Do You Believe In Ghosts?

One of the most ambiguous and oldest questions in human history that will always begin detailed conversations and a plethora of stories, goes something like this:

Do you believe in ghosts?

It is a phenomena that remains unanswered, even after all the years of discussion and

The castle - first built in the 1100s
and rebuilt in the 19th century

research. Just think of all the things the human race has achieved - advances in medicine, technology, space travel - yet the simple idea of a ghost hasn't been explained. This is one of the reasons why the topic interests and scares me simultaneously. Another is that I'm from a small town in the south west of England which dates all the way back to the early 12th century. There are over 500 listed buildings, including houses, pubs, churches and a castle. Given its history, my little hometown plays host to many a ghost story and some of the most reputably haunted places in the country. When you can find tales and myths about buildings that you know, in my experience it automatically becomes more interesting and inclusive. 

But do you actually believe, I hear you ask? My answer to that question is yes. I definitely believe that there is something paranormal there. It's hard to deny when some of my friends and family have had spooky experiences, and I've had one definite encounter myself that I just can't explain. When someone you know to be fully sane and rational tells you that they have seen or felt another presence, it's hard to deny, and that is what I would say to non-believers. Not that they don't have the right to not believe, and I understand to some extent the phrase "I have to see to believe", but those who dismiss stories as "rubbish", even if they hear them from people they trust, could re-evaluate their reactions to them. You don't have to believe every detail of said story necessarily, but respect that the person believes that what they experienced was true.

OK, preach over. I mentioned above that I have had one experience with what I believe to be a ghost, and in the interest that you trust my sanity, here is the story:  

Fuengirola beach

I went on a summer holiday to Fuengirola in Spain when I was twelve. It was with my family, the weather was beautiful and the place was fairly busy. Not your typical setting for a ghost to appear, right? Well, we were staying in a block of apartments, one of which was rented out to holidaymakers. I shared the small room with my sister which had one single bed that I slept in and a pull out mattress thing that she had, so on one side (the right) I would face my sister and the wardrobe, and the other (the left) would be the curtains. This room layout is important, I promise. One night, I woke at around 3am for no apparent reason and begrudgingly opened my eyes (note that I was laid on my left side, facing the curtains). There before me was a fuzzy outline of a person, right by my bed. In my still sleepy brain I concocted a theory in which I had turned my whole body around so that my head was at the foot of the bed, and the person was in fact my sister who was being weird in her sleep (she used to do weird things in her sleep). As I became more awake, however, I realised that I was still the correct way up. I immediately looked back at the figure, which was still there, but was now clearly not my sister. The more I stared, the less fuzzy the person was. It was an old woman, dressed in heavy rags and maid/nun-like attire on her head. She was very still and staring right back at me. I must have gone through a thousand different explanations in my head, the most prominent of which being that I was still half asleep and imagining it, so I tested my theory. I looked away for a couple of seconds. I looked back. The old woman was still stood beside me, just as, if not more, solid. I blinked. Still there. Blinked again. Still there. And this is the thing that makes me really believe that the old woman was a ghost. In my experience, if you see something at a glance or in a sleep-addled state, when you look back the thing is gone, and you resign it to your wild imagination. But the old woman was staying, no matter how many times I looked away or blinked. So, I did what all sane people do, and threw the covers over my head, staying that way despite the uncomfortably hot temperature until morning. 

I am now nineteen and it's been almost seven years since that happened, yet I can still recall every detail. I don't care what anyone says, I am convinced that the old woman I saw was a ghost. 

The Sixth Sense - great movie, but not
what I believe ghosts to be

However, I don't believe in the typical Hollywood movie theory of ghosts. I don't believe that they are souls of the dead who have unfinished business, waiting to pass on... For me, that's too much like religious ideas of heaven, hell and purgatory. I think that structures and places can hold memories so strong that they embody themselves in ghostly manifestations, particularly if those memories carry extreme emotions. Think about it, all of the ghost stories you hear involve some kind of scandal or secret the person those apparitions are believed to be went through. Many are tales of murder or suicide or illness.
However, I also have another theory which involves my idea of life after death: at the moment of death, we rewind all the way back to our moment of birth, or conception, and play through our lives all over again repetitively (it would explain déjà vu). Ghosts fit in because if this is true, and this happens to every human and animal that ever lived, then all of time must be happening at once. In particularly old buildings, generations and generations of families must be living under the same roof, just in different time zones. At times of powerful emotion, perhaps timelines cross over and we call the images ghosts.
I realise that's a bit sci-fi, but let's face it, with all the Doctor Who I've watched I'm bound to think in such ways.

The perfect description of my life
 after death/ghost theory

I'll link some of my favourite ghost stories from good ol' Blighty below. 
And finally, beginning detailed conversations and a plethora of stories, do you believe in ghosts?

One of the most haunted pubs in Britain, in my hometown
Where I walk my dog
The woman who allegedly haunts my old school
Famously haunted pub near my hometown
Ghosts in my university's city