Ghost hunting is a hokey business. Honestly, I don’t know that I even believe in ghosts. Amber is addicted to all sorts of ghost hunting television shows, Ghost Adventures being a particular favorite, so I’m often subjected to what appears to be the fashionable idea of ghosts as spirits lingering from a past life, often with unfinished business, more often super pissed and eager to assert their muffled “get out” phrases as electronic voice phenomenon to provoking intruders. There are many accepted truths in popular culture that just don’t sit right with me. I’m a secular kinda girl, I’m convinced my cat is in many ways smarter than I am, I’m inclined to think that when I die, my body will be burned, my ashes will be scattered in some location yet to be determined and that my soul, whatever that may be, will not reside in hell, certainly not heaven, and won’t bear the feat of lingering in some in between world entertaining itself by moving family heirlooms and inexplicably opening drawers and cabinet doors. At least I hope that is not the case; it may be all Hollywood and glamour at first, but even M Night Shyamalan got a little boring and tedious after awhile.
I have always wondered, if ghosts do exist, and are perfectly capable of interacting with what humans understand to be reality, how come they don’t have a greater impact on the world? I’d like to think that if I were a ghost, and had the capability to be the illusive eyes and ears of the unknown, I would do my damndest to make some shit known. Six years ago I left a journal sitting on a park bench that contained drafts of poems I had been working on that year, a series of letters, a few I intended to send, some of my ramblings on and a few post cards I’d received. I was out of sorts that day and walked away without my journal. No other alive human was in the park, but if we’re all surrounded by ghosts, it would have been nice if one of them picked up my journal and smacked me upside the head with it. I was obviously leaving it behind by mistake. There must be do-gooder ghost types. They can’t all just be lurking around, watching us in our bathrooms, listening to us talk to ourselves, knowing our perversions and where we stash our secrets. The idea of that just seems silly and quite embarrassing to me.
That being said, I have, like most people on the planet, witnessed something unexplainable. Luckily for me, the same intrigue that has lead Amber to programs like Ghost Adventures has also lead her down the path of casual dabble in quantum physics. Amber and I attended a Michio Kaku lecture a year or two ago and one of his theories of the universe really stuck with me. He likened our human perception of reality to ants on a hill under a giant overpass. The ants don’t see the overpass, though it so vastly occupies the space above them. It is not part of their world; their existence is separate and independent. I could be completely off base here, seeing that Kaku is one of the most brilliant scientists alive, and very few of my own scientific experiments have proven successful (i.e. directional smell manipulation of ebay purchased glow worm) but my understanding of what Kaku is getting at is that our own perception of reality is in cahoots with our survival as a species. Now, this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective; our perceptions are fixed in such a way to fit our needs. Isn’t it true we only use a small fraction of our brains? Well, what the hell is the rest of my brain doing? Perhaps it is dulling some parts of “reality” or some sensory perception that if I actually did experience would explode me into a pile of dust or lead me to my new life in a padded room. I do not believe there to be a giant overpasses above us, however, I am simply entertaining the idea that I know very little about the world around me and the way this all works. I do know that I have heard the voice of a woman who was not visibly present in the room at the time, I’ve been bumped across a room I presumed to be alone in, I’ve seen the handle of a faucet turn involuntarily and watched the cold water flow down the drain of a restaurant kitchen sink in the dark after hours. Maybe “ghost hunting” does not suit Amber, Sean and my ventures. We’re certainly not hunting anything or anybody, but as all of us are equally thrilled by what cannot be adequately explained by rational thinking, we are setting out to capture and record what we can of a bit of the mystery of existence.
