Kind of appropriate for the Friday prior to Halloween. I actually had a different question in mind until the morning, so I will pose both of them.
During the night, for no reason at all, my dog started barking. Yes, it could have been my snoring which I have recorded and sounds similar to a jet engine. But, I also wonder if dogs can see ghosts. Do you think animals can see ghosts?
My other question is more philosophical. I don't know as an adult if we will ever have the right answer. I probably should ask a kid. But, go back in time to when you were 6 or 7 or something like that. You are out trick or treating. If a family gave you a $5 bill instead of a candy bar, would you have felt ripped off? Kids love the candy, and even though $5 would buy a big bag of candy, I wonder how most kids that age would feel.
I personally would have loved the $5
ReplyDeleteI think dogs get spooked....have nightmares just like people...ghosts I'm not sure...
I know Tommy's answer.....
ReplyDeleteTHE $$$.
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ReplyDeleteMy dog doesn't see ghosts, she sees squirrels.
ReplyDeleteMy kids would flip for the money (into the Wii games fund).
Not sure about the ghosts. My cat does stare off into space sometimes like she sees something that I can't.
ReplyDeleteI would take $5, when I was younger some of the people would give out quarters and dimes, $5 is ALOT better.
When I moved to Minnesota, I didn't know anyone so I found my roommates online. Me and my yellow lab slept in my room and she was ALWAYS jumping up in the middle of the night and whining/growling. One time wind was blowing in my room when I woke up and I thought the window was open. I got up and checked the window but it was closed. When I was moving out, my neighbor was talking about who was going to move in, blah blah blah, and the lady that died in there. I said, "which room?" Of course it was my room. My dog has never done that since, and I got my house blessed before we moved in after we bought.
ReplyDeleteI would think I was rich with $5. We only got "fairy dimes" from the tooth fairy (Liberty dimes) so $5 would've been awesome!
Your dog probably had a dream about treats and woke up wanting a treat. Immediately. Bark-bark!
ReplyDeleteIf there were ghosts, dogs would see them.
At the age of 6 or 7, I would prefer candy. It would be immediate and in my possession. Soon to be eaten. $5 would be for the future/next day, and decisions would have to be made about the spending. Way too much trouble when I could be happily munching candy.
We didn't have Halloween in Sweden when I grew up - I think some kids there do it nowadays because they've seen so many American movies. I'm not sure about the $5 - I probably would have liked having 5 dollars but isn't the point of trick or treating to come home with a bucketload of candy?
ReplyDeleteI don't know about animals and ghosts, but it reminded me of a story that a classmate told me in high school. She was pretty sure her house (old house in the country) had a ghost. They had had a medium come check it out and apparently picked up a lot of activity, and my friend said all these weird things were happening all the time, like lights going on and off, doors closing, etc.
She told me that she had been sitting in her kitchen reading one night, and on the kitchen floor in a corner, there were a bunch of empty plastic soda bottles. She said she saw one of the bottles tip over and come back up, out of the corner of her eye. She said she would have chalked it all up to her own imagination, if it hadn't been for the fact that her dog sat up and looked at the bottles as well.
I never did go visit her house.
Yes, dogs can see ghosts.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I would have felt totally ripped off with the 5 USD.
I believe in ghosts. I believe Dogs can see ghosts. Period. ; )
ReplyDeleteYep - $5.00 please. Would have loved it back then. Would love it now.
yes, and yes!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, i didn't know you had a dog! what breed?
ReplyDeleteSecond, when I was about 5 i cried bloody murder because my brothers had gotten 5 dollar bills each from my grampa and I "only" got a $5 bill.
ya i don't think it would have mattered, i just wanted equal what everyone got,candy or not.
No, because ghosts don't exist. They just have heightened hearing so they can't probably hear something you can't.
ReplyDelete$5, no. Anything less than $1 yes.
I would have loved to get $5 or even $1 instead of candy, cause alot of time, it was candy I didn't like anyway(I was picky).
ReplyDeleteI used to be afraid to go into the cellar as a kid because I felt like someone was there. Then, in CCD class(catholic classes as a kid), we learned about guardian angels and I just thought it was them. However, in this case, I bet the dog just heard someone walking outside or a squirrel or skunk or something like that.
No idea about the dog thing. I had a cat growing up.
ReplyDeleteHallowe'en wise, I would have wanted candy. I don't think I had any concept of money at that age. My niece and nephew are both 5 now and they aren't that interested in paper money but they like coins. Of course, we're Canadian so coins can also mean $1 and $2!
I think dogs can see ghosts. I also think they know when someone is messed up on drugs. My (dearly departed) dog Henry was the worlds biggest 145 LB sweetheart. He loved everyone. Except my neighbor who was a total meth-head. When he was high, Henry would do this low woooooooooo noise when we walked by him.
ReplyDeleteI think I would have been happy about the $5. I never really loved candy - well, let me qualify that. I have never been a fan of chocolate (unless it's really dark) - I prefer gummy candies and those were seldom given out. $5 would have bought me a nice sized bag of sour patch kids! Yum!
Animals and children can see ghosts.
ReplyDeleteHalloween was all about how big a bag of candy you could get. $5 doesn't help to fill the the bag. 6 or 7 years old don't really understand the value of money.
My dog watching the one at my house all the time. I can always tell because he won't move but he follows it with his eyes and head. Pretty entertaining sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI would have loved a $5! We started getting money in birthday cards very young and I knew how much candy cost.
1. Yes, they can.
ReplyDelete2. Considering that kids used to get bagsnatched when I was 6/7, no one ever gave out money, so no money for me.
My cats seem to see lots of things I can't. I don't think it's ghosts they spot, but moths and random pieces of lint.
ReplyDeleteOne year, when I was managing a clothing store, I had forgotten to get candy for the mall's trick-or- treat night. I ended up giving out quarters instead. The kids seemed thrilled to get real money for a change. I also have noticed how much my daughter and my sister's kids love bragging about how much money they have, even if it seems like a small amount to us. Being able to decide how to spend that money is one of the few sources of power a child has. So, $5 is an excellent alternative to candy.
I don't believe in ghosts but once both my dog and my cat started going nuts one night. Dog barking and running around the house. The cat squeeling and jumping all over the counters. A short moment later we had an earthquake. Really bizarre, since I live in the midwest and we rarely have earthquakes. Strange.
ReplyDeleteMy kids would revisit the house giving out the $5.00 bills over and over and over again...even if it meant going home and putting on a different costume each time! LOL!
When I was a kid, I was happy to get pennies in my bag instead of candy. Even kids know that money is king.
"They just have heightened hearing so they can't probably hear something you can't."
ReplyDeleteUgh, awful grammar. I'm embarrassed. Allow me to edit: "They just have heightened hearing so they probably hear something you can't.
I don't believe in ghosts, so I'm going to have to say "no", but I do know they (and other animals) are highly attuned to environmental changes and can therefore sense impending earthquakes, storms, etc. There have been documented cases of dogs sensing epileptic seizures right before they take place, and other medical problems by smell.
ReplyDeleteMoney would have been an absolute treat instead of candy!
Yes, animals have a wider range of sight and smell than we humans do...so yes, animals can sense extra-corporeal entities (there really are more things out there than ghosts)
ReplyDeleteAnd at 6 years old, candy rules, so that would have been a major disappointment - any other time of the year, money's fine but certainly not at Halloween for a 6 year old.
Dogs are supposed to be more sensitive to the supernatural than most humans :)
ReplyDeleteI've never been trick or treating :( Halloween isn't really celebrated as much in England, which kind of sucks. Trick or treaters are actually seen as more of a nuisance because it's kids in their late teens that do it, so a lot of people put signs up on saying "No trick or treaters" etc.
There is a lady in my neighborhood who gives out one dollar bills instead of candy and my kids can't wait to get over there every year. It is a HUGE deal. They would flip out completely over a five.
ReplyDeleteI know ghosts exist because I've seen them with my own eyes. And heard them, and felt them. Animals are equipped differently than humans; maybe dogs smell them more readily than humans, for example.
ReplyDeleteMoney would have been a disappointment, right up there with apples and Bible tracts, but that's me; my brother would have loved nothing BUT money, even as a little kid.
Definitely candy, preferably Reeses Peanut butter cups or snickers.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, when I was a kid one Dad in town used to grill hot dogs for all the kids. everyone went to that house, it was great.That would not fly in this day and age! and that is sad!
I think animals can see ghosts. The night after my cat, Lucy, died, my other cat, Esther, came into the bedroom, jumped onto the bed, and started to hotfoot her way up to the head. It was dark, but she's a loud walker for a cat, and I've been listening to her nighttime noises for 17 years, so I know what she was doing. ANYway, after she started quickly making her way up the bed, she even more quickly stopped and fucking CLAWED her way back to the foot and off the bed. She was moving so fast she bypassed her little step-stool [she's old and has arthritis. shut up] in favor of jumping straight to the floor, then she tore out of the room. This was weird enough, but she flat-out refused to go into the bedroom for at least two weeks after that. I would carry her in and put her on the bed, and she would immediately leave. A few days after Esther's bedroom freakout, I was awake during the night and I felt [swear to god] a cat paw drag down my back. It was a gesture Lucy used to make every day of her life--to get our attention, she would put her paw on us and drag it (like she was clawing, but she never scratched us). I could maybe explain away the sensation as a hallucination or whatever, but I think it was Lucy. I think her ghost hung around a few days after her death, and I think Esther saw her.
ReplyDelete@Robert - lol at "apples and bible tracts" - no kidding. There was a dentist in my neighbourhood growing up who always gave away toothbrushes. Man he sucked.
ReplyDeleteMy brother's dog would bark at my mother in the middle of the night.....2 years after my mom died. It was stand there and go crazy in the hall, and stare down the hall, but, it's a hall, no windows anything. Then you would run to the spot it was barking at and it was cold as hell. We figured out really quickly what the dog was seeing.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do believe animals can see ghosts. My cat has. That's a very long story short.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou left one out, kathrynnova:
ReplyDelete"Yes, ghosts exist."
I'd have loved the $5 bill! I did my trick-or-treating in the late 1940s and early 1950s and many people didn't earn that much in a whole day! We got excited about nickels! And parrot feathers! And it was okay to get apples and homemade popcorn balls and cookies because it hadn't occurred to people yet to poison treats or put razor blades in them. It was also okay to go out alone after dark. You young whippersnappers missed all the good times.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I think animals are more sensitive to ghosts, which I do believe exist.
@Kathrynnova
ReplyDeleteI don't want to hijack this thread, however I can say my beliefs are based on experience -
Here's one from my blog:
http://outofthebroomcloset.blogspot.com/2007/10/another-sitting-shiva-story-this-one.html
and the followup -
http://outofthebroomcloset.blogspot.com/2007/10/addendum.html
My childhood best friend died trick or treating, she got hit by a car. I always think of her a lot this time of year. RIP Nell.
ReplyDeleteMy late husband was a Native American Traditional Healer -- what some would call a "medicine man." He was raised by other medicine people. He had a fascinating life and I had a few interesting "supernatural" experiences over the years I was with him.
ReplyDeleteIn the teachings he shared with others, he often talked about how dogs could see spirits (ghosts) and he was always very aware when one or all of our three dogs reacted strangely, especially at night.
In addition, he talked about how young children could also see spirits, but most would lose their ability once they got older.
His explanation was that young children and animals were "pure" and spirits were able to show themselves to them. My husband could also see spirits and I know a couple of other people who could. They were all very quiet about their abilities -- not like the mediums you see on reality TV.
When I was a kid, $5 would have bought 20 full size candy bars. Hell, yes, I would've been happy!!! The neighbor who gave out religious comics and pennies, on the other hand...
ReplyDeleteA $5 bill instead of candy? Both my children said, "Heck, yes!" My son added, "If I saw him put in money, I'd come back after a few other houses to go by that guy's house again."
ReplyDelete1. I believe in ghosts & do believe that animals can see them too. Did anyone watch any of the Celebrity Ghost episodes on the Biography channel?? Freaky! I loved reading all the ghost stories in this thread.
ReplyDelete2. I was never a huge candy fan so I would have happily taken the $5. My mom always ended up eating my good candy anyway :)
When I was little 3 or 4 I think,
ReplyDeletemy grandfather told a friend I could name all the change in his pocket. His friend thought he was full of it and I could keep what I could name. I proceeded to name all the change then tell him I know what a dollar looked like too. Needless to say I would have LOVED the $$$$.
As for the dogs seeing ghosts, OH YEAH. My aunt moved to a new house months after we moved her in her Welsh Terrier kept following with her head an invisible something move up and down the stairs and thru her living room. We later found that the man who owned the house use to walk the stairs pacing to wait up for his cheating wife. He died on the stairs from a heart attack waiting for her to return from a night out.
@penelope - i would love to hear more about that!
ReplyDelete@MCH: The Celebrity Ghost stories are pretty good (some of them are freaky,) but check out My Ghost Story, too. Lots of episodes about stuff regular people catch on video and in photos, often inadvertently.
ReplyDeleteAs far as my belief in ghosts is concerned, I have had enough experiences to convince me personally that they exist.
@Robert - I'll have to remember to watch that. I've never had any personal experiences, but I've known lots of people who have, so it's hard for me to NOT believe as well.
ReplyDelete