Ghosts. Oh, come on. You know you’ve sat around the table at two in the morning when someone’s brought up the inevitable story they heard from a friend of a friend of a friend who told the story of the elevator door with the glowing face in it. I’m not sure if I think ghosts actually exist or not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in them. Here’s why.

1. Ghosts are the best conversation-starter. Strangely, all the ice-breakers I’ve ever been given haven’t had as much success as “What do you think about ghosts?”

I met my best friends in college this way, huddled in one of the air-conditioned dorms to escape the Saturday eighty-degree heat our first weekend away from home, when we all sat around and played cards and, inevitably, our conversation turned to this. I shared stories of family friends who heard locked file cabinets slamming in the basement, invisible people prodding them awake at four in the morning to get up and go to work already. That led us inevitably to talking about family, and beliefs, and backgrounds, and pretty soon we weren’t so much playing cards as laughing hysterically and getting to know everyone sitting in that circle on the floor. I’ve gotten to know co-workers better this way, too, folding page after page with the smell of ink staining my hands at various editing jobs and whiling away the hours with stories of echoing footsteps and haunted hallways. Ghosts bring us all together.

2. Ghosts help me clarify goals. When I was a kid, I used to imagine how fun it would be to have a haunted house. Not because of cool invisible friends, but I imagined it would be awesome to have an on-demand editor—I thought a ghost worth its salt should not only be able to move objects, but should be able to move objects enough to pick up a pen and edit the drafts I left sitting out for it.

Although it’s laugh-worthy now, I used it as a way to establish my goals: to get better at writing and editing, ghosts or no. I like to remind myself of that with this little anecdote now and again.

3. Ghosts are the fundamental reminder of hope. They both take away and add a little to the great mystery of life, right? If they don’t give hope that something awaits on the other side, at least they give me hope that I’m not losing my mind when I misplace things in my room. It must be the ghost.

So, do I believe in ghosts? Yes, I do. I believe ghosts have some kind of strange universal power to tie us all together. I’m not sure I could ever define them, but this time of year, with leaves turning October orange, I like to stop and think of them just the same.