This idea is a little far-fetched, but if you think abstractly enough, it makes sense.

A friend of mine once imparted to me his theory on why some places seem haunted or are just REALLY creepy. He suggested that your emotions leave a kind of residual effect in the area... a sort of echo. He said that perhaps this echo or residue could effect others who came in the area later on, causing them to feel the same emotion and increasing the amount of residual emotion left behind. (We were talking about a place near my house called "bunny man bridge" if anyone knows of it).

His suggestion implied that it would be possible for certain places to build up residual fear or anger to the point that anyone who went in that area would be so freaked out that they would even possibly hillucinate things. The area would become a sort of metaphorical emotional black hole.

not at all far fetched. I believe emotions can attach themselves to objects (or places as you denote). So, yes some of these places could have this effect, imho

Yep, not a bad idea, and one that definitly is worth investigating further.
The question is "What is the physical substance that is left behind?"

If computers and dogs can "smell fear" then what are they smelling, and is it a pherenomal thing or a spiritual thing.

Well, let me pick apart this post for a moment.
Residual ??? are a fact. But emotions? Well - thinking along these lines - that a living person who's body dies is not 'dead' per say, but has just shed his body and went on to anther level of (?). So, leaving the body leaves us with our collective past experiance (emotion included?).
Thinking along these lines I can't think it would be too far fetched to say that high emotion could indeed lingure. Now does the 'emotion' itself constitute a 'being'? No, but it is very much a key part. So I'd have to say (opinion only) that anything that lingures or stays around would have to be the sum of that yesteryear being.

Then again - I think along the lines of the living. If I walk into a room where there are people fighting ect, even if they are out of sight - I feel it in the air like you can feel a good storm coming on. Therefore, tention, being an emotion is something we can pick up on.

My 2 cents.

Well I dont know about Bunny Man Bridge (doesn't sound too inviting) but there is a place called Dyer Lane that if you drive down it you are hit by a wave of fear... you can smell death and its just a very uncomfortable place to be.
I don't know if it is ghosts or not maybe just something the military is doing - since it is by a major (well what was once a major - air force base in Northern California...) maybe they are trying to keep people out.

Well, I had to live at a place (I believe I posted a bit about this once) where there was something - a horrid something - at the bottom of the steps - it was as you said above - a wave of fear hit you if you went to that spot. As silly as I felt, a grown adult literaly running back upstairs, I did it almost every time I HAD to go downstairs. I never thought of it as a pocket of emotion. I always though of it as there was something there and it was a bad something.

Originally posted by Netchicken
If computers and dogs can "smell fear" then what are they smelling, and is it a pherenomal thing or a spiritual thing.

I knew dogs and other animal could smell fear, or danger, but how on earth is a computer suposed to "smell fear"? Or what did you meant???

I'm saying this, cuz I kinda liked the original idea, and thought it was interesting. Suposed it is possible. Then it could explain how someone can "cast a spell on a object or a place"? Maybe they left a 'packet' of charged emotion or stuff like that, if you see what I mean...

[Edited on 5-8-2003 by m0rbid]

This whole theory makes sense, sort of like an emotional 'background count'. I think of it in terms of radioactivity- if enough of emotion X saturates a place, it will eventually start giving it off. However, when people go there and feel the radiating emotion X, they respond with their own emotion, and it may overlap/overlay the original. Good?

DE

Yes, I have heard of bunny man bridge. It is interesting.

I do not believe your ideas are far-fetched. I am currently dealing with some things in my own home, and am starting to lean toward "imprints", memory imprints. Maybe there was something that left a negative imprint, which affected others later, and hence the cycle fed the negativity.

Just one type of entity though...

You're talking about a residual haunting/phantasm, where there is an emotional imprint, caused by an intense act...but in which the entity itself is no longer present... Such cases usually fade with time....but occasionally flare up on certain astronomical occurrances..

There are other types, including "ghosts" which are the entity themselves albeit in a sort of "between" existence, as well as poltergeists (tk phenomenon usually caused by a small child, but blamed on a ghost)...and other entites as well...