Things to try when nothing is happening

19th January 2020. Reading Time: 5 minutes Paranormal Investigation, General. 1879 page views. 0 comments.

We have all been in situations where NOTHING seems to be happening on an investigation. Here are some things you can try! What are some things that have worked for you when nothing seems to be happening?

We have all been there.  Even in some of the most reportedly 'haunted' locations, there are times when nothing seems to be happening.  Just because we are there asking for something to happen, doesn't mean something will happen.  I know I myself have experienced this many times.  Sometimes we walk away with what seems like nothing, whereas other times I may do something that may inadvertently cause something to happen.  Almost like I stumbled onto it accidently.  So here are some things to try if nothing is happening because why not?  If nothing is happening, what have you got to lose?

Carry on

I gave this the name 'Carry on' essentially for the purpose of this article because it is not something I have named.  How many times have you been on an investigation and nothing has happened so you just 'carry on' with your own business.  Maybe you just start chatting with your fellow investigator.  Maybe you start packing up.  Maybe you just start doing something to keep yourself occupied.  You are essentially almost 'not trying' to communicate anymore.  When you think about a lot of the sightings that happen at locations, people are going about their daily business when they have a sighting or experience.  They aren't looking for it.  It is almost like the spirits want to get your attention.    

I know I myself commonly tend to just chat to people about normal every day things.  This is actually how I stumbled onto this little technique.  One night during an investigation nothing was really happening at all so a friend and I were using the time to catch up.  Every time we got sort of deep enough into the conversation and 'forgot' we were supposed to be investigating, things were very noticeably happening to get our attention.  While it doesn't work every single time obviously, I do find a relaxed fun and casual environment works really well and often it seems like something tries to get our attention when we are no longer paying attention to it.

Gossiping

This is something I have done for a while but I saw it referred to as 'Gossiping' on the Ghost Hunters reboot recently so that is what we will call it for the sake of this article.  At Black Rock House for example, there may be a particular spirit we want to talk to.  This is common at many locations.  You will call out and try to talk to this particular spirit.  The problem is, no one seems to be answering.  This is when we call upon the other spirits to help.  We often ask questions about the spirit we want to talk to.  Such as Annie for example.  We will ask is Annie here, do you see her, does she like come in this room, does she do this, does she look like this etc.  Sometimes if you can't get the information from the source, you have to go with the next best thing!

Change it up

When you have a group of people in the room, I believe the mix of their energy is really important.  We have all been on an investigation where it seems like one particular person is like a repellent.  If nothing is happening and there is more than one person in the room I do a few things to 'Change it up.'  I ask people to move to different positions in the room to change the energy in the room.  If people are sitting why not stand and vice versa.  Stand in different spots in the room.  Maybe have different people leave the room.  Have all the males leave or have all the females leave.  There are a lot of different ways you can change the energy in a room and in a group by changing it up.  Sometimes we may even ask if there is a certain person that should remain in the room.  Maybe there is a particular person they are drawn to.  You won't know unless you ask!

Visualization

A common thing many paranormal investigators will do is ask for 'any spirit to come and talk to us'.  Hey I am pretty guilty of this one as well.  Over time, I learnt to be a bit more specific.  Again I am going to use Black Rock House as an example here but over the years there have been so many sightings of a man that matches the features of the original owner Mr Charles Ebden so naturally we want to try and communicate with him.  We will use his picture and have people concentrate on this picture.  We have a chair that belonged to his family that we have people come and sit in.  We concentrate on him collectively as a group to see if we can bring him forward to talk to us.  Of course in this kind of scenario, one could argue we could be creating his spirit ourselves using our own energy (much like the Philip experiment) but that is a discussion for another time.

At the end of the night, we often finish with a session in the dining room.  We like to invite all of the spirits we may have communicated with during the night to join us.  We ask people to think about the people we may have spoken to and their stories to bring them forward for one last chat.  Using pictures and objects which are significant to the particular spirit in question can really help your sessions.  

There is so much you can do on your investigations and the above I am sure is nothing new to a lot of you. There is also a lot we can learn from each other.  One of the great things about our field is that everyone investigates differently and does things in different ways.  We can learn and adapt these methods to help our own investigating as well!  So in the 'spirit' of sharing, I would love to hear what you do during times when nothing seems to be happening or do you do variations of the above?

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