Ghastly ghosts………

A scary vampire, a creepy crawly creature, a monster, a zombie.... a ghost.... these are just a few of my fears... I know people keep telling me not to believe in ghosts, because they do not exist. But I don't know why I keep freaking myself out. Scary movies freak me out. Big time!

I never understood what inspires people to create such movies and what possesses the rest of the world to watch them! How can anybody enjoy scaring people or getting scared? (ok ok... i can understand how people can enjoy scaring other people... but not the enjoying getting scared part). Maybe people just watch these movies for the thrills and chills (though I simply can't imagine why!)

Considering that there are quite a large number of people who watch scary movies, maybe I should ask myself why I let imaginary entities scare me? There exists no Bloody Mary, there exists no evil spirits which may or may not possess me (or anyone I know), zombies exist only in the cranberry song... basically, these are all just a figment of people's imagination! Then why get scared????

I read in some book that people's imaginative powers are not as good as they think they are. People can not imagine things that they have not seen.. For example.. as Michael Crichton says in his novel "sphere"; if you ask any person to describe what they think aliens would look like when we finally met them, they might give the most unaccurate description, as every description will contain some earthly element in it. The alien is either a large insect, or a mutant, humanoid form with three eyes, or little green men. The truth is that we just cannot imagine something totally "out of this world"! (in its most literal sense)

I kinda applied this to the whole "ghosts are imaginary" belief. They can't have just popped out of nowhere. There must have been some form of inspiration to create the first scary story or ghost story. That freaks me out even more! Human imaginative power is bad!!! Then where did all the ghost stories come from??? Ok.. I am really freaking out now (breathe girl breathe!!!! *takes a deep breath*)

Of course, the whole concept of ghosts could have originated from people wondering if humans could come back to life after they died... a true life experience with ghosts or zombies not required! It could also be the unexplained... There are two types of responses to the unexplained. One type of response is to try and investigate and come up with a logical explanation. Another method to deal with the unexplained is to simply fear it... for the simple reason that you don't know whats it about and have no means of finding out. There must have been plenty of "unexplained" events for centuries.... millenia!... afterall, man is not perfect, he is not an "all-knowing" God. He learns through experience. So I am thinking... whatever people could not explain back then (but later figured it out through science), were termed as the doings of "ghosts" and "evil spirits". I can relate to this theory. For example, if the volume of the music I am listening to goes down without any explanation that I can think of, then I will blame it on the boogeyman! (when its probably just because there is something wrong with my CD player).

These are all the things that go on through my head whenever I start thinking about scary stuff and try to comfort myself and inject some courage through my veins....

But you know what's scarier that Evil Dead?????

...........................

The ghosts and demons within us.....

You know what else is just as scary??

Visits from the ghosts of the past……

They are terrible guests... they visit at odd times... they come eventhough they are not welcome... they don't leave when you want them to... and the worst of all, they manage to creep into the secret chambers and the deepest and darkest corners of the mind and heart and disrupt everything... I never asked them to visit... Then why did they come? Why do they spoil time which could otherwise be spent enjoyably doing something else? And when they finally leave, why do they leave the heart and mind feeling like they have been filled with lead? Past is past. Then why ruin the present and put the future in jeopardy?

Most people may fear horror movies, books and the ghosts associated with them... but they fear the inner demons and the ghosts of their past even more.... I sure as hell would take on Bloody Mary rather than the ghosts of my past...

And I am sure many would do the same...