If You Were a Ghost...

Hello everyone,

I was contemplating this question yesterday and felt like sharing it with everyone to see what your answers are.


If you were a ghost, what kind of ghost would you be (what would you do?) and where would you like to haunt?

Personally, I would like to be a ghost that wanders around a big fancy mansion at night singing. I'd also randomly organize/ clean peoples things. I may or may not listen to song requests from the residents and would often wander into someone's room in the middle of the night and say, "Oh I'm sorry I was trying to go somewhere else." and float off...

That or haunt the children's wing of a hospital and tell children stories when they're too scared to sleep...

I'd love to be a traditional chain rattling ghost that haunts people I feel deserve some haunting. That makes me sound vengeful, which I'm not really. I'll probably haunt politicians, give them the 'A Christmas Carol' experience so they learn to make more human decisions and stop cutting down on the welfare. Now, that makes it sound like I'm into politics, which I'm not really either.

I don't think I'd want to be confined to just one place, unless that's just an inevitable part of being a ghost. I don't know that much about ghosts.

I'd like to haunt politicians too! I'd probably be pretty serious about it too. Otherwise, I'd just be incredibly obnoxious.Maybe pretend I'm a Gastly or something ridiculous like that.

I would love to go through walls, and maybe rearrange people's furniture. That said, I'd probably want to haunt some of the places I've always wanted to visit. Not sure it works that way though. I'd definitely be a singing ghost.

I think I'd like to haunt the deep forest or some lonely wilderness. Sneak up on hunters and shout "boo!" just as they're getting ready to shoot Bambi's mom. :-) Or maybe hide under bridges and play cards with the trolls.

Well, I was working in a fast food job that I hated for 3 and a half years. In the midst of it, I felt like I was practically living there, so I was joking with my friend saying that I would probably become the manager, meet my husband there, and maybe even die there. But I was listing many other things too. Then I said that if I died while still employed there, then I would want to haunt the hell out of that place and be a poltergeist: pelt fries at the people I hated, splash ketchup at the bitchy customers, do whatever I could to freak people out, and I would laugh my way into the afterlife. MWHAHAHAAHAA!

But I've since quit that job and I'm over all the drama. I'm not interested in spending any part of my afterlife there. So I've decided that if I have to be a ghost, I'd want to be in a library and play harmless, innocent pranks of people like moving books around, and doing small things like that. Spend the rest of eternity in a library? Can we say HEAVEN?!

I would like to be a poltergeist. I really just want to trash some houses.

Ooooh fun. I think I would keep pretty busy as a ghost:

-Find someplace to haunt. I'm not sure where, but I think I'd pick a college dormitory or something and go cause some minor trouble.
-Float through strangers' homes. Invisibly, ideally. Do some minor haunting and some major prying into their lives.
-Read a lot. I mean, okay, I already do this. But I like the idea of being able to float into a bookstore or library at three in the morning, find the book I'm looking for, and read the book straight through without worrying about things like sleep. This is assuming that I'd be able to handle objects, though. I wouldn't want to be a ghost if that meant not being able to read.
-Conduct experiments. Can ghosts swim? What happens if they jump off tall structures? Is there anything a ghost can't walk through? Do they need rest? Can they cause haywire in electrical systems? Do they show up in pictures?
-Go looking for other ghosts. Form an incorporeal book club or Haunters Anonymous or something.

If I were a ghost, I think I'd commit suicide.

Oh, wait...

*Rimshot*

Okay, seriously now: If I were a ghost, I'd go haunt a theater. Not sure if I want it to be a "big" theater or a High School theater, though.

I'd imagine that to be a kind of cool experience, especially since theater people are quite superstitious. Unless I were really malevolent (which I wouldn't be...at worst mildly mischievous, at best helpful), I know from experience that I'd be accepted by the cast almost like I was something worth bragging about. "Oh, don't mind that faint voice randomly singing songs from musicals we did fifty years ago. It's just our ghost. He's friendly..."

I'd do my best to rat out assholes to the directors, or if the directors are the problem try and get them fired, or at least reprimanded. And yes, I would randomly sing songs from old shows, especially late at night to freak people out.

Of course, it would probably be less "old showtunes" and more "eighties rock", which, I suppose, is even more creepy in a way...

And I would, of course, try and meet other ghosts. Maybe if I found friends we could band together as the "Anti-asshole Ghosts Society" or something. It would be our job to stop all the other ghosts from really screwing with people.

Angel or Ghost?
I would go to orphanages and childrens hospitals and make them laugh. I would be a friendly one.

Is is bad that I find thinking of this fun? Either way, I think I would be a generally friendly spirit. I would wind up helping out the people who lived in whatever place I was haunting. But if someone living there turned out to be a real jerk then I would torment the hell out of them just to give them a taste of their own medicine. And if anyone tried to deny that I existed then I would do something that would show them that I totally was.

Ahahahah, I love this thread!

I would totally be one of the nice ghosts that plays with kids and all that. I would make them feel better about themselves, and sing with them and comfort them when they're sick. I'd be the "imaginary friend" which makes all the adults wonder, and then, just once, I'd show up and confront any parents who are making things hard for their kids. If they didn't listen, I'd punish them. But I would be nice if they did listen. :D

My sole abilities would be flight, invisibility, and intangibility. Also I can't die again because I'm already dead.

...

I'd probably wimp out and just do the same stuff I do already.

If I was invisible, I'd find somebody with great stage presence and convince them to become a magician. Then I'd... help, and we could laugh at the hordes of people who never managed to figure out how the 'tricks' were done.

That, or submit myself to science for study. In fact i'd probably just continue my current scientific career, minus going to any conferences, and speak to new contacts through a trusted intemediary. Not sleeping and being able to be intangible would make a lot of experiments much easier (hell, sample collection itself becomes easy).

I would wait until christmas time, and when I see that someone acts out the Christmas Carol play, I would walk in as all three ghosts, have some fun with it :D

I'd be the sort of ghost that gets hours of amusement out of putting her hand through her stomach.

I'd find myself an old castle and go all-out. Wailing, singing creepily, playing piano at odd hours, knocking on doors at midnight, floating around hallways in a long white gown with my head under my arm...the works.

Either that, or I'd haunt people who write terrible stories and publish them/post them online, until they learn to write better.

I actually had this conversation with some teenagers yesterday. My favourite answer was one boy who felt if he was invisible he'd be really worried about getting hurt because no one could see him. I think it's an interesting angle on being a ghost.

The actual ghost in my novel has just decided that after fifteen or twenty years of wandering around still looking like she's just been savagely murdered, it's makeover time. I think that would be me :D

This is really out there, but a friend and I have an agreement about this... if one of us dies and can become a ghost, we have to go haunt a certain actor's house to find out if they are gay, as we suspect they are. Then we have to come back and somehow let the other person know.

I really just wish this actor would come out already and save one of us the trouble of having to die to find out.

Also, I wish that I wasn't this immature. I'm 40 already, you'd think I'd be past stuff like this.

And as long as I'm wishing, I wish my novel were done and it was even reasonably good.

I would be more than just a ghost. I would be a Death. And it would be an afterlife business. "Death's Door. How can we help you today?"