloud that eventually stated "God bless you." On the next page after that, Owen said he saw an outline of a head and face.

Owen recalls seeing in 1867 a luminous female apparition:

"It was a female figure, of medium height, veiled and draped, from head to foot, in white. The drapery did not resemble, in material, anything I have ever seen worn. It gave me, as on a previous occasion, the exact feeling of the Scriptural expression, 'shining raiment.' Its brilliancy was a good deal like that of new-fallen snow, in the sunshine ; recalling the text which declares the garments of Christ, during his transfiguration, to have been ' exceeding white as snow ; ' or, again, it was not unlike the finest and freshest Parian marble with a bright light on it, only more brilliant. It had not at all the glitter of spangles or any shining ornament ; the tone being as uniform as that of a newly-sculptured statue. It stood upright, in a graceful attitude, motionless."

On the next page Owen says, "Then it slowly receded, still facing us, to the center of the opposite wall... gradually diminishing in brightness ; and finally it vanished before my eyes."  Owen later says, "Certain it is, that I beheld the gradual formation of the figure ; that I witnessed its movements ; that I received from its hand an actual flower ;  that I saw the figure disappear."

On page 484 we have this account, mentioning Estelle, Mr. Livermore's late wife:

"Mr. L. sealed the windows, sealed and locked the doors, and placed heavy furniture against them ; then searched the room thoroughly and extinguished the gas. Soon came the words : ' I am here in form.' Then a globular light appeared, with crackling sounds. After a time it became a head, veiled : then, but for a single instant only, Mr. L. recognized the features of Estelle. Then a figure was seen : all this being visible by phosphorescent or electrical lights in various parts of the room. During all this time Mr. L. held both of the medium's hands. Then the mode of producing raps was shown : an orange-shaped luminous ball, with blunt point attached, bounding up and down on the table, and the sound, of each rap coinciding with the approach of the ball to the tabletop."

Mr. Livermore reported that a few months later there occurred an equally astonishing appearance of his late wife Estelle:

"The form remained in sight fully half an hour and each movement was distinctly visible. Then came the message : ' Now see me rise. '  And immediately, in full brightness, the figure rose to the ceiling, remained there a few moments suspended ; then gently descending, disappeared.  Afterward she showed herself between us and a mirror. The reflection of the figure in the glass was distinctly visible, the light being so bright as to show the veins in a marble slab beneath.  Here a heavy shower of rain fell, and there was spelled out: ' The atmosphere has changed. I cannot remain in form : ' whereupon both light and figure finally disappeared."

Later Mr. Livermore reports this:

" At last a luminous globe which had remained stationary some six feet to my left floated in front, and came within two feet of me. It was violently agitated, crackling sounds were heard, and a figure became visible by its light. Then there was revealed the full head and face of Estelle, every feature and lineament in perfection, spiritualized in shadowy beauty, such as no imagination can conceive or pen describe. In her hair, above the left temple, was a single white rose ; the hair being apparently arranged with great care. The entire head and face faded and then became visible again, at least twenty times ; the perfection of recognition, in each case, being in proportion to the brilliancy of the light."

Also Cured by an Orb?

 On page 128 of the very interesting book "Parting Visions : an Exploration of Pre-Death Psychic and Spiritual Experiences," we have an account by by a woman named Anne who was diagnosed with leukemia at age four.  She says at age six she saw a "ball of light" appear in her bedroom, and her pain went away. She says the ball of light transformed until she could see a beautiful glowing woman inside the light. She says the woman guided her on a journey to some ethereal realm, and then took her back to her room, promising that things would now be easier for the child. Hospital tests the next day indicated the leukemia was starting to reverse. Within two weeks the child's blood tests were normal. 

Cured by an Orb?

 In the very interesting book Parting Visions: An Exploration of Pre-Death Psychic and Spiritual Experiences, we read on pages 49-50 of a woman plagued by very painful arthritis.  The woman said that on two nights in a row she saw an apparition of two men dressed in white standing in her bedroom, and that her husband saw the same thing. She says five days later a ball of light came through a window, and was seen for about two minutes by herself and her husband.  The woman says that after such experiences, her arthritis went away and never returned. 

In recent days the British newspaper The Sun had a headline of "US warship was chased by two car-size ‘balls of light’ UFOs."

Was the Visible Speeding Orb Her Ghost?

On one of my two other blogs I have in recent months published four posts discussing historical evidence regarding apparition sightings. The posts are below:

When World-Class Scientists Saw Ghosts (Part 1)
When World-Class Scientists Saw Ghosts (Part 2)
When World-Class Scientists Saw Ghosts (Part 3)
25 Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death

I am currently reading the classic work "Phantasms of the Living," which includes very many accounts of apparitions.  There is a remarkable similarity between these accounts and the accounts collected by Flammarion which I discuss in my "25 Who Were 'Ghost-Told' of a Death." post. The similarity is that in a large fraction of the accounts, we read of someone seeing an apparition of someone,  and then soon learning later that such a person died on the same day (and very often on the same hour and day) as the apparition was seen. 

Arm of the Ghost?

Photo date: March 13, 2017. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

In the photo below that I took in Grand Central Terminal, we seem to see a strange ghost-like figure that resembles a man with an arm stretching out to the left.  If you saw such a figure, would you shake its hand?

A Long Luminous Ghost?

Photo date: September 4, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Terminal in New York.  Once again we see an orb that is appearing on the US flag in the station (see here for many similar examples).  Right-click to see the photo at its full resolution.

There is something very strange in the bottom left corner of the photo. Below is a closeup (I used the IrfanView "Auto-adjust colors" menu option on the closeup). Note the long, strange thing in the center, which seems to stretch from the top to the bottom of this closeup.

What is this strange, long, luminous-looking thing that almost seems to have facial features on its top? Is it a ghost?

A Transparent "Dragon Ghost"

Photo date: January 16, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The following photo was taken in Grand Central Station in New York. The photo was uploaded directly from the camera. Click here to download the image at its full original resolution, or click below to see the full image at slightly reduced resolution.

At the top of the first of the three great windows, we see a large orb with a smaller orb to its left. The smaller orb seems to have a cute smiling.face.

Many examples of paranormal-looking sights can be found by clicking on the link at top, loading the full image into an image editor such as Windows Photo Viewer, and using "zoom and pan" to inspect the details in close detail. Below is an example. Below is a closeup showing the balcony area underneath the second of the three great windows. On the left we seem to see a translucent dragon-like animal with a long curved neck.

Some who have seen the Hobbit movies (in which there is an evil dragon named Smaug) may say that this is a sign of some evil. But dragons get a bad rap from the Hobbit movie series. Let us remember that for many centuries in China dragons have been regarded not as something evil, but as symbols of good luck.They are associated in China with wisdom and longevity. Many Chinese restaurants have dragon decorations, and some of the owners think this will bring good luck to their restaurant.

Many similar examples of apparitions at exactly the spot shown above can be seen by following the link here,  which leads to my video "1000 Ghostly Apparitions on a Balcony."

"Kissing Apparitions" in Grand Central Station?

Photo date: January 16, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The following photo was taken in Grand Central Station in New York. The photo was uploaded directly from the camera. Click here to see the photo (DSC06544) at its full resolution. Or click on the photo below to see the photo at a somewhat reduced resolution.

We see four orbs here, but the most interesting things are elsewhere. Many strange things can be discovered by clicking on the link above, copying the resulting image into an image editor such as Windows Photo Viewer, and then using "zoom and pan" to examine small details.
 
In the right middle of the photo, we see what looks like two floating apparitions that seem to be kissing each other.

Speaking of kissing apparitions, we also may see this in the right middle part of the top photo, which also looks like kissing ghosts.

In the middle of the West Balcony (near the middle of the top photo), we see a strange group of ghostly-looking figures, one of which looks rather like a ghostly elephant.

Looking at some of the orbs in the top photo, we see one in front of the stars of the US flag (something I often see).  There is also the extremely strange scene below, which seems to show some creature head floating next to two orbs.

See the top right corner of this page for a link to a video that shows 1000 such oddities I have photographed in Grand Central Station.

Strange Shapes on a Balcony

 Photo date: January, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The 36-minute video below -- entitled “Strange Misty Shapes on a Balcony” -- was compiled from more than 500 color photos I took. The photos were taken on the East Balcony of Grand Central Station in New York, facing the West Balcony. Each of the photos was cropped to show a small part of the middle of the station's West Balcony.

While examining these photos, I noticed a strange recurrence of seemingly anomalous sights at this particular location of the West Balcony, a spot about 20 feet wide. Hundreds of my photographs of this one small spot seem to show translucent or dark shadow-like or misty-looking figures.  Within the video I called such sights apparitions.  But now I'm a little more skeptical, and I think that perhaps all of them can be explained as artifacts of the unusual lighting situation in Grand Central (as well as the fact that I was photographing something in the far distance). 

You can watch the video in the window below. If you want to watch the video, I strongly suggest that you click on the "Full Screen" button on the bottom right corner of the video, to watch the video in full screen mode. This is because the video has many rather faint details that are easy to see in full-screen mode, but hard to see in a little window like the one below.

Postscript: I don't recommend that anyone try to watch this video on a smart phone or a tablet device. The video involves a rather subtle effect that can only be appreciated when watching the video in full screen mode on a laptop or PC.