Spooked

There are no ghosts! There are no demons, no spirits watching over us, there are no poltergeists, there are no guardian angels following us around and there are no Devil's Little Helpers creeping in our shadows! Everyone knows that and it would be silly to believe otherwise. Yet I wish someone reminded me of that when I'm home alone with a 2-month old baby and she is staring at SOMEONE ELSE! Pretty spooky!

But what if something or someone is there. Maybe my kid sees something that I don't see. It's actually commonly believed that little children see things us grown-ups don't see. They see ghosts, auras and they see their guardian angels. This belief never adds, "if those even exist". Okay, I shouldn't even be mentioning that sort of stuff. I can just imagine some of my friends smirking when reading this. Even I myself think this sort of thoughts just don't go with my science profession. Kinda makes me want to pretend like I only believe in things that can be scientifically believed. Really a big part of science is also a matter of belief. I'm sure anything could be proven if someone wants to but it also has to make sense. I'm convinced it used to be scientifically proven that Sun revolves around Earth and believing otherwise was considered silly and outrageous. Maybe it's the same with ghosts and auras.

I sometimes try to decide if God exists. I take a moment to objectively weigh all the data that I know. I try to imagine a world with and without God, angels and afterlife. It seems that if there is God then there is also all the rest of the stuff - Heaven, Hell, angels, devil. But this doesn't include ghosts. There were no ghosts in the Bible except for the evil spirit and the spiritual form of God (part of the Holy Trinity). I can't really imagine Jesus walking into a building to have a chat with Casper the Ghost, but I can imagine him walking in there saying, "something is not right here" and then shouting, "begone evil spirit!!!". Actually even if there is God then Bible could be wrong about angels and devil. There could be ONLY God without any of the other stuff. Or maybe there really is only -you know- people and animals and buildings and rocks... Some things that we don't see do exist but those are called bacteria and magnetic fields and gravity... I have pondered about it a lot throughout my life. The end result is usually the same: I decide I should stop theorizing if God exists because God might mind.

But if there were ghosts then little children could see them. If you google it you'll find countless stories about little children talking to dead relatives, former inhabitants of the building and other ghosts. One dark night Siiri was completely captivated by something right behind me. She just couldn't take her eyes away. And then without warning she started to cry. Well maybe she was just in a surprise-bad-mood but I definitely got a chill down my spine. Another time she was lying in her crib and looking at the ceiling. When I walked in she gave me a glimpse and continued to stare at the ceiling. I smiled and noticed that sunlight created a simple pattern on the white ceiling. But then Siiri started to make faces to this "pattern" and became quite uneasy. I told myself, "she's only looking at the ceiling" but I still took her out of the crib away from that ceiling.

I just got a really creepy thought. You know little babies often stop breathing without warning? What if SOMEONE makes them stop breathing?! And did you know that babies who have colic usually cry at the same time of the evening every day - and that time is often referred to as newborn witching hour. From Wikipedia, "In European folklore, the witching hour is the time when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons and ghosts are thought to be at their most powerful, and black magic at its most effective.". So what or WHO really makes those babies cry? I don't know about you but I'm certainly going to feel uneasy around babies with colic, especially during witching hour. Uneasy not only because they are crying very loudly for a very long time.

And auras - what do auras have to do with anything?! Well babies see them. Babies can barely focus their eyes and their eyes don't even cooperate to start with but according to The Wise Internet babies see auras. I'm not exactly sure if auras exist (here we go again with the what's real and what's not) but I do know that most people have a vibe - some people have a good vibe, some have an energetic vibe. With some people you can just feel their presence. Some people, so-called energy vampires, drain their surroundings. I don't know if this vibe is simply how I perceive people or maybe I subconsciously sense their pheromones. So perhaps some people's brains can translate those vibes into colors. That's definitely more scientific-sounding than ghosts scaring little children. In that sense I do believe little children see auras, or at least they sense who is aggressive and who is friendly.

Ah, as silly as it sounds, I actually like the thought that when babies stare at air they are seeing the supernatural that we are trained by society not to see. It adds mystery to the world. I like that thought until Siiri does that and I get a chill and repeat to myself, "There are no ghosts. There are no ghosts. There are NO GHOSTS."