Can children sense spirits?

I started this thread as a few weeks ago a family member of mine was talking to me about their house being possibly haunted, we were talking alone with her daughter being looked after by grandmother. Anway, nothing else was mentioned and a few nights later her daughter tells her that she sees a man walking down the hall and coming into her room looking at her and then walking away.
I went around to the house not long after and we both watched, waited and tried to talk to whatever it is there we didnt see anything.
Now quite often there is odd things happen such as doors and windows opening and what sounds like footsteps in the house, but he/it only seems to show itself to her daughter.

I have heard of this happening quite a bit, where young children see and hear things that we just dont. I think it may be the fact that children are so open to everything being so young, where as adults we have it in our head that it is not real, or we are just being stupid, maybe like a mental barrier?

Anyway, Does anyone have any thoughts / experiences with this? I Would love to compare. Cheers.

I particularly remember an instance when I was very young, about 4 or 5, and I was with my sister and a friend, both around 1 year older than me. We were left alone in the house while our parents went to a house next door. It was night and we looked out the window because we saw some strange lights. Next thing I see something like flashes of light moving back and forth like dancing. The weird thing is I wasn't the only one that saw it, my sister and her friend also saw it too and it lasted a few minutes. It was weird and I never managed to see something like that again.

It would not surprise me if children were proven to be more sensitive to such things than adults. Obviously because they are more innocent and have not had it driven into their heads that such things do not exist.

I think it also may have something to do with the fact that children are not as consumed with the mundane aspects of everyday life the way adults are.
Lets face it, most of us are beaten down by job stress, the news, rush hour traffic, and worrying about getting the bills paid on time. Most of us are just too tired and distracted to take notice of the paranormal activities that probably take place all around us.

But not the children. Without all the constant demands on their attention, it would not surprise me if they were more sensitive to the supernatural than adults are.

In my own childhood I remember seeing figures and lights. Children do see many things. My mother, as a child, would see dead family members and as she grew would see other people and things. It's a grand mystery that may never be solved.

Ghosts, spirits, Jesus, God and Father Christmas are figments of your imagination. Probably caused by stress or some other emotional/behavioral problems. If you know any child who sees spirits please take them to a shrink, as this world needs no more of those corny ghost programs based on real life.
Remember spy are watching your house.

You are entiltled to your opinion but that is not the point of this thread. The topic we are dicussing is whether or not children are more sensitive to the supernatual. Its not about whether or not these things exist.
I'm not trying to be a prick or anything. But I find this topic to be fasinating and I would like to see it continue on the original topic.

I've heard it commonly that children are more sensitive to such 'paranormal activity'. Not to say this activity actually exists.

We must remember that children make up the wildest things sometimes and truly convince themselves that it's real... not unlike the adults.

[edit on 17-9-2007 by Sytima]

Well when my sister was little she used to talk to angels all the time, mind you our family isnt very religous either so when my mom had heard her talking ot someone that wasnt there and she asked about it and my sister told her that she was kind of surprised at the answer. I shoudl probably point out that she is the youngest of four and 8 years apart from the next youngest. So yeah id say small children probably do see and interact with spirits and such.

I believe children to see such things more often, I myself used to see such things all the time, as I got older the got farther between except in a couple homes that I lived in and thank the goddess I have managed to block them out completely for the past few years. My daughter has felt hands touch her and tug at her arms and such, like another child wanting to play, but she has not seen things. At that time she was not in school and had never heard of ghosts or spirits, I know this because she was only about 3 or so and had only ever been around me and close family who had never spoken to her of such things. She came to me and said that she didn't want to play in her room anymore and told me why, I myself felt very strange things in that house and saw things, our pets acted crazy there as well. For anyone who doesn't believe that would have been a perfect house to be in to change your thoughts.I will go into more detail at a later time for now I have to take my daughter to her first scouts camping trip
I should have known my first post on here would be about spirits lol

I think that children are able to see things, and feel things that as you mature, you tend to block out, because it's not the "normal" thing to see or feel. I can remember things that I saw as a child, that as an adult, the first impulse would be to discount it as something that was not real.

When I was five or so, we lived in a town called Utica, Mississippi. The house we were living in, had a fireplace, that had been moved from somewhere else, and I can't remember where to save my neck. There were several occasions that you could walk through the living room at night, and see an older gentleman sleeping in the rocking chair that was in front of that fireplace. He had a sword laying beside the rocker, and he was leaned back with a gray cap pulled over his eyes, and he had a dirty old gray uniform on. We could hear him snoring fairly loudly. My sister and I both saw him a couple of times. She's 2 1/2 years older than I am.

We lived in that house for about a year, and saw that same person about 3-4 times. If I stayed in that house as an adult, I'd probably never even catch a glimpse.



[edit on 17-11-2007 by metallion]

my nephew tells me that he sees ghosts, he is going to be 4 in March. it always happens in his room too, he runs into the living room almost crying saying he saw a little boy ghost. i have had him describe it to me before and the whole time we talked about it he was just tarring at his bedroom door

Of course they can. Babies can also see "angels" or those that created us. My mother has run an in-home daycare for 24 years, she is also a reiki master, and speaks of the babies watching other things sometimes.

Ever heard of the indigo children?

www.indigochild.com...

I am an indigo child.

There are several posts along this line, and i just picked the last posted one as the example...........

Originally posted by metallion
I think that children are able to see things, and feel things that as you mature, you tend to block out, because it's not the "normal" thing to see or feel. I can remember things that I saw as a child, that as an adult, the first impulse would be to discount it as something that was not real.

now, i'm a layman concerning this psychology and such.
but you all notice that it seems a truism that in our youth,
some attribute it to our innosence, our souls & minds
are more in tune with this spiritual world. That would be the
stance of a new-ager/indigo/mystical sage...

but a pragmatic one would say that in our youth the brain itself is
busy growing, and creating neural pathways,
and in the process of organizing the 3-D memory grids,
we are confoundedly aware when we are suddenly experiencing
very real smells. aromas. or sounds and experiencing visual cortex
phenomena out of the clear blue....
when we tell an ollder person of these strange events, they pass it off as
ghosts, spirits, etc

we are trying to organize the world around our experiences,
and between the folkwisdom, misidentifications of brain phenomena,
the ease of giving a fluff answer, and the piecing together of ideas/possible answers/ we weave a spiritual tapestry into our psyche.


as we grow older, unless we have become attentive and focused on the 'ghost' 'spirit' genre....we will put that aspect of our whole pesonality makeup in tatters on the 'mental editing room floor'...
just keeping a half fond & warm recollection of our youth with spirits, angles, ghosts..... (artifacts of the brain, called Spiritual entities)

Originally posted by Lightmare
It would not surprise me if children were proven to be more sensitive to such things than adults. Obviously because they are more innocent and have not had it driven into their heads that such things do not exist.

I think it also may have something to do with the fact that children are not as consumed with the mundane aspects of everyday life the way adults are.
Lets face it, most of us are beaten down by job stress, the news, rush hour traffic, and worrying about getting the bills paid on time. Most of us are just too tired and distracted to take notice of the paranormal activities that probably take place all around us.

But not the children. Without all the constant demands on their attention, it would not surprise me if they were more sensitive to the supernatural than adults are.

Yep. The child still has imagination intact and so does the adult to some degree but not like the child before their minds are riddled with messages like (NO, its time to grow up, Santa and tooth fairy dont exist) etc.

When I was around the age of 6 me and some friends would get together and actually levitate our friends. We did this with our eyes closed after going through a sort of imaginative ritual of meditation where the one being levitated was in an accident and died. There was a small side to me that didnt quite believe what we were doing so I opened my eyes during the process and the person was indeed floating above the bed.

I always love how people talk about children, as if they were never a child.

I certainly remember nothing like seeing spirits as a child.

I was too busy with power rangers and virtua fighter to see ghosts (and still am)

i believe children are born with open minds and it isn't until adults close them that they are totally cut off from the spirit realm.

reply to post by zero314


While I do not believe in any of the paranormal stuff. I sure see my younger son (1.5 years old) do some weird stuff now.

He can be playing on the floor with his favorite car, and out of nowhere he will turn in the direction of the living room doorway and wave a few times and say "hi" and then goes back to playing . He has done this every other day for a couple weeks now. Very interesting behavior considering there is nobody even near the direction he looks and waves to.

Who knows.

reply to post by omegastar2007


You said that children can sense spirits. Do you think one spoke/came to my son ? My 4 year old asked me "I going to die Mommy?" This question was very unexpected + came out of the blue, No I replied. A few weeks later he started to turn yellow, we took him to the doctors + for tests. Two weeks later we very told that he urgently needed a liver transplant. We flew him down to the Red Cross Childrens Hospital in Cape Town. Blood was drawn every 4 hours, when we said to him to take his medicine so he could get better and take him to the beach. He would reply "Not". We found out that he had contracted a virus that attacked his liver, lung and brain and as the virus was still lodged in his system he would no longer qualify for a liver transplant. He died shortly afterwards. In hindsight, he had been very clingy and wouldnt sleep in his bed because he was afraid. What would make a small child ask a question like that?
Zacks Mom

reply to post by NelysStar


I have to say that I found this thread as I was looking about spirits.
My daughter cannot speak yet, and there is a spirit watching over her. It's in her room, right over her changing table. I can sense its there, just as my mom can, but I know that she can see it. She waves to it and smiles, laughing and giggling. In our previous house this spirit was also there, also by her changing table. It seemed to have followed us. Initially I thought it was a spirit of our hamsters who had lived out most of their lives in that house, but now I am thinking that it might be one of our ancestors.
My boyfriend, who lost his father when he was ten, doesn't believe me. I asked him if he thought that it was his father who was watching over her, but he doesn't believe in such things. I wonder if it is, though it could be any number of people, including my great grandmothers or even my grandfather.
Does anyone have any thoughts of this?