Seeing a ghost

I will call him Freeman, for he wishes not to be identified, but he tells of awakening one night last week [late November 2016]  to   a strange experience. I can vouch for the authenticity of his tale, as I  consider him trustworthy. Let us hear his words.

"There is nothing odd about my house, which is just over a hundred years old; there is no brooding presence or strange feeling. In fact, it is a place at peace with itself, exuding an atmosphere of peace, a place where I and others are comfortable and in  which nothing odd has been seen. Until a few nights ago."

" My wife and I are comfortable living where we are, and we have no plans to  go elsewhere. A few nights ago we were both in bed, and she sleeps the sleep of the just.I don't, but I plead the fifth amendment on that one. I often awaken at night, and this time, when lying and enjoying the warmth of the bed I sensed a presence in the room,  to my left. I looked across to the left and saw an old woman smiling down at the bed. She was vivid, short, round face, curly grey hair. I was shocked into full alertness, and as that happened she disappeared. I have seen nothing since. But what struck me was that she was completely clear to me, as if she was not lit by the faint light that filters in through the curtains. I  am not sure of what I saw, and I am not going to jump to conclusions. Did I even see anything at all. I really don't know."  

"What is certain is that there was no sense that there was anything evil present. This was not a dark entity. What intrigues me was that I sensed that there was someone present before I saw the apparition. I had not been dreaming of anything at the time."

Let us have a look at some environmental factors. Freeman had drunk two pints of ale-strength drink several hours earlier. He was not drunk and next morning suffered no hangover. He works, but was not overworked or under any stress, and his relationship with his wife, who still does not know of the experience, hence his anonymity in this article, is good. There are no marital problems. Freeman has never had psychotic experiences and does not suffer hallucinations.  He is very well educated and not prone to jump to conclusions. The absence of any factors that suggest hallucinatory experiences mean that skeptics cannot easily resort to claims of drunkenness or temporary insanity, hallucinations and so on, the standard and rather tired explain-all  explanations of the strange and extraordinary that in explaining everything explain nothing. 

It is quite conceivable that a person awakening from a dream might find that the dream imagery persists into  the early stages of consciousness, and I suggest that this explains quite a few sightings at night, but Freeman was awake and was definitely not dreaming of anything. We might, however, observe that he was jolted into full alertness, so there is a possibility that he was not fully awake, and the edge of sleep can be a strange time, so a visual phenomenon that was the product of his own mind cannot be ruled out, and Freeman agrees, which is why he has not drawn a definite conclusion on what he saw. 

A  skeptical escape route will often be that he was ill and therefore hallucinating. Certainly,fevers, which cause high temperatures, are known cause hallucinations, and Freeman had one while an infant, but in this recent case he was not sick in any way whatsoever and has been for a long time in good health. He is not taking any illegal drugs and has no medications that produce hallucinatory side effects.  

While he admits that once or twice in the past he has sensed presences, these experiences have never included anything hallucinatory. This shows us that his mind is not  given to express his experiences in terms of visual hallucinations

The light in the room was at quite a low level, but there was nothing unusual about the light conditions, no passing headlights that interplay with the shadows in the room, and at no time in the past in that room has there been any visual apparition or anything seeming to be one. This gives the lie to another skeptical escape route, that he was gullible. A gullible person would have taken the experience at face value, but Freeman has not done so. He is not gullible.  

Freeman will not say that he has seen a ghost, but he rejects the easy skeptical explanations of what he saw, which don't work in this case. They explain away rather than explain. He is prepared to accept that he was imagining the vision,  as it was night time and he had been sleeping. But he points out that nothing like this had happened to him before and has not happened since. 

It could be an hallucination, but what if it is genuine and he has really experienced something supernatural? Skeptics may sneer at the possibility, but as they sneer at anything out of the ordinary,  their sneers simply become worn out, debased currency, a barrier to progress in the growth of wisdom and understanding

The first and most important strategy to follow when you see something strange is not to freak out or panic. In Freeman's case there was nothing harmful. Keep your self-control and remember, the time to get worried is if you encounter a ghost which can pack a punch, and so far this has not happened to anyone. The old lady, if she existed, would not have packed a punch in life, so why should she in death?

But as  Freeman says, you need to question yourself. Why did you have that  experience at that time. You might not be able to find a physical or medical reason, but you should be open-minded to the fact that there might be one. Of course, skeptics demand open-mindedness of everyone else. As you can see,I am no friend of die-hard skeptics, just as I am a critic of gullibility. 

You need to ask yourself if the experience is genuine, and if it is what does the apparition mean? Is it an earthbound spirit? If so, how do you get it to move on? As a Christian I would rely on prayer to achieve this. Might it be a visitant, an apparition that is not a feature of the property,but is considered to be a spirit  returning to  where they dwelt in life. Freeman does not know, and I am not going to  draw any conclusions, but I invite your comments on this matter.