What does it mean to see a spirit?

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DignumEtJustum

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I was very surprised earlier when my grandpa, nearly 80, told me something that occurred the other night. I have never heard him speak in such a way before and he would not tell a lie about such a thing. He is a Roman Catholic.

He said the other night he was asleep and all of a sudden woke up feeling like there was someone in the room with him. He then turned his head very quickly and saw what he described as a spirit in an all white robes, hovering almost at the foot of his bed. He could not see its legs. He seemed to describe the spirit as male and said it had almost a Friar Tuck haircut. The spirit did not disappear instantly but gradually vanished over about 3 seconds into thin air. He then started praying and could not get back to sleep. It was not a dream.

What could this mean and who could it have been? I’ve always been the one to believe in this sort of thing, where he hasn’t, though I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a thing myself. The house is only 20 years old and nothing’s been witnessed here like it before.
 
My little statue of St. Francis has the type of haircut you describe. Maybe he was praying for grandfather to have peace.
 
Don’t take this as casting off the possibility of the supernatural, but what he is describing sounds a lot like what is called a hypnagogic hallucination. They occur just when awakening and usually last a few seconds. They are vivid and seem real and just fade away as the person awakes. It can happen to anyone and is not typically a sign of any mental illness, though it can relate to being over stressed or physically drained either by overwork or ailment.

Has he been given any new medications? The ones especially for mental illness (depression) can cause things like this. Doctors typically put the elderly on anti depressants which can cause hallucinations like this and a slew of other worse-than-your-original-problem type side effects. If this is the case he should talk to his doctor about it. Just throwing that out there as it’s common.

He can always speak to a priest about this. There are things that they can do like bless the home, etc.

A house does not have to be old to have a ghost, nor any violent or traumatic things occur in its history. There doesn’t have to be meaning in seeing a ghost.
 
AnneElizabeth said:
Don’t take this as casting off the possibility of the supernatural, but what he is describing sounds a lot like what is called a hypnagogic hallucination. They occur just when awakening and usually last a few seconds. They are vivid and seem real and just fade away as the person awakes. It can happen to anyone and is not typically a sign of any mental illness, though it can relate to being over stressed or physically drained either by overwork or ailment.

Has he been given any new medications? The ones especially for mental illness (depression) can cause things like this. Doctors typically put the elderly on anti depressants which can cause hallucinations like this and a slew of other worse-than-your-original-problem type side effects. If this is the case he should talk to his doctor about it. Just throwing that out there as it’s common.

He can always speak to a priest about this. There are things that they can do like bless the home, etc.

A house does not have to be old to have a ghost, nor any violent or traumatic things occur in its history. There doesn’t have to be meaning in seeing a ghost.
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  • 1 on the first part. While falling asleep, things we see are likely behind our eyes, not before them.
ICXC NIKA
 
DignumEtJustum said:
He said the other night he was asleep and all of a sudden woke up feeling like there was someone in the room with him. He then turned his head very quickly and saw what he described as a spirit in an all white robes, hovering almost at the foot of his bed. He could not see its legs.
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If he was waking up it would be a hypnopompic (upon awaking), rather than a hypnagogic (upon going to sleep) hallucination.

These events are usually associated with Sleep Paralysis (catalytic somnambulism). Your Grandpa able to move his head to see the apparition would appear he was not in paralysis.

Sleep Paralysis happens when we are awaken during REM sleep (that is when we dream). Our bodies are paralyzed during this time. If we were not paralyzed we would physically act out our dreams. This is a safety mechanism in our brain.

Since, as far as we can tell from your description, this does not sound like sleep paralysis, the apparition may have been real.

God does allow, at times, a purgatorial spirit to appear to us. When that happens pray for the person, whomever they are. If there is any sense of heaviness, darkness, malevolence, then the apparition most likely is a demon.

See the essay, Seven Kind of Ghosts, for more information.

If your Grandpa has continuing experiences like this, Instant Message me and I will give you a link where he can get consultation.
 
About a month after my mother died, she paid me a visit to comfort me since I took it pretty hard. Not the stiff upper lip type, I cried a lot and went to the cemetery every week. Even my husband got snarky about it because, in his words, “She is gone. Just let it be. You don’t have to go to the cemetery every week.”

About one month later, my mother visited my husband in a dream. She told him our daughter’s baby would be a beautiful baby.

We found out that our daughter most likely wouldn’t be able to have children, but six years later she did have a baby boy against all odds.
 
I’m Hispanic and in our culture it is VERY common to have the elders say that someone visited their loved ones before they died.
He may be close to going home.
Pray for a happy passing.
 
My grandmother often had dreams that were ‘visitations’ of friends and loved ones. The year before she died ‘strangers’ started visiting. People she didn’t know, and sometimes she believed them to be real. Maybe some were, she was in a nursing home.

What I am saying is, if it was a dream it’s okay his praying was a good thing. If a ‘friar tuck’ came to visit him and he prayed that too is a good thing.

I think your dear grandpa shows who he is mainly by his response to this surprise visit, by praying.

God Bless your grandpa and you!
 
pianistclare said:
I’m Hispanic and in our culture it is VERY common to have the elders say that someone visited their loved ones before they died.
He may be close to going home.
Pray for a happy passing.
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That was my first thought as well.
 
Sleep Paralysis has occurred to me before and what he described seem to be different. I believe I have hallucinated something similar but from what I recall it seemed a lot less real than he’s describing. He’s also in fine health for his age and is the youngest of all his siblings who are still alive.

My grandpa on the other side swears he was visited by my grandma after she died and he was a wreck, and we all believed him. In that case we knew who the spirit was though.
 
DignumEtJustum said:
Sleep Paralysis has occurred to me before and what he described seem to be different. I believe I have hallucinated something similar but from what I recall it seemed a lot less real than he’s describing. He’s also in fine health for his age and is the youngest of all his siblings who are still alive.

My grandpa on the other side swears he was visited by my grandma after she died and he was a wreck, and we all believed him. In that case we knew who the spirit was though.
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Love ones visiting us soon after death is extremely common. It has happened in our family, it has happened to famous people, it has happened to many, if not most, families.

God allows this for a final goodbye or comfort of the loved ones left behind.

The hallucinations from sleep paralysis tend to be vivid and very real. A person may see a hag sitting on his chest, dark figures an demon coming out of the wall. Baring other evidence to the contrary all this is natural and not demonic. But, in other cases it can be.
 
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