Can’t they discover the world beyond? Weren’t they humans; don’t they have the mind to move on and focus on something else, since trauma and grief will run its course, sooner or later, and not just haunt the living?
If I were a ghost, I’d be tired of acting like one… even if I was murdered or otherwise died untimely
With the exception of Casper the Ghost, I don’t think I’ve seen the alternative take on it
This presupposes ghosts do exist, though I believe ye skeptics would tell me no, which, alright, you win the argument
I believe it’s tied to the ides of the restless dead.
The spirit should move on after death, but some spirits get stuck between worlds. Often it’s related to the circumstances of their death. Maybe they had unfinished business, they died a particularly grousom death, or they were denied a proper burrial.
If you have ever had a dream where you can’t get something right. Like, in your dream you know you need to do something - you even know exactly what it is that you need to do. You have no excuse for not doing it - maybe you actually try to do it - and yet you keep finding it is as yet undone.
You eventually wake up, because you are alive and you are dreaming. But if you are dead, you are not alive, you cannot wake up. You have all of the agency that you had when you were dreaming, which is none. Until you woke up - you were helpless in your dream, try as you might. The dead are helpless in their dream as well, but they do not have the luxury of waking up.
So have some pity for the dead.
I don’t believe in ghosts or psychic phenomena, but I do love the concept in fiction that ghosts aren’t actual human souls. Rather, they’re a sort of psychic “burn in.” If a living person experiences strong emotions, such as a prolonged period of grieving, or the incredible emotional intensities that come with being murder victim, those emotions can become embedded within a place. Do you grieve for a deceased partner, mourning for years, remembering key moments over and over? A reflection of that grief becomes embedded within reality in the location you experienced those emotions. When you die or leave, someone else can come into that place and experience a recording, a reflection, or echo of the emotions and memories you experienced.
Ghosts are effectively traumatic memories burned in to the fabric of the world. They don’t actually experience anything; they’re not conscious beings. They’re not souls looking to complete their business and move on. They’re simply psychic echoes. They’re imprints left on reality from very intense and painful emotions, particularly those experienced repeatedly over a long period of time.
This also explains why ghosts have a half life. Ever wonder why in the US, all the ghosts seem to be old timey white people from the 1800s or similar? Considering the total number of Native Americans that must have lived in what is now the US down the millennia, the vast, vast majority of ghosts should be Native American. But aside from the classic example of a disturbed native burial ground, Native American ghosts don’t show up much in fiction. It’s usually old timey white people.
The reason for this, in the imprint theory, is that like any imprint, ghosts tend to fade with time. Just as most footprints will slowly be eroded, the knots in the psychic fabric that ghosts represent slowly work themselves out over time. The ghosts people do experience tend to be from the last century or two, as most ghosts older than that have decayed below the level of human perception.
Damn that’s awesome. Do you mind if I steal this concept for my D&D lore?
I like this. Just a couple of additions, for the purpose of trying to improve on this lore.
First, Native Americans do have ghosts too (see https://allthatsinteresting.com/native-american-ghost-stories for instance).
If “ghosts” are just the embers of a particularly strong emotion that burned in a particular place, I suggest that “seeing” the ghost depends on being able to tune-in to that emotion and on having the cultural tools to interpret it and personify it.
So I might experience some faint, weird feeling going through a field where a battle between Native American tribes once happened but, as a white person imbued with a specific culture, I would not be able to recognize that particular mix of feelings and “see” that ghost. But a Native American might.
And if a big department store is built on top of that field, it would make it harder to both tune in to that particular faint feeling (among the confusion of so many other feelings) and to personify it as an old Navajo warrior, which would not make sense to us in that place
I think because in that framing being a ghost is a sad lonely thing. In the Christian tradition the ultimate reward is heaven and being in the presence of the lord. If one is stuck on earth it is similar to catholicism’s concept of purgatory.
I’d imagine that the ghosts who ditched their unfinished business to explore the world beyond would be doing that exploring in a world beyond so we wouldn’t see them or anything.
