I'm a clinical pyschologist researching unusual life events.

Have you ever experienced a psychic encounter, and if so what did the entity communicate? (Have you seen a ghost and if so was there any kind of message?)

Moderators Note: Moved to Paranormal Phenomena

Are you a clinical psychologist or a paranormal expert? You claim to be an expert, so which is it? I've never known a psychologist that delves into the paranormal.

What sort of "research" are you doing, and why? Do you actually treat patients?

This precisely describes the scope of my profession, and interest in people who report unusual life events such as "seeing ghosts." The issues here are too complex to paint fully. My students are keen to draw conclusions and make connections between these kinds of events, stress and perception of reality

Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development.[1][2] Central to its practice are psychological assessment and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration.

I'm not interested in ghosts at all, just the people who see "them" and why. My interest is purely in the function of the human brain, and not the after life or spirits. Someone moved my post to this area.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this then Alfred.

2 people claim to have seen a female ghost in my house. Neither knew the other had when they both described it to me, and the descriptions were identical.

A third person claims to have heard a female ghost though not seen her. This person didn't know about the other two reports. He claimed the ghost was down the cellar (basement) and kept saying, 'come'.

The other two people both saw the ghost upstairs.

Several other people have said they sense something in my house. I have never seen or heard anything myself but have had the feeling on odd occasions that something was there. Might be me getting spooked by all these other people's reports?

A dog that growls and bares it's teeth, staring at something that isn't there in a particular corner of the house..

We basically all accept there might be a ghost, or maybe we are all telepathically transmitting and sharing a fear, or... who knows?

Unlike a lot of people it's never really been a huge deal to me for some reason. Maybe there's a ghost and maybe there isn't. I am curious though.

My student needs information to support her theory that "ghosts" are in fact internal subconscious projections directed at our own senses. These, she believes, are a self-generated and dramatic way of getting our own attention. The request for details of the message conveyed, is to determine if there is a link between circumstances at the time of the appearance and the sometimes cryptic content. Once again, we are not interested in contacting so called spirits, or holding séances. I may or may not hold the same view, but good science is all about proof. Please excuse any typos as I am slightly dyslexic and would normally finesse my work with a spell checker.

Thank you very much for that graphic and chilling account. I hope you were able to read the information that is pertinent to my student/s and why they are seeking this information. I personally, am prepared to believe, that the human brain/s can communicate in a way that is as yet unmeasured by science. I have recorded too many instances of shared knowledge without people being directly wired. An example of this is the girl who is just about to telephone her mother, and at that very same moment, the phone rings. (They can be distant by just a few or thousands of miles.) On the line is her Mom. Did she receive a signal of intention that she was about to get a call? Likewise, shared ghost encounters could well be data stuck in some kind of cache. Older people used to call this hidden channel "the ether". It is very hard to find a reason why there is communication, if the actual message is vague. I have record of this kind of event (run!) when there has been impending danger. Alfred

My students want to explore, and if possible prove their often very advanced and sometimes fanciful theories. This idea of self projection is very interesting. We are capable of creating tangible and wholly complex environments in our dream state. We can compose and hear music, see landscapes, fly through the air, smell flowers, touch people, react and feel emotions, and all of this in the realm of dreamland. Sometimes, but not always, these places are absolutely as real as our waking life. It is not beyond the power of our wonderful brain to let some of this quantum creation escape to our daytime senses.

Wikipedia? Really? Surely you could write out what your profession is yourself not cut and paste.

I have a feeling the students in this story is actually the OP.
If you have homework questions then we can help you on this site, it would just be more helpful to us to say that it is homework.

My MIL believes in ghosts, spirits all the paranoid BS.
I believe in old pipes, floorboards expanding in the heat and eyes playing tricks on you when you wake up.

This little passage from a Tim Minchin poem pretty much sums up my feelings:

“Look , Storm, I don’t mean to bore you
But there’s no such thing as an aura!
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or star-signs or tea-leaves or meridian lines
These people aren’t plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for those who claim to hear God’s demands
And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands.

By the way,
Why is it OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Is it not totally ****ed in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you’re in touch with the other side?
That’s just fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify that there’s no such thing as a psychic?
What, are we *****ing 2?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson hasn’t had facelifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Want to talk to pr*cks
Like John Edwards?"

My Department wrote the original, which was subsequently lifted to Wiki. It's only plagerised if you take credit for the work of someone else. In any case, I italicised the whole statement to imply a quotation. If you would prefer me to author a new definition, I can do that?
Please let me once again point out, that I have no interest at all in The Occult, The Paranormal, Spiritualists, Ouija Boards, Faith Healers, Mediums, Fakirs or Soothsayers.
Please feel free to address the question if you have more to add?
My study is centered ( centred UK spelling) on the workings of the human brain.

On the subject of the telephone and telepathy, or whatever it is:

I used to freak everyone out at work because I regularly used to get up from my work station and start heading across the room to answer the wall phone before it had started ringing. I didn't realise it because to my brain it was already ringing, or I was just on autopilot, but enough people noticed to catch me out en-route and point out the phone wasn't ringing yet. I also used to pick up the phone and say,'hello Jim,' (or whatever name - correctly identifying the caller) before the person at the other end had spoken. The more people drew my attention to it the less it happened.

I have had other quirky telepathic/clairvoyant experiences but I always find when I want them to happen they don't, or when attention is drawn to them they stop. If other people find the same, no doubt it would make studying the whole thing very difficult.

When I did martial arts I could do katas without thinking about them, but if I actually considered what the next move was I would forget it. I used to think of it as body memory, but whatever it is, some things the brain does best without conscious effort. Seems to me that telepathy etc, or whatever it is, is similar.

As to what a ghost is, so many theories. Spirts, glimpses into different dimensions in time or parallel universes, hallucinations, 'recordings' in the electromagnetic fields, misunderstading of normal phenomena, telepathically progected images. Who knows. Maybe all of the above and more in different circumstances.

So when we are stressed, ill, being influenced by electromagnetic fields etc, do we project an image that isn't really there, or does our altered brain state mean we see something that is there which we would normally not be aware of?

I remain open minded to all possibilities personally.

By the way if you use the answer box at the bottom, rather than the comment Alfred, you can type more and people can quote you if they want to respond.

So you are no longer researching men who wear women's panties and are now researching psychic activity - or non activity?