What does it mean to feel the presence of a dead loved one?

[Lobouspo]

I have heard people from all walks of life experience this. Have you ever experienced it? How would you explain it? The closest for me was visiting Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest battles of the American civil war...Didnt see any ghosts, but just felt something weird that I could not put my finger on

[thatone]

here's a good analogy...i fly (not for a living, as a hobby). one of the first things they teach you when learning to fly a plane is spatial disorientation. when you can't see the ground or some other visual reference, your brain has to use other senses to decide where in space you are. it does so by a fluid deep in your ears, that comes in contact with hairs attached to nerves. depending on which hairs the fluid deep in your ear canal hits, your brain decides whether you are upside down or right side up.

 

the catch is, sustained G forces can cause that fluid to behave in a way your brain isn't familiar with, and make your brain not realize that you are upside down when you "feel" rightside up or vice versa. this is how you can get confused in bad weather and not realize that you are on a B line straight for the ground. that's why planes have an instrument that mimics the horizon. the blue side goes up and the brown side goes down, representing sky and earth. keep them that way and you'll live, even if you can't see and your brain tells you wrong.

 

in your case? same thing, your brain assembled a bunch of knowledge and imagined memories and gave you a feeling that your brain interpreted in an incorrect manner. your brain lost track of what is real and what isn't for a few moments because you gave it prior knowledge of a place or time that you haven't been to.

 

a logical educated person would interpret this for what it is and disregard the inaccurate "feelings", applying a rational explanation for them. a not so logical person would accept the feeling their brain offered them as fact simply because they feel it, and pull up on the yoke despite being upside down, plowing the plane right into the ground at maximum speed.

Edited June 7, 2012 by thatone

[carhill]

I'm not aware of any direct loved ones being involved, but I do recall a distinct feeling of fear wash over me about halfway from the visitor center out to the Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor. It was like everything in the present became distant and the surroundings grew cold, even though it was a sunny, warm and humid typical Hawaiian day. I would have thought such a feeling would be more 'normal' at the memorial, viewing the exhibits, but nope. Just at a certain point, both out and back. Odd. My dad fought in European theater and obviously survived and I know of no family members who died at Pearl.

 

Haven't had the experience anywhere else, including Ground Zero, which I've also been to a number of times, nor at Gettysburg and similar historical sites.

 

I'll occasionally feel the 'influence' of my mother when driving her car, which became mine after she died. We shared a lot of good memories traveling in that car, so perhaps it's just nostalgia.