• Disincarnate: not of physical material, without a body or form, and not essentially "alive" as we know it.
• Spirits: the word "spirit" comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning "breath." Spirits are self-aware ethereal substances particular to an individual being once living or still alive. In many religious traditions, a soul is thought to incorporate the inner essence of each living being, and to be the true basis for sentience, considered to be immortal and to pre-exist their incarnation in flesh. Since the soul pre-exists the living being, and is immortal, it can also exist after physical existence and can wander the world of the living. A spirit is therefore a wandering soul; energy without a body, a personality existing outside a person.
• Entities: a spirit that actually exists that may, or most likely, NOT be human. Entities are very rare to experience, and many commonly reported encounters with entities are usually determined to be hallucinations. Real entities can be called to manifestation, and may remain dormant for years. Entities are often described as demonic or angelic, depending upon whether or not they seem to be a threat to a person. Since they exist outside of normal human experience, most people are frightened by them. Entities are known to haunt specific areas or may attach themselves to a particular person, and they seem to feed on intense emotions. Getting hysterical over it seems to make the entity stronger. Once ignored, or seemingly exercised by a holy person, they seem to diminish. No one knows for sure what entities really are.
• Poltergeist: German for "noisy spirit", these ghosts seem to be possibly an entity and/or pyschic phenomenon linked to adolescents under great stressful circumstances. Poltergeists are also thought to be the ghosts of lost dead people struggling to communicate with the world of the living, often attaching themselves to the sensitive, hence making adolescent children prime targets. Poltergeist activity is experienced in different phases; the first phase is a sensual attack (cold spots, strange noises, footsteps, weird odors, animals behave strangely, feelings of being watched), phase two is a direct attack (the smells and noises are directed at someone, graduating into whispers, screams, moaning), phase three is actual presence (sometimes appearing as a cloudy vapor, mists, electrical appliances turn on and off, unseen hands grabbing people, writing or scratches on walls appear, could also manifest as a dark figure), the fourth phase is momentum (this is the stage where objects move of their own accord, things are broken, furniture shakes, levitation), the final phase is the peak of high energy (heavy objects are pulled or dropped, electric shock sensations, hair being pulled, skin is scratched, and the target of the haunting is sometimes possessed by the spirit). Usually Poltergeist activity does not last for very long, usually ending as the target of the haunting matures or moves to a different residence.
• Apparitions: an insubstantial entity that can manifest in a human or animal form. Sometimes apparitions appear transparent or fuzzy, appear and disappear suddenly, can cast shadows, be seen in mirrors or as a reflection on glass. Some are accompanied by smells or sounds. Most are reported to appear to bring a message or warning to the living.
• Crisis Apparitions: experienced on the anniversary of a highly emotional or historical event.
• Deathbed Apparitions: a seemingly angelic or misty form appearing before a death.
• Ghost Ships: linked to disasters and shipwrecks.
• Apparition of the Living: a highly controversal type of ghost usually appearing before the arrival of a living person, or is the apparition of a living person who is projecting their concerns or thoughts to another living person.
• Ghost Calls: an audible apparition experienced as a phone call from a dead person.
• Corpse Candles, or Corpse Lights: canwll corfe, as they are called in Welsh, are mysterious lights that seem to hover or bob over the ground and stop at houses or other sites where a death is eminent.
• Atmospheric Phenomenon: usually associated with a particular location where conditions are ripe for electromagnetic or other natural disturbances. Therefore this sort of "haunting" is not from a ghost at all, but attributable to the electromagnetic and psychological programming of people. When someone enters a place that has a bad history or somewhere that just "feels" unpleasant, people will naturally react hysterically, and often what they perceive to be a ghost in the atmosphere is a result of Pareidolia (a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus being mistakenly perceived as something recognizable in physical reality -- in other words, something that isn't really there is seen as a face in the clouds or hearing whispers on the wind).
• Residual Phenomenon: are possibly "recordings" of an event in time that are left at a location, played back at a later time to only be experienced at that specific location. A traumatic or tragic event in history leaves such an enduring mark on a place, that it seems it can never be forgotten or erased from the area. Apparitions seen at these specific places always seem to be doing the same thing over and over without ever changing their actions or state of dress. These are most commonly experienced at old battle fields.  (information provided by valentinaxx )

Ghost Stories from Mindsay bloggers

When loved ones come to call...(nicholeo)

I have many personal experiences with the paranormal.  Ironically, the one that frightened me the most was the 1st.  I was sleeping at my grandmothers house, and I awoke to the television turning on.  For some reason, it did that a few times a week, at 11pm.  This time I decided to investigate.  I crawled out of bed, not worrying about my glasses...I knew the house well, so it didn't occur to me that I would need it.  I first went to the restroom...but that is irrelevent.  When I walked out to go into the living room,  I went to the tv, turned it off, and went back where I came to go to bed.  As I turned the knob on my bedroom door, I heard a "ahem", and the tv came back on.  This was when the hair on my neck stood on end.  I looked around the room, and walked back to the tv to shut it off again.  I looked around the room, and reached for the knob, and pushed it...and within seconds of the lights going out, I saw a silver shimmer of an outline of a man sitting in the recliner...it faded within seconds, but it was almost like looking at a negative of film...when the spectre faded, there was a smile, and what seemed to be a "whoosh" of air all around me and the smell of old spice.  I told my grandma about it the next day, and she told me "You think your grandpa is coming back to check on you huh?"...I said, he did when I was little, he always protected me... She smiled and patted my hand...She said that she smells the old spice every once in awhile, even now...I don't know why this scared me...perhaps it was the fact that I didn't know who it was, or what for that matter, but I know that it would not be my last...

My Ghost Story (facedown):

Oktober Fest. Who's idea was it to EVER throw anything this lame? And why do Germans spell it so funky?

But that's beside the point. The point is, I'm sitting at a table, bored as hell, when all the while a secret gem is hidden underneath my feet.

"I'm going to go to the bathroom." Says I.

"Okay, honey." Says Mom.

Down the stairs. To the left. Boring Wall, boring wall...door. Open door. Large, heavy, scratched red paint. I peek inside, no bathroom, but something way more interesting. A nightclub.

Forgetting all intentions of my bladder, I enter the dark room lit by red lights. No one's here except for a normal band on the stage, playing normal nightclub music.

I never saw the transparency of the people. I blame the lighting. I walked right on past them and behind the bar. The music stopped.

I walked back out, and the band was gone. Not a trace of them left.

Freaky, no?

Oh, but there's more.

Shaking it off, I continue to venture deeper, this time into the storage room. I discover not only is this a nightclub, it used to be an underground prison. Does this frighten me?

No fucking duh.

There's doors, beds, sheets, sculptures...all splattered in, dare I say it...blood. Scared beyond wit now, I rush towards the boring safety of Oktober Fest above.

But wait, look at that really cool door! It's a foot off the ground! Open it, open it!

Obivously, I have no choice but to open it now. With a clank and a swish, the door flys open and I'm hit with a rush of cold air. I don't climb up into it, but I lean over for a look in.

A small hallway with no doors and no windows. Just gray dampness. A hallway filled with memories.

Footsteps, whispers, screams, blue hands. All coming from a dead hallway. A slam of the door and I'm upstairs in 10 seconds, tops. I'd had enough.

Was it ghosts? A trick of the mind maybe? Who knows.