"THE DOPler EFFECT" > Page 1, 2
Poltergeist
I have all of my grandmother's jewelry boxes and most of her jewelry. Many times I would forget and leave my jewelry out on my dresser or counter, and in the morning they would be gone from the dresser or counter and in one of the jewelry boxes.
When the DOPler Effect takes place, a lot of people blame a poltergeist, if only half seriously. A poltergeist is usually defined as a mischievous or noisy spirit. Poltergeist activity often includes unexplained noises, music, smells and movement of objects. So when that hairbrush disappears, some people think, it must be because of a poltergeist.
| Is it an actual spirit that has somehow become attached to the object? Or does the activity arise from the person's subconscious and their emotional relationship to the object and its original owner? |
And some might have more reason to think a poltergeist is responsible than others. This might be the case if the hairbrush incident is not an isolated one. If the person finds that objects are "disappearing" or being moved on a regular basis, for example. Or if there are other phenomena, such as unexplained smells and noises that the person can associate with the missing item.
Sometimes the particular item has a history that gives the person the idea that a spirit is involved. For instance, a watch that belonged to a grandfather might be found to be moved to a certain place on its own - the sort of place that grandfather usually kept it. Or like the case of the grandmother's jewelry above.
Even though it seems likely to the person that a spirit or poltergeist is responsible, it is still unknown what a poltergeist really is. In the case of DOP, is it an actual spirit that has somehow become attached to the object and by some force that science cannot yet explain moves or borrows the object? Or does the activity arise from the person's subconscious and their emotional relationship to the object and its original owner?
Temporary Invisibility
It was the night of my freshman homecoming. I had brought three dresses a few days or so before and was planning on wearing the simple black and white one. Nothing fancy. I went to my closet an hour or so before the dance to get ready... and the dress wasn't in my closet. Nowhere in my closet, not even with the other two dresses. My mom and I searched everywhere but still couldn't find it. My mom finally said I had to wear one of the others... and so I chose one of the white ones. A day or so after the dance, I went to my closet to find a shirt... and the black and white dress I was going to wear to the dance was the first piece of clothing on the rack. Go figure.
Let's again take the example of the woman and her hairbrush. She believes she placed it on the dressing table as always, but it is gone and she has thoroughly looked for it. There's no one else in the house who could have borrowed it. A while later, it's back on the dressing table. It was Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet who said, "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Okay, Mr. Holmes, here's an improbable explanation: the hairbrush - or the girl's dress - temporarily became invisible.
There is no scientific hypothesis that allows for an object to become invisible and then, after a time, become visible again. Yet that is exactly the effect as perceived by some DOP experiencers. And if this temporary invisibility is somehow possible, it raises many questions: How or for what reason does a specific object become invisible? Does the effect have something to do with the person's regular or intimate use of the object? Is it a physical effect produced by some unknown mechanics of the human mind?
Dimensional Shift
I looked everywhere for my car keys. I looked everywhere in the kitchen and living room - just everywhere! Then all of a sudden I heard keys drop in the kitchen. I went in and there they were on the ground.
The existence of dimensions other than the three we jostle around in every day is theorized by science. Sometimes referred to as "other planes of existence" by the more spiritually minded, these dimensions are sometimes thought of as places where spirits and other forms of reality might reside. Could the temporary invisibility or movement of objects be explained by their slipping into another dimension? Is some kind of dimensional or temporal shift to blame? It's a pretty far-out notion, but then a genuine DOPler experience is hard to explain.
Even when the rational explanations are ruled out, there are still enough intriguing DOPler experiences remaining to remind us that there is much more to this life, this reality than we are currently aware.
And here, I suppose, is one more possibility:
The first thing I think of when that [DOP] happens is faeries, since one of the places I lived in had some. They tended to take things and then give them back later. One time, in full view of a number of people, I was getting ready to leave the apartment, and since I was always in the habit of misplacing my keys, no faeries needed, I had taken to hanging them on a heavy "biker wallet" chain and had some jangly brass keytags to boot. They weren't where I'd put them, and I had to leave. So I hollered, "Okay, guys, this isn't funny. I need my keys NOW!" My friends were watching as they materialized out of thin air above the shelf I had my phone answering machine on and clattered to the shelf.
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