Put yourself in the ghost's place...

**Last reminder that tomorrow is the end of the short story contest--due in Saturday the 3rd by midnight EST**

I have a tendency to look at things from an odd point of view (understatement for those of you who read me regularly). I often times think about puzzles from other angles instead of the path already carved by those before me. I tend to look for a window to crawl through instead of the simple easy open door. So, when I puzzle over ghostly phenomenon, I always come back to the same question; what would I do if I were a ghost?

It’s easy to say that once you die, should you have a soul, you would find your final reward in a conceptual place such as Heaven or Nirvana or Valhalla... Do you think you would malinger, confused that you no long have a physical form? Would you stay to watch your kids grow up? Would you possess the house that you believe is your home for all time?

I say it often, but I believe it’s true: If we suspend our imaginations to believe in the concept of souls and that ghosts are the souls of the deceased, then we are too linear in our thinking. We know that in a physical form we must be present in one place. John stands in his bedroom at 123 Willow Drive. He cannot be other places. He has only one body. But, should John pass away and be in spirit form, why would he need to be in one place? While John was living, standing in that bedroom, he was thinking about his sister’s wedding tomorrow, recalling a warm beach in Hawaii where he wished he was at that moment, and talking on the phone with his brother whom he imagined laughing and sitting in his home across town. John was in many places at one time, but held within a body. Without that body, couldn’t John now be on that beach, with his brother, and attending a wedding the next day at the same time?

So, I put myself in the place of a ghost. We all agree that if we were spirits, we would let out family know we’re okay. Well, since that’s not regularly done by all the deceased, we can assume it’s not that easy, correct?

Then what is it that makes some ghosts capable? Is it a set of temporary conditions in the environment or the ghost’s talents at being seen OR is it possible that it depends on the living person as a receiver of such information?

Some people are ghost magnets. If you do a search in my search bar on the righthand side of the screen for “ghost magnets,” you’ll see I’ve written about this concept before. Some people more frequently and more potently have encounters with the paranormal. There are folks like Kris Williams on “Ghost Hunters” who rarely have such instances and certainly not stunning ones like Jason and Grant do. Like psychics who are somehow physically different in some variation that makes them able to receive and understand incoming information, perhaps ghosts can appear for people who are just better receivers and combined perhaps with the right geomagnetic conditions or time of the day when the pineal gland is more active. It might also explain why often times visits from the dead come to our beside when we are in a sleeping and receptive state. I myself saw my father who wiggled my big toe when he passed away. He stood at the end of my bed as he always did after a business trip when I wasn't allowed to stay up and wait for him to come home. My mother saw our dear family friend sitting in a chair in her room when she woke up from a nap. Neither of us knew these people had passed away when it happened.

So, if I were a ghost what would I do? I suppose I’d approach everyone I knew, looking for that window of opportunity when they were lucid and not otherwise engaged and will them to see me. Have you ever felt like you’re being watched and look around you? Perhaps someone on the other side is trying to get your attention. Perhaps the problem is not that they aren’t there, but that because we are within the limits of this crude human body and its limited senses, we are the problem, not them.

It’s something to think about.