Do You Believe in Ghosts?

This is the time of year where ghost stories, scary costumes, and haunted houses are incredibly popular. But do you all actually believe in ghosts?

I go through phases where I believe and where I don’t believe.

For example, when I’m binge-watching “The Dead Files” on TV all day and I’ve saturated myself in creepy content for several hours at a time, then I’m definitely a believer and I have difficulty sleeping at night because I hear things and feel shadow people watching me while I sleep. But I don’t do that often.

And I’m also a believer when I’m in situations that facilitate that belief, like when I’m visiting a supposedly haunted location or I’m having a sleep paralysis nightmare (yes, I have those and they are horrible, I’ve posted about those experiences here). I just FEEL like ghosts and spirits are real and they are surrounding me in those circumstances. It’s just an incredible belief at that moment that cannot be rationally explained. (I’ve posted about some haunted locations I’ve visited too if you’re curious: Bullock Hotel and Leap Castle.)

I have some pretty vivid memories from when I was a kid, of some ghostly kids hanging out in my childhood home. They would stand in my bedroom while I slept. At the time, I remember being terrified and I believed wholeheartedly that they were truly ghosts. But now when I recall those memories, they are more distant and I no longer have the emotion of being scared tied to them, so now I’m more inclined to explain them as extreme dreams or an overactive imagination.

But for the most part, especially when it’s not an event that’s affecting me personally, I’m probably not a believer. For example, when I see ghost videos on the Internet, I’m usually the first person to say “That’s fake” or “That’s edited” etc. So when I’m not experiencing a moment like those mentioned above, then I’m quite the skeptic.

So I don’t know. Am I weird? What do you all think about the subject of ghosts? Have you experienced anything like it before?