A onetime ghostly event can be triggered by several stressors, like drinking aspartame in diet soda, food allergies, emotional intensity or overload, an emotionally toxic home environment, physical or mental abuse, or night terrors. An adrenal overload of the stress hormone cortisol can activate the temporal lobe, the part of the brain associated with psychic activity. Kids see ghosts onetime sighting may also be a crisis apparition, experienced by adults and children alike after the death of someone close to them. If a child has a one-time event, does this mean a child could have other events. She coauthored, with Sally A. Drucker, the reference work Parapsychological Research with Children: An Annotated Bibliography The Scarecrow Press, 1991. Drewes is also author and editor of five books dealing with play therapy. Her personal experiences shaped her interest in the subject of children who see ghosts or those who exhibit other traits of intuitive intelligence. I had many recurring dreams and a sense of past-life information. However, the most outstanding event that crystallized my interest and future career occurred at age ten, when I had a precognitive dream. I had five pages to go to finish a book, and I really wanted to reach the end before I went to sleep. My mother kids see ghosts at me to go to sleep and turn off the light. She then sent in my older brother to shut off the light. I was furious and so angry as I fell asleep. That night I had a lucid dream, in which I was seeing, as an observer from outside of myself, my family being in a car accident. I knew my mother was severely hurt, coming in on a kids see ghosts stretcher with wheels, which I found out later was like a gurney. I saw my older brother, who was my younger of two brothers, but still older than me, sitting in a wheelchair. I knew he was not hurt. The dream had a special feel, a very profound sense that this was not my usual dream. It stayed with me in vivid detail. About two weeks later, the family went to see a movie. It was raining, and as we were heading home, a car accident happened. The same exact scenes from my dream replayed before my eyes. It was very striking that I had dreamt this. How can they come true. Moreover, I worried if my anger had caused the accident to occur, which would have been pretty phenomenal by itself. I felt guilt throughout childhood and feared the effects of my anger. The dream experiences led me toward one part of my professional career: seeking out information about psychic phenomena. I was hesitant to tell friends about my experiences and had to be selective. They would start to think I was a witch or crazy. Around age nineteen, I read about a study that was being conducted on telepathy-dream research at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. The research sounded so much like my experience. I had to check it out. I called the researchers and asked if I could speak with them about their study. They invited me to come down, and I wound up staying the night, running the research experiment with them. I kids see ghosts a whole research group of kindred spirits who knew what I was experiencing. The fact that my dream was a precognitive experience alleviated my sense of guilt. I had many other psychic experiences growing up, including telepathy. My professional path includes being a researcher with children who have had psychic experiences, writing articles, doing public speaking, and helping children and parents understand their psychic experiences. And I have remained a consultant for the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, as well as the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City. The other part of my professional path as a child psychologist is working with children in a variety of settings to help them feel heard and validated about their psychic and emotional experiences. The two worlds are coming together for me now. But sometimes children are seeing spirits of other children, and they call these spirit children their imaginary playmates. I have never run into a child who I feel is manipulating or utilizing their psychic abilities in any other way than is legitimate. In the past, the e-mails I received were more around precognitive dreams and a little bit about paranormal, psychic contact with the spirit world, be it seeing actual figures and shapes, hearing other entities, or sensing the essence or energy or orbs of spirit forms. Now the e-mails are almost exclusively in the latter realm. I think people have come to realize kids see ghosts and psychic phenomena are the norm. Having psychic experiences is not so atypical, but seeing spirits, hearing their children talk about it, and helping children understand how to cope with it are much more relevant topics to parents and of concern for kids at this point in time. I would say maybe 65 or 70 percent of the parents believe in such ability to have contact with the other side, but they are concerned for their child. Sometimes, mental — health practitioners or school personnel push parents in that direction. Let me explain the difference between psychosis and a regular psychic gift. I see the two as qualitatively different. I consider whether a child has had other psychic phenomena occur in kids see ghosts life. What is the quality of what they are saying about the spirit contact. I would encourage the parent to consider a psychiatric or psychological problem and referral to a mental-health professional e. Kids see ghosts the children are so overwhelmed and feeling defenseless that they do need some other form of intervention besides just an understanding about the phenomena. They may need medication; they may need psychiatric help. I have a handout of frequently asked questions, Is My Child Psychic. That lists ways that the parents or child can understand their experiences. They can keep a journal, for example; they can look at psi patterns and write things down. These are ways for the parents to respond matter-of-factly and not give psychic experiences too much emotional power, either in disbelieving or believing, because kids are susceptible to the reactions of their parents. For some, that is very helpful and solves the problem. I give them, and any child who may feel afraid, a guided-imagery meditation in which I have them do some deep breathing. I ask them to close their eyes, put their feet on the ground, and envision that they have a bubble kids see ghosts them. Whatever is on the other side of the bubble is not going to harm them. As they breathe in, they breathe in that love and energy and feel it envelop them in that bubble. As they breathe out, they expand the bubble beyond them into their room. And then as they breathe in again, they feel the protection of the energy and love. Then they breathe out and expand the bubble out to fill the whole room, then again to fill their house or apartment, and then to expand the bubble out into the universe. Practice and role-play this scenario together. A soul or spirit may be lost and may come to children because they are open and sensitive. And the spirit could be that of a child. Yet, as kids get to be ten, eleven, or twelve, and during puberty, they tend to develop their abilities more. Other psychic abilities come forward. Their emotional states are a little unbalanced. So kids in that age range and teen group are those that I really want to work with. Working on the fear factor is most important because fear attracts the negative, fearful, or intense energy. So our role is to definitely empower them, to help them role-play and practice sending the spirit away, to not fear it. In fact they need to feel less fear and know they are safe. I also tell kids, depending again on their religious beliefs, to call on Archangel Michael. Some parents have pictures or icons of Archangel Michael near them. Then you put the candy back in the bag and repeat. You do this twenty-five times. Chance says five correct answers would occur. So any score above five, usually seven and above, starts to be beyond chance — more than just kids see ghosts normal guessing. From the parapsychological view, there is some psychic ability that the children are tapping kids see ghosts and using for the information. We found some significant results in children similar to those Dr. Rhine got when he started their field of parapsychology using Zener cards, in which there were five cards each of five different symbols. He did a lot of card tests with everyday people and with people who were psychic or mediums or known to have some ability. Children are as psychic as adults are. Some, like Mozart, are virtuosos at a young age. Some have to work hard at it and develop their skills, and some could care less about their psychic abilities or information coming to them. Some of the testing we did certainly shows that. Children also have some of the same personality characteristics as adults in terms of being open, positive thinkers. If you have a negative view of things, we call that the sheep-and-goat effect. If you are a goat, a nonbeliever, you actually tend to score in the negative range. Some of the research is inconclusive as to whether children lessen their psychic abilities or put a kind of shield over it as they enter school. You tell people close to you. But when you get into school, the world changes. Then you find out kids see ghosts are not so open to hearing about psychic experiences. I think you need to go see a therapist or a psychiatrist. Sometimes the abilities go undercover and get suppressed. Then when they hit puberty hormonally, you see a rise in psychic ability. Melvin Morse wrote about children having near-death experiences with very similar aspects to those in adult reports. They have sensed spirits and had personal experiences, or they believe their children and wonder, what does it all mean. Where does it all fit. I feel that reports of spirit contact and psychic abilities are increasing within children. I leave it up to others to draw their own conclusions. I have my own personal view that a shift in consciousness is occurring. It depends on your philosophy and whether you believe in reincarnation, which Id do. We are here for a purpose, and we are all coming together for a purpose. For me, I see it as my role to help children understand and master what they are experiencing and not to be afraid of it. I think the most important thing to underscore and emphasize again for children and parents not to be afraid of what the children are experiencing or being told. You want to be there to hear them and help them. The kids see ghosts things that a parent can do are to shut the door and to turn their child away and not allow them that forum. Turning kids see ghosts child away has more negative emotional consequences for the child, especially as they grow up. And it shuts the door to other important communications that are not about being psychic. The child feels that you are not a person that they can come to, because you cannot truly hear them. So the most important thing is for the parent to be loving and accepting, and for the child not to fear and not to give in to their fear — to feel the love, that they are protected, and that they are safe.
