The movie, Flatliners, did seem to get one thing right—the reality of lost human spirit attachments and the trouble they can cause. The storyline also included the notion of karma, as the trouble was resolved only with a form of payback that was equivalent to the original transgression, or in the case of the father who committed suicide, by an act of loving forgiveness. However, coming face to face with their spirit attachments in a near-death experience brought them more forcefully into the student’s waking reality. Is there any real danger of that? Was something authentic being portrayed there?

All of the phenomena you describe are real and happen frequently. Because about a third of people remain earthbound as spirits on death of the body and do not make their way back to the light, at least for some time, they may well attach to the living and haunt them, literally, by influencing their host in a negative way. At a minimum, it is confusing to the bodily energies to have two sources of consciousness impinging. Spirits that are earthbound become earthbound for a reason, it is that they are in low vibration, a state of dishevelment, disparagement, discouragement, and dysfunction. So any influence they have on their host will be to the negative. It will drag the host down energetically and it will begin to impinge on feelings and emotions, and even functioning of the body in various ways to potentially become less reliable and give rise to physical symptoms as well as an emotional mood state uncharacteristic of the person. It can be far worse if the lost soul human spirit is highly malevolent, perhaps the spirit of a criminal, or an old rival with a karmic grievance who wants that person dead but predeceased them and then found their way to that individual still carrying a grudge and wanting revenge. This is a prescription for a nightmare for that person who will feel all sorts of negative things going on and not understand the reason why. So their waking reality will be increasingly troubled, difficult, and even may become a living nightmare, depending on the degree of influence possessing spirits might have. All of that suffering can be forestalled if people are helped to transition properly at the time of their passing. That would make the world much safer for the living, to have a greater level of outreach and assistance for the troubled who depart but are unable to work with the light callers and return to the heavenly realm. There is much more prayer work and healing intentions needing to be launched by living people. After all, it might help them one day to have such a repository of human intention available for the task.