Cultural difference (or whatever you want to call this)

[Mydral]

Well I live in Asia but am not Asian.

Now here is a difference I noticed between European countries and Asian in relation to supernatural things etc.
When I am in  Europe hardly anyone believes in ghosts, metaphysics or any things like that and teens doing this stuff become outsiders. Because of this disbelieve people sleep in total darkness without beeing scared and people who are scared are made fun off etc.

Here in Asia its quiet different. Some of my asian friends tell me they have seen ghosts, others experience astral travel and lucid dreams. But somehow my friends here are really scared off ghosts, they won't even go near places. And its not the fear of the unknown.... its a fear of something everyone knows is there. When I ask them why and that they should go with me they just say that I should respect the spirits there (which some have seen) and not disturb them. Also all reports here of ghosts are negative. Just a while ago I heard a story of someone who saw people crawling up the wall onto the ceiling in a bathroom.

Why is there such a difference between Europe (probably USA too) in comparison to Asia? I somehow believe that alot more people here have open third eyes/ chakras, etc. then in other parts of the world.

[GANAMOHA]

starting back from the beginning of many asian cultures they have all been heavily spiritualy based. and as you mentioned their knowledge tai chi Qi qong and nei kung or what ever else you can think of probably started off in asia to begin with. So it would seem quite obvious that they would recognize the existence of ghost much more than that of europe or north america. there could be other reasons but thats what I would like to think be the cause of that

[MisterJingo]

My immediate reaction to this would be to suggest that it is to do with the differing mindsets and perceptions of these cultures. The west on the whole has a very scientific and objective view of the world, where in Asia, the view would be more spiritual. So when an Asian sees a ghost, a westerner would interpret it in a different way.
Another possibility concerns an interesting study involving studying how east and west perceive scenes differently. The experiment involved a photo of a man stood in the centre, and around him beautiful scenery. Studying eye movements, it seemed the west focused on the man predominantly, and the east focused around the man, taking the scene in. This suggested east and west perceive the same thing differently, which could be due to perhaps cultural difference and importance placed on different things.

[Selski]

Studying eye movements, it seemed the west focused on the man predominantly, and the east focused around the man, taking the scene in.

Interesting post MJ.

The above quote suggests (to me at least) that the east were more inclined to use peripheral vision whereas the west took hardly or no notice of it at all.  I believe we can see so much more if we use peripheral vision.

Why are horses blinkered? 

Sarah